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TURNING CHALLENGES TO OPPORTUNITIES Cloud computing is changing rules of the market. It is presenting massive market and great opportunities for the partners and cloud infrastructure providers. But it is also an area filled with challenges that can be overcome with careful considerations. /20

ecMAR2013rs20 STANDARDS TO PROVIDE THE POWER OF CHOICE TO THE CUSTOMER

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EDITORIAL

Mixed Reaction for the Partners

S A N J AY M A H A PAT R A EDITOR@ENTERPRISECHANNELS.COM

Cloud computing is changing the business dynamics across the world and India is not immune from the impact. However, the Indian customers along with the partners are expressing mixed reaction about the opportunities. Close interaction with many of the channel partners reveal that they look at Cloud as threat. At the same time some set of partners, who have clear understanding of services and IT opportunity, are finding it to be an opportunity. But their number is very small. Keeping the entire enterprise market on perspective, which is moving towards services space, the confidence of channel partners is not so strongly. They are finding Cloud to be over hyped for them and largelly beneficial for the service providers.

The average partners are finding skill-sets as the biggest limitation. They are also finding issues like regulations, interoperability and reliable connectivity also dampen their spirit.

Everything apart, the customers’ acceptability is the biggest factor in Cloud growth.

Today, there are umpteen numbers of discussions happening around Cloud computing in order to clear the air around Cloud disadvantages. But it does not end the confusion among the partners and the customers completely. Customers expect industry standard security practices, financial advantages (including immediate costs savings, but also lower TCO), consulting on the best practices to adopt, and flexibility to migrate in and out of cloud computing as business needs change. So, the industry needs a good number of POCs and customer experience centre.

Globally and in India also, applications like CRM, email and collaboration, HRMS, Payroll, etc. are being used over Cloud and public IaaS is being used as well for various applications. Apart from that Backup as a Service (BaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) are being used extensively. But mission critical applications like ERP, financial accounting (at large enterprises), contract management, core banking solutions, which were moving to the private cloud are slowly making a move towards the public cloud.

In this situation, partners must need to understand the reality and be well-acquainted with these issues and customers’ expectations then only Cloud computing will be a reality.

But it is for sure that the enterprises cannot afford to have technology within their premises, they will have to trust and outsource their applications or open their premises to third party observation for reducing expenses. ë

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CONTENTS VOLUME 01 ISSUE 02 MARCH 2013 W W W. E N T E R P R I S E C H A N N E L S . C O M

2013

COVER STORY

TURNING CHALLENGES TO OPPORTUNITIES Cloud computing is changing rules of the market. It is presenting massive market and great opportunities for the partners and cloud infrastructure providers. But it is also an area filled with challenges that can be overcome with careful considerations. /20

INTERVIEW /12

“Standards to provide the power of choice to the customer” LAKSHMI NARAYAN RAO OF HP INDIA SALES

INTERVIEW /16

“Offers Best Possible ROI in the Industry” HARIHARAN IYER, OF DONJIN COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

INTERVIEW /30

“Enterprise Customers Value Product Quality and Reliability above Everything Else” RAHUL AGARWAL, OF LENOVO INDIA

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INNOVATION /34

LIFESIZE SMART VIDEO

LifeSize Icon Series is a newly designed, highest quality video system that can allow the enterprises to talk to the customers, partners or even the employees face to face.

IMPORTANT UPDATES Services /14 Rogue Clouds Prevalent in 90% of Indian Businesses

Networking /17 Enterprise Market Holds Good Opportunity

Managed Connectivity /17 Physical Layer a Strategic Asset

EDITORIAL:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 03 CHANNELSTREET:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 06 GUEST TALK::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 28 CASE STUDY:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 32 INNOVATION::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 34

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CHANNEL

STREET VMWARE VCLOUD NETWORKING AND SECURITY PRODUCT TO MERGE

VMWare has revealed its intentions to merge the VMware vCloud Networking and Security product line with the Nicira Network Virtualization Platform (NVP) into a single product family based on a common technology foundation, to be named VMware NSX. Expected to launch in the second half of 2013, VMware NSX will represent the full potential of network virtualization by working across VMware and non-VMware hypervisors and cloud management systems, as well as any underlying networking hardware. Additionally, VMware NSX will provide an open framework for the integration of ecosystem services for networking and security.

IBM OPENS CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE LAB IBM has created the IBM Customer Experience Lab. IBM scientists and business consultants will co-create with clients to deliver systems that learn and personalize the experiences of each individual customer, identify patterns, preferences and create context from Big Data, and drive scale economics.

The Customer Experience Lab will provide CEOs, CMOs, CFOs, heads of sales and other C-suite executives’ direct access to a virtual team of 100 researchers, supported by the deep industry and domain expertise of thousands of IBM business consultants addressing the opportunities of the digital front office.

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HP to invest US$1.5 billion in Channel Programs At its Global Partner conference, HP has announced to invest approximately $1.5 billion worldwide in channel programs and IT initiatives designed to reward performance, drive demand and simplify partner engagement this year. HP will continue to improve the HP PartnerOne program and deliver innovations in enterprise technology to partners, including a new cloud test environment.

“Our goal is to deliver a consistent experience that will make it easier for partners to buy, sell and grow profitably with HP,” said Neelam Dhawan, Vice President and General Manager, Enterprise Group and Country Managing Director, HP India.

“HP has built one of the industry’s broadest partner ecosystems and we will continue to make significant investments to deliver the greatest business value for HP and our partners.”

In addition, HP is making a significant IT investment to roll out its new Unison platform, a globally consistent IT platform that will enhance the speed,

security, targeting and breadth of communications and joint business planning with channel partners.

The HP PartnerOne program offers proven sales and marketing tools to help partners generate new leads, increase demand for products and services, HP is delivering simplicity, profitability and consistency by: • Implementing a simplified, consistent compensation model that removes rebate revenue gates and caps to improve partner revenue predictability.

• Increasing rebates for higher specialist designations, delivering more opportunities to increase profitability.

• Extending the amount of time partners have to use their (MDF) from three months to six months.

• Rationalizing and simplifying sales and technical certifications in the HP ExpertOne training platform, while maintaining the integrity of individual certifications and making it easier for partners to gain the sales and technical skills.

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CHANNEL STREET

Bombay Dyeing Deploys Microsoft Dynamics AX Bombay Dyeing has deployed Microsoft Dynamics AX 2012 to gain business insights, ensure better inventory and stocks management, trend analysis and share unifiedexperience to customers across its stores.

Phase I of the project has been rolled out in 9 company outlets with POS solutions providing walk-in customers a “complete shopping experience.” Phase II of the project will be rolled out in Mar-May 2013 that will connect 332 franchise outlets nationwide.

Kirill Tatarinov, President, Microsoft Business Solutions Division, said, “Working with our retail customers, we provide a seamless and differenti-

CHECK POINT NGFW ACHIEVES TOP SCORE Check Point Software achieved top score in security effectiveness and management in the latest NSS Labs’ Next Generation Firewall (NGFW) group test.

Check Point also excelled in NSS Labs’ latest round of Network Firewall and Intrusion Prevention System (IPS) tests–earning a total of three “Recommend” ratings.

NSS Labs, a leader in independent security product testing and research, is known to conduct the most comprehensive third-party testing in the industry, providing real-world research and analysis to enterprises, government agencies and organizations of all sizes. NSS Labs’ security effectiveness testing leverages the deep expertise of engineers utilizing multiple commercial, open source, and proprietary tools.

“Since our inception, Check Point has been committed to delivering innovative, industry leading security solutions,” said Gabi Reish, Head of Product Management at Check Point Software Technologies.

“Our triple ‘recommend’ ratings from the latest round of NSS Labs security product tests is a testament to the strength of our technology and leadership in the industry.”

ating end-to-end solution for point of sale (pos) multichannel management, store operations, e-commerce, merchandising, financials, supplychain and more. This enables retailers to gain insight, operate with agility, exceed consumer expectations, and build enduring loyalty with superior time to value. In other words helping them become a ‘Dynamic Retailer.”

“Microsoft Dynamics AX has helped us improve key business processes significantly. It enhances speed and accuracy of accounts, invoicing, stocking and other areas, ” said Durgesh Mehta, Joint MD, Bombay Dyeing.

SAFENET NAMED A LEADER IN MAGIC QUADRANT SafeNet has been evaluated and positioned by Gartner, Inc. in the Leaders Quadrant in the 2013 “Magic Quadrant for User Authentication report,” The report evaluates SafeNet’s Fully Trusted Authentication Solutions, which allow organizations to protect identities and transactions across an evolving landscape, including cloud, virtual and mobile environments. SafeNet was designated as ‘a Leader’ by Gartner for the second consecutive year.

Stated Andrew Young, Vice President of Product Management and Authentication, SafeNet. “During the past year, we advanced our leadership position through our increased investments in next generation solutions for cloud and contextual risk based authentication. As a result, SafeNet is the only companies that can provide customers with a cloud based platform that can scale with their business”

SAP Mobility Design Center to Be Leveraged SAP Mobility Design Center in Palo Alto, Calif., can now be operated at its corporate headquarters in Walldorf, Germany, as well as other offices in St. Ingbert, Germany; Montreal, Canada; and Bangalore, India, in order to effectively leverage SAP talent worldwide.

Since opening in September 2012, the SAP Mobility Design Center has helped customers, including ExxonMobil, to keep up with the consumerization of IT trends. By conceptualizing, designing and building mobile solutions, SAP enables customers to better connect with their employees

and engage with consumers. Mobile solutions are built using design thinking principles and are based on the end user’s perspective from

the beginning of the process, not only at the end for testing.

By expanding the SAP Mobility Design Center, customers around

the world can now engage with SAP to address those challenges.

Using a proven, highly iterative and collaborative design and development process, companies can get to market quickly with competitively differentiating solutions that engage and bring value to their end users and consumers.

“Companies want to increase workforce productivity by enabling them to make fast decisions at the point of action and bring value to their consumers by offering a delightful and engaging user experience,” said Sanjay Poonen, President, Mobile Division, SAP.

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CHANNEL STREET

FINANCIALS I AM PARTICULARLY PLEASED WITH THE EMPHASIS ON NATIONAL SKILL

Trend Micro launches WorryFree Business Security

DEVELOPMENT “The budget was austere in character and as expected stressed on fiscal prudence.

What should please us in corporate India is the fact that the FM has laid a lot of importance on two specific areas which are imperative to boost growthnamely infrastructure development and Medium and Small enterprises. In particular, the move to extend MSME benefits for a period of three years post moving to a higher category is welcome.

The exemption of 15% in investments of more

Trend Micro has launched the latest edition of Worry-Free Business Security Solution that continues the security promise and incorporates new features which protects from web viruses, hackers, and cyber attacks.

Trend Micro Worry-Free Business Security Advanced provides fast, effective, and simple-tomanage protection, allowing users to use PCs and Macs without fear of interruption or data loss.

Trend Micro handles the online protection so users and their employees can focus on what they do best, running their business.

Worry-Free means it runs quietly in the background so users can focus on their business.

It does this using global threat intelligence from Trend Micro Smart Protection Network to stop threats before they reach users’ computers. With Worry-Free Business security, users get high-end, enterprise protection without the management hassles or costs.

All trend Micro threat-based security solutions rely on Trend Micro Smart Protection Network™.

This cloud-based security infrastructure delivers global threat intelligence for proactive protection.

than 100cr to setup plant and machinery should also provide a huge leg up to the manufacturing sector. The commitment to increase the availability of low cost funds to infrastructure sector is noteworthy. I am also particularly pleased with the emphasis on national skill development as well as the separate amount of rupees 200cr to fund ‘technology for common man’, which is perfectly aligned to our corporate vision.” Pradeep Nair, MD, India and SAARC, Autodesk WITH THIS BUDGET WE HAVE STARTED OUR CLIMB BACK TO HIGHER GDP

ALLIED TELESIS’ TO INVEST IN INDIA R&D OPERATIONS From this year onwards Allied Telesis plans to invest into R&D operations in India which will take care mostly of software development. This was announced by Allied Telesis’ director sales for APAC Jakub Duch at the its two-day third annual partner meet at Chokhi Dhani, Jaipur.

The event, which witnessed the participation of 55+ partners from across the country, focused on Allied Telesis’ strategic initiatives towards the certified training program that Allied Telesis are coming up for their partners. The event showcased the upcoming new products of Allied Telesis.

The event had many sessions like ‘Stairway to the Cloud’ which gave the partners on Allied Telesis’ deployment of their solutions through cloud.

GROWTH “The FM’s intentions are very clear: to move India back to a higher growth plane. And given his lack of runway, he has taken lots of small measures which together could boost growth. From a technology perspective, allowing funding for technology incubators located within academic institutions to qualify as CSR expenditure as per new Companies Act will give a huge boost to entrepreneurs and start-ups and increase the engagement of the corporate sector and start-ups.

On the taxation front, removing double taxation on dividends received from overseas arms will reduce the burden on shareholders. From the perspective of the IT industry, the clarifications on taxation rules regarding development centers and safe harbor rules are very welcome as are measures to drive skill development, with a special focus on Tier II and Tier III towns.

Overall it would be safe to say that with this budget we have started our climb back to higher GDP growth levels,” N. Chandrasekaran, CEO & MD, Tata Consultancy Services.

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ORGANIZATIONS UNPREPARED FOR CHANGING SECURITY DEMANDS

EMERSON NETWORK MEASURES THE SPEED OF MOBILE REVOLUTION

F5 Networks has announced the findings of its 2013 RSA Security Trends Survey, which revealed that organizations are struggling to keep pace with the changing face of security.

Respondents were RSA attendees with IT responsibilities over planning, management, oversight, or implementation of security.

The results show that security trends such as virtualization (73%), BYOD (66%), and the complexity of attack types (72%) have the greatest impact on securing today’s organizations. Nearly half of respondents admit that traditional safeguards are less than adequate in protecting against threats related to these trends, with roughly one-third of respondents reporting that their security readiness is inadequate.

Emerson Network has been uniquely positioned to understand the increasing convergence of voice and data. Leveraging that unique breadth of capabilities and expertise, the company has released an infographic that illustrates what it means for consumers and providers. Scott Barbour, EVP, Emerson and business leader of Emerson Network Power, said, “The speed of the mobile revolution has been relatively well documented, but it isn’t until you stop and look at the data that you really understand what has happened over the last decade. The distinction between voice and data is evaporating, and this infographic illustrates not only how quickly it has happened, but what it means for providers and their customers.”

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CHANNEL STREET

IN PUBLIC

“This Year’s Budget is realistic and growthoriented, but has failed to create any strong levers for the IT and Electronics segment.”

AMAR BABU, MANAGING DIRECTOR, LENOVO INDIA

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SECONDS

CA TECHNOLOGIES LAUNCHES ARCSERVE MSP PROGRAM CA Technologies has announced the third

Dell Mobility Services Workshop helps Customers Dell is offering a new Mobility Services Workshop to help customers assess their environment and design plans to meet the business’s mobility needs, based on Dell’s work with customers globally and across various industries.

The Dell Enterprise Mobility Application portfolio includes Mobility Strategy Consulting, Multi-Platform Application development (iOS, Android, BlackBerry and Windows 8; both native and cross platform), User Experience, Mobile Business Intelligence and Mobile Testing.

Dell has helped several companies develop custom applications, including shipment track-

ing and proof of delivery for a leading defense and security company, mobile point-of-sale solution for a retail store, sales data collection application for mobile field sales, supply chain management mobile solution for a major logistics company, secure insurance applications, and a business intelligence app for secure access to back-end operations data for more effective reporting.

Enterprises in all industries need an IT strategy that incorporates mobility management across multiple devices, frequently changing platforms and strict security needs.

major release of its industry-leading Managed Service Provider (MSP) licensing program for CA ARCserve. With a further simplified licensing structure, new partner enablement resources and an expanded technology portfolio, the CA ARCserve MSP program empowers partners to quickly and cost-efficiently deliver effective, profitable data protection services announced the company’s press release.

The enhanced program includes options for MSPs to license CA Technologies industry-leading data protection technology on their choice of per-server, per-workstation, per-socket, per-virtual machine or per-terabyte models—allowing them to structure their software costs to best align with their individual go-to-market strategies.

INFORMATICA UNVEILS HEALTHCARE DATA MANAGEMENT SOLUTION Informatica introduced Informatica Healthcare Data Management. The new offering is said to be the most comprehensive solution available for

HP FORMS HP SECURITY RESEARCH ORGANIZATION HP has formed the HP Security Research (HPSR) organization, a new group that will provide actionable security intelligence through published reports, threat briefings and enhancements to the HP security product portfolio.

As part of the HP Enterprise Security Products (ESP) business unit, HPSR will lead HP’s security research agenda, leveraging existing HP research groups, including HP DV Labs, a research organization focused onvulnerability discovery and analysis, and HP Fortify Software Security Research, which is focused on developing software security practices. HPSR also will manage the Zero Day Initiative (ZDI), which focuses on identifying software flaws that have led to cyberattacks and security breaches.

“Organizations need the latest in security research to effectively prevent, detect and combat the growing number of sophisticated threats,” said Damanjit Singh Uberoi, chief solutions architect & evangelist, South Asia HP Enterprise Security Products. “HP empowers clients to address the most advanced threats by combining access to a global network of security experts and published research with the power of that expertise built directly into our products and services.”

empowering healthcare organizations to manage the full spectrum of healthcare master data domains -- and the relationships between them -- for improved analytics and operational decision making. The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act drives the capture of unprecedented amounts of healthcare data by incenting providers to adopt Electronic Health Records (EHRs), while the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) imposes payment reforms that reward quality and value while penalizing inefficiency.

ARRAYSHIELD EASES DEPLOYMENT OF 2FA SOLUTIONS Array Shield has released IDAS 2FA Virtual Appliance which strengthens ArrayShield’s IDAS 2FA product suite offering remote access and cloud security.

The company has informed that ArrayShield

MCAFEE RECEIVED TOP MARKS FROM NSS LABS McAfee has received high marks from NSS Labs in two published corporate endpoint protection reports. McAfee’s core endpoint anti-malware products achieved the highest block rate and an overall score of 97 percent of all threats being blocked in the exploit protection test of the NSS Labs Corporate End Point Security Detection report. McAfee Endpoint Protection provides continuous, updated, and powerful security against the entire spectrum of threats, from zero-day exploits to hacker attacks.

Candace Worley, SVP and GM (Endpoint Security), McAfee, said, “The NSS Labs test results demonstrate the need for multiple levels of protection on the endpoint and validate McAfee’s Security Connected approach. McAfee is uniquely positioned to deliver comprehensive protection across the endpoint with industry leading solutions which have been rigorously tested and proven best in class.”

IDAS 2FA Virtual Appliance delivers centralized secure two-factor authentication for a virtual environment with a stackable user license for the greatest flexibility. The Virtual appliance is designed to support 100 to 100,000 user deployments seamlessly, meeting effectively the requirements of small enterprise right through to the largest service provider. The Virtual appliance offering provides similar levels of security and same features that of the IDAS 2FA product platform.

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Cisco Introduces Cloud-based Video Interaction Solution Cisco has unveiled the Cisco Education Enabled Development (CEED 2700) solution. This collaborative, cloud-based video interaction solution will enable efficient delivery of education and skills development courses across the country, facilitating inclusive growth and empowering rural India announced the company’s press release.

Codenamed ‘Dwara’ (after the Sanskrit word for portal to signify a doorway to a new future),

the product is the first of Cisco’s ‘Internet of Everything’ solutions from India.

Aravind Sitaraman, President (Inclusive Growth), Cisco, “CEED is Cisco’s first step towards bringing inclusive growth to rural areas using the latest technology. We are very proud to have developed this product from our site in India and simultaneously realize our vision to bring cost of technology in education down to a very affordable USD 1 per child.”

3I INFOTECH DEMONSTRATES BFSI SOLUTIONS 3i Infotech has showcased innovative product offerings at the “Connect Expo” which was a part of an initiative “Connect” by the management team of 3i Infotech Ltd. The Banking and Risk practice Demo zones showcased its new offerings including Kastle Universal Lending Solution, Kastle Core Banking, Kastle Mobile and Amlock Fraud & AML Solution. The Financial Services & Insurance practice Demo zones showcased leading Premia General Insurance Solution along with the newly launched Premia Life Insurance solution on Java Platform and Premia mobile application. The customers also got a preview of a comprehensive Investment Management Solution “MFund plus” on a new ASP.Net based technology. Moreover the Company re-launched its Orion ERP solution at the Connect Expo.

NETMAGIC TO OFFER MANAGED SECURITY SERVICES Netmagic has deployed FortiGate consolidated security platforms in its datacenters. These appliances will now be offered as part of Netmagic’s comprehensive Managed Security Services portfolio to large, medium and small enterprises across India. Netmagic chose Fortinet’s solutions for their comprehensive and well-integrated security functionality, ease of management and cost effectiveness.

In 2009, Netmagic decided to do a technology refresh of its standalone application security and network security solutions, with an objective to improve its levels of threat coverage, ease management and lower costs. After evaluating multiple security solutions, Netmagic shortlisted Fortinet’s FortiGate consolidated security platforms.

AXIS CAMERAS BRAVE ARCTIC WEATHER Axis Communications has released video footage from a recent Arctic expedition, testing the true strength of its cameras.

Strong winds, rain, icy cold and constant movement. That was the life for an Axis’ network camera while working as a lookout when the sailboat Belzebub II crossed M’Clure strait in the Canadian Arctic to become the first sailboat ever to achieve this feat announced the company’s press release.

The expedition team, consisting of Edvin Buregren, Nicolas Peissel and Morgan Peissel, was the first to sail the route from Greenland to Alaska, a route previously only been broken by an icebreaker. The equipment included an AXIS Q6034-E Network Camera, which was mounted in the top of the mast, for documentation and navigation.

“Axis outdoor video solutions are designed to withstand extreme weather conditions and to provide reliable surveillance at all times. That the network camera copes in extreme cold we already know. The same model has been up to 35 000 meters high by a stratospheric balloon where it is much colder than it can get on the ground. But the expedition through the Northwest Passage in particular shows the camera is capable of being subjected to tremors, vibrations, humidity and temperature changes for several months, which is very satisfying,” said Erik Frännlid, Director, Product Management, Axis.

EATON TO FOCUS ON MANUFACTURING IN INDIA Eaton has inaugurated its Filtration division’s first manufacturing, assembly and distribution facility in India. The new manufacturing facility occupies an area of 6,500 sq. ft.

The primary focus at this location is to manufacture Eaton’s Internormen filter elements with specification and distribution that support

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local customer requirements. The facility will offer element and filter assembly services, filter systems assembly and customized filter element design and manufacturing.

Richard Jacobs, president, Eaton’s Filtration division, said, “India continues to be one of our focus markets. This new facility will

further energize our efforts towards bringing Eaton’s industry leading Filtration solutions to our customers in India.”

With 2012 sales of $16.3 billion, Eaton is a global technology leader in electrical products, systems and services for power quality, distribution and control, etc.

Eaton acquired Cooper Industries plc in 2012. Eaton sells products to customers in more than 175 countries.

Nitin Chalke, MD (India), Eaton, said, “Eaton is committed to growing its diversified presence in India and the new Filtration facility is a step forward in this direction.”

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FortiGuard Labs Services Offer Additional Protection

WEB CLIPS SANOVI DRM 4.2 BAGS STQC CERTIFICATION Sanovi Technologies’ Sanovi DRM 4.2, the

FortiGuard Labs has launched new cloud-based sandboxing and IP reputation services that are designed to help protect against advanced persistent threats (APTs). The new FortiGuard Labs services provide additional protection capabilities for the company’s FortiGate, FortiCloud, FortiWeb, FortiDDoS and FortiDNS network and application

security platforms.

APTs are usually operated by highly-skilled teams or governments and use advanced technology and multiple methods and vectors to reach specific targets and obtain sensitive or classified information.

Also known as targeted attacks, reconnaissance is carried out on each target to determine best method of entry. Social

engineering or zero day vulnerabilities are the most common infection vectors.

Derek Manky, Global Security Strategist for Fortinet, said, “The new services offer a strategic approach to detect and respond to breaking threats from numerous attack vectors. Modern threats strike and shift quickly and so should detection.”

latest version of its Disaster Recovery software suite, has passed the Application Security test conducted by the Standardization Testing and Quality Certification (STQC) Directorate. Sanovi DRM 4.2 incorporates several enterprise features including seamless interoperability with enterprise applications and data replication technologies.

MANAGEENGINE EMPOWERS IT TEAMS FOR BIG DATA ManageEngine’ on-premise application performance monitor solution and Applications Manager now supports NoSQL technologies that drive big data. The Manage Engine solution

BROCADE PLACED IN VISIONARY QUADRANT

also continues its existing support for traditional

Brocade has been positioned by Gartner in the “Visionaries” quadrant in the 2013 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Network Infrastructure report.

The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Center Network Infrastructure examines how the market has been transformed with new architectures, new technologies and vendors specifically targeting solutions to address the changing size and density of the data center, shifts in traffic patterns and the increasing requirement to simplify network operations.

Jason Nolet, VP (Data Center Networking Group), Brocade, said, “Our solutions, based on the Brocade VDX switch family and VC Fabric technology, are empowering a new generation of on-demand data centers by delivering the world’s most automated, efficient and agile networks.”

memcached.

relational databases such as Oracle, MySQL and With Applications Manager, IT teams can proactively monitor the performance of Cassandra and MongoDB databases to ensure the applications based on those NoSQL databases perform as expected.

SOPHISTICATED ATTACKS AND ATTACKERS TO GROW IN 2013 Twenty-five percent of distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks that occur in 2013 will be application-based, according to Gartner, Inc. During such incidents, attackers send out

MOVEMENTS Schneider Electric has appointed ANIL CHAUDHRY as the managing director and country president, Schneider Electric India. He joined Schneider Electric in June 2010 after the acquisition of Areva T&D. Autodesk has appointed SUNIL M.K. as head of its Architecture, Engineering & Construction (AEC) business, for its India operations.

NetApp’s CSO VIC MAHADEVAN and COO of Wipro Technologies DR. A L RAO join Sanovi Advisory Board SUSHIL VIRMANI has been named as sales director, Electrical Sector, South Asia to lead the consolidated organization

targeted commands to applications to tax the

NUMBER GAME

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Feel

Feel their Security Organizations are Short-Staffed

central processing unit (CPU) and memory and make the application unavailable.

NEC LAUNCHES “O2O” CLOUD SERVICES NEC Corporation has launched “O2O Cloud Services” to promote cloud-based Online-to-Offline (O2O) services utilizing smart devices such as smartphones and tablets.

The “NEC O2O Cloud Service” enables retailers to utilize valuable information gathered from smart devices, such as pre-registered preferences and point use, in order to provide consumers with coupons, loyalty points and store information that encourages online users to make offline purchases.

NEC aims to provide this service for approximately one hundred customers over the next three years, concentrating on promotions with telecom operators and service providers across the globe.

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INTERVIEW

LAKSHMI NARAYAN RAO

CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST - CLOUD, BIG DATA & ANALYTICS, TECHNOLOGY SERVICES, HP INDIA SALES

Standards to provide the power of choice to the customer HP IS ONE OF THE GREATEST STAKE HOLDERS OF CLOUD COMPUTING

Indian enterprises are looking to capitalize on the latest growth opportunities and stay one step ahead of the competition. IT services play an important role in fostering the innovation required to fuel new business ventures. Today, CIOs need to be in a constant state of readiness to provide their users with the technology services to enable innovative business opportunities and respond to customer demands.

The CIO is also increasingly being seen as a Chief Innovation Officer.

IN INDIA. THIS IS THE COMPANY, WHICH HAS THE ENTIRE END-TO-END TECHNOLOGY STARTING FROM HARDWARE, SOFTWARE, NETWORKING, MANAGEMENT, CONSULTING, ETC. WITHIN THE COMPANY. LAKSHMI NARAYAN RAO, CHIEF TECHNOLOGIST - CLOUD, BIG DATA & ANALYTICS, TECHNOLOGY SERVICES, HP INDIA SALES TALKS TO ENTERPRISE CHANNELS ABOUT THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN CLOUD COMPUTING SPACE IN INDIA. EXCERPTS.

What kind of uptake are you seeing for cloud computing in India?

The adoption trend is currently crossing the chasm between consideration and decisionmotion. Emerging trends such as application portability to multiple form factors, rich experience, full functionality on remote

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access et al are accelerating Cloud adoption in Enterprises.

Adoption is rapidly moving from early adoption phase to early stages of mass adoption.

Various reports indicate that as high as two in every three enterprises will deploy at least 1-2 Cloud Services comprising IaaS and/or SaaS.

CIOs are seeking solutions that will accelerate the deployment of serviceoriented environments, matching the speed, flexibility and economics of public clouds but without the risk or loss of control.

The cloud computing market in India is gaining momentum and most analysts are unequivocal in their opinion that the market is trending towards massive growth over the next 5-7 years.

Most enterprises have either implemented or are seriously considering implementing cloud infrastructure for the sheer agility, scalability or commercial leverage that it offers to the enterprises.

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INTERVIEW

What are the benefits of moving to the cloud vis-a-vis using in-house servers?

Cloud computing, with its promises of fast delivery, flexibility and cost savings, has emerged as a viable option for providing agile IT services.

By utilizing cloud services, enterprises can look ahead to anticipate customer needs and predict business trends without having to worry about the IT infrastructure, platforms and applications that might be required to support them.

From a business perspective, appeal of cloud is clear: speed, flexibility, and economics. The idea of going to a portal to request a service that is instantly provided has innate appeal, particularly compared to the experience they have with most internal IT departments.

In the enterprise market, what are the key expectations of customers from cloud computing?

CIOs are mapping their path to the cloud and identifying where public and private cloud solutions will be leveraged – a mix of IT delivery methods to meet their users’ demands.

In a hybrid world of IT delivery choices, where public cloud and private cloud are becoming viable options along with traditional IT services, the onus is now on IT leaders to determine which of their current and future technology projects would benefit most from which model. They also must determine how to turn this mix of services into a blended environment where both the management and the end-user experience are seamless and simple.

Creating a hybrid IT delivery environment requires a thorough analysis of each project, as well as tools that manage the different delivery options in a unified, simplified way.

HP is the pioneer in propagating the concept of hybrid delivery and has been building a portfolio of solutions that are in sync with realistic business environments.

HP Transformation workshops help customers chart their path to the cloud that harmonizes with their current business and IT ethos instead of a standard “one size fits all” or “rip & replace” approach.

HP’s newest solutions continue to make it possible for clients to choose the path that best suits their needs, all with leading-edge virtualization, management, and security capabilities.

Working with HP, organizations can choose to: • Build their own private cloud environments using HP tools, technologies, and other offerings • Consume cloud services directly from HP’s cloud environment • Work with HP’s expanding ecosystem of

partners, including service providers that can build out cloud environments on their customers’ behalf • Create a hybrid environment that combines private and public clouds along with a traditional IT Cloud migration is still not as seamless as it is thought out to be, leading to lock-in situation for enterprises. How do you ensure that the customer doesn’t feel locked-in to your cloud?

While it is true that the initial hype around Cloud Computing masked the real challenges in implementation such as migration, involuntary lock-in et al, standards and best practices have started emerging that would provide the power of choice to the customer.

Most mishaps during the early adoption phase could be attributed to a lowered level of due diligence in choosing the right Cloud partner.

can keep pace with changing business dynamics?

All services are not created equal, and each organization has its own needs around performance, security, control, and availability. For this reason, any organization would require an understanding of where and how cloud computing can most effectively be applied to their portfolio of services. HP Cloud Transformation workshop is a great way to understand the key elements involved in the Cloud journey and identify the readiness of an Organization to move to Cloud.

HP Cloud Solutions’ portfolio addresses the Cloud journey as—the overall landscape to the precise strategy you need to adopt to deliver cloud services.

What applications are most suited for the cloud? Are you seeing mission-critical applications moving to private/public clouds?

IaaS for development/test, pilot, beta as also for production and SaaS for apps such as mailing,

“IT IS INCREASINGLY BECOMING IMPORTANT THAT ORGANIZATIONS LOOK AT CLOUD AS ANOTHER DELIVERY MODEL THAT WOULD ENABLE OBVIOUS BENEFITS OF SCALE, AGILITY, FLEXIBILITY AND UBIQUITOUS ACCESS.”

It is increasingly becoming important that Organizations look at Cloud as another delivery model that would enable obvious benefits of scale, agility, flexibility and ubiquitous access.

“Payloads for workloads” would be an apt descriptor for a realistic deployment at an Enterprise with an harmonious co-existence of different cloud delivery models such as Private , Managed Private and Public Cloud besides the traditional IT set-up.

A check-list would help CIOs take the right Service provider. A sample is provided below.

• How do I know which services are right for Cloud and which are not?

• What is the most effective way to build a private Cloud for today and future?

• Would my Cloud services be secure enough to protect business and customer data?

• Will the IT organization have sufficient governance and control to meet service levels?

• Will the overall organization be able to comply with policies, regulations, and audits?

• How do I manage my service portfolio?

• How do I build a flexible environment that

collaboration, CRM, HRMS, analytics’ services, customer interface services et al are popular.

While the current phase of adoption is for Horizontal Apps, a growing sense of trust in the Cloud besides value added enhancements such as Cloud-Burst capabilities and the sheer RoI would propel the adoption of Cloud for Mission Critical Apps as well.

Do you see a skill gap in the market?

While there is a gap in the market, it presents an excellent opportunity for IT professionals to re-skill and hone their expertise.

HP has a slew of training programs and certifications around Cloud, Big Data and Mobility to ensure that global grade skills are available for IT professionals in India.

The mantra for IT pros to remain relevant is • Acquire the skill-sets needed to leverage the Cloud opportunity.

• Keep in tune with emerging tech trends such as Cloud, Mobility, Big Data et al • Learn the new age compute tools such as Collaboration Tools, Analytics. ë

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SERVICES

SYMANTEC

Rogue Clouds Prevalent in 90% of Indian Businesses

A recent Symantec survey highlights some of the pitfalls of cloud computing. It reveals that Rogue cloud deployments are one of the cost pitfalls. It is surprisingly a common problem, found in 89 percent of Indian enterprises and 92 per cent of Indian SMBs within the last year.

I

ndian organizations are widely migrating to the cloud to gain competitive advantages around speed, agility and flexibility, according to Symantec Corp’s. recent ‘Avoiding the Hidden Costs of Cloud 2013’ survey. In fact, nearly all the surveyed large and small businesses in the country are at least discussing cloud. However, increasing complexity and the proliferation of “rogue clouds” – prevalent in about 90 percent of Indian businesses, according to the survey – is resulting in escalating costs related to cloud. Rogue clouds are defined as business groups implementing public cloud applications that are not managed by or integrated into the company’s IT infrastructure. Other key survey findings showed enterprises and SMBs are experiencing escalating costs tied to complex backup and recovery, and inefficient cloud storage.

“For Indian businesses cloud computing means reduced CapEx, more predictable OpEx, easier management, enhanced scalability and better disaster preparedness,” said Anand Naik, MD (Director-Sales, India & SAARC), Symantec. “However, in a rush to implement cloud, a majority of organizations

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in India are unwarily incurring hidden costs which can be avoided by taking control of cloud deployments while also minimizing the data control and security risks linked with rogue cloud use.”

ROGUE CLOUD IMPLEMENTATIONS According to the survey, rogue cloud deployments are one of the cost pitfalls. It is a surprisingly common problem, found in 89 percent of Indian enterprises and 92 per cent of Indian SMBs within the last year.

Among Indian enterprises who reported rogue cloud issues, 57 percent experienced the exposure of confidential information, and more than a third faced account takeover issues, defacement of Web properties, or stolen goods or services.

The survey found that top rogue cloud issues for Indian SMBs include security, data protection and loss of confidential information. The challenge is escalating, with nearly half (48 percent) of Indian SMBs indicating that rogue cloud deployments are becoming more frequent.

The most commonly cited reasons by Indian businesses for undertaking rogue cloud projects were to save time and money.

CLOUD BACKUP AND RECOVERY ISSUES Cloud is complicating backup and recovery. First, most Indian organizations use three or more solutions to back-up their physical, virtual and cloud data—leading to increased IT inefficiencies, risk and training costs. Furthermore, nearly two-thirds organizations have lost cloud data (60 percent of enterprises and 70 percent of SMBs), and most (80 percent) have experienced recovery failures.

Finally, most see cloud recovery as a slow, tedious process; 85 percent estimate it would take three or more days to recover from a catastrophic loss of data in the cloud.

INEFFICIENT CLOUD STORAGE Theoretically, cloud storage has the advantages of being quick to deploy, paying for only what is used and offering easy adjustment of capacity, all of which provide for high storage utilization rates. In practice, however, global cloud storage utilization is actually extremely low at just 17 percent. It’s even worse for SMBs, at just seven per cent. This is resulting in organizations paying for six times as much storage as they need. The

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SERVICES

ANAND NAIK

problem is exacerbated because almost half of enterprises in India (48 percent) admit that little to none of their data is deduplicated, and 34 percent of SMBs indicate that half or more of their data is duplicate, all of which is leading organizations to pay for storage they don’t require.

COMPLIANCE AND EDISCOVERY CONCERNS With growing regulatory and internal compliance frameworks, the survey revealed that two-thirds of Indian enterprises are concerned about not only meeting compliance requirements, but also proving it. However, nearly half (47 percent) have been fined for privacy violations in the cloud within the past 12 months. Organizations are performing equally poorly on the eDiscovery front: three-quarters of those who have received requests (76 percent) missed deadlines for delivering the requested information, potentially leading to fines or compromised legal positions. What’s worse, 34 percent never found the requested information.

DATA IN TRANSIT ISSUES Organizations have all sorts of assets in the cloud – such as web properties, online businesses or web applications – that require SSL certificates to protect the data in transit whether it is personal or financial information, business transactions and other online interactions. The survey showed companies found managing many SSL certificates to be highly complex: just 48 percent rate cloud SSL certificate management as easy and only 40 percent are certain their cloud-partner’s certificates are in compliance with corporate standards.

HIDDEN COSTS ARE EASILY AVOIDED

MANAGING DIRECTOR (SALES, INDIA & SAARC), SYMANTEC

“For Indian businesses cloud computing means reduced CapEx, more predictable OpEx, easier management, enhanced scalability and better disaster preparedness”

The survey shows ignoring these hidden costs will have a serious impact on business. However, these issues are easily mitigated with careful planning, implementation and management: • Focus policies on information and people, not technologies or platforms • Educate, monitor and enforce policies • Embrace tools that are platform agnostic • Deduplicate data in the cloud. ë

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INTERVIEW

flooded with products from different vendors across the world. So in my opinion it would not be fair to single out a particular vendor or vendors. We are living in a competitive world so I guess whoever has a product in CTI domain are our competitors.

What are the competitive advantages of DONJIN? In the context of price performance ratio, the biggest competitive advantage of DONJIN is the value for money products. This helps our customers in having one of the best possible ROI in the industry.

HARIHARAN IYER

COUNTRY HEAD, INDIA AND SAARC, DONJIN COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY CO. LTD.

Offers Best Possible ROI in the Industry DONJIN COMMUNICATION, THE GLOBAL MULTIMEDIA COMMUNICATION PLATFORM TECHNOLOGY PROVIDER, SEES A GREAT OPPORTUNITY FOR ITS NEXT GENERATION OF MULTIMEDIA SWITCH ‘KEYGOE1001” FOR THE INDIAN TELECOM VAS, CALL CENTERS AND ENTERPRISE SEGMENTS.

Brief us about DONJIN operations in India?

DONJIN started its operations in India around 2007. The CTI market was not a mature market back then. Over the last six years the market has matured and so has DONJIN operations in India.

We have come a long way from being just another CTI player to become one of the top two CTI companies in India. In the process, DONJIN has established local presence in Delhi and Mumbai with complete sales and technical support team to support our customers distributed across the entire geography of India and SAARC region.

What is your customer base?

DONJIN is amongst the top two brands in India with customers from all segments be it VAS and

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Enterprise. We are present in almost all operators in India and since we offer a very competitive return on investment, VAS providers like One97, Airhub, Netxcell, Tanla, etc. are amongst our customers. In the enterprise segment we have customers like Times Group, JustDial, Coral Telecom, NEI etc.

What are the products available from DONJIN in India?

DONJIN has the entire range of products required for CTI industry right from analogue boards, digital boards, high density digital chassis (Keygoe), high Density IP, signalling products etc.

Who are your competitors?

As I mentioned above, the CTI market is now

What is the company’s go-tomarket strategy as far as channel partners are concerned?

DONJIN operates in any country through its distributors. Currently in India, we have two national distributors: M/s Sunshine Telesoft and M/s Omega Infotech. These distributors in turn have their partners and networks across India and DONJIN also works with these partners in helping them winning businesses.

As far the brand name is concerned, the company has pretty low visibility in the market, what is its focus on marketing and brand activities?

My opinion would differ from the above. Over the last six years DONJIN has done various marketing activities and today DONJN is well known brand in the CTI domain. We have successfully built our brand and we also understand the fact that brand building is a continuous process and DONJIN continues to invest year-on-year to maintain and build further its brand name.

What kind of turnover and growth are you expecting?

We grew around 20% in the financial year 2012 and for 2013 we are expecting a 25% growth from last year.

DONJIN Tech, the leader in global multimedia communication platform technology, has announced the availability of its next generation of multimedia switch ‘Keygoe1001” for the Indian telecom value added service (VAS), call centers and enterprise segments. Targeted at the small and medium enterprises (SMEs), the next generation switch “Keygoe1001” provides a maximum of 240 ports circuit switch and voice resource under 1U chassis with an ability for providing maximum of 30 IPs, 30 Faxes, 128 Conference Groups, 16 SS7 link at 64k and 4 SS& high speed links (HSL). ë

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23/03/13 8:35 AM

NETWORKING

SMARTLINK

Enterprise Market Holds Good Opportunity Digisol was born after the demerger of Smartlink Networks passive networking brand Digilink; and in just a couple of years this active networking product line has achieved immense popularity and is eyeing the enterprise segment aggressively.

n WORDS: KARMA NEGI <KARMA@ENTERPRISECHANNELS.COM>

W

ith over 20 years of experience and in depth knowledge of the networking business Smartlink Networks Systems Ltd. is confident of making a mark in the enterprise segment. Digisol, its active networking brand, which offers end-to-end solutions with a comprehensive product portfolio spanning Ethernet switches, wireless and broadband networking VoIP and surveillance, is increasing its focus on the enterprise business.

With a strong portfolio it provides end-to-end LAN switching and routing products that can address the needs of all organizations, from small to medium enterprises. It also has specific solutions from LAN access to the network core and is also into data center to PLC integration.

Its end-to-end solution offering has helped it emerge as a strong Indian manufacturing networking brand player in the data switching market in India. And has got some major wins from government and BFSI segments like SBI, UCO, HDFC etc.

“We at Digisol have well-conceived branding strategies, coupled with a business framework that delivers value, quality and efficacy, which is instrumental to our success in a market flooded with competition. Integral to its business model, is a wide-spreading marketing and distribution network that ensures deeper market penetration,” says Bimal Raj, CEO, Smartlink Network Systems.

He sees good opportunity in the enterprise market as it now has entire gamut of products

BIMAL RAJ

CEO, SMARTLINK NETWORK SYSTEMS LTD.

“We have the ability to leverage the manufacturing & R&D capabilities and experience provided by our DTAC for technology support and large network of RMA centers for product services.” for them starting from Layer 2 switches to core chassis switches. In addition, it also has huge experience of marketing and servicing enterprises segment.

To tap this market Digisol has a full-fledged enterprise sales team mapping the enterprise businesses and projects and are aligning with major SI’s. Beside this, they are also reaching out to its enterprise customers with various activities through its own events and third-party events.

“The biggest competitive advantage is that we have a large setup for local manufacturing.

We can customize our products as per local requirements and conditions. We have the ability to leverage the manufacturing & R&D capabilities and experience provided by our DTAC for technology support and large network of RMA centers for product services,” says Raj. Other than that with over two decades of experience in the IT networking field as well as in component and peripheral space, gives them a huge advantage which most of the entrants do not have. Raj adds that they understand the complexities as well as the dynamics of Indian IT market, understand the channel eco systems, and this coupled with the robust infrastructure which it has in India, gives them a solid foundation for growth.

“Apart from a strong product portfolio, with best in class products, we are among few of those IT companies with their own service and support division which gives us an edge over our competitors. Our high quality and reputable after-sale-services are strategically built to deliver customer satisfaction. Currently we have 64 service centers pan-India,” says Raj. As partners play a major role as advisors to the end-customers it becomes imperative that they too are imparted with the required skill sets.

In this age of fast changing technology to make them stay informed about the latest technological developments and trends, enabling its partners’ skill development in terms of solution is one of its key initiatives; and has designed special training sessions to specifically serve this objective.

This year, Raj informs, they have engaged with system integrators and VAR’s in a stronger way than ever, having done more than 100 events, with the primary focus being on training SI’s and VARs.

FINALLY While it is targeting all the verticals, nonetheless there are a few of them where the focus will be more like education, govt. infrastructure, defense, datacenters, manufacturing, BFSIs and PSU’s. To woo these verticals towards its products Digisol is working on visibility amongst SI community coupled with SI engagement programs; and plans to continue working closely with SI partners with a host of activities such as road shows, events and training programs. ë

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COVER STORY

TURNING CHALLENGES TO OPPORTUNITIES

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CLOUD COMPUTING

A

ccording to a recent report by IDC, the Indian cloud computing market, which was estimated at $535 million in 2011, is likely to grow by more than 70% in 2012.

And almost 50% growth is estimated for the next three years.

There is a huge growth opportunity in India considering the global cloud market of over $100 billion.

It has been observed that, most of the B2C websites catering to the Indian market run on the public cloud. We believe that it is just a matter of time, before the enterprise IT does the same. Enterprises are testing these for noncritical areas like demos, training, development, etc. Hence, production machines on cloud should follow soon.

Applications that require distributed teams to work together, that have a variable user or load factor, where

IT infrastructure or IT capability is much shorter thus allowing them to take services to their customers quickly, whether internal or external.

However, George Joseph, Head – Strategic Business, Transition Systems Pvt. Ltd. says that while there is acceptance on uptake of cloud computing by some of the enterprises, still many enterprises are showing resistance to the changes. They are showing the reasons of data privacy, security and loss of control, etc.

CUSTOMER EXPECTATIONS There are many challenges faced by customers with cloud computing and partners therefore need to be wellacquainted with these issues and customer expectations before offering any cloud service to the customer. Customers expect industry standard security practices, financial

Cloud computing is changing rules of the market. It is presenting massive market and great opportunities for the partners and cloud infrastructure providers. But it is also an area filled with challenges that can be overcome with careful considerations. n WORDS: KARMA NEGI n PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO.COM

the number of users are small enough to not warrant the time of the IT department, are immediately suited for the Cloud. Examples include CRM, email and collaboration, HRMS, Payroll (these have traditionally been the largest contributors to revenues for Cloud providers), and now Public IaaS. In addition, we have seen increasing interest for Backup as a Service (BaaS), Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS). Mission critical applications have already moved to private cloud, and we are increasingly starting to see some of them even move to public cloud. Examples include ERP, financial accounting (at large enterprises), contract management, core banking solutions, to name a few.

One very tangible benefit most customers see is ability to avoid upfront investment and be able to access compute power in an OPEX model. It not only saves cost but brings out new opportunities to experiment and innovate.

Secondly the infrastructure now is simpler to manage.

IT does not have to worry about patching, upgrades, availability and business continuity. IT can thus focus on thinking about how IT can help with new and innovative ideas to generate new revenue streams for the core business and leave the mundane task of IT management to the cloud service provider. And finally, time to provision

advantages (including immediate costs savings, but also lower TCO), consulting on the best practices to adopt, and flexibility to migrate in and out of cloud computing as business needs change.

Arup Choudhury, Senior General Manager – IT, Eveready Industries opined, “My expectation is delivery as per promise. Complete fulfilment of SLA and cost reduction. I don’t think cloud is ready for mission critical applications. At best mail can be hosted on the cloud along with SFA and DMS solutions. For mission-critical applications to come to cloud, the cloud service provider needs to work out the licensing complications with the product vendors. Till date, it leads to vendor lock in.”

Choudhary added, “There is no standard application that can be hosted on any cloud service provider. For this to happen, cloud offerings need to be based on a standard catalog accessible to anyone that wish to take the service.

There is a lack of transparency in the complete cloud ecosystem. The service providers and product vendors need to work out a methodology to make the cloud offerings transparent to the users and clearly define measurable ways in which more efficiency at less cost can be achieved.”

Affirming the points made by Choudhary, Kaviraj Singh CEO, Saralweb said, “There’s a strong tendency

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COVER STORY

REKURAM VARADHARAJ

PRADEEP KHEMANI

MARKETING DIRECTOR, ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS AND GROWTH MARKETS, DELL INDIA

COUNTRY HEAD (CHANNEL AND SMBS SALES ENTERPRISE GROUP, HP INDIA SALES

“Our goal is to make our partners IT consultants than mere IT providers in order to lead to their overall growth,”

“Virtualizations and consolidation are the beginning of adopting Cloud computing and partners have a major role to play in making this happen.”

toward vendor lock-in, mostly on account of data storage and archival needs. Commitment to cloud computing in larger scale now suffers from a perception of potential vendor lock-in due to proprietary data formats, storage mechanisms, and the sheer difficulty of migrating large volumes of data between vendors should a change be required. Exchanging data between cloud computing service providers (for example, linking documents in a Google-doc repository as supporting documents in an accounting system) remains a tedious exercise in manual operations.”

Customer service for Cloud leaves a lot to be desired, feels Pawan, CTO, Wheebox. He said, “All too many cloud-based services do not provide customer service promptly – or not at all!! Sending an email and hoping for a response within 48 hours may not be an acceptable way for most of us to run a business. The reality is that if one needs handholding or is not comfortable in using advice on user forums, the cloud probably is not ideal. Now many vendors have

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various online document support & videos on their websites which can be used as a first point of reference. With few cloud vendors, support is available at additional cost.”

Highlighting the disconnect in the expectations, Angira Agrawal, AVP and Head – Cloud, NEC India Pvt Ltd opined said, “The challenge comes in when some customers start believing that cloud can solve all problems – which is not really true. Public cloud is growing in both small and medium enterprise segments, but also in large enterprises – we have seen this happen for standard SaaS services such as CRM, Email and Collaboration, Project management, BaaS, for example.”

“Private cloud adoption has been primarily in the large enterprises – we have seen this for mainly IaaS, StaaS,” he added.

Hybrid cloud is a good way for large and medium enterprises to transition certain services to the public cloud – examples include where an ERP has been implemented, and now there

ASHWIN WAKNIS

SR. SOLUTION VIRTUALIZATION, SERVICE AUTOMATION AND SUSTAINABILITY, CA TECHNOLOGIES, INDIA

“Customers have started looking at seamlessly bursting into the public cloud and still be able to manage it from the same single glass of pane.” is a need for a CRM – the latter being on cloud, but working with the ERP on premise; another example could be having private IaaS to meet standard compute loads, but using a public IaaS service to meet the variability at the end of the month or during peak loads. We believe that Hybrid Cloud will grow over the next few years, as large enterprises transition to having more public cloud services working closely with inhouse services, including the overall integration and deployments associated.

Cloud is not a simple self-service layer on top of existing IT automation. Resources must be pooled and modelled in an optimal way, before they are offered for self-service consumption. The self-service aspect must be backed by comprehensive mechanisms for managing elasticity.

Dhruv Singhal- Lead – Cloud Computing, Oracle India added, “Resources must be metered, to enable a pay-per-user paradigm, just like the ones in any subscription-based service, be it cellular minutes, or streaming digital media.

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CLOUD COMPUTING

BENEFITS OF MOVING TO CLOUD

RANJAN CHOPRA

FOUNDER, TEAM COMPUTERS

“Hesitation of customers regarding security over cloud, customers Comparing cloud with Hardware cost and at times there might be a few Government regulations that restrict cloud usage.“ However, existing approaches to Cloud have been by and large incomplete, often focusing on the self-service aspect without paying any attention to the resource modelling, elasticity and metering aspects.”

Most important thing for the enterprise IT or cloud managers is to do their homework.

Understand the cost to migrate applications to cloud, cost of ownership in the cloud and then worst case scenario - cost of migrating BACK in-house or to another cloud provider. There is lesser lock-in at IaaS level than at SaaS level. Ask questions like: l On security - Who can access my data, where is it stored, do you move my data around.

What kind of audits do you do, who does it and how often? l On lock in – Can I take back what I own?

Data in SaaS or VMs in IaaS? Do you provide mechanism to export data? Or VM? Ashwin Waknis, Sr. Solution Virtualization, Service Automation and Sustainability, CA Tech-

ARUP CHOUDHURY

SENIOR GENERAL MANAGER – IT, EVEREADY INDUSTRIES OPINED

Cloud computing fundamentally changes the way that IT services is delivered to organizations. Instead of both owning and managing IT services for themselves, or using an outsourcing approach built around dedicated hardware, software, and support services, organizations can use cloud computing to meet their IT requirements using a flexible, on-demand, and rapidly scalable model that requires neither ownership on their part, nor provision of dedicated resources. Some of the benefits that cloud computing brings are as follows:

“My expectation is delivery as per promise. Complete fulfilment of SLA and cost reduction. I don’t think cloud is ready for mission critical applications.”

REDUCED COST The reduction in CapEx is obvious because an organization can spend in increments of required capacity and does not need to build infrastructure for maximum (or burst) capacity. For most government agencies and enterprises, OpEx constitutes the majority of spending; therefore, by utilizing a cloud provider or adopting cloud paradigms internally, organizations can save operational and maintenance budgets.

nologies, India., says, “Customers have started looking at seamlessly bursting into the public cloud and still be able to manage it from the same single glass of pane as they do the in-house apps.”

Talk about portability remembering that one should be able to take what one owns. In a SaaS application for example one owns only the data whereas in IaaS the company should be able to move the entire VM. Follow some best practice when moving workloads to the cloud.

For example, avoid using cloud services that do not have an equivalent at other cloud providers.

Bottom line is that the enterprise should make sure the fine print in the contract is understood and agreed upon by you.

As per Dell there are certain things that IT managers need to be aware of when it comes to cloud adoption and migration. Firstly, adequate planning to decide the migration path to Cloud Computing and Services is highly critical. Not all applications are suitable for the Cloud. In particular, it is not economical to adopt some

IMPROVED AUTOMATION Cloud computing is based on the premise that services can not only be provisioned, but also de-provisioned in a highly automated fashion. This specific attribute offers significant efficiencies to enterprises.

FLEXIBILITY Flexibility benefits derive from rapid provisioning of new capacity and rapid relocation or migration of workloads. In public sector settings, cloud computing provides agility in terms of procurement and acquisition process and timelines.

FOCUS ON CORE COMPETENCY Government agencies can reap the benefits of cloud computing in order to focus on its core mission and core objectives and leverage IT resources as a means to provide services to citizens.

SUSTAINABILITY Through leveraging economies of scale and the capacity to manage assets more efficiently, cloud computing consumes far less energy and other resources than a traditional IT data center.

SOURCE: CISCO

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P SRIDHAR REDDY

CMD, CTRLS IN CONVERSATION WITH ENTERPRISE CHANNELS

“Voice of the Service Provider”

What kind of uptake are you seeing for cloud computing in India?

As more companies migrate toward the cloud and data becomes readily accessible, ensuring the protection of enterprise data will remain a top priority in 2013.Our experience with the CIOs of all the organizations is really overwhelming when it comes to discussing and adopting private clouds. Enterprises that have a large infrastructure within their internal data centers are looking to host their UAT / Test platforms on Private clouds. The enterprises are initially moving their UAT platforms, new projects, non-core projects onto the hosted private cloud models. Organizations strongly feel that the private cloud is intermediate step before adopting the public cloud.

When these non-core move to public cloud, we will see the core move to the private cloud.

What are the benefits of moving to the cloud vis-a-vis using in-house servers?

With characteristic features of scalability, greater resilience without redundancy, zero CAPEX and reduced costs and disaster recovery, it is the harbinger of good tidings to its subscribers, such as the minimization of in-house IT infrastructures, substantial cost savings, and diminished administrative hurdles, thereby appearing as an appealing outsourcing proposition for Enterprises.Moving to cloud bridges the ever growing gap between demand and supply of IT requirements.

In the enterprise market, what are the key expectations from the customers for cloud computing? How prominent is the growth for public, private and hybrid clouds?

Enterprises look for scalability and security while considering vendors for Cloud. CtrlS CLOUD provides cloud computing infrastructure and

legacy systems for migration to the Cloud.

Secondly, organizations need to be aware of data security, compliance, and reliability if they are planning to migrate some applications to the Cloud. Thirdly, managers need to be aware of the so called “Cloud latency” that creates system performance delay due to the long distance and the fact that large data files and services may need to jump through a few network routers before they get to their destination.

Rekuram Varadharaj, Marketing Director, Enterprise solutions and growth markets, Dell

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India, says, “These three steps ensure a smoother migration process and no lock-in. Using a multilayer approach, Dell offers scalable and affordable solutions to protect an organization’s entire IT infrastructure — from the endpoint device to the data center to the cloud.”

PARTNER CHALLENGES Many of the partners look at Cloud as threat but the partners who have clear understanding of services and IT opportunity are aligned with cloud with a very strong business plan and working

closely towards that. While skill-sets remain the biggest limitation for partners when it comes to offering cloud services, issues such as regulations, interoperability and reliable connectivity also dampen the field.

K Subrahmanya, Director, Central Data Systems Pvt. Ltd. said, “I have come across any regulations limitation in the commercial and enterprise market. The key challenges are to understand the business model as this being early days, every day is in the learning curve.”

The expectations of the customers are zero

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CLOUD COMPUTING

services so you can move quickly from an idea to production – without the pain of large capital outlays and long-term vendor contracts. This flexibility also comes with all the security, cost stability, and enterprise-grade performance of a dedicated world-class private datacenter.

What applications are most suited for the cloud? Are you seeing missioncritical applications moving to private/public clouds?

Almost all kind of applications except those working on mainframes, Unix hardware are suitable for public cloud. At CtrlS we have implemented DR for the Unix based hardware like Pseries, Sun which run mission critical apps as well. Surprisingly some of the customers who need 100% uptime and scalability are aggressively pursuing private/public clouds. These customers are usually tech savvy companies like ecommerce, payment gateway companies etc.

What are the challenges that you face in finding the skilled people to work on such projects? Do you see a skill gap in the market? What are you doing to bridge that gap?

There is a serious skill gap as most of these are new concepts and demand skills in not just applications but also in networking, internet, storage and security areas. At CtrlS, we started a training academy which has various courses ranging from 100 hours to 6 months fulltime.

What are you doing in order to enable partners in the cloud computing space?

We offer white labelled public cloud platform and offer consulting help to our partners to win large deals. ë

downtime, any time access, security and cost effective. Private clouds are the highest followed by public and hybrid. However Central Data feels the hybrid cloud will be the chosen cloud strategy going forward for more enterprises.

India has always been considered as an emerging market for cloud computing. As per Rattan Chugh, CEO, Progression, initially, the direct cloud services players will dominate and as the market matures such services will have a play. It also depends on the value add they offer in terms of customer handholding, customization and

KAVIRAJ SINGH CEO, SARALWEB

“Exchanging data between cloud computing service providers remains a tedious exercise in manual operations.”

integration.

He added, “There are a couple of challenges such as interoperability and compatibility of various component of the stack that comprise these solutions. Infrastructure is certainly a challenge. Electric Power is the biggest cost component in running a Data Centre which is very expensive and unreliable. Telecom cost is another aspect where we score much lower internationally.”

Most of the vendors are either keen to sell infrastructure to the customers or offer their own cloud services. But this is changing fast and the landscape can be very different in a years’ time.

“Our key challenges are marketing and branding of these services as SaaS is a tough market to stand out,” Shailesh Kumar Davey, Vice President - Engineering, ManageEngine said. “Also, there is a lot of concerns enterprises have in moving the data to the cloud. It is not yet a well-accepted concept and solutions in the Indian market and requires a lot of convincing the customer to take it on,” he added.

ManageEngine has two offerings on the cloud

DHRUV SINGHAL

LEAD – CLOUD COMPUTING, ORACLE INDIA

“In order to succeed, modern enterprises should look for a comprehensive Cloud solution that can help them get total cloud control.”

– ServiceDesk Plus On Demand and Site24×7.

Service Desk Plus On-Demand is an ITIL based online help desk software that is delivered as software as a service on the cloud. Combining the SaaS advantage with a plethora of features for IT help desk management online, it enables the IT organization to provide best-in-class ITSM service to their users at unmatched value for money.

Site24x7 cloud monitoring helps IT monitor severs, websites, web apps and other internet facing services. The IT team can also monitor the end user experience from over 40+ locations worldwide and communicate the application performance index (Apdex) scores to the line of business. Additionally the cloud friendly, agent based systems management approach taken by Site24x7 embraces the philosophy - install once and forget it!

Agrawal of NEC India opined, “Skill is definitely a problem today. That exists not only on the technology side, but also on the customer facing side e.g. sales, marketing and support. We have been investing significantly to enhance the skillsets of people that we hire, through formal and informal in-house sessions, as also formal training classes. We have also been working

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ANGIRA AGRAWAL

AVP AND HEAD – CLOUD, NEC INDIA PVT. LTD.

“Private cloud adoption has been primarily in the large enterprises – we have seen this for mainly IaaS, StaaS.”

closely with our partners, both technology and GTM, to ensure that we create awareness of the changes in mindset required for being in the cloud ecosystem. An additional area we target is to educate our customers and set expectations on what is required at their end to successfully adopt cloud and realize the benefits that it can bring to their business.”

Reiterating the point, P Sridhar Reddy, CMD, CtrlS said, “There is a serious skill gap as most of these are new concepts and demand skills in not just applications but also in networking, internet, storage and security areas. At CtrlS, we started a training academy which has various courses ranging from 100 hours to 6 months fulltime.”

Ranjan Chopra, Founder, Team Computers felt, “Small hosting providers, with local-non tiered / less tiered Data centre and cheap pricing, Hesitation of customers regarding security over cloud, customers Comparing cloud with Hardware cost and at times there might be a few Government regulations that restrict cloud usage.

Also, Connectivity network is not yet 100% in India.

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SHAILESH KUMAR DAVEY VICE PRESIDENT - ENGINEERING, MANAGEENGINE

“Our key challenges are marketing and branding of these services as SaaS is a tough market to stand out,”

ASHOK SHENOY

VP, DATA CENTRE AND VIRTUALISATION, CISCO INDIA AND SAARC

“We are identifying partners through our Cloud Partner program based on the kind of cloud opportunities they are looking to target.”

CRM, EMAIL AND COLLABORATION, HRMS, PAYROLL (THESE HAVE TRADITIONALLY BEEN THE LARGEST CONTRIBUTORS TO REVENUES FOR CLOUD PROVIDERS), AND NOW PUBLIC IAAS.

Talking about CBS, Ranjan adds, “While CBS (Cloud Brokerage Services) are helping CIO/ CTO/ IT heads, by helping them to evaluate the cloud option of various providers and comparing them and getting best option with less migration efforts.”

The broker’s role may simply be to save the purchaser time by researching services from different vendors and providing the customer with information about how to use cloud computing to support business goals. In such a scenario, the broker works with the customer to understand work processes, provisioning needs, budgeting

and data management requirements. After the research has been completed, the broker presents the customer with a short list of recommended cloud providers and the customer contacts the vendor(s) of choice to arrange service.

George adds, “Surely CBS is meant to be an extended hand for organizations in terms of single point of contact for better commercial and integrated services. In a way it is like IT Dept. in organizations being managed by CBS, which is becoming a part of company cloud equation. This should possibly encourage CIO’s to look at new investments.”

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K SUBRAHMANYA DIRECTOR, CENTRAL DATA SYSTEMS PVT. LTD.

“The key challenges are to understand the business model as this being early days, every day is in the learning curve.”

VENDOR INITIATIVES In order to help partners overcome challenges in the cloud computing space, vendors are taking various initiatives. As per HP Cloud is the clear piece where the partners need to look at while they move forward in their overall strategy in terms of enablement and design of their organization. Therefore in 2013, HP is creating some new strategies in terms of making the partners realize and making their customers realise what they are missing in terms of IT requirements and increasing shift towards cloud computing.

Pradeep Khemani, Country Head (Channel and SMBs Sales Enterprise Group, HP India Sales, says, “Virtualizations and consolidation are some key areas which customers look at to cut cost and earn a better return on investment. This is beginning of adopting Cloud computing and partners have a major role to play in making this happen.”

Ashok Shenoy, VP, Data Centre and Virtualisation, Cisco India and SAARC, said, “Cloud offers immense opportunities for our channel partners and we are working with partners to create

RATTAN CHUGH CEO, PROGRESSION

“Electric Power is the biggest cost component in running a Data Centre which is very expensive and unreliable. internationally.”

frameworks to better address the needs of their customers. Cisco is identifying partners through our Cloud Partner program based on the kind of cloud opportunities they are looking to target, and working alongside them to help develop enhanced offerings which can be customized as per the needs of the client. We are also facilitating a comprehensive enablement of these partners through a well-structured program that helps partners address this burgeoning opportunity at all levels – structuring business models, infrastructure and technology deployment architectures and managing change in the way their customers are consuming technology.”

Agrawal said, “Most partners realize that their customers are looking at cloud, and that will impact some of their existing box revenues. However, they also recognize that this creates an opportunity for them to focus on the solution and services part of the business, which are traditionally more profitable than the box business. We working very closely with our partners to help them understand how they can benefit, but also how they can be part

of the NEC Cloud GTM ecosystem and create additional revenue opportunities. There is a certain amount of education required with regards to changes in the customer engagement approach, and most partners understand that.

However, we also look for partners that are eager to grow, are open to suggestions, and have a strong customer base.”

Oracle leverages its Partner Network to offer affordable and integrated technology solutions in India. During the last OpenWorld, Oracle has unveiled a new set of Oracle Cloud partner programs and enablement resources, that help partners to speed time to market with new cloud-based services and solutions and deliver increased value to customers.

Singhal of Oracle India said, “New Oracle PartnerNetwork Cloud offerings include an Oracle Cloud Referral Program, Oracle Cloud Specialization featuring RapidStart and Oracle Cloud Builder Specializations, Oracle Cloud Resale Program and Oracle Platform Services for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs). We are announcing new opportunity for partners with Oracle Cloud. With the ability to implement, develop on or resell Oracle Cloud, partners can deliver new services and solutions to go to market faster and more efficiently, growing their business opportunities and profits with Oracle.”

“We enable our partners by keeping them up to date on the solutions that we offer so that they are able to suggest apt IT solutions to them. Our goal is to make our partners IT consultants than mere IT providers in order to lead to their overall growth,” explained Rekuram.

While there is a gap in the market, it presents an excellent opportunity for IT professionals to re-skill and hone their expertise, feels Lakshmi Narayan Rao, Chief Technologist - Cloud, Big Data & Analytics, Technology Services, HP India Sales. “HP has a slew of training programs and certifications around Cloud, Big Data and Mobility to ensure that Global grade skills are available for IT professionals in India.”

FINALLY… From shot to medium term, the enterprises will continue to have both an in-house set of core applications and then complementary yet custom apps in the cloud. While today this hybrid model is fairly disconnected, a need to manage the hybrid cloud holistically is beginning to take hold. In order to succeed, modern enterprises should look for a comprehensive cloud solution that can help them get total cloud control and allow them to manage the complete cloud lifecycle. ë

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MANAGED CONNECTIVITY:

Physical Layer a Strategic Asset

The dynamism of technology should not restrict to computing or storage but also cove the networking because sync of three things offer optimum value for investment. n WORDS: MYLARAIAH, J N, COUNTRY MANAGER - TECHNICAL & MARKETING, TE ENTERPRISE NETWORKS – INDIA n PHOTO: ISTOCKPHOTO

WHY MANAGED CONNECTIVITY? A managed connectivity approach can be considered as the next significant step in the evolution of intelligent infrastructure management systems.

Sometimes known as physical layer management or “intelligent patching”, these legacy systems are grounded in the need for automated documentation of physical patching adds, moves and changes. However, in today’s increasingly virtualised world, these systems have to evolve to provide more of a “managed connectivity” approach, in order to give the same level of visibility of the network physical layer as exists for the higher layers in office networks, data centres and co-location environments.

Increasing volumes of data and demands for more efficient use of financial and IT resources mean that today’s networking professionals are being asked to deliver network services that are not only “always on” but that respond with agility to rapidly changing business needs. These increasingly complex networks

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demand: l Efficient management of a virtualised infrastructure through investment in virtualisation management software. l Excellent IT process control through implementation of best practice frameworks such as ITIL (Information Technology Infrastructure Library).

A highly integrated approach to all aspects of network management to enable users to get the most out of their data-centre infrastructure management (DCIM) and network management (NMS) software.

Investment in virtualisation from the data centre to the desktop and enhancement of in-house capabilities with cloud-based services can increase flexibility and efficiency, but at the cost of a more fluid and less tangible operational environment. This environment requires a high level of process control and clear visibility of network assets and their workload to give IT professionals the control that is essential to run an efficient enterprise network or data centre.

While most elements of the network can be managed in this way, there has been one element that has lagged behind in terms of process automation and network visibility – the physical layer. Often consisting of many thousands of individual cables, connectors and connections, this physical layer can remain a “blind spot” that, with better visibility, could reveal vital information that can be the key to: l Higher availability through increased automation, improved diagnostics and reduced downtime. l Reduced OPEX (operational expenditure) through more efficient change management, asset provisioning and utilisation. l Improved ITIL process efficiency through 100% accurate real-time physical location information that can prove invaluable to security and compliance. l Full integration of the physical layer with the virtual world within existing NMS and DCIM software to enhance visibility and control of the whole network.

HIGHER AVAILABILITY AT LOWER COST A managed connectivity system will automatically maintain a database of 100% accurate connection information, and can also provide crucial information on the data-carrying capacity of the links between those connections.

If a network asset fails, an accurate database of the physical connections can help to locate the “real world” physical location of that asset in a virtualised environment, speeding up the recovery work.

The availability of new services is also improved through the remote, automated reporting of connectivity utilisation.

With a real-time integrated view of server capacity and connection capacity, the need for an engineer visit to audit capacity prior to provisioning is eliminated.

In all cases, the human element of record keeping is kept to a minimum, not only improving MTTR (mean time to recovery) but also enhancing security.

Many of the features of a

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managed connectivity solution that raise availability also play a key role in reducing operating costs by improving the efficiency of moves, adds and changes and ensuring that downtime is minimised.

In addition to these benefits, network utilisation can be improved as the accurate connection database can help identify unused active ports and re-provision them to where additional capacity is needed, delaying the need for further investment.

FLEXIBILITY IN OFFICE NETWORKS The demands of a flexible workforce and an agile business require a flexible workspace that copes well with increased levels of personal mobility and the challenges presented by the “consumerisation” of business IT. Delivering real-time physical layer data to an organisation’s network management software, helps to ensure high levels of port utilisation to the desktop and maintain data on physical asset location. It also optimises the use of facility space by linking location and connectivity usage data, while ensuring efficient office moves and changes.

The trend for delivering this kind of workplace flexibility is a move towards a virtualised desktop or even a virtualised workspace environment. As the level of virtualisation increases, more change management is handled above the physical layer. This in turn can “cloud” the visibility of the real-time location of physical assets, and so can raise issues of how best to track which user is connected to which device in which location and to deliver a seamless and secure application environment. By integrating a managed connectivity solution into this virtualised environment, improved asset tracking, improved security and better monitoring of workload in specific locations become possible.

DATA CENTRE OPTIMISATION

By delivering physical layer data to data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) software, a managed connectivity solution helps to speed up the provisioning of data centre equipment, while improving rack density and making more efficient use of “white” space. In addition, co-location data centre owners are able to provide added levels of assurance to their customers via automated physical asset and data location reporting.

A managed connectivity system will automatically maintain a database of 100 per cent accurate connection information.’

Data-centre space is expensive, and the construction and expansion of data centres is complicated and resource intensive. To make the most efficient use of financial and skilled resources, it is essential that data centre owners get the most from existing rack space and existing floor space. Within a rack, a managed connectivity system can help to identify unutilised switch and server ports, thereby improving computing density per rack. It can also help to identify the physical location of unused rack space, along with the availability of suitable connection capacity to service that space. By helping to maximise the density within each rack, a managed connectivity system can free up expensive floor space for further expansion, delaying the need for additional facility investment.

SEAMLESS INTEGRATION A state-of-the-art managed connectivity system will integrate with network management and data centre infrastructure management software via open application interfaces and software development systems. It adds physical connection and location information to existing logical information, and improves the utilisation of existing management software investment and networking assets.

This approach opens up the possibility of applications being

developed that, for example, can help to improve: l The speed of commissioning of equipment by linking real-time knowledge of physical connections to active equipment port information l space utilisation by linking physical connection data to site location information l rack utilisation by linking energy loading, connectivity capacity and location data l security by linking facility security system information with IT connection data.

These are just a few examples of the value-added applications that can be developed by linking the physical connection data to other management applications.

OPEN ARCHITECTURE SOFTWARE To get the full benefits from a managed connectivity solution, it is important that the software at the heart of the system has an open architecture - allowing it to complement, rather than compete with, a user’s prior investment in network management software.

For example, new software known as the Infrastructure Configuration Manager (ICM) has been developed to sit at the heart of TE Connectivity’s managed connectivity system, linking connectivity information generated by the supporting hardware technologies to third-party network management applications. The user experience is via a “drag & drop” graphical user interface, and the real-time connectivity data is stored in the ICM database.

ICM also contains the management agents necessary to collect the data from a choice of hardware technologies and to communicate control instructions to the hardware.

To allow users to obtain the most from the managed connectivity solution and their existing NMS and DCIM investments, ICM contains on open Application Programming Interface (API).

Along with the associated software development kit, this open API can deliver two-way, seamless integration with network management software, and opens up a whole range of value-added applications that can only be delivered by linking physical layer data into the network management environment.

HARDWARE TECHNOLOGIES In the TE system, two alternative hardware approaches have been developed to provide the physicallayer information needed for the managed connectivity solution.

The first, used in TE’s AMPTRAC product technology, utilises a ‘9th wire’ to communicate connection data from the patching field via a hardware analyser to the ICM database. A large range of fibre and copper connectivity hardware is available, and includes ‘AMPTRAC ready’ options to enable an easy upgrade path to full AMPTRAC functionality as the demands on a network increase.

An alternative approach, known as Quareo, uses advanced semiconductor devices known as connection point ID (CPID) chipsets that are embedded into the actual connectors. When a Quareo plug is inserted into a Quareo connector, the data from the chip, along with port and panel data, is passed to a controller, and is then sent to the ICM database.

CONCLUSION… The latest managed connectivity solutions enable higher network availability, while lowering network costs, by integrating full visibility of the physical layer into existing network management applications – all the way from the data centre to the desktop. TE’s managed connectivity solution, with its Infrastructure Configuration Manager (ICM) software and a choice of connectivity hardware technologies, delivers full knowledge and visibility of the physical layer, enabling users to truly know their networks. ë

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INTERVIEW

RAHUL AGARWAL

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR COMMERCIAL BUSINESS AT LENOVO INDIA

“Enterprise Customers Value Product Quality and Reliability above Everything Else” FOR SOME TIME NOW LENOVO HAS EMERGED AS THE LEADER IN THE PC SEGMENT. AND IN THE RACE TO BECOME NO.1, ITS STRATEGY AROUND ENTERPRISE MARKET AND COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS PLAY A MAJOR

What is the total opportunity in Enterprise, Government and PSU market from IT and communications perspective in 2013?

An IDC forecast predicts that the Indian education PC market is growing tremendously and will cross 1.8 million units in 2013 from approx. 0.6 million units in 2012. We expect that demand from government funded programmes like – National e-Governance Programme; National E-Literacy mission will increase the consumption of computing devices in the country. While there is a trend of slowdown in buying from private sector, we see a substantial investment on upgrading IT infrastructure in govt-aided schools and colleges, so we expect the market in FY13-14 to have roughly the same volume as in FY12-13.

ROLE. ENTERPRISE CHANNELS SPOKE TO RAHUL AGARWAL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR FOR COMMERCIAL BUSINESS AT LENOVO INDIA, TO KNOW HIS PERCEPTION OF THE ENTIRE ENTERPRISE MARKET. EXCERPTS.

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What are the technologies influencing the enterprise market?

We expect that mobility will be the single most trend that will significantly influence the future of

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products for the enterprise PC market. As more organizations realize the importance of technology as a business enabler, we expect a substantial interest in technologies like cloud computing, enterprise grade tablets and other mobility based devices. We see that these technologies are driving process innovation, reducing operational costs, and helping organizations focus on their core competencies.

Lenovo’s analysis of its customers reveals that the enterprise segment customers value product quality and reliability above everything else.

While the global market for commercial PCs has seen muted growth in the last few quarters, we expect that demand for commercial PCs in developing markets like India will continue to be bolstered by strong investment from the government and education vertical in 2013.

What kind of trend do you see in enterprise technology adoption?

A Gartner forecast for 2013 indicates that social networking, mobile communications and the shift to a cloud computing model will pressurize enterprises to make fundamental changes in the business by adopting cutting edge information technology solutions. Trends indicate that the PC market will veer towards slimmer and yet more efficient computing devices in 2013. With people moving towards a wireless network, we will see an increase in the demand for ultraportable devices which offer a range of connectivity options and better battery life.

The growth of the enterprise PC market will be led by demand from education and government sector as they look to adopt mobile computing devices for e-literacy and e-governance.

Ultimately, 2013 will be the year when the market will witness a clear shift to smarter notebooks, tablets, smartphones and even smarter televisions powered by apps hosted in the cloud.

What change do you see in the IT decision making within the enterprises?

Most changes revolve around enabling employees with mobility and flexibility-based initiatives within the organization. Due to consumerization of IT, we see a push and pull based approach to initiatives like BYOD as companies realize that it enhances employee satisfaction and productivity in the enterprise. However, since securing data assets of the enterprise will remain the top concern for CIOs and CTOs, we will see greater adoption of enterprise grade mobile computing devices (for eg: The X1 Carbon business ultra portable or Lenovo ThinkPad Tablets) as they afford the same level of user experience with

added security features to end users. Even as being cost and energy efficiency is one of the main criterion for organizations while deciding on investments in IT solutions, we see an increasing demand for solutions that are optimized for an enhanced user experience (cloud optimized, app store et al).

What is the opportunity for channel partners?

With a new wave of economic reforms and manufacturing friendly policies expected in 2013, the market for IT spending will continue to see a healthy investment in enterprise, government and PSU market. Such a market will continue to open up new opportunities for partners to grow vertically and horizontally. Lenovo relies on its strong relationship with the channel community to extend our reach, and believe that partners are a natural extension to our business. When we win major contracts, we ensure that our partners get the opportunity to tap additional revenues

media, mobile computing which are expected to lead the wave of innovation in the near future.

What are the challenges, enterprises face in finding right partners?

The challenge for enterprises remains in understanding and forecasting the needs of the end-customers and building a partner ecosystem that constantly evolves with the company. The partners need to have the right infrastructure, required skill sets to understand the products and technology and ability to demonstrate the same to the end consumer. We have been able to build a strong channel ecosystem by helping them to evolve as we grow and taking active interest in educating them through regular communication and training programmes.

Which are the fastest growing vertical markets for this year and why?

“THE GROWTH OF THE ENTERPRISE PC MARKET WILL BE LED BY DEMAND FROM EDUCATION AND GOVT. SECTOR AS THEY LOOK TO ADOPT MOBILE COMPUTING DEVICES FOR E-LITERACY AND E-GOVERNANCE.”

by delivering services and solutions. To help our partners to maximize their growth opportunities, we have set up targets for them depending on the vertical and profile.

We also offer attractive incentive schemes tailored to tie in with the business objectives of partners and revamped our channel programs so that partners can earn more benefits on achieving targets.

In terms of PC demand, the consumer PC market continued to register strong growth and this was the first time in the Indian PC market where the volume of consumer PCs was almost the same as commercial PCs. We continue to see strong demand from the government and educational institutions for PCs as they look towards modernising their IT infrastructure.

What are the skill sets required for the channel partners to adapt to the changing IT and communication landscape?

Partners should work in tandem with vendors who consider them a natural extension of their business. An important area of focus should remain on understanding the trends in the changing IT landscape and simultaneously working on building their capabilities and knowledge base to tap new market opportunities. Partners should have an open discussion with vendors and customers to understand, forecast needs that will arise and accordingly invest in educating themselves about trends like cloud computing, social

If government sector is fastest growing, how many projects/tenders are you envisaging to come to the market this year and of what value?

Our holistic approach in catering to the government segment has yielded significant traction in the last couple of years. Lenovo is focussed on participating in key government projects related to e-governance and govt-sponsored education projects. Due to confidentiality agreements with customers, we cannot share projects that we are currently working on. However, given that the education and government vertical are roughly 18-19% of our overall commercial PC business, the market potential to grow is huge. ë

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CASE STUDY / DELL

Global Technology Provider Achieves Three-Fold Increase in Data Center Capacity UST Global consolidates delivery centers on virtualized infrastructure to achieve a scalable solution generating a 50% faster ROI

n W O R D S : S A N J AY M A H A PAT R A < S A N J AY @ E N T E R P R I S E C H A N N E L S . C O M >

UST Global is a next-generation IT service and business process outsourcing provider delivering IT and business solutions to 1000 Global firms.

The company’s core focus is on providing high-value services to around 70 large, long-term clients using a blend of locally based senior resources and offshore teams. Headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, UST Global fosters client-specific cutting-edge innovation from its state-of-the-art delivery centers in India and the Philippines.

As a systems integrator, UST Global must respond to client technology needs and deploy resources quickly to meet anticipated demand. With a number of products reaching end of life within a data center operating at near capacity in India, the company was faced with an urgent requirement for 800 additional servers to meet

both current and future business. UST Global needed advice as to the most cost-effective and efficient long-term strategy to increase capacity while optimizing existing solutions.

Improving control over technology resources Developing an automated storage strategy was of particular importance to the company due to the highly manual work involved in moving data between different levels of disk performance depending on application requirements and specific needs to the delivery teams.

Rinosh Kurian, IT Head, UST Global, explains, “We would experience server downtime whenever we needed to increase performance, and the data movement took considerable time in planning and hosting.”

A further challenge was determining

the correct allocation of storage for each application.

Technology at work Services Dell Compellent Copilot Support Hardware Dell Compellent Storage Center arrays Dell PowerEdge M1000, M910 and M610 blade servers Software Dell Compellent Data Progression Dell Compellent Instant Replay Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager VMware vSphere 5

CUSTOMER PROFILE COMPANY: UST GLOBAL INDUSTRY: TECHNOLOGY COUNTRY: INDIA EMPLOYEES: 8,500 WEBSITE: WWW.UST-GLOBAL.COM

Vendor consolidation enables strategic decision-making with core partners Previously, the company purchased infrastructure from multiple technol-

RINOSH KURIAN

IT HEAD, UST GLOBAL

“WE USE DELL COMPELLENT ENTERPRISE MANAGER TO MANAGE REPLICATION BETWEEN SITES. WE CAN SET UP AND TEST DISASTER RECOVERY WITHIN THE VMWARE ENVIRONMENT, AND ALONG WITH VMWARE VCENTER SERVER WE MANAGE ALL VIRTUAL MACHINES AND STORAGE.

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ogy providers. In recent years, UST Global had begun to consolidate its technology on several key vendors. The company approached Dell for advice on how to build a virtualized data center that would be future proofed from meeting growing demands for capacity.

Virtualized solution improves performance and management UST Global selected a storage solution consisting of Dell Compellent Storage Center storage arrays with 10-gigabit iSCSI, part of the Dell Fluid Data™architecture. UST Global has integrated the entire storage infrastructure into a single storage area network environment that enables provisioning for applications from the storage pool.

The company currently has capacity for 200 terabytes of usable space at the Trivandrum site, 70 terabytes in Chennai, and 30 terabytes of storage hosted in the United States.

The virtualized platform is delivered on Dell PowerEdge M1000, M910, and M610 blade servers running VMware vSphere 5 virtualization software. “We realized that the Dell Fluid Data architecture addresses several of our needs. We wanted to improve the responsiveness of our servers, understand where our data is located, and optimize the storage,” says Kurian.

Improved client responsiveness through dramatic reduction in provisioning from weeks to hours The requirement for high availability is heightened through the delivery team’s need to respond promptly to client requests, and is delivered through the Dell Compellent storage solution.

Servers requisitioned for time-specific client projects and demonstrations typically kept data on expensive SAS storage. Previously it was not possible to reallocate data to less expensive, lowertier storage because UST would then be unable to meet unplanned client requests for access.

UST Global is taking advantage of Dell Compellent Data Progression to dynamically move storage to the optimal tier based on actual use. Whereas previously customers had to pay for new server resources for a specific project, and then wait up to six weeks for their project to be released, the IT team can now provision resources to the delivery team within a one-hour period.

Business continuity assured with 60-minute system recovery time Not only is the Dell Compellent storage solution more cost-effective than previous enterprise solutions used by UST Global, but the IT team has achieved robust business continuity planning through replicating mission critical servers

between the Trivandrum and Chennai sites. Previously, it would have taken the team several days to bring the systems online in the event of a disaster.

Kurian explains, “We use Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager to manage replication between sites. We can set up and test disaster recovery within the VMware environment, and along with VMware vCenter Server we manage all virtual machines and storage. With this simplified management, we can bring up our secondary data center site in Chennai within 60 minutes to ensure business processes continue uninterrupted.”

Innovation encouraged through improved IT confidence UST Global is using Dell Compellent Data Instant Replay space-efficient snapshots to support increasing innovation within the company. The Dell Compellent technology provides the ability to restore environments without the need for a full system backup. For example, when the IT team makes changes to the company’s PeopleSoft environment, they take a snapshot prior to the update in case the system needs to be restored.

This means the company can be more focused on innovating without the risk of system downtime. Kurian says, “We are far more confident in making enhancements to our systems because we know that even if an issue occurs we can recover the previous environment within 15 minutes.

Before we had the Compellent solution we would have to wait for an entire system restoration, which could take hours.”

Capacity scaled three-fold on a reduced cooling footprint The company can now scale capacity three-fold, increasing from approximately 400 physical servers to 1,200 virtual machines on the upgraded infrastructure. This can be further scaled to 4,800 virtual machines in the same data centre with minimal capital expenditure on indirect infrastructure costs like increasing consumption of space, power and cooling.

Each physical server can scale to host up to 120 virtual machines, which is a 50 percent increase on current capacity. With each virtual machine consuming around 12 watts of power, compared to 200 watts consumed by each physical server and considerable efficiencies generated from the Dell Compellent infrastructure, UST global can operate within the current cooling restrictions of the existing data center.

Improved productivity and decisionmaking accuracy through detailed reporting

Employees have increased their productivity due to having quick access to system data. With the improved reporting capabilities of Dell Compellent Enterprise Manager, they are now able to provide the precise information required for informed decision-making. For example, through the deep level of insight that the team gains from knowing where data is located, the company has managed to purchase only a fifth of the number of SAS drives that were previously needed, achieving overall hardware, space, and energy savings.

These savings can be reported directly to management. “The reporting capability within Dell Compellent helps me to produce timely reports to my senior management on the return on investment achieved through both time and resource allocation savings. In my role, where I need to provide financial answers to management and provide solutions that improve team productivity, these reports deliver tremendous value,” says Kurian.

Proactive support levels delivered

by Copilot Support become organization-wide benchmark The company is proactively managing the environment and Dell Compellent Copilot Support is being used to uncover and then prevent potential threats to the data center. UST Global is so satisfied with the support level received that Compellent Copilot Support has become the benchmark for all other vendors. Kurian says, “We believe that Copilot Support provides an extremely good relationship model that should be the standard for all other vendor support. We have a partner who really cares about our success through proactively calling us before we even know there is an issue, and then following up to confirm the situation is resolved. We now tell all our vendors that we need them to be proactive with their support and inform us ahead of time before our systems fail.”

Return on investment on future proofed solution achieved 50 percent faster than planned The company’s management team gave Kurian a goal to achieve return on investment (ROI) within 36 months. Instead, Kurian and his team have managed to achieve this goal within half the time.

“Everybody in the company is excited about how efficiently we managed to deliver this solution.

We know exactly how our infrastructure is being utilized and how much value we are getting from each piece of equipment. To achieve ROI within 18 months on a platform that is future proofed to deliver high performance for our customers is an amazing feat,” concludes Kurian. ë

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INNOVATIONS

KEY CAPABILITIES n Simplified directory navigation: quickly search the unified directory and connect in seconds n Scheduling capabilities: see the complete schedule, including click-to-joinmeeting reminders n Streaming and recording: users can stream and record with the press of a single button n Multiparty calling: seamlessly integrated ad-hoc and scheduled multiparty calling n Firewall/NAT: secure full HD video calls within and across networks n Presentation: intuitive data sharing up to 1080p and custom layout options n HD video quality: up to 1080p60 n Flexible upgrades: including number of displays, type of camera and resolutions

LifeSize Smart Video LifeSize Icon Series is a newly designed, highest quality video system that can allow the enterprises to talk to the customers, partners or even the employees face to face.

Much as the introduction of the smartphone dramatically changed how people engaged with their mobile phones, LifeSize is aiming

to transform the video communication experience with the introduction of “smart video”.

The LifeSize Icon Series is tightly integrated with the LifeSize UVC Platform and its applications – including streaming and recording, firewall traversal, multiparty video calling and management – to make it

easier for users to experience the full power of their platform. This integration also makes buying and supporting video conferencing more flexible and efficient, allowing companies to purchase only the applications their users need and scale as those needs grow.

The UI of the LifeSize Icon Series is slick, icon-

POLYCOM VVX BUSINESS MEDIA PHONES Polycom VVX 300 and VVX 400 are the affordable Business Media Phones designed to improve productivity and facilitate collaboration for office and cubicle work environments such as call centres, front desks and administrative and corporate offices.

The VVX 300 and Polycom VVX 400 communication solutions extend the existing portfolio of Polycom VVX Business Media Phones, which also include business phones with video capabilities. New plug-in expansion modules for the Polycom VVX 300, VVX 400, VVX 500 and VVX 600 also add more programmable line keys, making it easier for power users to manage a high volume of calls and contacts.

Polycom VVX Business Media Phones are relied on by executives on down to call attendants in organizations of all sizes to provide a unified voice and video communication experience.

Users that need more line appearances can turn a VVX phone into an attendant console by pairing two models with the new Polycom VVX Color Expansion Module, which offers a 4.3” LCD screen, or the standard Polycom VVX Expansion Module to add up to 120 additional line appearances.

Available in April, the Polycom VVX 300 will be available at US$179, Polycom VVX 310 at $US219, Polycom VVX 400 at US$259, Polycom VVX 410 at US$299, Polycom VVX Expansion Module at US$105, and Polycom VVX Color Expansion Module at US$225.

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driven design just makes sense for an optimal user experience. For companies that have traditionally rejected video due to its cost and complexity can take a closer look at the LifeSize Icon Series.

It records and streams important discussions and is priced at $2,999 U.S. MSRP

PLEASE SEND YOUR FEEDBACK AT EDITOR@ ENTERPRICECHANNELS.COM

KEY CAPABILITIES n 12 Line appearances n Polycom HD Voice n 3.5” (320x240) Backlit Color LCD n VVX 400 Dual 10/100 RJ45 Ports n VVX 410 Dual Gigabit RJ45 Ports n RJ9 headset port with EHS capabilities n Built-in auto sensing IEEE 802.3 af Power over Ethernet

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