QFABRIC: RETHINKING THE ARCHITECTURE TRANSFORMS TCO. QFabric requires 34% fewer devices, it can be managed by a single administrator and as a result, it radically lowers the cost of management and operations in the data center.
IT’S TIME TO DElIvER A
INTRODUCING QFABRIC. The demands on the data center have gone exponential. And with that, the connected world now demands new levels of power, processing, savings and control to meet the needs of this inescapable and constant new reality. QFabric, our breakthrough new technology, changes the game in the data center by fundamentally solving the challenge of cost and complexity. Power and cooling is 79% lower than the industry standard, total rack space is up to 90% lower and overall, the system uses 1/5 the carbon emissions of current large scale solutions. Juniper has spent countless dollars and hours, dedicating the best minds in the networking industry for the past three years to solve what we feel is the most pressing issue in the network today. The result is QFabric and it changes everything.
juniper.net/apacdatacenter
Ăž Inbound Response Management
Priya Sharma, 1800 209 3062 022 - 67083830, Juniper@dnbindia.in
editorial Pramath Raj sinha | pramath.sinha@9dot9.in
All work and no play…While CIOs strive
hard to align IT with business, they also need to strike the work-life balance.
T
echnology was supposed to make life easy for us all. In retrospect, it seems to have had a more constraining, rather than liberating, effect. A plethora of mobile wireless devices, which promise enhanced productivity, have tethered employees to the office. Technology leaders like you, too, have a lot on your hands. From managing the proverbial KTLO (Keeping The Lights On) to enabling innovation, you have your plates full. The bar is continuously being
editor’s pick 26
raised and you are expected to measure up to it each time. Organisational pressures and personal ambitions are driving CIOs to spend more andmore time at work. But does this then imply that a CIO cannot afford to take a break from the daily grind? Will your personal life always end up playing second fiddle to your professional life? While surveys around CIOs and their work-life balance are conducted regularly in the US, we decided to conduct
Is the Indian CIO striking the work-life balance? Our survey reveals interesting aspects of what CIOs feel about their personal and professional lives
one for the Indian CIOs. The findings of the survey, presented in the cover story, are both interesting and insightful. Interesting because they give a peek into how the country’s technology leaders view their personal life vis-à-vis their professional life. Insightful because they reveal the level of preparedness of second-in-commands to step into their CIO’s shoes. I have always held the belief that a true leader is one who exhibits qualities that add value in all spheres of life be it office, community, home or self. There are CIOs who can be labeled true leaders in their respective organisations but they rarely spare time on the personal front. I remember a senior CIO taking his spouse along on one of our CTO Forum conferences as it had been several years since they had taken a vacation together!
Some of you may find it really hard to take a break from office, and most will find it impossible to leave your BlackBerry behind while going for a vacation. But take my word, it is worth it. You just need to groom your next level to take up more responsibility and also delegate work. Recognising the value of vacations, one of the respondents in the survey said, “This is a gift for my children that only I can give them.” Taking a break gives you that desperately-needed relaxation and rejuvenation, which is so very important to come up with innovative ideas. After all Issac Newton and Archimedes got their great ideas while relaxing. So what are you waiting for, packs those bags and head out. Don't be a dull boy!
The Chief Technology Officer Forum
cto forum 21 October 2011
1
OCTOBER 11 C o v e r D e s i g n b y S r i s t i M a u r yA | I l l u s t r a t i o n b y S h a n k a r Pa m a r t h y
Conte nts
thectoforum.com
26 Cover Story
26 | Is the Indian CIO striking the work-life balance? Our survey reveals interesting
Columns
04 | I believe: CONSUMERISATION iS A COST OF BUSINESS For the CIO, the 'choice' involves a trade-off between costs and benefits By S BALAKRISHNA
aspects of what CIOs feel about their personal and professional lives
56 | View point: IBM OEMs Nirvanix Cloud Storage And why everyone should care By steve duplessie
Please Recycle This Magazine And Remove Inserts Before Recycling
2
Copyright, All rights reserved: Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission from Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. is prohibited. Printed and published by Kanak Ghosh for Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd, C/o Kakson House, Plot Printed at Silverpoint Press Pvt. Ltd. D- 107, MIDC, TTC Industrial Area, Nerul, Navi Mumbai- 400706
cto forum 21 october 2011
Features
48 | Tech for Governance let's not be dart about dast By rafal los
The Chief Technology Officer Forum
www.thectoforum.com Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Kanak Ghosh Publishing Director: Anuradha Das Mathur Editorial Executive Editor: Yashvendra Singh Senior Editor: Harichandan Arakali Assistant Editor: Varun Aggarwal Assistant Editor: Ankush Sohoni DEsign Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Director: PC Anoop Visualisers: Prasanth TR, Anil T & Shokeen Saifi Sr Designers: Joffy Jose, NV Baiju Chander Dange & Sristi Maurya Designers: Suneesh K, Shigil N, Charu Dwivedi Raj Verma, Prince Antony & Binu MP Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi advisory Panel Anil Garg, CIO, Dabur David Briskman, CIO, Ranbaxy Mani Mulki, CIO, Pidilite Manish Gupta, Director, Enterprise Solutions AMEA, PepsiCo India Foods & Beverages, PepsiCo Raghu Raman, CEO, National Intelligence Grid, Govt. of India S R Mallela, Former CTO, AFL Santrupt Misra, Director, Aditya Birla Group Sushil Prakash, Country Head, Emerging Technology-Business Innovation Group, Tata TeleServices Vijay Sethi, VP-IS, Hero Honda Vishal Salvi, CSO, HDFC Bank Deepak B Phatak, Subharao M Nilekani Chair Professor and Head, KReSIT, IIT - Bombay Vijay Mehra, CIO, Cairns Energy
14 a question of answers
14| Structuring the Big Data
Dinesh Jain, Country Manager, Teradata, talks about some of Teradata's recent acquisitions and trends in the data space
38
18
RegulArs
01 | Editorial 08 | Enterprise Round-up
advertisers’ index
38 | next horizons: Go Green without Seeing Red Technologies that you can adopt to make your IT green By william W Blausey Jr
18 | best of breed: Herding the ‘Info Cat’ Executives are looking for ways to simplify info management By Stephen Boschulte
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Sales & Marketing National Manager-Events and Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) Product Manager: Rachit Kinger (9818860797) GM South: Vinodh K (09740714817) Senior Manager Sales (South): Ashish Kumar Singh GM North: Lalit Arun (09582262959) GM West: Sachin Mhashilkar (09920348755) Kolkata: Jayanta Bhattacharya (09331829284) Production & Logistics Sr. GM. Operations: Shivshankar M Hiremath Manager Operations: Rakesh upadhyay Asst. Manager - Logistics: Vijay Menon Executive Logistics: Nilesh Shiravadekar Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre Logistics: MP Singh & Mohd. Ansari OFFICE ADDRESS Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Interactive Pvt Ltd. Published and printed on their behalf by Kanak Ghosh. Published at Bunglow No. 725, Sector - 1, Shirvane, Nerul Navi Mumbai - 400706. Printed at Tara Art Printers Pvt ltd. A-46-47, Sector-5, NOIDA (U.P.) 201301 Editor: Anuradha Das Mathur For any customer queries and assistance please contact help@9dot9.in This issue of CTO FORUM includes 12 pages of CSO Forum free with the magazine
The author brings 20 years of industry experience to his role
photo by s Radhakrishna
I Believe
By Srikar Balakrishna Head, IT Investment & Planning, RBEI
Accept Consumerisation as a Cost of Business For
the CIO, the 'choice' involves a trade-off between the costs and benefits
Today, people expect the same choice in their work environment, as they have at their homes, be it with respect to browsers, applications, or end devices. A CIO's approach to this phenomenon of IT consumerism involves a trade-off, I believe.
4
cto forum 21 october 2011
The Chief Technology Officer Forum
current challenge Currently involved in re-engineering of legacy IT Systems and related business processes at RBEI
In an organisation, when you allow that choice, it has a cost associated with it. For example, let's say employees have the choice of using either Firefox or Internet Explorer. This would mean that the security patches, version updates and other administration activities have to be deployed and managed for two browsers. All the organisation's internal applications have to be compatible with both the browsers, and so on. This results in additional costs. There is no getting away from this though. People expect such choices of tools and devices, which they feel makes them more productive. Therefore, the CIO's trade-off is between how much it will cost and what benefits it will bring for the organisation.The good news is that in the backend, it's probably easier to make a more business-oriented decision on the choice or the hardware such as servers, and software such as databases. In the front-end, certainly, one has to deal with a lot of 'soft' issues and an appropriate investment for choice will have to be justified as the cost of doing business. This is a tightrope walk for the CIOs, balancing the availability of IT resources between rigid norms on the one end and the 'use-anythingthat-you-want' policy at the other. They must make careful judgements on where standardisation is necessary and where multiple options are fine. Our own approach has been to put together a robust list of approved devices and applications within which people can choose what they want to use.
Scale up from 10 kW to 2 MW as fast as your business needs it Now, align your back-up power to your business strategy through scalable, modular back-up power and power distribution
The Symmetra PX 100 fits anywhere, with no rear access required. It is scalable up to 2 MW, giving you more power in a smaller footprint.
Right-sized, modular power – the key to virtualizing with true efficiency! If you haven’t already virtualized your servers, you’re probably seriously considering it. What you may not know about virtualization is this: modular power is critical to maximizing the gains made through virtualization. Otherwise, overabundant power simply negates the efficiency advances you’ve made. Now, combined with our new three-phase modular power distribution unit (PDU), the modular power you know from the APC by Schneider Electric™ acclaimed line of three-phase Symmetra™ PX UPS units is more flexible than ever. The new modular PDU lets you go up to 2 MW quickly in a modular, scalable fashion. Only APC by Schneider Electric gives you this means to scale up or down at the speed of business itself. What’s more, our modular power configures in parallel up to 2 MW, for enterprises with consolidated servers that are growing on a larger scale. In addition, the parallel-capable PX now can support system-level redundancy if you need it.
The PDU – modular power’s newest frontier Our truly modular PDU technology holds the key to enabling you to quickly align IT capabilities to your business needs — literally in a snap! With the plug-in modular PDU, you don’t need to schedule outages as the modules can be added easily without system interruption at any time of the day. And you no longer have to predict your future power circuit needs. In fact, you can add circuits as fast as you add the power modules themselves. That’s right-sized scalability and flexibility!
Modular PDU • High-density power in a fraction of the floor space • Up to 277 kW in a 1/2 rack footprint • Built-in advanced alarms and notification
Distribution module • Plugs directly into RPP and PDU products • Hot-swappable and safe • Available in single and three-phase
Scale up or down as your business demands Scaling up or down no longer means powering down or attempting to forecast future use. So now you ensure that your IT is truly in line with your ever-changing business strategy. A Scalable, Reconfigurable, and Efficient Data Centre Power Distribution Architecture White Paper 129
> Executive summary There is much confusion in the marketplace about the different types of UPS systems and their characteristics. Each of these UPS types is defined, practical applications of each are discussed, and advantages and disadvantages are listed. With this information, an educated decision can be made as to the appropriate UPS topology for a given need.
Contents Introduction
1
UPS types
2
Summary of UPS types Use of UPS types in the industry Conclusion Resources
7 7 9 10
Download a FREE copy of APC White Paper #129, ‘A Scalable, Reconfigurable, and Efficient Data Centre Power Distribution Architecture’!
Visit www.apc.com/promo Key Code 96685t Toll Free 1800 4254 877/272 ©2011 Schneider Electric. All Rights Reserved. Schneider Electric, APC, Symmetra, and InfraStruxure are trademarks owned by Schneider Electric Industries SAS or its affiliated companies. Schneider Electric India Pvt. Ltd., 9th Floor, DLF Building No. 10, Tower C, DLF Cyber City, Phase 2, Gurgaon - 122 002 Toll free 1800 180 1707 or 1800 103 0011 • 998-1762_D_IN
LETTERS CTOForum LinkedIn Group Join over 900 CIOs on the CTO Forum LinkedIn group for latest news and hot enterprise technology discussions. Share your thoughts, participate in discussions and win prizes for the most valuable contribution. You can join The CTOForum group at:
S P I N E
CTO FOR UM
Techno logy for Growth and
Gover nance
October
| 07 | 2011 | `50 e 07 | Issue 04
CLOUD
Volum
IS ALTE RING IT INDU STRY
www.linkedin.com/ groups?mostPopular=&gid=2580450
| CIOS, CYBERC RIME
NEXT HOR IZON
AND ‘WET WAR
Go reS en Not G Red ;
PAGE 38
E’ | IT OUTSOU
I BELIEVE
Forget T of C the TO
Enterp rise line betw mobility has blur een It benefits office and red the home. employe the enterpris e as es now wor virtu k 24X7. What doe ally imply for a CIO? s it PAGE 24
RCING
PAGE 04
GOES RURAL
A QUE STION OF ANS
Look at WERS Cost A the Cloud rbitrag e
Some of the hot discussions on the group are: Open Source vs Proprietary SOFTWARE Practically how many of you feel OpenSource Free software are best solutions than any proprietor software's?
PAGE 10
e 07 | Issue 04
Volum
A 9.9
Media
Publicatio
n
Are CTOs more interested in satisfying the CFO & Board rather than the consumer?
If CTO is aligned to the CFO and the Board in that order, the CTO will have to also be good at resume writing as he will not last too long. But then the question arises, is the CFO aligned to the Consumer? If he is not, then even he may be in hot water sooner or later.
I would rather mention that, you call should depends on the criticality of the application to serve the enterprise business requirement, as opensource application can have security breaches and lack of support in worst come senario
—Vishal Anand Gupta, Interim CIO & Joint Project Director HiMS at The Calcutta Medical Research Institute
cto forum 21 october 2011
The Chief Technology Officer Forum
http://www.thectoforum.com/ content/% E2%80%9Cyoucannot-wipe-yourdata-cloud% E2%80%9D
Boost Business, Wow Customers: Automate
Automation is a critical component of improving business in most organizations today. “Automation has the potential of freeing up skilled full-time employees from rote work so that they can focus on innovation.” To read the full story go to:
WRITE TO US: The CTOForum values your feedback. We want to know what you think about the magazine and how to make it a better read for you. Our endeavour continues to be work in progress and your comments will go a long way in making it the preferred publication of the CIO Community.
6
Chris Fredde, CEO, SafeNet talks to Varun Aggarwal about the importance of encryption in the enterprise
Opinion
Arun Gupta, Group CIO, Shoppers' Stop
Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to editor@thectoforum.com
CTOF Connect
http://www.thectoforum.com/content/boostbusiness-wow-customers-automate Dharmaraj Ramakrishnan Head, Core Banking, ING Vysya Bank Ltd.
FEATURE Inside
Enterprise
World's Lowest Cost Tablet Computer Launched Pg 10
Illustration BY Joffy Jose
Round-up
Worldwide Social Media Revenue to Grow to $14.9 bn in 2012 The market is projected to reach $29.1 bn in 2015
social media revenue is on track to reach $10.3 bn in 2011, a 41.4 per cent increase from 2010 revenue of $7.3 bn, according to Gartner, Inc Worldwide social media revenue is forecast for consistent growth with 2012 revenue totalling $14.9 bn, and the market is projected to reach $29.1 bn in 2015. Advertising revenue is, and will remain, the largest contributor to overall social media revenue. Social media advertising revenue is forecast to total $5.5 bn in 2011, and grow to $8.2 bn in 2012. Advertising revenue includes display advertising and digital video commercials on any device includWorldwide
8
cto forum 21 october 2011
The Chief Technology Officer Forum
ing PCs, mobile and media tablets. “Marketers will begin to transition from ‘one time placement and click of ads’ toward ‘ongoing engagement’ with the internet user and will, therefore, allocate a higher percentage of their advertising budget to social networking sites,” said Neha Gupta, Senior Research Analyst at Gartner. “This is mainly because social networking sites, with the help of social analytics firms, are able to unlock the interconnected data structures of users — mapping lists of friends, their comments and messages, photos and all their social connections, contact information, etc.”
Data Briefing
98 bn
mobile app downloads by 2015
E nte rpri se Round -up
They STEVE Said it WOZNAIK
Illustration BY Joffy Jose
Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak sadly told an interviewer recently that the loss of Steve Jobs is "like the world lost a John Lennon.” In a video interview with the Associated Press, Wozniak said he found out about his former colleague's death when a reporter called him.
Nawanagar Coop Bank to Implement Core Solutions on Cloud Decides to go with IBM
“Somehow (Steve) had the ability to think out new ways of doing things, not just improve what we already had, but to do them in a totally different way” —Steve Wozniak, Co-founder, Apple
The Nawanagar Cooperative Bank Ltd, Jamnagar, one of Gujarat’s leading cooperative banks of over 20 years, has selected IBM to deploy core banking solutions on a hosted cloud services model. The bank will be automating its end-to-end operations on InfrasoftTech’s OMNI Enterprise Core Banking Solution. With new regulations and corporatisation affecting customer expectations from cooperative banks in India, The Nawanagar Coop Bank Ltd was looking to increasing availability of risk management products like derivatives, IT adherence & alignment, to effectively compete against other private banks. By implementing this worldclass end-to-end core banking solution, the client will be able to offer state-of-the art financial solutions to its customers including internet banking, online money transfer, ATM, mobile banking, etc. IBM's offered its Smart Cloud Resilience Service to the Nawanagar Bank in partnership with Infrasoft Technologies. Earlier this year, IBM and InfrasoftTech signed a memorandum to deploy IBM-InfrasoftTech solutions hosted from IBM’s data centre over a cloud environment. The solution will enable banks to operate on centralised network twice as fast and at half the cost of on-premises model.
Quick Byte on MOBILITY
The Telecom Ministry is understood to have stated that a total ban on encrypted communications is not desirable. It said that accent should be on regulation of these services so that security assistance needs and communication security needs are balanced The Chief Technology Officer Forum
cto forum 21 October 2011
9
imaging BY prince antony
E nte rpri se Round -up
World’s Lowest Cost Tablet Computer Launched Affordability
for the next three billion internet users The world’s lowest computing/internet device was recently launched in India by the Minister of Human Resources and Development, Communications and Information Technology Kapil Sibal. Called ‘Aakash’, the tablet has been designed, developed and manufactured by DataWind Ltd, in partnership with IIT Rajasthan, under the Human Resources and Development Ministry’s National Mission on Education through Information and Communication Technology (NME-ICT). The government is buying 100,000 tablets from DataWind at an allinclusive price of Rs 2,250 per unit Five hundred devices were also handed out
to students in attendance. Minister Sibal explained that the low-cost device was the third leg of NME-ICT: after connecting over 1,000 institutions across the country with high bandwidth WiFi networks and webenabling masses of course-content for free. Under NME-ICT, the government intends to deliver 10 million tablets to post-secondary students across India. The target price of the 10 million units is Rs 1,750 per unit. DataWind has provided a firm proposal at the Rs 1,750 price point also. DataWind CEO, Suneet Singh Tuli said, “Our goal was to break the price barrier for computing and internet access. Working
Global Tracker
Growth in online advertising
Advertising online in Britain rose 13.5 per cent in the first six months
share of 27 per cent 10
cto forum 21 october 2011
The Chief Technology Officer Forum
Source: IAB
to 2.26 bn pounds, giving it a record high market
with IIT Rajasthan, and NME-ICT, we’ve created a product that will finally bring affordable computing and internet access to the masses. This is not only a concept that applies to India, but has ignited the imagination of governments around the world. Aakash is proudly made in India, and is destined to revolutionise computing and internet access for the world.” DataWind established a new production line in Hyderabad, India specifically for this purpose, resulting in the ultra low-cost tablet to be the first indigenously designed and manufactured tablet. Intended for students, Aakash tablet can be used as an Ebook reader, for access to online streaming course material and web based research. Not limited to students, Aakash offers anybody that wants high quality web, social networking, instant messaging, multimedia, games and hundreds of thousands of applications, a durable and affordable mobile device. Instant messaging and social networking are delivered through the Nimbuzz application. Aakash is a 7” Android 2.2 touchscreen tablet that has a HD video co-processor for a high-quality multimedia experience and core graphics accelerator for faster application support. The Aakash tablet is the only Android device in the market to offer DataWind’s UbiSurfer browser, based on 18 international patents. The UbiSurfer browser accelerates web pages by factors of 10x to 30x, allowing for a web experience of unrivalled speed. The device includes WiFi connectivity and support for optional 3G modems. Two fullsized USB ports are integrated into the unit allowing pen-drives, external keyboards, web-cams, dongles and other inexpensive peripherals to be attached. At the launch event, DataWind displayed a roadmap of future products, including its mobile phone version of the device, capacitive screen units with faster and dual-core processors, and 10-inch screen devices. DataWind will offer a commercial version, called the UbiSlate, starting late November at a Maximum Retail Price of under Rs.2,999. The price difference between the Aakash and UbiSlate is because the commercially available product will include a cellular modem, allowing it to deliver web access anywhere.
E nte rpri se Round -up
photo BY photos.com
NEC to Focus on SaaS Gets into strategic partnership with Trimax
NEC India has announced a strategic alliance with Trimax IT Infrastructure & Services Limited (Trimax), an IT services and solutions provider, to explore opportunities in delivering SaaS services [using an integrated application aggregation platform]. As a part of this association, NEC will be leveraging Trimax’s data centre capabilities to provide business applications such as CRM, ERP, Human Resource Management, Inventory, Security, etc., to the enterprise customers.
This partnership will leverage NEC’s technological expertise and Trimax’s local market reach to offer SaaS applications to SMBs in India via an opex model, thus reducing their IT expenditure and total cost of ownership (TCO). Ken Sugata, General Manager at Global Carrier Cloud division, NEC Corporation commented, “Cloud computing has paved an innovative way for enterprises to meet the ever-changing business needs to deal with complex business environments." Sugata added, "We foresee strong market interest and adoption for cloud services in India and aim to empower SMBs with end-to-end SaaS solutions and applications that help enterprises reduce their operational costs." "At NEC, we offer cloud-oriented service platform solutions in conjunction with our systems integration businesses,” he further added. “Our partnership with Trimax is a great opportunity to mutually extend our focus on our SaaS business capabilities in the country,” Sugata explained. The current needs of enterprises include the co-existence of lean management under rapidly-changing and severe economic environments and the quick new business start up. NEC has configured 'cloud-oriented Service Platform Solutions' by adding cloud computing features to the achievements that have been developed via its systems integration and outsourcing businesses. Commenting on the association, Surya Prakash Madrecha, Chairman and Managing Director of Trimax said, “NEC is a market leader and has successfully deployed cloud application aggregation platform across the globe and their expertise would not only give credible platform to Indian market but also help in bringing right applications.”
Fact ticker
iPad & Tablets Impact Future of Computing Transformational change in people's interactions with computers Multitouch on the iPad and other media tablets has liberated users from the hardware keyboard and pointing device (aka the mouse), and as media tablets become more commonplace, users will expect the convenience and simplicity of multitouch user interfaces when they interact with other computing devices, according to Gartner, Inc. "During the next five to 10 years,
media tablets will instigate change in computing form factors; modular designs will enable tablets to take on new functions, becoming the crossplatform controller and brain for hybrid consumer electronics and computers," said Angela McIntyre, Research Director, Gartner. "Tablets will be substitutes for several of the consumer electronics consumers often carry with them."
Makers of PCs and consumer electronics are noticing the shift in consumer expectations and are incorporating features popularised by the iPad into the new products. Interface technologies can be clustered around five basic modalities. They include state of mind (of the user), humancomputer hybrids, action detection, speech and biosensing. Of the interface modalities, action detection has been extensively used to this point. Gartner analysts said the iPad has created a transformational change in how people interact with computers.
F5 Networks
F
5 Networks has announced that its intelligent, carrier-grade Domain Name System (DNS) services enable Communications Service Providers (CSPs) to scale their DNS infrastructures more efficiently, significantly reduce costs, and more quickly deploy critical new revenue-generating services. With these services, F5 continues to fulfil its vision of Service Delivery Networking (SDN), providing a unified platform for CSPs to deliver voice, data, and video services on a single IP-based network. “The landscape for communications service providers is shifting radically as data traffic grows relentlessly and traditional business models move from circuitbased voice to all-IP services,” said Akshay Sharma, Research Director at Gartner. “With these changes, DNS services are more important than ever. They must be rock-solid, secure, flexible, and sophisticated; to enable CSPs to manage distributed traffic intelligently and scale up while keeping the DNS footprint and infrastructure costs to a minimum.” Gartner expects mobile data traffic to grow 26-fold worldwide between 2010 and 2015. Existing CSP networks are already feeling the strain, and the volume of traffic will only increase as voice services move to all IPbased networks. To meet these challenges, CSPs’ IP networks and the DNS infrastructures that support them must evolve.
The Chief Technology Officer Forum
cto forum 21 October 2011
11
SURVEY RE PORT
D C O P T I M I S AT I O N
DC OPTIMISATION: WHAT YOU ARE DOING What are your top DC Optimisation concerns, and how are you tackling them? We asked this of you and your peers in a survey and here’s what you told us.
2. How are you tackling these challenges?
1. What are the top 3 DC challenges you are facing? 37%
Bandwidth bottlenecks
53%
Power and cooling
53% 57%
Data management security
59%
Manual tasks and insufficientmanagement tools 10
20
30
40
50
52%
0 – 50 20%
51 – 100 12%
2000 +
01%
1001 – 2000
02%
501 – 1000
02%
1001 – 2000
03%
51 – 100
2000 +
02%
0 – 50 10
20
30
40
50
60
5. To what extent have you virtualised the following applications? 11%
Haven’t considered
Infrastructure
20
25
30
35 40
04% 08% 21% 56% 0
10
20
30
40
50
60
File/Print 15%
Total implementation
19% 20%
Major implementation
23% 24%
Considered but not done
25%
Considered but not done
0
05
10
15
20
25
34%
Major implementation 0
05
10
15
20
25
30
35 Total implementation Haven’t considered
08%
Total implementation
Database
05%
Messaging
0%
Minor implementation
15
Minor implementation
18%
Minor implementation
10
Haven’t considered
12%
Total implementation
05
07%
101 – 200
05%
0
37% 0
4. What would be the ideal number of physical servers for your DC?
201 – 300
03%
301 – 500 501 – 1000
Deploying systems to improve efficiency, extend life and cut costs
301 – 500
04%
201 – 300
32%
Planning a strategic DC optimisation
60
3. What would be the ideal number of virtual servers for your DC? 101 – 200
13%
Considering revamping the infrastructure
Resource utilization
0
11%
In the process of an infrastructure refresh
11%
Other Issues
08%
Building a new DC
05%
No Challenges/ Outsourced
19%
Considered but not done
23%
Minor implementation
23%
24%
Considered but not done
34%
Haven’t considered
34%
Major implementation 0
05
10
15
20
25
30
35
31%
Major implementation 0
05
10
15
20
25
30
35
6.How close are you to achieving the ideal state of your DC consolidation and optimisation?
7.How close are you to achieving the ideal mix of virtual/physical servers at your DC? 05%
12% 34%
30% Nowhere near
15% 46%
Not Close Already optimised
Very Close
31%
Very Close (0-3 Months)
27%
Close
Close (3-6 Months) Not Close (> 6 Months)
9. Which of these data management solutions have you implemented?
8.Do you automate manual processes of the DC, including business?
Archive 12%
Total implementation Haven’t considered
16%
No Yes, less than 50%, but extends to BCP and DR
28%
Yes, less than 50%, but extends to BCP or DR
13%
Considered but not done
22%
Minor implementation
25%
13% 28%
Major implementation
Yes, more than 50% and extends to BCP and DR
26%
Yes, more than 50%, but doesn’t extend to BCP or DR
0
05
0
05
10
15
20
25
Regulatory Compliance
20
25
30
06%
0 26%
Major implementation 05
10
15
20
25
30
Dedupe 03%
05
25
All of the above
02%
Other
02%
35
12% 33% 34%
Application Virtualization 31% 33%
Haven’t considered 20
30
08%
Power and cooling/Space Efficiency
Considered but not done
15
20
Infrastructure refresh (servers/storage) 18%
10
15
Form factor/consolidation
15%
Minor implementation
10
10.In which of these areas would you welcome an independent audit aimed at improving efficiency? None
Major implementation
05
36%
Haven’t considered 23%
Minor implementation
20%
Minor implementation_
19%
Haven’t considered
19%
Considered but not done 18%
Considered but not done
0
18%
Major implementation_ 13%
Total implementation
0
15
Tiering
30 Total implementation
Total implementation
10
17%
25
30
35
41%
Infrastructure Management automation
45% 0
10
20
30
40
50
A Question of answers
PERSON' S NAME
Looking beyond structured offerings: Teradata will help customers manage their data deluge
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A Question of answers
dinesh jain | Country director, teradata
Structuring The BIG DATA
Indian enterprises are sitting atop large data mines, mining which is a business imperative. But managing this data is a massive and ongoing effort. Dinesh Jain, Country Manager, Teradata, talks to Ankush Sohoni about some of Teradata's recent acquisitions and trends in the data space What is the current state of data within enterprises? Indian enterprises today are sitting on a lot of data. Given the whole social computing momentum that has taken off lately, data sources have increased manifold. In this scenario, enterprises have data that comes from their CRM systems or ERPs (structured), and also data that flows in from the web, social networking and so on (unstructured). Enterprises need to put together these two primary sources of data and maintain
a single repository, which can then be mined for information. What are the trends in the data space today? 'Big data' is on the rise. As I mentioned, today data comes from many sources. And, by big data I mean the unstructured data that comes from the web, social networking, etc. Now, this kind of data is abundant in the market. So the question is how do you integrate this data with the data that is currently aggregated from various enterprise
systems? How do you see where the customer is going, and what channels are going to get through to them? This is the transition that is happening in the market place. Enterprises are hungry to understand their customers. Interestingly, the pyramid is shifting. Lots of customers are now able to choose what they want to see, the internet has given us that option. So this is the challenge that is coming now — the Data Deluge. Teradata has recently acquired two companies.
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A Question of answers
Tell us about why these acquisitions were important and how they help? We acquired Estadata which is purely meant for 'big data' management. Conventionally, you have your data stored in a typical warehouse, and this gives you the data generated within your organisation in a structured manner. However, the data generated outside your organisation (which is relevant to the organisation) is 10 times the amount of data you have within the organisation. Estadata brings together this unstructured data and makes it consumable for the enterprise. It takes out the data and lets you filter it down to a level where it can become structured and usable and at the same time, it can handle extremely large volumes — in a sense it is ultra scalable. You can then take this data and integrate it with your data warehouse and carry out cross analysis between your social media data and data which is generated from, let's say, your ERP system, enabling you to reach your goals. Estadata is a technology that works on the concept of map radios which was actually used to build Google. In fact, the engine that is the core of Estadata is open source (coincidentally built by Google), and can be licensed for products. Estadata was one of these products. Since we see this huge gap between unstructured and structured data, we felt this acquisition was crucial for the market to take data analytics to the next level. This was the idea behind Estadata acquisition. Another company that we acquired was Aprimo, which is primarily concerned with marketing management. With Estadata we figured how to bring the unstructured element into data warehousing. However what really is the next step? Since a lot of analytics are primarily concerned with marketing management and successful campaigning, we decided to acquire Aprimo, which is a marketing management module. You have the tra-
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“Big data or the unstructured data that comes from the web, social networking, etc., is on the rise” ditional data warehousing and your 'big data' taken care of. Now, you have to perform analytics on these and utilise it for successfully running your campaigns. Aprimo sits on top of your data warehouse and can be used to configure campaigns and goals. It is available seperately and does not necessarily need Teradata to operate. It can be purchased seperately and can sit on top of your CRM. It allows you to see how relevant trends are moving. We felt that given these two products in addition to our data warehousing line up, we kind of complete the circle. What starts with bringing together enterprise data sources (Teradata) moves on to integrating your external data sources and big data (Estadata) and ends with an analytics tool with a campaign definition functionality. You have quite a compelling offering here. What are Teradata's plans for the Indian market and what kind of customers are you targeting? India is at a great place currently, especially in our perspective. Data sizes
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things I Believe in Unstructured data is on the rise. It comes from the web, social networking, etc. Enterprises need to put together structured and unstructured data and maintain a single repository, which can then be mined for information. Technology is always a means to the end. However, starting with the end and reverse engineering business requirements is key to success.
are only going to continue to grow larger. Given this trend, we believe what we have offers tremendous value to our customers here — current and prospective. Teradata has always been an analytics company and this will continue to be our primary offering. We plan to bring more customers onto the Estadata and Aprimo platforms, so that they can benefit from the kind of insights they can get from these tools. We have always been focussed on data and we have been leaders in our space. We believe in going to places where we are needed. Keeping this in mind, our customers are primarily in the telecom and BFSI space, which are driven by customer analytics. As far as our plans for India are concerned, we are looking at acquiring new customers who can benefit from our offerings. We also have a very profitable services business, in addition to which we carry out global research and development efforts out of here. Our proposition is never core technology, but we start with enabling the business. Technology is always a means to the end. However, starting with the end and reverse engineering business requirements is key to success.
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D ATA M A N AG E M E N T
Best of
Breed
Features Inside
How Lean Principles Can Benefit IT Pg 20 Direct Your Future to See Results Today Pg 22
T
he common cliché “It’s like herding cats", is an expression that refers to a task that is extremely difficult to control due to chaotic factors. With the ever increasing volumes of data, executives are looking for ways to change the game and simplify information management; to herd the 'information cat', if you will. The solution is to implement a sustainable model for keeping up with such changes by formalising their enterprise information management (EIM) programme. An EIM programme allows a company to provide accurate, consistent information to all of its resources (employees, computer databases, etc.), allowing them to perform their jobs more effectively. A key objective is to transform vast amounts of information collected every day into a strategic advantage. To this end, CIOs need a tactical solution where benefits can be realised early and one that works itself into the overall enterprise information strategy. One approach is to start this journey by looking at the information life cycle management (ILM). ILM is the process of managing specific data assets of an organisation from creation to disposition. There are five areas of ILM that should be addressed. Usage: explains which data is useful and how it is turned into information for decision making Creation: defines how data is received and/or created within the company
Illustration by Shigil N
“An EIM programme allows a company to to provide accurate information”
Herding the ‘Information Cat’ With increasing volumes of data, executives are looking for ways to simplify information management By Stephen Boschulte
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Retention: defines the life span of data via a clear understanding of the value of the underlying data assets over time Availability: addresses the frequency, latency and accessibility requirements for the specific data elements Maintenance: defines the resources (people, process, and technology) that are used to cleanse, transform, and load the data and the supporting processes that controls the changes of the information assets This article will focus on the importance of the first area, usage. Companies no longer have trouble accessing information necessary to make a decision. Often times, too much information handicaps a company from making the best decisions. Collaboration of three programmes is required to minimise risk: business programme management, technology programme management, and EIM programme management. Business programme management: Representatives from this group understand the company’s core competencies and can best assess the needs of the organisation. They have a direct responsibility of implementing business related projects approved by the governance review board. Technology programme management: Representatives from this group support the business by providing tools that can be used by an organisation to effectively do their jobs. EIM programme management: An extension of the governance group, this group has three main responsibilities: First, they determine the most appropriate resources to be included in the integrated workgroup. This workgroup is a temporary team of people identified by the EIM programme management with the approval of the governance review board to complete a timelimited project based assignment. The team is ideally made up of six to eight people representing the three programmes mentioned above. Second, they prepare for, and facilitate the sessions between the business and technical workgroup members. To do this, identify the person who can facilitate discussions and influence both the business and technical resources. Third, they generate specific recommendations of information related projects and provide it to the governance review board as well as establishing specific deliverables
for the team (i.e., current state assessment, value proposition, prioritised list of reports and data elements, etc.) This collaborative approach helps to bring both the business needs and the cost of technical support together allowing the governance review board to make the best decisions for the company. Companies that do not have a formal programme in place can be effective by following this model. Once the workgroup is established, each
Companies no longer have trouble accessing information. Often times, a surfeit of it handicaps a company team member can be provided a list of tasks required as preparation for the facilitated sessions that will produce the deliverables. The business workgroup members will be responsible for: 1 Confirming and providing the company’s most important business process flows in a graphical model that can be easily explained to the group 2 Identifying key attributes in the model that is important to decision making 3 Prioritising the list of reports (physical and/or other decision-making analytical platforms) by functional area The best way to start the consolidation effort is to focus on gathering the reports from each business process area. Reports that are produced by systems as well as those that are manually generated should be catalogued using a tool (i.e., Excel, Access or more robust relational database)
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to capture key attributes. If you are consolidating from multiple departments, try to have the department provide you with a prioritised list of reports. For each report, capture a title and short description that emphasises the value and basic metrics across all groups. The technical representatives in the workgroup will be responsible for: 1 Compiling the list of reports, users and frequency of usage 2 Categorising data elements and usage across reports and decision-making tools 3 Determining the cost of maintaining the relevant systems and developing a cost model The technical staff may be able to gather statistics such as how often a report/extract is produced, the number of users that access the report, etc. They may choose to work with someone in finance to develop a model that includes direct and indirect cost of maintaining systems and related decision support infrastructure. The programme management representatives are focussed on: 1 Identifying the best resources and obtaining the necessary approvals for their involvement in the project 2 Developing facilitated session agendas and outcomes 3 Consolidating the deliverables and presenting the recommendations to the governance group 4 Identifying and communicating the follow-on projects to the programmes Preparing for the facilitated sessions that produce the recommendations for the governance council requires adequate preparation time. Of all the sessions that will need to be prepared, the prioritisation of reports will be one of the most challenging. After the group agrees on the value and prioritisation of the reports the real work begins. For each report or extract, the specific list of reporting attributes should be listed. The technology members then use this list to perform data lineage and provide data element and sourcing information. By using this approach whereby you prioritise the information used for decision making and tracing back to the data elements required for those decisions, the workgroup can better assess the value of the data elements created and sourced by the company. The technical team can then The Chief Technology Officer Forum
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provide a more accurate estimate of the cost of sourcing, loading, storing, and retaining this specific information. The workgroup should develop an estimate of the cost of each report and display a list of prioritised data elements based on the cost estimates for review and finalisation. It is very important to understand the return on investment on a granular basis by data element as it helps the business in providing the quantitative value of the specific data and the reports. By following this approach, the discussion changes from “I want everything” to “That piece of information is not worth that much.” Master data and other reference data is typically on the high end of the list in both the value provided and the cost to maintain. By completing this exercise, a company can better assess if the information it is using for making decisions (via reports, etc.) are aligned with the type of decisions required to create value to the company. The added advantage of conducting this exercise is that now you have a prioritised list of attributes that can be used by the business to: Clarify attributes, definitions, and purpose (think of a standard corporate dictionary) Define single point ownership of the high-
64%
add to the organisation. est value attributes or attriThe technology programme bute groups (data ownership) can continue to reassess the Define process as needed for cost of the specified informamaintaining reference data companies are tion management based on the sets (master and reference data management) already using the business priorities. And, finally, the EIM pro Simultaneously, you can enterprise data gramme management can use provide the technical team warehouse for this information to prioritise the value by: Providing architects with input Big Data analytics projects that provides the greatest value to achieve its tactical and to architect better information strategic goals. management solutions Once the company understands how the Assisting with continuous improvement information and supporting data elements are of development standards used for decision-making, it can then turn its Guiding the development team underfocus to the next area of ILM, data creation. standing/focus of detail or tactical development activities Organisations need to understand the purpose of the information assets it cap– Stephen Boschulte MBA, PMP, CISSP, is a tures to fully realise the value of those Senior Information Management Strategist. He assets. Understanding the usage of the has over 14 years’ experience working with information in decision making and capturmore than 20 Fortune 500 companies and ing the return on the information assets is small organisations. Mr Boschulte is the author the first step to this end. The process allows of "A Practical Guide for Implementing an EIM the three major EIM programmes to have Program" and can be reached atsboschulte@ more specific direction. eimguide.com. The business programme can focus on periodic reviews that build the informa– This article has been reprinted with permistion management maturity by continusion from CIO Update. To see more articles ously assessing and reprioritising the regarding IT management best practices, please information that provides the most value visit www.cioupdate.com.
How Lean Principles Can Benefit IT
For many companies, IT tends to be a functional silo. We need to break that pattern By Gerhard Plenert
I
n 30 years of working with, installing, and even uninstalling IT systems, I have yet to find an IT environment that is 100 per cent efficient. In fact, most aren’t even 50 per cent efficient, and typically they are plagued by one or more of the following problems: Systems that are over-constructed Systems requiring duplicate data entries
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ystems that have numerous workarounds S Systems requiring some processes to be made by hand or, in extreme cases, Systems that require processes to be done by hand so that the data can be manually entered into the computer and be maintained in a database If we think of IT as part of an organisation's core business, with
M anagement
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processes just like any other business unit, we can begin to think about process optimisation — and the best approach to process optimisation is Lean.
Lean offers the tools useful for making improved decisions that will result in increased IT efficiencies. Based on the principles of the Toyota Production System (TPS), it is usually thought of as a construct for manufacturing. But, in fact, Lean can easily be focussed on eliminating IT waste and improving IT efficiency by doubling, if not tripling output. Among its tried and proved tools and principles of success are: Lean Management (TPS) Principles A3 – 9-Step Problem/Improvement Analysis and Reporting Six Sigma Variance Reduction Cycle Time Analysis Value Stream Mapping Spaghetti Charting Value Added vs Non-Value Added Activity Analysis Bottleneck Assessment As for waste, it typically is the result of a lack of understanding of user expectations. Waste can also occur because of the rework needed to correct previous inefficient traditional methods and because of poor planning. In fact, there are any number of ways in which an IT organisation's processes can end up having been 'designed by circumstance' rather than 'designed purpose', resulting in the following kinds of waste: Over-production: The result of 'just-in-case' IT work authorised in anticipation of a potential event at the expense of applying resources to known value-added efforts Waiting: The delays that occur between activities that increase total cycle time Unnecessary Transportation: In IT, this equates to the amount of time it takes to navigate through a series of applications to accomplish a highly repetitive task Over-processing: This occurs when a lack of standardisation leads to time spent reinventing the wheel Inventory: In IT, inventory is backlog, and when the organisation’s workload is unevenly distributed, some people wind up with enormous backlogs, leading to poor throughput performance and lost revenue Unnecessary Movement: Includes the inefficient flow and movement of individuals trying to access the tools they need, and the inefficient movement of data within the system Defects: Bad code and inadequate documentation are examples of IT defects By using Lean principles and techniques to identify these wastes, you can create streamlined IT processes that have been 'designed by purpose'.
Illustration by Shigil N
IT Efficiencies and IT Waste
Lean can be focussed on improving IT waste and improving efficiency Let’s look at a common situation — the need to improve the implementation of software patches — using the example of a large, centrally-managed IT organisation. Patches and software updates are sent out on a regular basis; but in this organisation, there are inefficiencies and delays in securing the network, and inaccuracies in reporting the number of compliant versus non-compliant systems. With system patches taking weeks or even months to get pushed out and implemented, the organisation set three targets for improvement: Faster package delivery time, fewer 'out-of-compliance' systems, and 100 per cent compliance in all updates. As a result of implementing Lean principles, such as focussing on the elimination of waste, using Value Stream Mapping, and implementing A3 techniques, the organisation saw the immediate reduction of package delivery time from 18 to 12 days. Within two months, 'out-of-compliance' systems were reduced by 50 per cent, and within four months all systems were compliant. In a second example, a hospital utilised Lean to streamline their system updating process. The hospital's medical in-processing procedure for setting up new patient accounts took too long and was causing significant delays in patient analysis and treatment, with only 40 per cent of the in-processing requirements being completed on time. In the best case scenario the in-processing took seven days, and at its worst it took 240 days. The hospital set two targets for improvement: Optimise the current process to reflect the nature of the critical path for in-processing patients, and eliminate non-value added tasks to ensure that the critical path activities were completed. Within two months of implementing Lean Value Stream Mapping and A3 techniques, the hospital was able to complete 90 per cent of all tasks within three days of a patient’s arrival. The Chief Technology Officer Forum
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M anagement
A couple of years ago, I was asked to facilitate improvements in a government attorney general’s office in which most of employees were legal clerks and lawyers. I looked for both the non-value-added content of their work and for bottlenecks, and then identified the IT touch points (excessive interaction with the computer) and manual processes that could be automated. This resulted in recommendations to change work assignments and workflow to address work build-ups and backlogs. Less than two weeks after implementation, the office had tripled its daily work output. Note that this was accomplished without any new hiring or layoffs. Instead, the staff 'leaned-out' both the paperwork and the information flow process within the organisation. These new processes were based on evaluating logical progressions and efficiencies rather than on how the work had been done before.
improvement, in my experience — and it's clear that the starting point for organisations is to consider IT as a full partner in the organisation whose business processes are similar to those of any other part of the company. Within the IT group, leaders must validate that any IT solution being selected is the best solution, and they must minimise waste in IT development and implementation using Lean techniques. By doing so, they can increase efficiencies and reduce waste in IT changes, upgrades and patches, thus helping ensure that the entire organisation is optimised for success. We need to make IT less mysterious and recognise that the processes that drive IT are a perfect match for the process optimisation at which Lean excels. Let’s move forward 'Leaning-out' IT. — Gerhard Plenert is a Supply Chain Practice Partner at Wipro Consulting Services and the author of the recently published book "Lean Management Principles for Information Technology" (CRC Press). He is based in
A New Opportunity to Make IT Efficient
Sacramento, CA, and can be reached at gerhard.plenert@wipro.com.
IT is rich in opportunities for Lean process improvements — with the potential for as much as a 99 per cent data performance
— This article was first published in the CIO Insight. For more stories please visit www.cioinsight.com.
Direct Your Future to See Results Today
Your future view determines the future you, your behaviours and outcomes by Daniel Burrus
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Illustration by Shigil N
H
ere’s a simple yet profound secret to achieving the success you want in your life and career: Change the future you envision and you will change what actions you take, which, in turn, will change your future. Have you ever thought about the legacy you will leave as CIO: what you want to achieve, what you want to be known for, or what you want your company to achieve based on your leadership? We know that hard trends (future certainties) provide accurate predictions about specific elements of the future, but combined with soft trends (future maybes) and your ability to influence them, how those elements play out is highly plastic. How your future unfolds is determined to a great degree by the choices you make, and those choices are determined largely by what you see in front of you. In other words, your vision of the future is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Change your view of the future, and you direct your future. Directing your future is the conscious exercise of your creative capacity to envision and rewrite your future life and
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“That's exactly what our past does: it sits behind us, and we can use the momentum of our past to drive us forward. But it's the wheel in front we use to determine our direction. You go where you are looking” career. Your vision of the future drives your choices and your behaviours, which produce your outcomes and shape your life. You become what you dream, which means that if you want to know what you are becoming, you need to ask, what am I dreaming?
Develop Your Futureview The key to your professional and personal success hinges on your ability to project yourself into the future and then look back at your present position from the future’s point of view — what I call your futureview. I coined the term futureview several decades ago to refer to the mental picture we each hold of our future existence. This is not the same thing as a goal, plan, ambition, or aspiration. Futureview is not what we hope for or are trying to create, it is the picture we actually hold, for better or for worse, of what we expect and believe about our future. The reason I coined the term is that most of us are not fully aware of what that picture is. We all have a futureview but often without realising it or examining what it looks like. But not being aware of it does not mean it doesn’t control us, because it most certainly does. Becoming aware of your own futureview puts a tremendously powerful strategic tool in your hands. It gives you the controls of your own future. Your futureview determines which actions you’ll take and which you’ll avoid taking. Different futureviews create different realities. For example, in the same day, thousands of people buy a given company’s stock, and thousands more dump it. What’s the difference? There is only one: their futureview.
Managing Futureview Volkswagen has a vision for its future. In 2007, just months after Toyota had officially taken the title of world’s leading automaker away from GM, Volkswagen CEO Martin Winkerton announced that his company
is something we so seldom think about, had set the goal of unseating Toyota within we hardly even have the vocabulary to talk the next 10 years. Their target was met with about it. heavy scepticism. The following year VW When I want to take a break, I love to take sold a mere 6.3 million vehicles to Toyota’s my Harley-Davidson out on the local roads. nine million. Yet, by the first quarter of One thing that’s especially great about the 2009, smack in the midst of the worst Harley is that there’s no reverse. That’s true months of the global recession, the German for us, too: we can never truly regain the company astonished onlookers by drapast; we can only go forward into the future. matically increasing its share of the global The Harley’s rear wheel sits behind me, market, and by the end of the year VW had powered by the engine. That’s exactly what indeed overtaken both GM and Toyota as our past does: it sits behind us, and we can the world’s leading automaker — eight use the momentum of our past to drive us years ahead of schedule. Volkswagen has forward. But it’s the wheel in front that we taken great care to manage their futureview. use to determine our direction. And anyone What is GM’s futureview? It’s hard to say. who’s ever ridden a motorcycle knows this As a CIO, are you managing the futurecardinal rule of the road: You go where view of your employees, regardless of you’re looking. If there’s a rock in the road current economic conditions? There are and you look straight at it, you’ll run right people working in your company right now over it. Stare at that looming pothole ahead, who are online or on the phone looking for and you’re ending up in that pothole. another job. Why? Because of their futureWhere you look is where you go. view of working for your company. Where are you looking? There are also people who are planning Because we are shifting into a fundamenon staying. Why? Same reason: Because of tally different economy, one based on abuntheir futureview of working for your comdance rather than on scarcity, and because pany. Are you managing the futureview of our changing relationship of your business partners, to information, we are seeing your suppliers, your investors? three forces come into play that What about the futureview of will be critical to shaping our your customers? future: communication, colMost companies put zero laboration, and trust. effort or energy into directing connected their people’s futureview, which — Daniel Burrus is considered one devices around means for all practical purof the world’s leading technolthe world poses, they put zero effort into ogy forecasters and business directing their future. All the strategists, and is the Founder currently 'strategic planning', 'scenario and CEO of Burrus Research, a planning', and other systematic research and consulting firm that approaches to designing an monitors global advancements in intended (read: hoped-for) future often fall technology driven trends to help clients better short of the goal. In a world gone vertical, understand how technological, social and busithey typically come to nothing. ness forces are converging to create enormous, Your futureview also determines the untapped opportunities. future you. The vision we have of our future — This article has been reprinted with permisdetermines our behaviours, which detersion from CIO Update. To see more articles mine our outcomes. In a very real sense, regarding IT management best practices, please our futureview is everything. And yet it visit www.cioupdate.com.
35 bn
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SPONSORED BY
ICT and Gross National Happiness
Consciousness.
hutan is a small tranquil Kingdom in the Himalayas with a population of less than a million. Bhutan is also one of the first countries in the world where the kingdom’s developmental policy is guided by the principals of Gross National Happiness.
The dramatic advancements in ICT have made the world a smaller place. Countries around the world are now far better connected and people better informed than ever before. The surge in ICT innovation has been a powerful catalyst in empowering people and unleashing creative energies in a globalised society. Today, the power of ICT as a means to creating value is constrained only by the limits of human imagination.
It was in 1974 when a young King - The 4th King of Bhutan HM Jigme Singye Wangchuk - envisioned this philosophy in a paradigm shift to the often emphasized and pursued Gross Domestic Produce, as a true measure and indicator of peoples’ well being. THE PHILOSOPHY OF GROSS NATIONAL HAPPINESS IS BASED ON FOUR PILLARS
• • • •
Sustainable and equitable socio economic development Preservation and promotion of culture Conservation of environment and Good Governance
One might wonder how the Kingdom of Bhutan hopes to achieve this GNH potential. The royal government has recognized ICT as the intrinsic link of these Pillars in strengthening and bonding the shared National
In Bhutan, the introduction and evolution of ICT has been rapid and the level of ICT literacy has risen considerably, particularly in the past few years. The Internet was launched close to 10 years ago. Mobile networks was introduced in 2003 and since then, Internet and cellular service have become a part of everyday life for a growing number of Bhutanese people including the remote village cowherd. The government believes that the Internet opened up the world to Bhutan and the smart phone has transformed the mobile into a portable computer, enabled by Bhutan’s expanding ICT infrastructure. These, the government feels, provide an amazing range of opportunities for learning and growth in every field for those who are ready to tap new markets and expand their horizons.
The royal government believes that ICT is the key to the goal of equity and justice. It is ICT that must provide the ways and means to respond more efficiently and effectively to the challenges of poverty alleviation, employment generation, enhancing literacy, improving service delivery, and accelerating private sector development. In keeping with this unprecedented evolution, the government believes that it needs to set up milestones along clear paths to be pursued to realize their national aspirations within the GNH paradigm. In order to achieve this, the government has been working on a good number of projects internally to build up Bhutan’s infrastructure. Some of these are listed below. The Chiphen Rigpel project, is national program which provides ICT skills training to Bhutanese of all levels, including the Prime Minister and Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, the monk body, teachers, students and out of school youth;
The potentials and role of ICT in accelerating growth, promoting an efficient governance structure and green service economy are amazing and indeed diverse. A dynamic example of the best of human innovation, ICT enables the preservation of the environment and ecology by providing alternatives to consumer needs, offers new ideas and options for the preservation of our cultural legacy, functions as the platform for all forms of socio economic growth, and enables the government to serve its people with greater efficiency. In other words, the royal government of Bhutan believes that ICT has a direct bearing on all the pillars of Gross National Happiness. ONE STEP FORWARD In addition to all its other basic ground building projects, Bhutan has also set up its first LEEDS qualified IT park in the
The National Broadband Master Plan Project, which is establishing fiber optic connectivity to all parts of Bhutan. The second international gateway project to establish a redundant international connectivity from Gelephu. ‘Community Centres’ Project which will establish a Centre in each ‘gewog’, from where Government to Citizens or G-C services, and other services will be delivered to the Citizens. The Universal Service Project, through which Bhutan plans to take mobile connectivity to unreached areas. In addition the corporate and private sectors are implementing their own programmes to capitalize of ICT. ICT: ACCELERATING GROWTH Further, the Royal Government is directing major efforts to place Bhutan as an investment friendly location. It believes that setting up Bhutan as a world class hub for a range of services to meet the emerging demands of a rapidly prospering region, can foster progress for Bhutan and at the same time, take the load off pressurized neighbouring economies.
city of Thimpu. The IT Park Project, one of the first of its kind in the country is scheduled for inauguration on November 1, 2011, coinciding with the Coronation of His Majesty the King. In order to celebrate this launch with rest of the region, The Royal Government of Bhutan in association with 9.9 Media has planned a conference so as to facilitate the launch of this IT park and to bring together close to 225 individuals comprising of International delegates and the leaders of Bhutan’s ICT space, to come together and chart out a roadmap for Bhutan - a vision that can help the Kingdom of Bhutan realize its GNH dream and move forth towards progress. The conference, ICT for Gross National Happiness is planned to take place from the 31st of October to the 1st of November 2011, and will feature imminent leaders from in and around the Asia Pacific Region and the World.
Is the Indian
CIO
striking the
work-life CARTOONS BY Shankar Pamarthy
balance?
Our survey reveals interesting aspects of what CIOs feel about their personal and professional lives by TEAM CTO FORUM
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CO V E R S TOR Y m a n ag e m e n t
C
IOs routinely burn the midnight oil to ensure the lights are kept on. They ensure the organisation’s IT aligns with its business objectives thereby keeping the enterprise a step ahead of competition. In the midst of all the IT maintenance and deployment, CIOs also have to deliver innovation – the life blood of any organization. With so much on his plate, it becomes a challenge for a CIO to strike the right worklife balance. Can a CIO, therefore, for once, switch off his BlackBerry? Can he leave all the IT issues in his company behind him and go on a vacation? With the festive season in full flow, we did a well-timed survey to find out if our CIOs were able to balance work and life. Read on to know the reaults.
Is it possible for a CIO to take a break and go on a vacation? Yes. It is possible for a CIO to take a break. Like any other official, he too can go on a vacation. Daya Prakash, Head, IT, LG Electronics
SELF ASSESSMENT
YES No
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Do you get anxious about leaving your work behind while on a vacation?
"No, that is why I have an empowered team who I can trust." Prince Azariah, CIO, ACC
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SELF ASSESSMENT
YES
No
CO V E R S TOR Y m a n ag e m e n t
Are you able to completely disconnect yourself from work during vacation?
No, I am normally available for emergency calls on my mobile. However, during my visit to Sikkim last year, there was no mobile connectivity and this proved to be a blessing in disguise. Shyam Kalambi, Head, IS, India & ASEAN, Foseco India.
SELF ASSESSMENT
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After coming back from a vacation, do you feel completely relaxed?
Yes, I do. It is the change from the routine surroundings that is refreshing. It is not about getting away from work. I enjoy my work, if I am not in touch, it's almost like a loss of identity. Asmita Junnarkar, CIO, Voltas.
SELF ASSESSMENT
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No
CO V E R S TOR Y m a n ag e m e n t
Would you prefer to stay at home for vacation rather than going out somewhere?
I feel that the ideal vacation is a mix of both. One can spend a few days away exploring some new locale, and then a few days at home. This helps to completely destress and rejuvenate one. Valerio Fernandes, GM-IT, Continental Automotive India
SELF ASSESSMENT
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Are you able to delegate work before leaving for a vacation?
Delegation is always on a case-to-case basis. There are some departments where you delegate completely. It is mostly regarding alignment of philosophy with your team members. You are quicker to allow them to make decisions if they are aligned broadly on the decision-making framework. V Balaji, CIO, Tata Technologies
SELF ASSESSMENT
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No
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While on vacation would you prefer a location with no mobile network coverage?
Not really. There should be some coverage because mobile connectivity is also essential to remain in touch for personal reasons as well. Viswanathan S, VP, IT, Clariant Chemicals.
SELF ASSESSMENT
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Are you able to take a vacation longer than a week at least once in a year?
Yes, I am able to take a vacation that is more than a week. In fact, most of the time the duration of my vacation is between 7-10 days. Prakash Vadhyan, Sr GM-IT, Kuoni Travel Group
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SELF ASSESSMENT
YES No
CO V E R S TOR Y m a n ag e m e n t
Has your absence in office affected your organisation adversely?
I have to keep juggling conflicting projects but when I am on a vacation, I have to stop watching the clock and just be present for myself and my family. It's a gift for my children that only I can give them. Vivek Dharia, CIO, KNP Securities.
SELF ASSESSMENT
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Do you think gadgets such as e-books, iPads/ tablets, laptops etc should be left at home before a vacation?
No, I don't feel these gadgets should be left at home. While one should not use them for official work while on vacation, they can be used in case of any emergency or for some urgent purposes. Subrata Dey, CIO, Godrej Consumer Products.
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Survey Findings The survey covered a total of 105 CIOs. Of the CIOs included in the survey, a whopping 82 per cent preferred to go out on a vacation rather than stay at home, while 8 per cent felt an ideal vacation was a mix of both -- spending a few days away exploring a new locale and then a few days at home. A majority of CIOs (53 per cent) said they were able to take a vacation longer than a week at least once a year. Of the respondents, 60 per cent felt completely relaxed after coming back from a vacation. Only 20 per cent of the participants wanted to go to a location that had no mobile network coverage while most (75 per cent) felt gadgets such as e-books, tablets, laptops should be taken along for a vacation. The trick, they felt, was to achieve the necessary balance and know when to switch off. The other important takeaways from the exercise are as given below.
Is it possible for a CIO to take a break and go on a vacation?
YES
82%
Are you able to completely disconnect yourself from work during vacation?
Are you able to delegate work before leaving for a vacation?
Has your absence in office affected your organisation adversely?
Do you get anxious about leaving your work behind while on a vacation?
NO
83%
YES
87% NO
90%
YES
45%
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NEXT
HORIZONS
Features Inside
ERM Software Gaining Popularity Pg xx Time to Tackle Factors External to Networks Pg xx
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art II of this two part series reviews eight technologies, services, and department-level changes you can employ today to green your IT department.
photo BY photos.com
1. Implementing Virtualisation
Go Green without Seeing Red-Part II Technologies that you can adopt to make your IT green William W Blausey Jr
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Though many organisations use virtualisation primarily to simplify hardware management, enhance business continuity and conserve data centre floor space, it can also significantly reduce power and cooling costs by consolidating under-utilised yet energyhungry servers. Indeed, a properly-architected server virtualisation solution can lower server energy consumption by up to 82 per cent, according to tech analyst firm Gartner. Of course, virtualisation usually imposes significant upfront hardware, software and services expenses, but Gartner estimates that most companies recover such costs within 24 months. As a result, adoption of virtualisation is increasing rapidly.
2. Deploying Energy Star Servers Standardising on servers that qualify for the federal government’s Energy Star designation can help you free up stranded power capacity. Servers that meet Energy Star
green it
requirements use 30 per cent less power on average, according to the US Department of Energy and the US Environmental Protection Agency, which jointly administer Energy Star. However, Energy Star-compliant products often cost more than comparable devices. Companies typically recoup that premium in the form of lower power spending, but that may mean little to an IT executive with limited procurement funds today.
3. Freeing Stranded Power and Cooling Capacity Trimming waste from power and cooling systems can be a safe and economical way to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. For example, many data centres rely on aging uninterruptible power systems. Replacing them with newer, more energy-efficient models is a low risk, relatively low-cost way to save money on power and shrink your carbon footprint. What’s more, many electrical utilities offer financial incentives that can accelerate your returns on a UPS investment. Returns on high-efficiency backup systems can be substantial. In the 1990s, a typical UPS was generally only about 80 to 82 per cent efficient under standard loading conditions. Today’s models, however, routinely achieve 92 to 95 per cent efficiency, and newer technology UPS systems with advanced energy savings capability like systems with ESS can save you even more. Similarly, equipping your air handling system with a variable frequency drive (VFD) is another affordable means of recapturing stranded power. Most organisations make less use of their servers at night and on weekends than they do during business hours. Yet their air handling system distributes cool air at the same rate all week long.
4. Leveraging Free Cooling Most data centres chill hot exhaust air from servers and then recirculate it. Facilities that utilise 'free cooling', by contrast, simply pump hot internal air out of the building and pipe cool external air in. The end result can be a dramatic drop in cooling costs. In fact, based on the results of a 10-month experiment involving nearly 900 heavilyutilised production servers in a high-density data centre, Intel Corp asserts that free cooling techniques can reduce the total amount
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41%
of power a typical data centre high as 80 degrees. Raising data uses for cooling by approximatecentre temperatures even a few ly 67 per cent. That could save degrees can save you thousands a 10 MW data centre roughly of dollars a year, depending on increase in $2.87 mn a year, Intel notes. the size of your facility. However, free cooling isn’t However, should coolworldwide an option for every data centre, ing systems in an 80-degree social media as external air temperatures Fahrenheit/26.67-degree Celrevenues in 2011 sius data centre fail, IT and are simply too high in some locales to cool servers properly. facilities managers will have Adequate filtering and cooling significantly less time to react of external air will be required to before their servers reach therensure a more reliable environment. mal shutdown. Additionally, operating your data centre at higher temperatures can shorten the lifespan of UPS batteries, 5. Using Enterprise Monitoring potentially resulting in higher mainteWhen it comes to data centre energy connance and replacement costs. Companies sumption, IT managers have long agreed must decide whether or not the savings with the old adage that 'you can’t manage associated with higher inlet temperatures what you can’t measure'. Yet, until recently, justify such risks and expenses. the only way to deliver energy usage data to network operations centres was to install interfaces between IT management systems 7. Outsourcing and building automation systems. Today, Cloud computing or collocation data centre that is no longer the case. providers offer a new way to help reduce Armed with such figures, organisations your carbon footprint. These types of facilican measure their power efficiency against ties are typically well underway to becoming comparable organisations and set realistic some of the most efficient spaces in the efficiency targets. The PUE metric can help industry, as they have stiff competition that with this task. Developed by The Green forces them to continually reduce operatGrid, a technology industry non-profit ing costs. If your current data centre was consortium dedicated to raising data centre designed more than 15 years ago, you could efficiency, PUE expresses the amount of see a twofold decrease in carbon emissions power used for power quality and cooling by by moving your compute requirements to dividing the total power entering an IT facilleading edge facility. However, with that ity by the total power used by IT equipment said, there are still many concerns with in that facility, as follows: security, data and program ownership PUE = (Total Facility Power) ÷ (IT and other operational anxieties that, if not Equipment Power) handled correctly, could be troublesome. Thus, for a data centre that consumes So, companies like Eaton looking to reduce 1,000 kW of power, of which 400 kW is used their carbon footprint while still maintainby IT equipment: ing full control of their own data processing PUE = 1000 ÷ 400 = 2.5 environment, have decided to build their Combined, newer energy metering techown leading edge efficiency data centres. nologies and metrics like PUE can help companies benchmark their power consumption. 8. Fostering Alignment between IT
and Facilities
6. Raising Server Inlet Temperatures For years, conventional wisdom has held that data centre thermostats should be set at roughly 72 degrees. According to recent studies by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), however, most data centres can safely operate at temperatures as
As noted earlier, friction between the IT department’s desire to minimise hardware procurement costs and the facilities department’s desire to reduce power spending can complicate green IT initiatives. Conversely, then, eliminating that friction can make adopting green IT easier. Changing your organisational structure such that both IT and facilities report to the same C-level The Chief Technology Officer Forum
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green it
executive is a relatively simple way to align like saving money and maintaining uptime. everyone in your data centre around comHowever, a variety of practical green solumon goals, metrics and objectives. That, in tions capable of delivering measurable turn, will help ensure that IT and facilities return on investment are available today. In managers are equally motivated to lower fact, Eaton is currently completing two statepower bills without reducing uptime. of-the-art data centres that are designed The merits of greening your data centre from the ground up to take maximum are beyond debate. In an era of advantage of such strategies. tight budgets, saving money by Many of these practices, such increasing the energy efficiency as deploying more energy-effiof your IT operations is selfcient UPSs and realigning IT evident. Furthermore, reducing and facilities department under spent on IT your carbon footprint has posicommon leadership, entail far tive implications not only for more reward than risk. Others, products and your company’s public image like leveraging free cooling and services in but for the long term health of raising server inlet tempera2012 by indian the planet as well. tures, offer a mix of advantages Unfortunately, though, there’s and disadvantages, and should insurers no such thing as a painless be approached cautiously. path to sustainable IT. Green The key point, however, is that technologies are often more expensive and IT and facilities managers should neither complex than older, less power-efficient dismiss green IT out of hand nor leap into it alternatives. In many cases, therefore, green without a solid plan. To ensure that they go initiatives conflict with critical IT priorities green without going into the red, business-
$1.8bn
es should investigate green technologies carefully, identify the most cost-effective ones and implement them in a focussed, disciplined manner. —William W Blausey Jr is SVP and CIO for Eaton Corporation, an $11.9 bn global technology leader in electrical components and systems for power quality, distribution and control. In this role, Blausey is responsible for the enterprise IT strategy and execution. Blausey assumed his current position in January 2006 after serving as VP, Information Technology, for Eaton’s Fluid Power Group since 2001. Blausey earned a bachelor’s degree in computer science from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and is located in Cleveland, Ohio. —This article has been reprinted with permission from CIO Update. To see more articles regarding IT management best practices, please visit www.cioupdate.com.
ERM Software Gaining Popularity
Risk management is now cutting across every silo in the enterprise By Pam Baker
G
iven the many shakeups (and downs) companies have experienced through the last few years of economic, security and technological turmoil, risk management has had to evolve and move to frontof-mind of most corporate executives. “With a recent jump in regulatory mandates, losses and increasingly active shareholders, many organisations have become increasingly sensitised to identifying areas of risk in their business, whether it is financial, operational, IT, brand, or reputation related risk, explained Vishwas Urs, manager of Marketing Programs at MetricStream, a provider of governance, risk, compliance and quality management solutions. “Companies are looking to systemically identify measure, prioritise and respond to all types of risk in the business, and then manage any expo-
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sure based on the organisation's strategy and priorities.” Enter the age of loaded dice; for the odds can no longer be left to a game of chance.
Not New, Evolved Risk management used to be the bean counters’ province and thus the focus was solely on financial risk. The primary focus of risk management software, until very recent times, has been to get a better view of credit and market risks. But that didn’t work so well as evidenced by the 2008 US financial sector meltdown. “It is now generally accepted and understood that the models used pre-2008 often incorporated oversimplified and/or inaccurate ways to represent risk and uncertainty,” said Randy Heffernan, VP of Palisade, a risk analysis and management company. “Ranges of
values may have been used to represent risk and return, but the models often ignored ‘the tails', or the more extreme possible outcomes. Historical market data existed which, if properly analysed, contradicted many of the assumptions that were being used during ‘the bubble'. It turns out the rare, extreme events weren't quite so rare after all.” Once everyone in the financial world figured all that out, they set about tweaking and growing the risk management model. “The evolving scenario on risk management in light of the sub-prime crisis and ensuing challenges faced by financial institutions has also brought focus onto the liquidity risk management, which is now getting to be an additional focus area from regulatory perspective,” explained LN Balaji, President of ITC Infotech (USA), and Head of the company's operations in North America. ITC Infotech is a global IT services company and a fully-owned subsidiary of ITC Limited, a $7 bn diversified conglomerate. “The ability to measure and insulate business from impact of such events, i.e., to ensure business continuity under impaired economic conditions, can also create the difference between organisations that can survive and grow in such times and those that fail,” he added. Established vendors in this space targeting Tier 1 and 2 institutions are Algorithmics, Moody's KMV, SAP, SAS, and SunGard, according to Balaji. Those targeting Tiers 3 and 4 in banks include Misys Almonde,Financial Architects and Reuters. Prominent vendors also include Palisade and Crystal Ball, which was acquired by Oracle in 2007.
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photo BY photos.com
r i s k m a n ag e m e n t
“The evolving scenario on risk management has also brought the focus onto the liquidity risk management ”
Evolutionary Mutants Risk management, however, is evolving beyond the lone boundaries of financial risk. This is because companies began to realise that bubbles tend to grow in siloed environments. “Risk cannot always be divided into separate categories,” explained Heffernan. “All risks are interrelated, and so too must an organisation's risk modelling. It's unrealistic to assume that what goes on in the credit risk department is not going to affect what happens in operations risk, for example. IT organisations are building new models to unify these different areas of risk.” In other words, there is now even more elements of risk converging for IT to handle. Risk management has evolved to include financial, insurance, hard assets, and technology portfolios plus operational, supply chain, distribution, warehouse and storage, and data risk factors, among others. Then, there is everything in the cloud to manage, as well — certainly there’s plenty of risk there. “Risk management has classically revolved around spreadsheet activity, but now it’s cutting across every silo in the enterprise and into every corner of its realm,” said Robert Cruickshank,
LN Balaji, President, ITC Infotech (USA)
CTO of Rev2, a risk management software maker. Risk management also considers external factors in order to account for economic or industry changes that can add or negate risks to the organisation. The evolved creation even has a name: enterprise risk management (ERM). Players in the space include many vendors who previously focussed solely on financial risk. SAS,Oracle, IBM and MetricStream tend to top the various ranking lists. Startups, such as Rev2, are increasingly entering the field, too. Given the uncertainties of the times, more players are expected to follow shortly. — A prolific and versatile writer, Pam Baker's published credits include numerous articles in leading publications including, but not limited to: Institutional Investor magazine, CIO.com, NetworkWorld, ComputerWorld, IT World, Linux World, Internet News, E-Commerce Times, LinuxInsider, CIO Today Magazine, NPTech News (nonprofits), MedTech Journal, I Six Sigma magazine, Computer Sweden, NY Times, and Knight-Ridder/McClatchy newspapers. She has also authored several analytical studies on technology and eight books. Baker also wrote and produced an award-winning documentary on paper-making. She is a member of the National Press Club (NPC), Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), and the Internet Press Guild (IPG) — This article has been reprinted with permission from CIO Update. To see more articles regarding IT management best practices, please visit www.cioupdate.com
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Time to Tackle Factors External to Networks Muralidharan Ramachandran, CIO, Syntel Inc, talks about how CIOs have no option but to take on external factors outside the networks. By Harichandan Arakali
T
he nature and definition of a network itself is changing. To elucidate this further, Muralidharan Ramachandran, CIO, Syntel, shared his thoughts on the same. With the way networks are changing and how people access them as well, what challenges do you see? From the customer’s perspective, one of the clear challenges is, how is it that as a services provider, one protects information. Network security is a small component of that, and the primary driver is always information security. Network security restricts itself data on the move on the wire, but information security is also about data at rest, in the data centres and so on. The internal LAN and WAN are areas that are fairly stabilised. That’s pretty mature, and what customers would look at would involve more of the processes that are in place for data and information security. Networks are expanding: A lot of customers today have moved to the Internet as an access media and that is pretty mature in terms of VPNs, tunnels and so on. What is really the challenge now is the growing landscape of the network. Traditionally, the network was restricted to what was within a corporation’s control, within its premises or what was on the LAN or WAN and so on. Today, with cloud computing and explo-
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“Increased access that is device agnostic is the order of the day and that’s what is going to happen” Muralidharan Ramachandran, CIO, Syntel Inc
n e t worki ng
sive mobility, there are new challenges. The CIO’s challenge is now not just about managing the network within the organization -- where one can have redundancies and so on -- but also about being accountable for delivering what is essentially not in the CIO’s control. The RIM example: The recent major outage that Blackberry maker Research In Motion had is an example: now, that is the stuff that does business and end of the day the CIO becomes responsible for it even though it is entirely outside his control. It had nothing to do with the corporate networks of companies, but for CIOs such are the big challenges of today. While direct security is one aspect, increasingly availability of various services on devices such as smartphones is another challenge, where people expect production support type of services: for example, alerts if something has gone wrong in a system so that the concerned person can immediately move on to a laptop and start fixing the problem. When something like RIM’s outage happens, the possibility of missing an SLA is very real for someone relying on that service. The challenge for the CIO then is more about dealing with such external factors, even when they are not really in their control. What do you make of consumerisation of technology? The idea of Bring-Your-Own hasn’t yet taken off in a big way in the IT services sector, and in the case of delivering services from an offshore location, it’s still not an idea that has been adopted much. It is however a indicator of how networks are changing and what CIOs will have to monitor in terms of encryption, device security and management and so on. Most management platforms that a CIO can harness for this have limitations when you really look at the entire life cycle of provisioning the devices. The customers always wants the flexibility of choice -- they would want services on any device. All of this eventually adds up to a cost. Getting the right balance of the increased productivity from expanding the network beyond the corporate premises versus the cost is the order of the day. Cloud Complexity: Next, if one is using
public clouds, people can access your data without even physically entering your network. How does a CIO look at those security parameters. The nature and the definition of the network itself is changing. Technologies will keep evolving and changing and CIOs will need to take a stand on how they approach new technologies rather than avoiding them. It eventually comes down to two fundamental things: Policies and Processes. Policies can be extended to larger frameworks including legal frameworks and so on. The biggest challenge is really about people getting used to the policies and processes that they need to adhere to. It is a continuous process.
“When something like RIM’s outage happens, the possibility of missing an SLA is very real for someone relying on that service. The challenge for the CIO then is more about dealing with such external factors, even when they are not really in their control.” When an IT services provider has customers especially in the areas of finance or healthcare, the customers will be very wary of bringing in non-corporate-provisioned devices. Even within the corporate itself, there can be strong restrictions even for traditional devices such as laptops. When a user is outside the network, then certainly the priveleges are restricted to specific applications and so on.
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What about not worrying about devices and instead focusing on securing the service? We have done this to a very restricted manner and we are obviously doing a lot of tests to determine how the concept can actually be applied over a wider area. We don’t worry about email for instance, irrespective of which device a corporate user chooses to access it on. Basic access to ERP is another area where we are quite robust, especially some of our web-based applications is something that we’ve opened up for long time. Anything that involves downloading information locally or uploading to the network is where there will be very stringent controls. That said, this increased access that is device agnostic is the order of the day and that’s what is going to happen. Some of the areas we are working on includes a massive adoption of the virtual desktop environment, for example. Securing information takes priority, but from a technology stand point, a VDI (virtual desktop interface) is good so long as one is connected to the network. There can however still be instances where offline work is necessitated, for instance when one is on a flight or an in area where there isn’t even a mobile phone network coverage. Next, there is the entire element of cost. VDI is probably very good when it comes to putting everything in a centralized location and protecting it, but from an RoI perspective, it’s more about security and agility. Therefore, to make VDI an a mainstream adoption, we need to make a convincing case that there will be a commercial benefit. How are you dealing with increasingly open devices, apps on those devices and open networks? Today, the open devices, networks and applications are a challenge even within the organisation. Today, young people don’t even use email. They use social networking sites and that too with apps on mobile devices. That again will pose a lot of challenges. To be honest, no CIO has said the final word on this yet, and as an outsourced services provider, we still have to adhere to the stringent policies and audits that our customers expect of us.
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PERSON' S NAME
Performance
Computing
Key to Enterprises In today's day and age, enterprise data sets are growing larger. Dealing with this data explosion is not easy without the right technology in place. Sheshadri Anegodi, VP, Technology, Oracle India, speaks to Ankush Sohoni about Exadata and the need for better performance 46
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The government is heavily utilising Oracle technology. Please comment on the rising use of technology in the public sector? Oracle's technology is all pervasive among multiple verticals. During the growth of India in the past two decades, Oracle has been there. Today, we can even say that the government is active in using our products. This is not only good for Oracle, but India in general. Given that government has adopted technology and will continue to use it in future, proves that this sector has matured a lot. The entire physical management of India runs in Oracle. If you look at income tax, including the recent central processing centre, they all run on our technology. Technology has really enabled the government to utilise the massive sets of information that it has and actually put it to use. Customs systems and excise management systems
S h es h a d r i A ne g o d i
also run on Oracle technology as do a majority of treasuries. This is a great time to be a technology vendor in India, since many of its industries and public service departments are reaching maturity levels. How far has the government come in terms of using technology? Different departments of the government are at different stages of evolution. Now if you talk about fiscal management bodies, they are at a high maturity level as far as consumption is concerned. These are the people looking at getting information out of the data that they have. Every treasury in India is automated. They are using this data to analyse spend trends, and so on. Another example is the public works department. A large amount of data goes into the public services department. These two places take up a large chunk of the pie. The government is clearly looking to spend on technology and will continue to do so for a while. This decision comes with the general consensus of providing better services to its people, definitely a theme that is central to the government. Given the inclusive nature of our government and economics, a bank is going to have a large number of accounts to manage and this is a huge market. As services get extended into rural India, there is going to be a huge surge in data — and managing it is where we come in. What are some of the main verticals that are driving Exadata usage in India and what are some of the challenges in its adoption? Financial services is clearly one of the biggest bets for us. Telecom is another place that is experiencing a lot of growth. Only thing is that in telecom there is a huge third party aspect where we have to work with many vendors. Telecom typically looks at hardware refresh at the
time of application migration. SAP installs are a huge challenge. SAP is one product which is bigger than us in India on the ERP front, but we are definitely catching up. Now the interesting thing is that the SAP install base is a big thing for hardware players, because SAP needs a lot of juice and that is where Exadata can make a difference. Today, SAP is certified on Exadata and that is a market we are looking at very seriously. This is also the manufacturing space to a very large extent. Then you want to look at warehousing. Warehousing in India has been split among multiple vendors. So, there are warehouses that are not built on standard hardware and so on. Then there are applicances like Teradata.
“Today, high performance customers have two options — either virtualise or go for Exadata, which is raw power” We are presently in discussions with people who have these appliances that work on Oracle databases. The challenge is how do we manage to give them something better. Exadata is a big enabler for the cloud. What kind of momentum are you seeing in the cloud space in India? The cloud momentum in India is huge. It is not only the private sector but also the public sector that is getting onto the cloud. For example, the Stock Holding Corporation of India has recently won a bid where they are going to offer services to consumers for e-stamping. So every single
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document has to be in one single repository and they have to offer this service on the cloud. They are building a public cloud for a public service on Exadata and Exalogic — two of our core and powerful products. The reason they went for it is because of the amount of requirement in terms of storage and compression. Another example is a bank which wants to make Exadata the standard for all their databases and be able to provision databases on demand, which is purely a private cloud scenario. Today, high performance customers have two options — either virtualise or go with Exadata. However, virtualisation has a set of overheads which are avoided with machines like Exadata which is raw power. There is definitely great momentum in the cloud space, and technology companies like ours, need to pave the way for these clouds to evolve. This is our ultimate goal. What are your plans for Exadata going forward. Could you please explain? Exadata is clearly a focus for us. We have realised that with data sizes getting so huge, the ability to compute and provide results faster or query data better or faster, is something customers need globally. If you look at the history of development of Exadata, it came out of a situation where there is a lot of data residing in storage across multiple servers. Getting the data to the compute server was taking a lot of time and effort, and getting the right data was even more difficult. This was the problem that existed for the last six-seven years. So this is when Oracle started working on a solution to this issue. So we decided to do two things, debottleneck the entire thing and provide the data that is necessary. This is why Exadata was born and this is what it does. Anyone who has large databases is a potential customer. In India, sales have been somewhat slow, but it's growing steadily.
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DOSSIER Company: Oracle Corporation Established: 1977 founders: Larry Ellison, Bob Miner, Ed Oates revenues: $35.6 billion (2011) employees: 108, 429 (2011)
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T E C H FOR G O V E R N A N C E
Securit y
5
POINTS
et backups of G everything first, then test. This is rule No. 1 Always prefer to test in a non-production environment, mandating when possible. I f you don't have a well-grounded understanding of what an application does, don't point n' shoot any DASTbased application security scanning technology at it. Limit testing parameters so that the tool can't go off and test database, applications, functionality and domains you don't intend to test photo BY photos.com
ever blindly n test administration interfaces for systems, especially in a production environment.
Let’s Not be dart about dast Some tips for conducting safe DAST testing 48
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By Rafal Los
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bug to wipe out all the virtual machines in the cloud environment, causing a catastrophic outage. In the second example, a database administrator wanted to see if his DB admin front-end was secure before putting it out on the intranet site for other administrators to access. Using a black-box testing method he successfully performed a drop-table on every database in the management console, needless to say that cause some outages. Critical Systems (anything that's connected to a critical system): Because critical mated testing, or scripted/configured that systems — whether we're talking power workflow so that the tool doesn't exercise grid, or heart monitor at a hospital — can the registration process, and cost you tens cause death, you should never blindly 'black or thousands of dollars. An example of this box test' applications that are connected to is when a user set up a 'black box audit' of a them. In a best-case scenario the testing credit system front-end. The tool performed technology can overwhelm the application the registration step several thousand times and cause it to fail temporarily, causing a based on the standard configuration testing minor glitch if it's not a production system. the various parameters and page options. But in a worst-case scenario you're potenUltimately, the tester found out that each tially killing someone when you drop the registration — because it was doing a main table on an application that hospice look-up through a credit agency — cost the nurses use to track medication dispensacompany $1.00 USD. Not only did they then tion. In the latter case, even if you can have to go and clean out the production recover the database from backup in less database, but now there was an extremely than eight hours, how many patients does large fee to pay the credit agency for the test. that severely impact? Administration Interfaces (production): Cloud Applications (or SaaS): If you As a general rule, one should never blindly are renting or subscribing to a cloud softtest administration interfaces ware-based service you absofor systems, especially in a lutely need to make triple-sure production environment. Such that you have (a) the vendor's a test could cause serious data consent, and (b) a good underloss, service disruption, or standing of the total impact of of top 100 worse. Two terrible examples the tests you're trying to perare a cloud management frontform. Remember that in multisearch terms end, and a database (think tenant (customer) environresults lead to MySQLAdmin) web-based manments, the defects you uncover malicious sites agement interface. In the first probably don't just affect your instance, an IT organisation was application or data. This is, of implementing a well-known course, all the more reason to cloud management framework test, but you have to do it in a adding in their own custom code to extend sane environment. An unfortunate example available functionality and the security team of this is a security tester who contacted decided to enforce DAST 'black box testing' me to complain that the technology they on the project since no code was reviewed were evaluating (vendor shall go unnamed) during development. caused damage to their cloud environment, Given that the application was about to go and that they were in the process of a legal live, after some arguing the security team battle over liability from the impact of rungot their wish and pointed a DAST tool ning a black-box DAST tool on their SaaS at the customer BETA environment. The application. While they did first get permisresult was that the tool found an interestsion to scan their own application instance, ing bug, then accidentally exploited that what he did not realise is that on this same
Dynamic Application Security
Testing (DAST) is one of the long-standing staples of Software Security Assurance programs, and has been the anchor by which many organisations have boot-strapped their efforts to write better codes Whether this is the correct approach or not is not appropriate at this juncture, suffice it to say that in the real world this is how things go. As the technology has evolved over the past decade it's been interesting to watch organisations use, or attempt to use DAST technology to supplement or entirely replace their own internal staff of testers, hoping that technology can completely do the job of a human being. They've almost all failed, and while the reasons may be obvious to security professionals, it's important to make sure everyone is on the same page. Let me start off by saying that technology should never replace a human being — if that's what you're trying to accomplish. Assume technology is a supplement to the human tester, and automation and software better enable people and processes. If either the people, or process component of this equation fail, automation (technology) can not be counted on to be successful, or take up the slack. Technology, no matter who makes it or markets/sells it, is not intelligent, and by that I mean having the ability to think and reason. This fact alone should clue you into why automation alone can train-wreck in a big way. Here are a few reasons, and places, never to let automation loose without first knowing what you're doing: Unknown Application Function: If you've never fully investigated the application; front-end, back-end, and gotten a wellgrounded understanding of what it does, please do not point n' shoot any DASTbased application security scanning technology at it. The results could be catastrophic. Registration Applications/Sites/Pages: If the site or application has a registration component to it, make sure you've appropriately either excluded that piece from auto-
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host and base URL were other environment, mandating when possible. When this applications which connected is not possible, make sure to other services which, when you understand, convey broken, caused serious outages adequately, and get agreement and confusion. An incident of all spam response plan was put in effect registered today on the potential impact. Overcommunicate as a rule. by the vendor, the environment is generated out Get backups of everything first, went into lockdown, and data then test. This is rule No. 1. was lost and downtime was of India Understand the application incurred — all because someprofile — know what the applione ran a testing technology cation does, how it functions, without first understanding the and if there are costs associated with transconsequences adequately. actions you will probably trigger — stub That being said, here are some tips for those out if possible. (let me know if you conducting safe DAST testing, whether want more on this) you're using our award-winning WebinLearn the tool you're using so that you spect engine or someone else's tech.
Always prefer to test in a non-production
can adequately configure it to be intelligent,
purposefully omissive, and targeted Limit testing parameters so that the tool can't go off and test database, applications, functionality and domains you don't intend to test — this is particularly important if you're stuck testing a production, or production-ready environment Of course, if you simply don't have the time to do a thorough job with the background work needed to perform a thorough, sane dynamic application security test — you can always outsource it to us.
—This article is printed with prior permission from www.infosecisland.com. For more features and opinions on information security and risk management, please refer to Infosec Island
Keys to Cloud App Deployment Proper cloud infrastructure assembly enables smooth deployment of core business applications By Bill Gerneglia
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photo BY photos.com
W
hen building out the cloud computing infrastructure it is imperative to select and deploy a proven set of cloud core services. These include storage management controls, hypervisors, security policies and security software including firewalls, disaster recovery and governance, and database administration and replication services to enable application redundancy. How can private cloud providers ensure optimal delivery of services in an application cloud? The short answer is when the cloud vendor strives for automated application delivery. Automated application delivery can offer complete visibility into the infrastructure and equipment the primary cloud providers have deployed. This provides a way to learn from the past and be strategic about the future. Application delivery should be consistent, reliable and most importantly fast in delivering those on-demand services that their customers desperately need. The following are important cloud infrastructure and
CLOUD
application deployment characteristics necessary for a successful cloud vendor partnership:
1 Primary cloud vendor focus on applications Smooth running applications are the driving force behind cloud systems as good business outcomes are built on these core applications. Application delivery, not infrastructure should be the focus of all communications between all cloud vendors and their customers. To ensure this occurs make sure systems resources such as computing, storage, network and application resources all get the same considerations.
2 Customer focus & communications should be on applications not server performance Some preconfigured cloud stack assembly work well for deployment — the Fedora Core series of LAMP stack distributions is one good example. It has passed a certification process by a larger open source community. The deployment can be made both rapidly and reliably. In most cloud computing environments, there is a trade-off between reliability and the speed of deployment. Without true automation, there is no chance at efficiency in your cloud environment. Be direct and speak about application performance, app availability, and app scalability within a defined capacity plan. Avoid the 'latent demand' scenario where your end users will use applications more only if the appropriate computing resources are available. Give end users what they need up front and plan for exponential growth.
T E C H FOR G O V E R N A N C E
3 Avoid vendor lock-in Homogeneous vendor solutions often work well but come at a steeper price. Heterogeneous solutions do not always play well together in the computing sandbox. So how do you avoid vendor lock-in? The answer comes from reliance on the open source community and consortia when possible. Agility via an open cloud architecture is the key to private cloud success. Embrace and learn from other deployments. In addition, beware of platform as a service (PaaS). This can often result in architecture lock-in.
4 Deploy reliable version control software You need complete visibility into the configuration of your infrastructure. Without it there is the possibility that you will repeat deployment and version mistakes. Ensuring compliance when you don't know which version of which application was installed is difficult at best. What’s the solution? You should maintain a complete history of all of your systems and applications. Centralised version control and configuration management enables you to learn from the past, manage today and plan for the future with much less stress.
—This article is printed with prior permission from www.infosecisland.com. For more features and opinions on information security and risk management, please refer to Infosec Island
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Dr. Armin Bruck Managing Director Siemens Ltd, India
Mr. Anirban Ghosh VP – Strategic Planning & Business Development Mahindra and Mahindra
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Mr. Rakesh Makhija President, Asia SKF Group
Mr. P J Swamy Managing Director Varroc Elastomers Pvt Ltd
Mr. Kumar Kandaswami Senior Director Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt Ltd
Mr. Arnab Banerjee Executive Director Operations CEAT Ltd
Mr. Jayaram Sridharan President, World Class Manufacturing Aditya Birla Management Corporation
NOMINATIONS OPEN TILL OCTOBER 31ST. APPLY/ NOMINATE NOW!!! For further information please email at maulshree.tewari@9dot9.in or call +91 9717597903 For partnership opportunities please email at nabjeet.ganguli@9dot9.in or call +91 9820060094
MANUFACTURING LEADERSHIP
AWARDS & CONCLAVE 2011 Honouring the Top 100 Manufacturing Professionals in India Manufacturing Leaders are truly the master of all trades, dealing with multiple, complex, interlinked issues through the daily course of their jobs. However, there are hardly any platforms that publically recognize and honour these inspiring individuals. Manufacturing Leadership Awards 2011 is a cross-sector platform to recognize these Leaders of today and tomorrow, and to share their stories with the broader manufacturing community
HIGHLIGHTS 100 awardees 10 award categories Eminent jury panel Open nomination process (including self nomination) Day-long, exclusive conference for winners to enable knowledge sharing Sharing of awardee stories via a special publication, distributed to top 1,000 manufacturing companies
WHY PARTICIPATE Get recognized as a star, by Leaders of the industry Join an exclusive club of achievers Learn from successful peers in an exclusive knowledge forum Share your company's success story
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WHO CAN APPLY Senior-level manufacturing executives (with 10+ years of experience in leading teams) Leaders of projects implemented at a manufacturing facility in India Leaders of achievements accomplished on or after April 1, 2010; and currently operational
AWARD CATEGORIES Manufacturing Strategy and Management Manufacturing Innovation and Design World-Class Manufacturing and Operational Excellence Manufacturing Collaboration and Partnership Manufacturing IT and Automation
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visit http://www.industry20.com/MLA100-2011
ThoughtLeaders Shajan George
Shajan George is Technical Director, R&M India
Back to the Basics How structured
cabling can help meet the big challenges in ICT
The era we live in is defined by our need to get more things done, faster than ever before, and round-theclock. To do this, we need robust IT infrastructure that is reliable, costeffective and delivers high performance, all the time. This is a picture perfect vision of the evolved enterprise. The on-ground reality, however, might be different. IT infrastructure is built upon a basic foundation: the physical layer. This layer comprises, among other things, the network cables and components running throughout the backbone and floors of offices as well as data centres. It is this foundation that plays a vital role in meeting challenges on the road to reliable, high-performance and costeffective IT infrastructure.
only serve today’s requirements but also meet bandwidth needs that are on the horizon.
build a flexible, scalable network will have long-term benefits.
Challenge 2: Constant Availability
Anyone demanding 'faster, better, and more flexible' is likely to add 'cheaper' to the list. However, nothing is more expensive than a short-term view of the Layer 1 cabling infrastructure. Network cabling makes up only five to seven per cent of the total IT investment. (See Figure 1). You might need two to three generations of active devices such as switches and routers in the same period in which you need only one generation of network cabling.
Challenge 1: Maximum Speed
Change is imperative in a business environment. The quick implementation of new technologies and applications is vital to remain competitive. This flexibility can be achieved more seamlessly if the network cabling is geared to accommodate greater demands in bandwidth and expansion. The lifecycle of cabling infrastructure ranges between 10 to 15 years. Therefore, the foresight to
There is probably no other industry that changes as rapidly as the IT sector. The data volumes transmitted are seeing explosive growth. With high bandwidth applications such as video conferencing, exchange of multimedia content, and VoIP pushing the envelope of network infrastructure forward, companies need the best Layer 1 infrastructure that should not
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Expectations of always-on networks are higher than ever before. In many sectors, network failures can cause the entire system to come to a forced halt. Downtime is a spectre to be avoided at all costs, since maximum system availability is crucial for survival. Top transmission capabilities and maximum product quality are two traits that always pay-off when you ensure that your cabling infrastructure is top-notch.
Challenge 3: Maximum Flexibility
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Challenge 4: Cutting Costs
“With the rapid evolution in technology, it makes sense to invest in cabling that can support applications that are next in line”
Challenge 5: Anticipating Demands With the rapid evolution of technology, it makes sense to invest in cabling infrastructure that can support and sustain applications that are next in line, in the medium term. This is because cabling is built into the physical facility at an office or data centre. Having to replace the cabling, therefore, can be a nightmare. Not only does it involve significant costs, it also requires that the current network be physically dismantled leading to downtime, and by implication, loss of revenue.
VIEWPOINT steve Duplessie | Steve.duplessie@esg-global.com
Illustration by Joffy Jose
IBM OEMs Nirvanix Cloud Storage And Why Everyone Should Care
Clients continue to face significant challenges in how to manage, maintain and analyse the growing volumes of data within their organisations. In fact, IDC predicts digital data volumes will grow 44 times between 2009 and 2020 worldwide. The result is an overwhelming demand for cost-effective computing solutions that uncover insights among the data so they can take actions that optimise business results, product development, and scientific discoveries, says a release on IBM’s website. IBM has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Platform Computing, a privately held company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Platform Computing is a global leader in cluster and grid management software and is widely viewed as the systems software platform of choice for deploying and managing computationally and data intensive environments and helping clients gain insights from this data to solve challenging technical and business problems, the release says. The combination of IBM’s high
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performance technical computing solutions with Platform Computing systems software delivers significant value to technical computing and HPC clients in need of cost-effective, highly scalable, robust solutions, the release adds. In short, IBM went out and acquired Platform Computing and then boom, two days later they announce they are getting into bed with Nirvanix to provide IGS with storage services. Why should anyone care? Because no matter what you hear, this ‘cloud’ thing is absolutely NOT taking off — yet. It’s a lot of bluster and pomp, but not a ton of real world use. It will, in my opinion, but it has a long way to go to catch the hype cycle. Where cloud kicks butt is SaaS. We all use Salesforce, etc. Where it has lacked is in large scale deployments of private/hybrid clouds for real businesses. I’m seeing dribs and drabs, but no gushers yet. A LOT of testing going on in labs. If you listened to the industry you’d think only an idiot would NOT have everything they consider IT value already in the cloud. That’s simply not true. The
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About the author: Steve Duplessie is the Founder of and Senior Analyst at the Enterprise Strategy Group. Recognised worldwide as the leading independent authority on enterprise storage, Steve has also consistently been ranked as one of the most influential IT analysts. You can track Steve’s blog at http://www. thebiggertruth.com
world needs a behemoth, such as IBM, to show everyone that it’s all going to be ok. That’s why this little deal matters. If IBM decides to take the lead on pushing this agenda to the mainstream IT world, things will start to move. The fact that they picked the one guy who seems to be doing a lot of legit business (Nirvanix provides long term/archival type storage in the cloud and seems to do it well judging by its numbers and quality of customers) is an acknowledgement that A: not everyone can do this no matter what they say; and B: IBM thinks that NOT offering this type of service puts them at a disadvantage. IBM may be slow to the race a lot of the time, but when they enter, they can move mountains. They see the market, albeit nascent, and feel they need to be there as a leader versus a follower. Nirvanix gets them in the game fast. The fact that IBM partnered instead of doing it themselves tells you it requires more than brand marketing to make this stuff work. It will be very interesting to watch this deal unfold.
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