Enterprise It World February 2018

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FOR THE CIOs. BY THE CIOs. FEBRUARY 2018

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BENGALURU’S FIRST TIER

4 DATA CENTER

ENTERPRISE DATA CENTER 3.0: THE HYBRID IT ERA

Growing influence of Cloud, IoT and Mobility has pushed the Indian Enterprise data center market to the second fastest growing market in APAC and with managed...p18

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EDITOR’S LETTER

INDIAN ENTERPRISES EMBRACE HYBRID IT ERA Enterprise India has been on the fast track to Digital striving for seamless and secure business

processes to keep a competitive edge in the market. The right IT Strategy is often the anonymous differentiator between organizations. Enterprise data is growing exponentially and so is the need and criticality of keeping it secure, agile and available. The ability to manage data efficiently and make the most out of it is at the helm of the IT vision today for Enterprise CIOs. Data has become the new gold and this has enabled India to become the second fastest growing market in APAC. As per Gartner, the data center market in India is expected to touch US$4.5 billion mark by the end of 2018.With Digital India and related activities spurring the data storage requirement of enterprise India to never before high, Datacenter Service Providers have been concentrating on providing better facilities and including the latest technologies in their arsenal. Another notable point is the warming up of the CIO community to the Hybrid IT environments and adoption of services from Hyperscalers.

NEXT MONTH SPECIAL

COVER STORY

ENTERPRISE DIGITIZATION AND CIO CHALLENGES

Digital has become the widely accepted differentiator in business t been looking upto CIOs to spearhead this transformation across the organization. In the upcoming issue, we will take a look at how the Indian Enterprises are chalking out their Digital Strategies, how the boand what challenges are being faced by CIOs in their bid to inculcate digital in the organization and explore new avenues of monetization through IT.

The guarantee of data safety and availability is crucial for data center service providers to maintain their customer’s trust.In terms of our CIO engagement initiatives, we are commencing our first CIO events of 2018 with the 7 City CIO Dine and Discourse Event series in March-April. The Dine and Discourse events have been formulized as open discussion forums for CIOs and IT Leaders from different demographics of India as a platform where they can raise questions around the challenges and issues they have faced with their IT and look for solutions from industry peers. The events will begin with the Delhi NCR chapter on the 9th of March before going around the country to biggest IT Hubs like Bengaluru, Kolkata, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune and Chennai. The theme for this year’s open discourse forum is ‘The transformation of the CIOs role and the road ahead’. These 7 events will also form the base for this year’s Flagship CIO engagement which will also take a step further from CIO200 to expand and include as many IT Leaders as possible. CIO profiling which is an integral step towards the Annual CIO recognitions from Enterprise IT World will also gather momentum in the coming months as we concentrate on evaluating CIOs and how their technology plans and projects faired in 2017. We believe the CIO community is one of the most vital constituent of Enterprises India landscape today and will continue to expand our engagement with CIOs in terms of editorial and offline engagements, highlighting their contributions to the success of their respective organizations. With this I leave you to enjoy the current issue, hoping that it comes across as informative and useful for the CIOs as they formulate their hybrid IT strategies for 2018.

S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M

SUPPLEMENT

FUTURE OF DATACENTERS

PLUS

Data explosion has just begun to gather pace in the subcontinent and with new privacy laws from Govt. set to come in, India is in need of an exponential expansion of its datacenter capabilities. We look at how India’s top Datacenters are gearing up for the rapidly increasing storage needs of the country.

Interviews and Case Studies

Catch interviews, guest articles and case studies of recent applications from the Industry stakeholders, IT/ITES Vendors and IT leaders and CIOs from the Enterprise IT World CIO Community.

Send in your inputs to sanjay@accentinfomedia.com FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD

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CONTENTS V O L U M E 0 2 | I S S U E 1 2 | FEBRUARY 2 0 1 8 | W W W . E N T E R P R I S E I T W O R L D . C O M

Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Associate Editor: Chitresh Sehgal Designer: Ajay Arya Assistant Designer: Rahul Arya Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary Social Media Manager: Ravish MARKETING Marketing Manager: Kajal Sharma kajal@accentinfomedia.com SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016

COVER STORY

Phone: 91-11-41055458 E-mail: info@accentinfomedia.com

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EDITORIAL OFFICE

ENTERPRISE DATA CENTER 3.0: THE HYBRID IT ERA

Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016,

Growing influence of Hybrid IT has pushed the Indian Enterprise data center market to the second fastest growing market in APAC and with managed services on the rise

CIO TOYS / 41

Alaris S2080w

MORE INSIDE Editorial~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 03 News~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06 Cio speaks (Prime Infoserve)~~~~~~~~~ 38

26

FIRST COVERAGE

CtrlS

“India’s Silicon Valley to get one of the World’s Biggest Tier 4 Data Centers”

4

30

SECURITY INSIGHT

MEETALI SHARMA SDG

“Need for security in DC Environments”

ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

32

DIGITAL DIARY

MANDAR MARULKAR, KPIT

“Making ‘Think Digital’ part of Employee DNA”

CIO TALK

Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 info@accentinfomedia.com

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without the prior written permission from the publisher.

Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.

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MILAN KUMAR WABCO

“Transformation of the Enterprise CIO”

ITWORLD

ROUND UP 700

Hyperscale Data Centers

Middle East And Africa (0.3%, 1.6%)

600

Central And Eastern Europe (0.3%, 1%)

500 400

Latin America (3.3%, 3.9%)

300 western europe (18%,19%)

200

Asia Pacific (30%, 39%)

100 0

2016

2017

2018

2019

2020

2021

North America (48%, 35%)

Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index, 2016-2021

Cloud to drive 95 percent of Total Datacenter Traffic by 2021 B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M

Cisco released the seventh annual Cisco Global Cloud Index (2016-2021). According to the study, both consumer and business applications are contributing to the growing dominance of cloud services over the Internet. For consumers, streaming video, social networking, and Internet search are among the most popular cloud applications. For business users, ERP, collaboration, analytics, and other digital enterprise applications represent leading growth areas.

Driven by surging cloud applications, data center traffic is growing fast. The study forecasts global cloud data center traffic to reach 19.5 ZB per year by 2021, up from 6.0 ZB per year in 2016 (3.3-fold growth or a 27 percent compound annual growth rate [CAGR] from 2016 to 2021). Globally, cloud data center traffic 6

ENTERPRISE IT WORLD  FEBRUARY 2018

will represent 95 percent of total data center traffic by 2021, compared to 88 percent in 2016.

Improvements in data center governance and data control have helped to minimize enterprise risk and better protect consumer information. Security innovations coupled with tangible cloud computing benefits, including scalability and economies of scale, play key roles in fueling the cloud growth projected in the study. Additionally, the growth of Internet of Things (IoT) applications such as smart cars, smart cities, connected health and digital utilities requires scalable computing and storage solutions to accommodate new and expanding data center demands. By 2021, Cisco expects IoT connections to reach 13.7 billion, up from 5.8 billion in 2016.

D ATA BRIEFING

13.7 Billion Number of IoT connections expected by 2021, up from 5.8 billion in 2016.

Source: Cisco Global Cloud Index

ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF

HPE’s new Customer Experience Center adds wings to Indian Smart Cities

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) India announced the launch of a Customer Experience Center (CEC) in Gurugram to showcase and demonstrate IoT-based smart city solutions. The facility will feature a wide-range of innovative offerings for smart city projects from HPE, and powered

by Intel architecture.

By launching this CEC, HPE will enable partners and customers to experience cutting-edge technologies first hand that can help in the seamless development of smart city projects across the country. HPE along with Intel and other smart solution providers, will offer governments and city

administrations excellent opportunity to accelerate time to value and deliver new, innovative, and interactive services to the citizens through IoT. The CEC will demonstrate IoT-based smart city solutions that address the complex and fragmented ecosystem that exists within IoT environments.Recently, the Bhopal Smart City Development Corporation selected HPE Universal IoT Platform to create India’s first cloud-based ICCC, which with its multitenancy capabilities will be able to run several city command center operations in parallel across seven cities in Madhya Pradesh.

GLOBEL

Google announced Cloud AutoML, a product that enables businesses with limited machine learning expertise to build high quality, custom AI models to improve their product or service. Cloud AutoML is a simple, secure and flexible ML service that lets businesses and developers train custom vision models for their own use cases.

To make AI accessible to every business, businesses with limited ML expertise can leverage Cloud AutoML to start building their own high quality custom models by leveraging advanced techniques like learning2learn and transfer learning from Google. Cloud AutoML will make AI experts even more productive, advance new fields in AI and help less-skilled engineers build powerful AI systems.

Google’s first Cloud AutoML release is Cloud AutoML Vision, a service that makes it faster and easier to create custom ML models for image recognition. Cloud AutoML’s technology is already enabling businesses such as Disney Consumer Products and Interactive Media to build vision models to annotate its products with Disney characters, product categories, and colors.

EVENTS

26 – 28 FEB 2018

5 - 7 MARCH 9 –12 MARCH 23 MARCH 2018 2018 2018 Johannesburg, South Africa Forum where senior digital leaders can gather to discuss the intricate reality of their transitional roles.

Shanghai, China ICBDA 2018 provides a leading forum for disseminating the latest research in Big Data Research, Development, and Application.

London, United Kingdom Event on informatics and other areas like AI, ML aided diagnosis with appropriate clinical applications.

DATACON AFRICA 2018

CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER AFRICA 2018

3RD INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON BIG DATA ANALYSIS

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN IMAGING 2018

Cape Town, South Africa DataCon Africa 2018 will feature case studies on practical uses cases of data analytics, data science and in-depth discussions on key topics

8

Google Cloud AutoML to bring AI to every business

ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

Enterprise NAS

TES-x85U Series QES or QTS Enterprise-class operating system

Application and storage operating system

TES-1885U

Dual OS options provides the choice of high-availability or versatility QES - Specially designed for enterprise storage

QTS - All-in-one application and storage operating system

Uses ZFS (the best file system for business data storage) and supports multiple advanced functions for high-end enterprise storage such as data deduplication, in-line compression for optimized VDI storage performance, self-healing, near-limitless Snapshots and SnapSync.

Supports auto-tiering storage optimization with Qtier, block-based snapshots, and SSD caching. Also provides rich business-ready apps (Virtualization Station, Container Station, web server, VPN server and more) for a comprehensive all-in-one NAS solution.

Powered by Intel™ Xeon D processors The TES-x85U series is powered by Intel® Xeon® D 64-bit SoC processors with integrated PCH (6-core and 8-core respectively) which provides outstanding performance for data transmission and applications.

Intel ® Xeon ® Processor D

Copyright © 2018 QNAP Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. https://www.qnap.com/en-in/

QNAP Systems Inc., (INDIA) | indiasales@qnap.com Challam Towers, New No. 113, Dr. Radha Krishan Salai Road, Myalpore, Chennai - 600 004 Tamil Nadu

ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF

BOOK

GLOBAL UPDATE

5G, Smart Cities, AI, IoT, AR, VR Innovations dazzle at CES 2018

SHELF

The Digital Matrix: New Rules for Business Transformation through Technology AUTHOR

VENKAT VENKATRAMAN

PRICE

953.00 (HARDCOVER) AVAILABLE AT

AMAZON.IN

About The Book

More than 3,900 exhibitors showcased world-changing technologies that spanned more than 2.75 million net square feet of exhibit space across Las Vegas - the largest show floor in CES’ 51 year history. With a global interest, the event garnered 860,732 tweets about CES 2018 and 450,554 uses of the #CES2018 hashtag.

From major international brands to the more than 900 startups participating in Eureka Park, CES 2018 truly reflected the vibrant global tech industry. Watch keynotes and conference sessions from #CES2018 online at CES.tech/live.

As per sources, CES2019 is scheduled for Jan. 8-11, 2019, in Las Vegas, NV.

Is your business ready to win in the digital future or destined to be disrupted? The Digital Matrix understands rethinking business models from the outside in, assemble the right team for the journey ahead, and make bold strategic choices along the three phases of digital transformation.

Key Features The book covers topics like navigating digital ecosystems, discovering ways of competing and collaborating with other companies to create and capture value, experimenting with new ideas, re-examining core beliefs, and reinventing business rulebook for the digital future.

KPIT, Birlasoft co-create companies in ‘Automotive Engineering & Mobility’ and ‘Digital Services’ space The KPIT promoters join The CK Birla Group owned Birlasoft, in launching an open offer for the minority shareholders of KPIT. KPIT and the CK Birla Group owned Birlasoft, will work closely to first merge Birlasoft into KPIT and later split the combined entity of KPIT

10 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

and Birlasoft into two public companies: USD 200+ million company focused on Automotive Engineering and Mobility Solutions and a USD 500+ million Enterprise Digital Business IT Services Company. Creates new KPIT Technologies which will evolve from the current

Engineering business of KPIT and creates new Digital Business IT Services company will grow the Birlasoft brand by combining it with the KPIT ITSS businessKPIT and, Birlasoft, a part of the USD 1.6 billion diversified CK Birla Group, together of KPIT and Birlasoft.

Conceptualised in Association with

National Productivity Council Under Ministry of Commerce & Industry, Govt. of India

Nominate Your Company

28th February 2018

ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF

Zyxel NebulaFlex paves way for flexible cloud models

Synology unveils expanded NAS Portfolio for India Market Synology the global leader in Network Attached Storage (NAS), IP Surveillance, and network equipment solutions forays into India market with the rollout of its cutting-edge series of NAS solutions in the country. With a proven history of transforming the way users manage data, perform surveillance, and manage the network in the cloud age, Synology has set new benchmarks in the enterprise IT space, leveraging latest technologies and unprecedented innovation coupled with an exceptional customer service.

Four complete product lines of industry-leading NAS that are designed to meet different requirements and needs from personal users, small offices,

EXECUTIVE

SMBs, and enterprises (including XS/ XS+ series; Plus series; Value series and J series) provided by the company are now available in India. The company will also be unveiling the latest DiskStation Manager 6.2 (DSM6.2) OS update along with new applications and services in the country soon.

“India is aggressively marking its presence as a growth engine in global economy, owing to an unparalleled growth in the SME segment. We at Synology are committed to aiding this growth in the country with our NAS solutions which help organizations gain more agility and streamline their work processes”, said Mike Chen, Marketing Director, Synology.

MOVEMENT

Qlik appoints Mike Capone as new Chief Information Officer

Distinguished Scientist Mario Szegedy to Join Alibaba’s DAMO Quantum Computing Lab

Businesses facing the struggle between cloud and onpremise network deployment will be able to put their mind at ease with Zyxel’s new NebulaFlex. Currently supported by three Zyxel wireless APs, NebulaFlex frees traditional standalone APs to be managed in two modes – either cloud-managed or on-premises.

Managing standalone access points is straightforward and it perfectly fits in any small-sized area where just a few APs would provide sufficient WiFi coverage.

Cloud-managed access points, on the other hand, are easy to install, configure and centrally manage WiFi networks from small to large– anytime and anywhere. The simplicity, limitless scalability, and feature-rich management have been luring businesses into the cloud.

Offering the best of both worlds, Zyxel now provides the freedom of choice with the hybrid access points that allow users to flexibly switch between cloud-managed and standalone modes that best-fit their deployment needs. Users will be able to move to cloud at any time, without needing to replace existing network investments or purchase additional hardware controllers or software. For those who already owned the selected Zyxel APs, it only takes a free firmware upgrade to enable NebulaFlex on the devices.

Dassault Systèmes names Thibault de Tersant as Senior Executive Vice President

Dan Cooper to lead Global Imaging Systems (GIS), A Xerox Company

Ex-IBM Mercer Rowe to Lead Avaya Cloud BusinessOfficers

12 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

Kaspersky Lab Names Alexander Moiseev as Chief Business Officer

Greg Pelton Rejoins Avaya to Oversee Technology Strategy

India's IT is moving up Introducing our two new state-of-the-art Data Centers

MUMBAI

BANGALORE

∠ Gross Area: 3,00,000 sq.ft.

∠ Server Room Area: 2,50,000 sq.ft.

∠ Rack Count: 4000 racks

∠ Rack Count: 2500 racks

∠ Total Facility Load: 32 MW

∠ Total Facility Load: 20 MW

∠ Total IT Load: 22 MW

∠ Total IT Load: 14 MW

DC6

DC3

1800 103 3130 | www.netmagicsolutions.com | marketing@netmagicsolutions.com

ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF

HP unleashes 3D Printing Technology Portfolio in India Incedo, Tripwire launch Cybersecurity CoE in Pune for R&D and Product Innovation Incedo, a San Francisco Bay Area technology services firm specializing in data management, analytics, product engineering and emerging technologies today announced the launch of its Cyber Security Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Pune, under a strategic partnership with Tripwire, Inc., a leading global provider of security and compliance solutions for enterprises and industrial organizations.

Tapping into Pune’s vast talent pool of skilled IT and security professionals, Incedo has initiated operations with a team of highly skilled analysts, developers and researchers on Tripwire’ssolutions and products. The firm expects to continue to expand the team to over 100 specialist engineers and experts throughout 2018.

Anupam Wahi, Senior Vice President & Head of Communication Engineering at Incedo said,“Incedo is delighted to set up its newest delivery centre in Pune. The cyber security practiceat Incedo is set to grow exponentially and we are committed to investing heavily towards building our engineering expertise to serve a rapidly evolving, critical sector.”

“Incedo’s partnership with Tripwire is a testament to our commitment towards clients’ business needs. Our engineers in Pune will work very closely with Tripwire product specialists in Portland, Oregon thus enhancing Tripwire’s R&D capabilities and greatly accelerating their product development velocity.” added Anupam Wahi.

Expanding on its 3D printing industry leadership and momentum, HP Inc. announced the commercial availability of its award-winning Multi Jet Fusion 3D Printing solution in India. HP also announced Imaginarium and Adroitec as resellers of its 3D printing solution in the country. HP’s Multi Jet Fusion 3D Printing solution is a production-ready commercial 3D printing system that delivers superior-quality1 physical parts up to 10 times faster2 and at half the cost3 of current 3D printing systems.

“We believe that digital transformation of manufacturing will be a key enabler of the next Industrial Revolution,” said Sumeer Chandra, Managing Director, HP India.

HP’s growing partner ecosystem enables businesses to develop game-changing solutions that reinvent the manufacturing industry. As a certified HP 3D printing reseller partner, Imaginarium and Adroitec will bring best-in-class expertise and knowledge of Multi Jet Fusion technology to customers deploying the solutions, as well as value added services such as the enablement of new applications and industry-leading response time and service.

Predictive Big Data platform Toovio forays into Indian Market Toovio which helps enterprises to boost revenue, improve profitability, and increase customer engagement by taking action based on real-time based customer behavior insights, today announced its entry and direct presence in the fastgrowing India market. Toovio is a SaaS-based marketing 14 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

solution provider focused on enabling multi-channel offer orchestration, built from the most sophisticated decisioning framework and capable of managing the complete customer life cycle. Toovio assists a range of industries in driving profitable business between the organization and

its customers.

Ashutosh Mehrotra, Business Head at Toovio Software said, “As businesses head towards the modern age of analytics, we are excited to officially introduce ‘Toovio’ in India. We envision teaching machines to understand people.

TRANSFORMATION OF THE CIOS AND THE ROADOF AHEAD TRANSFORMATION THE CIOS AND

THE ROAD AHEAD

PRESENTS

PRESENTS

CIo CIo DINE AND PRESENTS

DINE AND DISCOURSE DISCOURSE 2018 2018 POWERED BY POWERED BY

LE MERIDIEN | NEW DELHI

9th March,2018

ITC WINDSOR | BANGALORE

16th March,2018

HOTEL SAHARA STAR | MUMBAI

13th April,2018

JW MARRIOT | KOLKATA

COURTYARD BY MARRIOT | AHMEDABAD

23rd March,2018

6th April,2018

ITC GRAND CHOLA | CHENNAI

20th April,2018

JW MARRIOT | PUNE

27th April,2018

500 CIOs from across India Panel Discussions Open Forums AGENDA 06:00 pm: Registration 06:30 pm: Welcome Address and Keynote 07:00 pm: Panel Discussion REGISTER FOR YOUR RESPECTIVE CITY AT 07:45 pm: Open Forum www.enterpriseitworld.com 08:30 pm: Dinner

ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF

MANAGEMENT

MANTRA

“The quality of a leader is reflected in the standards they set for themselves.”

– RAY KROC, FOUNDER, MCDONALD’S CORPORATION

Robotic Process Automation to generate 2 lac jobs in India by 2021

Open Source crucial to achieving Digital India dream

The Open Source Initiative is celebrating its 20th Anniversary in 2018 as the term was coined in a session held on February 3rd, 1998 in Palo Alto, California. In the last 20 years, the initiative has come a long way. Acknowledging the importance of ‘open source initiative’ which continues to play in our lives and to enable open discussion on the challenges that exist and to work out strategies to iron them out, Bharat Exhibition organized an ‘Open Source Summit 2018’ in New Delhi on

February 08, 2018.

In India, we see Government increasingly use ‘open source’ and it has already started to disseminate more information and offer more services online these days. The Government initiative of Digital India demands that open source be used more widely not just to save costs and time but also to ensure implementation of some of the ambitious plans effectively.

There is a need to connect new websites and applications to older ones, as well as across departments. To avoid having to rewrite old software code to function with new apps, Governments are encouraging developers to use software with built-in open standards.

Number of pilot projects around Machine Learning to double in 2018

DeloitteTouche Tohmatsu India’s eighth edition of signature publication on TMT predicts major advances in machine learning, VoLTE technology services and Over the Top (OTT) platforms, apart from other trends.

VoLTE is expected to be most prevalent voice technology in the future. It is also estimated that more than 90% of all mobile subscribers will comprise of broadband subscribers by 2023.OTT platforms are witnessing an explosion in original content due to increase in consumption and 16 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

viewership, the report says, adding that they will gradually become a preferred medium over television, with the consumers of vernacular content likely to become over 2.5 times that of English language content by 2021.

As enterprises in India embrace technology to bring transparency and efficiency in business operations, data assumes center stage in decisionmaking, setting the stage for tools such as advanced analytics and machine learning to ushervalue-chain efficiencies, a Deloitte India spokesperson said. Internet of Things, Realizing thePotential IoT-driven point solutions will be adopted to solve a specific business issue.

India is in prime position to become a Robotic Process Automation (RPA) powerhouse because of its growing talent pool and cost advantage. It is estimated that around 2 lakh RPA-led jobs will be created in the country by 2021.

RPA has been gaining traction as a way of automating repetitive, tedious tasks to handle higher-value analysis and decision-making.

“India is reaping the benefits of a new genre of jobs created from RPA. The Indian mind is apt for this technology; Indians have the right ability for workarounds and out-of-the-box thinking that works well for RPA. So we see a great pool of RPA talent emerging from the country,” said Daniel Dines, CEO and Co-Founder of UiPath, the leading enterprise Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software company. He was speaking at the #UiPathForward, the RPA India summit hosted by UiPath on Wednesday in Bengaluru.

The event saw participation from more than 650 business leaders, experts and executives and also discussed concepts and presented work done by major UiPath customers and partners such as HCL, KPMG, IBM, Robert Bosch Engineering and many more.

Sarah Burnett - Vice President of global research company Everest Group, said that automation is the way to go. “It will create incredible opportunities in the IT sector.

In a recent study by Everest Group, 80% of companies that we surveyed rated RPA to meet expectations and even exceed them.

RPA addresses many areas including regulatory compliance, process automation and more. Also it is secure and most importantly, it is scalable.”

SME ADVICE

VISHAL BHAT,

REGIONAL OPERATIONS HEAD FOR NORTH & EAST (SME), TATA TELE BUSINESS SERVICES

“Benefits of going digital are many fold and include increased productivity, enhanced customer experience, better security, an effective

workforce management and reduced costs.”

SMES NEED TO FIND THE RIGHT DIGITAL PARTNER TO UNLOCK OPPORTUNITIES Overcoming key challenges such as limited budgets and shortage of skilled human resource to manage in-house technology can be overcome by choosing cost-effective digital tool such as Managed Hosting Services.

T

oday, digital tools are no longer a luxury, but a necessity. Toward this, businesses across sectors in India are digitizing to keep up with the dynamic and competitive business environment. The momentum of digital transformation is picking up pace as businesses are realizing the importance of early digital adoption to help them reach critical mass in shortest possible time and also gives them an opportunity to expand their customer base not only at home but also on global turf.

Given the increased accessibility and availability of digital tools, it is an ideal time for SMEs to make the most of the ongoing digital revolution. Since SMEs contribute about 45% to India’s GDP and employ a significant portion of the country’s workforce, it makes immense business sense for the sector to embrace digitization.

Deploying technology will not only hone their business processes and output, but will also have a significant impact on the economy.

Aspects such as substantial policy support, infrastructure, and growth trends are driving the transition toward digitization in many parts

of the country. Digital adoption is rationalized by the fact that technologically agile companies are empowered with several advantages than the ones who fail to adopt it. Benefits of going digital are many fold and include: streamlined business processes and operations which lead to increased productivity, enhanced customer experience, better security, an effective workforce management and reduced costs.

To achieve these business goals, the choice of digital partner is critical as well. Tata Tele Business Services has been a pioneer in enabling digital transformation of multiple enterprises. Take for an example, Shimla-based 31 Parallel BPO faced connectivity problem which was a big hurdle in seamless operation of the firm. To mitigate the challenges faced by 31 Parallel, TTBS deployed ILL for unhindered and dedicated internet connectivity; PRI lines for voice service; Toll Free Services; and VoIP services. The solutions offered

by TTBS have met all the IT requirements of 31 Parallel, and now the firm with better infrastructural IT support can even compete with bigger BPO players and expand operations at national level.

Despite an impressive growth trajectory and positive rhetoric, the journey toward digitization of SMEs is not devoid of barriers. Key challenges such as limited budgets and a shortage of skilled human resource to manage in-house technology limits the adoption of advanced digital tools by these companies. However, the solution is to use a cost-effective digital tool such as Managed Hosting Services, which provides a secure, reliable and flexible hosting and storage environment, through cloud hosting services to support business needs ensuring complete control and security for critical business data and applications of the SMEs. With digitization becoming a business norm, ignoring technology could be a colossal error in judgment. So, to make the most of the overabundance of customized ICT solutions available to them, SMEs need to put in all their faith in a right “digital partner” with the best expertise in the business. This will not only bring in top notch services at their disposal, but will also help them in overcoming challenges that hamper tech adoption from the very start of their digital journey.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD

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COVER STORY

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COVER STORY

ENTERPRISE DATA CENTER 3.0: THE HYBRID IT ERA Growing influence of Cloud, IoT and Mobility has pushed the Indian Enterprise data center market to the second fastest growing market in APAC and with managed services on the rise, Indian CIOs expect their data center service providers to be an asset in digital transformation journey and a partner in achieving business objectives.

BY CHITRESH SEHGAL CSEHGAL@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM

E

nterprise India is fast expanding its horizons in the digital era. Fast moving, seamless and secure business processes have become a competitive demand and data has become the new differentiator.

Enterprise data grows exponentially every day and it is but a necessity for the growth and expansion plans for businesses. The ability to manage data efficiently and make the most out of it is at the helm of the IT vision today for Enterprise CIOs. This is where Data center colocation services come in. They provide organizations with conditioned space without requiring them to invest capital for new construction. It also allows them to protect their data in the case of emergency by acting as a disaster-recovery location.

Data has become the new gold and this has enabled India to become the second fastest growing market in APAC. As per Gartner, the data center market in India is expected to touch US$4.5 billion mark by the end of 2018.

The IT model for organizations, which traditionally consisted of captive on-premise data centers, is fast changing as

outsourcing is gathering pace. Managed services are doing well due to plus points like zero capital investment, high operational efficiency and scalable infrastructure. 2017 witnessed a spur on the adoption of the Cloud model among Indian enterprises.

Colocation is still dominant as security and compliance continues to be the priority for highly regulated verticals such as BFSI. With enhanced focus on third platform technologies like cloud, mobility and analytics has demanded a number of CIOs to rethink their IT strategies, gradually inclining towards managed service models due to the agility, flexibility and the scale desired for new application workloads. As per another industry study supports this growing trend, India will see managed services eclipse colocation by the end of this year and will be nearly three times more common than traditional colocation by 2021. Key drivers for this huge increase are growth in data and digital intelligent devices, growth of mobility and IoT devices, digitalization and also the government’s Digital India campaign.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD

19

COVER STORY

WHAT CIOS LOOK FOR WHEN THEY GO DATACENTER HUNTING? When it comes to Data Centers, some key criteria rule the evaluations of CIOs. Uptime, Availability, Redundancy, Security, Scalability and Disaster Recovery are the standards ones to look at. This is followed by Market reputation, compliance and certifications and location needs. A good market reputation with proven big client credentials goes a long way in establishing a data center’s credibility among the CIO community. Good presence in the market and technical capabilities are endorsed by happy customers who spread the word among their fellow CIOs. In the Indian data center landscape today, almost every data center is at least a Tier 3 or above with each one of them boasting equable uninterrupted uptime, efficient infrastructure, network services, connectivity, DR strategies, Quality and Security certifications. This has shifted the focus of evaluations to the technical qualities and promptness of support to provide

HARISH SHARMA CL,

AJAY YADAV,

GROUP VP – IT, TOYOTA FINANCIAL SERVICES

HEAD IT(NORTH), ARSHIYA RAIL INFRASTRUCTURE

“CIOs should look at security expertise, self-owned infrastructure, service excellence, flexibility and adaptability when

“When choosing a cloud provider, involve business leaders and not just IT to ensure your business objectives are communicated

identifying the right service provider.”

and understood clearly by the provider.”

leaders a seat at the table ensuring that the organization’s business objectives are communicated clearly and ultimately understood by the service provider.

WHAT’S ON-PREMISE AND WHAT’S ON CLOUD?

VISHWAJEET SINGH, CIO, APTECH

“When selecting data center service providers, the most important thing is market reputation, everything

else will follow.”

managed services, the tools used, track record of delivering as per commitment, pricing and most critically service provider understanding of Business objectives of the CIO. Service providers should be able to optimize resources and cost as per the business needs for which the CIO needs their services. The idea of the Indian CIO with his IT strategy is to give his fellow enterprise business 20 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

LOKESH VISHNOI, GM, CRCL

“Crucial criteria when selecting data center services is experience in problem solving and technical troubleshooting

capabilities.”

Businesses have today started understanding the benefits of outsourcing their IT services.

However with perceived compliance, security and most importantly privacy issues, deciding which workloads stay on-premise and which are moved to cloud is a issue that the CIO has to deal with all by himself. Moving to the Cloud helps business cater with peak consumption needs of workloads with no impact on the availability and loss of time. Workloads which have most fluctuating consumption of resources are most likely to be selected for migration. Workloads which require infrastructure beyond the capacity of in house DC as Cloud offers scalability on demand which is critical to some of the new age applications with growing mobility and connectivity speeds.

Typical criteria which CIOs observe when evaluating applications for outsourcing are load factor, uptime requirements, TCO, Regulatory compliance, Flexible MSAs and SLAs, Network

COVER STORY

DIPAK ROUT, HEAD-IT, ARIHANT CAPITAL MARKETS

MILAN KUMAR,

ANAND RUHELA,

GLOBAL CIO, WABCO

HEAD – IT, KWALITY

“Evaluating potential providers on the basis of location, amenities, network services, security and pricing, ensures

“Businesses should execute pilots and only move workloads and servers based on

“We decide the strategy to move to the cloud on the scale of business criticality of the application or

successful test cases.”

infrastructure in question.”

investment in data center colocation yields the greatest benefits.”

carrier redundancy, High-density environments, DR and last but not the least, business criticality. Businesses generally decide the strategy to move the application or infrastructure on to the cloud on the basis of how critical the workloads are starting with the least critical applications and tertiary systems followed by ones which have users access from outside the organization beside internal users or need access to users from multiple geographic locations.

Cloud migrations are relatively easy for almost all kinds of web-based solutions, unless there is a compliance requirement to not host them on public cloud. Standalone applications that run in isolation are also far easier to move than heavily integrated and complex systems. Newer applications that run on the latest OS are far less likely to run into compatibility problems. However migrations run into compatibility problems with legacy applications which are not web-based and require significant amount of data transfer. This has given rise to the trend of virtualized on-premises environments in the CIO community which makes migrations significantly easier.

The honor of being the first applications to be moved to the Cloud is given generally to non-core apps like Email Servers, HRMS, POS, Website Portals, DR, CRM, Communication

RAJEEV KHADE, MANAGER – ASIA PLANT IT INFRASTRUCTURE, ADIENT

“High availability and critical applications with access to users from multiple geographic locations are

well suited for migration to the Cloud”

and Collaborations solutions and In-house web application which are accessed off-premise. With the growth in eCommerce channels, applications catering to online services need to be on Cloud with availability and peak workload management being at the heart of these applications. ERP applications, Corporate Databases, File Servers and Active Directories are however workloads that need a little more consideration and are moved to the Cloud or kept on-premise owing to the compliance and business requirements of organizations.

However, it is noteworthy that CIOs have been able to warm their board rooms and realized the advantages or Cloud and overcome the perceived skepticism around security and compliance. Business critical applications need to move to cloud as it guarantees better availability, uptime, scalability and TCO. Overall migrations of business applications to cloud is the next step in the plans of a number of Indian CIOs with many already evaluating moving entire workloads to the cloud.

MANAGING DATA SECURITY AND COMPLIANCE ISSUES Threat to enterprise data can occur from virtually anywhere today. Top security concerns with outsourcing include DDoS Attacks, Shared Cloud Computing Services, Data Loss through unforeseen natural disasters and Inadequate Data Backups, Phishing and Social EngineerFEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD

21

COVER STORY

ing Attacks, System Vulnerabilities and lastly Employee Negligence. Cloud security needs effective cloud data protection strategy to protect data from loss as well as against any cyber security threats. CIOs want this assurance of complete data security from their service provider, allowing businesses to leverage the power of the cloud without the associated risk.

When it comes to how much the Indian CIOs trust their Datacenter service provider’s security prowess, the answer is a mixed bag. Data center service providers realize the importance of protecting their customer data for both the customer’s and their business continuity. Most of the Data center service providers have strong standards in terms of physical and network secu-

lize them in sales rather than in implementation and services. The in-house security for most CIOs is limited to Security firewalls, Anti-virus systems, and Security layer protocols. Some enterprise CIOs though have built up effective in-house information security teams they can depend on to handle all security issues related to Data center.

DATA CENTER TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR 2018 End to end managed services are rapidly gaining inroads across enterprises verticals and is expected to be the biggest trend in 2018. Apart from the few core verticals and organizations that will retain colocation, all Data center providers are expected to be merely providing managed services with Cloud hosting services from Hyperscalers like Amazon and Google also being embraced big time. Cloud based services have dramatically decrease the pricing aspect of hosting. Other trends that are set for enterprise adoption are Hybrid IT Models, Converged and Hyper-converged Infrastructure (CI and HCI) and Application based hosting. Other notable trends will be Software defined and green energy data centers.

From the CIO point of view, the focus is Cybersecurity. They expect a strong service model with in-depth understanding of business security

JYOTI CHOPRA, DIRECTOR – IT, GLAZE TRADING INDIA

“Data center in the coming time will go through major revamp as increasing number of services and digital audience will

leave us with no choice other than to migrate to Cloud.”

SOURABH TIWARI, CIO, OVERSEAS INFRASTRUCTURE ALLIANCE

“Apart from the service provider’s security capabilities, we ensure data security with firewall, anti-virus system and

security layer 3/4 protocol.”

SUNIL KUMAR, CTO, MYND SOLUTIONS

rity and have built up their capabilities, compliances and certifications with global standards and practices like ISMS ISO/IEC 27001 etc.

Although a thorough check and evaluation of the Data center service provider is a vital step in the CIO selection process, actively participation at the internal IT level is important. Businesses need to evaluate the security issues with their service providers. A number of enterprise CIOs are a little skeptical about Data center service providers’ security frameworks, as on CIO points out that most do not have the required skill set at ground level. They do have counted experts but they uti22 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

“In a few years, apart from colocation all Data center providers are expected to be merely providing managed services with Cloud hosting being managed by few global giants.”

GYAN PRAKASH, DGM OPERATIONS, HOFINCONS INFOTECH & INDUSTRIAL SERVICES

“The new age will be full on DC traffic, as lower tariff plans emerge and with increase in internet bandwidth not just

enterprises but all types of users will migrate.”

COVER STORY

implications. Data Security will continue to be the biggest IT trend and challenge and they want Data center service providers to focus on this aspect. The Enterprise data center landscape is set for major transformation in the coming time.

Increasing number of services and digital audience will necessitate entire migrations to Cloud.

Security issues and concerns will still remain a big question, with skepticism in boardrooms. But cloud based hosting is the future, a fact not up for debate and such concerns are expected to be addressed with time.

HOW DATA CENTER SERVICE PROVIDERS CAN BE AN ASSET TO CIOS? From the CIO point of view, the Data center is the place where his organization’s entire information including vital resources, email and communication, key applications, and company databases reside. The Data center service provider has to be the prime asset for Enterprises. The Indian CIOs expect better management enabling hassle-free business operation, increase compliance and reliability, and increasing focus on value addition through services like reporting and securing business confidential data. They should work hand in hand with the CIO to find the right cost model, be transparent and prompt in their services and support.

PARVEEN KUMAR SHARMA, CTO, ICAI

“Data center service providers should guide their customers for right sizing and services during migration from

on-premise to cloud.”

SHAILENDRA CHOUDHARY, VP AND HEAD-IT, INTERARCH BUILDING PRODUCTS

“Data center service providers should make themselves relevant to their customers ensuring

reliability levels required by organizations to meet their business goals and objectives.”

Apart from focusing on keeping their customer data secure and always available minimum downtime, data center service providers need to act as growth partners for CIOs. They need to be digital ready themselves to power digital transformations for their customers. Data center service providers play a crucial role in their customer’s digital journey. They need to sit down with the CIO and provide guidance for right sizing and services during migration from on premise to cloud. This includes not only exploring all possible options during the migration planning and process but also helping customers in optimizing cost by offering the best possible solution as per the specific business needs. Data center service providers should prioritize helping CIOs meet their business goals and objectives, only then will they come across as true assets through the digital transformation journeys of their customers.

THE RIGHT HYBRID IT STRATEGY Adopting a Hybrid IT model is not a piece of cake. Building, controlling and sustaining an effective hybrid IT model while meeting business demands and end-user expectations is a mammoth task. Latency and interoperability are issues which plague hybrid IT if the infrastructure is

not built properly from the onset and applications don’t seamlessly integrate across the hybrid solution. Making the move to a hybrid model demands a few key considerations from the CIO and a careful approach. The sheer combination of on-premise, hosted and cloud services, IoT and bimodal IT by their very nature create an intricate mix of legacy systems and new IT which can hamper ease of operations if not implemented and managed effectively.

The idea is to use the best of both models, and keep business demands at the very core of these decisions. CIOs need to ensure that the business goals are met and integrate new approaches only where need and maintenance of legacy systems is no longer required. Adoption of a Hybrid IT strategy is tantamount to envisioning new digital business architecture. The CIO should carefully study his existing infrastructure and in-house skill-set in terms of demands from future expansion plans. IT teams should execute pilots and only move workloads based on successful test cases. Migrations should be backed by effective network and security infrastructure management and 24x7 monitoring services. Even after successful migrations, CIOs should plan on continuous assessment of the operations and further alignment of the IT model to organizational business goals. In short, the mantra is to go

RAVINDER ARORA, HEAD – INFORMATION SECURITY, IRIS SOFTWARE

“Building, controlling and sustaining an effective hybrid IT estate, while meeting business demands and end-user expectations is a herculean task.”

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 23

COVER STORY

slow and steady, evaluate well, strike the balance between value and control, then decide the right

IT strategy moving forward. The future of your business depends on it.

TOP CIO DATACENTER SELECTION CRITERIA DEEPAK KALAMBKAR, IT HEAD AND CISO, MARVEL DATA SERVICES

“The adoption of a Hybrid IT strategy is tantamount to envisioning new digital

business architecture.”

Security Services Excellende Technical Support Availability Infrastructure Location Pricing Network Services Percentage Of CIOs Prioritizing The Criteria

Amenities Market Reputation Redundancy

SRINIVASA RAO MUPPANNENI, GROUP CIO, ANDHRA PRADESH AND TELANGANA COOPERATIVE BANKS

“The right IT Strategy needs continuous assessment of current operations and alignment to

business goals of the organization.”

24 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

Flexibility 0

20

40

60

80

100

Priority selection criteria for Indian CIOs when evaluating Data Center Service Providers *Observed from responses from 200 CIOs and IT Leaders from different enterprise verticals across India.

TECH TALK

SOURABH TIWARI,

CIO, OVERSEAS INFRASTRUCTURE ALLIANCE INDIA

“With the growing vitality of their role, CIOs need a clear vision which aims towards hyper productivity, availability and engagement.”

OVERCOMING THE CHALLENGES OF DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION Digitization is playing a vital role across all business sectors today as entire organisational structures and entire frameworks are being redesigned starting from employees and vendors to business partners and customers.

W

ith the spread of digital technologies across stakeholders; CIOs, CDOs and CTOs now have to deal with the added pressure of regulating the flow of information and formulizing digital readiness inside out in the organization.

The first challenge in the digital journey is the consolidation of all the business components and uniting them on a Digital platform. Such a platform suits to offer a seamless customer experience and transitioning to up-to-date digital integrations. Another challenge in the initial planning phase is budget constraints, with allocation of funds being perpetual headaches. CFOs demand defined objectives right from the start which is a tough ask at this stage from the CIO. As the journey goes from the planning stages to initial phase of execution, challenges arising from

capturing large amount of data from multichannels like social, transactional, analytical and GPS, records and growing sources with multitools like mobility and IoT form the next issue.

This has another challenge which comes hand in hand in the face of data security acceleration, process and policy acceleration and prevention of multi-secure attacks. Another universal challenge is handling system Integration and middleware solution, with lack of effective and mobilized system for digital integration creates issues with is a prerequisite costly if ignored.

All along the Digital Transformation journey, the CIO should look to partner with specialized leaders, intermediaries and companies to reshape processes, policies for building employee-employer relationships and approaching and scouting required talents. Digitization needs a revamp of overall digital infrastructure.

CIOs should always look for ways to make their

infrastructure leaner, more flexible, and better equipped to adapt in unpredictable markets. The approach should be towards simply getting the plan to work deliverables rather than just ROI and TCO focused parameters.

The surge in Hybrid Cloud landscape has a significant influence on digital transformation plans for organizations across business. CIOs should now seek business value additives in combining on-premise and cloud solution.

The hybrid strategy offers innovative end-user features, faster provisioning, and moving on from the storage and scalability problems of legacy IT. Constantly upgrading the infrastructure through latest hardware and software refreshment enables CIOs to match steps with industry peers and competition. New age digital trends like productas-a-service; active creation, service everywhere, personalization, community collaboration, open ecosystem and value chain disintegration should be tested for business benefits and continuous infrastructure improvement. Also worth mentioning is the blockchain revolution.

The revolutionary technology has the potential to disrupt and transform the world of money, business and society as application and use-cases surge to new heights every day.

To conclude with, CIOs, with the growing vitality of their role need a clear vision which aims towards hyper productivity, availability and engagement. Only then can they truly reap the benefits of the Digital Transformation journey for their organizations.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 25

FIRST COVERAGE

INDIA’S SILICON VALLEY TO GET ONE OF THE WORLD’S BIGGEST TIER 4 DATA CENTERS CtrlS launches one of the world’s biggest Tier4 Data centers in Bengaluru promises redefined experience and 100% uptime for mission critical businesses such as banking, insurance, telecom, internet and enterprises

26 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

FIRST COVERAGE

SRIDHAR PINAPUREDDY

FOUNDER AND CEO, CTRLS DATACENTERS

“We are investing approximately Rs. 500 Cr. in our world class facility – which also is the World’s 1st LEED Platinum Certified building with industry best PUE enabled by a Carrier-Neutral platform and highest uptime SLA of 99.995%.”

D

ata loss is a crucial nemesis for businesses today. In a recent study, it was observed that when a disaster strikes, 43% of business experiencing it shut their operations soon. Those who do survive the immediate aftermath, usually end up closing within 2 years. More importantly, 93% of businesses that experienced disruption in their datacenter for approximately 10 days went bankrupt within one year. Clearly, data availability and management are crucial not just for the smooth functioning of an organization, but also its very survival.

Catering to this vital need of secure and guaranteed data availability and management, market leader CtrlS Datacenters is launching first Tier-4 Data center in India’s IT hub Bengaluru.

Assessed as one of the largest Tier-4 data centers in South India, the facility is expected to provide India’s growing tech giants with reliable, robust data management and distribution networks, with near zero downtime, 100% redundancy and industry’s lowest PUE. A reputed global name in the Industry, CtrlS Data centers powers 15 of the Fortune 500 Global Multinationals, 25 of the ET 500 companies in India including major banks, insurance companies, telecom players, ecommerce, healthcare, manufacturing, retail, and logistics. Some of CtrlS Data centers major Global and Indian customers include SAP, Deloitte, BMW, Ranbaxy, FedEx, State Bank of India, Panasonic across USA, Singapore, Middle East, and India. The company boasts of Asia’s largest Tier-4 Datacenter and is India’s only Tier 4 certified data center and man-

aged services provider.

The new Tier-4 facility in Bengaluru besides being carrier-neutral, boasts of largest peering and IP-transit arrangement including 170 CDN PoPs across 35 countries with 18 Domestic PoPs across India. The company has a large concentration of edge servers, at key locations with high internet traffic. With intelligent storage load balancing, caching /routing, and high computing and caching power at each PoP, CtrlS promises a high QoS leading to High Quality of Experience (QoE). With its robust network ecosystem, with multiple datacenters, internet connectivity, and own infrastructure including dark-fiber assets, peering, and private internet exchange, CtrlS provides low latency combined with 99.995% uptime guarantee.

As per CtrlS, a total investment plan of Rs. 500 Crore will see the Bangalore data center facility offer rich employment potential for the state of Karnataka with plans to hire over 200 engineering and science graduates in the times to come.

Minister for IT, BT, and S&T, Government of Karnataka Priyank Kharge, who will be present at the launch of the new CtrlS datacenter, shared his thoughts “I’m happy that CtrlS is establishing its latest datacenter in Bengaluru – The Silicon Valley

of India. Our city, which is already the leader in software services, is also fast becoming a hub for global organizations and I’m sure the CtrlS data center will be the start of an ecosystem.”

CtlrS Data centers Founder and CEO Sridhar Pinapureddy shed light on his vision with the launch of the new facility, “We are delighted to announce the launch of Bangalore’s 1st Tier-4 Datacenter. Our Tier-4 datacenters are equipped to power mission critical applications requiring near zero downtime and low latency. We are investing approximately Rs. 500 Cr. in our world class facility – which also is the World’s 1st LEED Platinum Certified building with industry best PUE enabled by a Carrier-Neutral platform and highest uptime SLA of 99.995%.”

With the new launch, CtrlS now counts five datacenters in India in its ranks which include four Tier-4 Data centers spread across Hyderabad, Mumbai, Noida and Bengaluru and one Tier-3 Data center located in Chennai. Ctrls’ total datacenter footprint across the country spans over half-a-million square feet with rack capacity exceeding 10,000. The new Tier4 facility not only adds to the growing reputation of CtrlS Datacentres but also makes it an obvious choice for India’s internet and banking giants.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 27

INTERVIEW // SYNOLOGY

MIKE CHEN, MARKETING DIRECTOR, SYNOLOGY

“When it comes to value for businesses, there are three clear benefits of NAS:

Affordability, Flexibility, and Security.”

28 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

SYNOLOGY // INTERVIEW

APPLYING SOFTWARE-DEFINED APPROACH TO STORAGE Data explosion has virtually changed the way traditional storage works, paving the way for the more NAS companies like Synology to make inroads into tapping the growing storage needs of the Indian SME market.

How has data explosion impacted the traditional storage market?

With the rise of deep learning and AI, it is not just people but machines too are now generating data. Big Data as a trend is just up and coming, and its proliferation will virtually change the way traditional storage works. With vast quantities of data at their disposal, businesses need an outlet to study and evaluate it towards procuring useful information. Synology NAS is part of this up and coming trend wherein we offer huge data storage capacity, and algorithms such as deep learning and subject recognition to get the information our customers need once we have the data. Our most unique selling point is our software, DSM or the Disk Station Manager.

We even have our own public cloud. This gives you the leverage to use Synology NAS on your private cloud and back it up on Synology Cloud as a complete hybrid solution.

We are integrating more such features in our surveillance portfolio. The data is exploding and to keep up with it, you need the right algorithms to collect and evaluate the data. With all this data coming in, you have to have the right filters to enhance the customer experience.

What benefits can businesses look forward to with NAS devices?

When it comes to value for businesses, there are three clear benefits of NAS: Affordability, Flexibility, and Security. With Synology, you can build your storage as you go. If you’re a startup, you don’t need to exhaust your entire storage budget at once. Another affordability factor

of Synology NAS is everything comes inside a onetime cost. You don’t need to subscribe for additional licenses for different applications. We have a packaged service with more than thirty applications. We have in-house designing capabilities and also welcome third party developers.

Over 90 percent of our applications are free.

Next big benefit is flexibility. Enterprise Management Information Systems are perpetually wary of new hardware and software coming into the network infrastructure. Synology’s offerings are business infrastructure ready with the ability to speak to multiple protocols, work with multiple servers and communicate with all operating systems including Windows, Linux etc. When you bring Synology into your company, we don’t want to replace your storage infrastructure rather add to it. With this added value, businesses can explore new applications.

Thirdly, when you do backups, you are protected from threats like ransomware. That is where our last value lies, in security. Studies have shown that the cyber war is just getting started. Ransomware threats will continue and enterprises and individuals will forever be vulnerable to attacks. Synology offers full data protection with backup features that help you take snapshots every minute and recover data in minutes so that you can minimize downtime from any such damage. This is the value that Synology brings to businesses and enterprises.

What is your strategy and roadmap for India market in 2018?

Synology is focused on strengthening its pres-

ence in India. Although our India numbers are relatively small, but that is exactly what drives us.

If you look at how we have performed in similar global markets like China, where we started 6 years ago is now among the top five markets for us globally. India being alike in terms of the scale and current growth rate, we expect same results in our endeavors here. We aim to break the USD 10million revenue mark in India in the next five years.

Customer-wise, the focus will be on targeting the SME segment. We have the right market strategy in place and the right partners to develop the pre and post sales infrastructure across not just Tier 1, but Tier 2 cities as well. We have frequent road shows and training programs planned. A big focus will be on creating successful customer case studies. We are here for the long run and in due time, with the right set of partners, market share, channels and team, we will set up a stronger infrastructure in India for both sales and technical support.

What is your message to prospective enterprise customers?

Synology is a software defined company with a radical mindset integrating breakthrough technologies and trends such as all flash array, deep learning, AI and hyper convergence in our offerings. The strength Synology lies in our software defined mindset for innovation which enables us to give our customers the best possible storage experience. We want to offer our customers that sense of ease and security. If you use Synology, you sleep peacefully at night. Rest assured, your data is protected.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 29

SECURITY INSIGHT

EMERGING NEED FOR DATA SECURITY IN DATACENTER ENVIRONMENTS 2017 has been a year of data breaches and ransomware attacks as global tragedies ‘WannaCry’, ‘Petya’, ‘Equifax’, ‘CloudBleed’, ‘Bad Rabbit’ etc. forced enterprises worldwide to relook at their security programs.

S

ince data centers are repositories for most of the business/customer data, data security controls and most importantly securing the Data Centre becomes of utmost importance.

30 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

IMPLEMENTING COUNTERMEASURES The first thing to do before implementing any countermeasures is to Conduct Risk Assessment of Data Center. This includes assessing the complete threat landscape and existing controls,

including, but not limited to physical security, access control, business continuity planning, compliances, server security etc. This will help in gaining a clear measure of the inherent risk and security posture within the data center and help in deciding upon the right controls to be

SECURITY INSIGHT

should be well planned and monitored throughout the year as planned.

MEETALI SHARMA RISK, COMPLIANCE & SECURITY LEADER, SDG SOFTWARE

“In order to protect customer’s critical information and data assets, focus should be on implementing preventive, detective as

well as corrective controls and early threat detection mechanisms.”

implemented. Similar to the risk assessment of data center, due diligence should be done while selecting the vendor for Data Center, wherever the services are outsourced either on premises or on cloud.

Based on results of risk assessment, countermeasures/controls can be implemented 1) Physical Security l Have a secure physical location – Ensure that the location of data center is some distance from other offices or headquarters affiliated with it. The location should be a non-seismic zone which is not prone to earthquakes. l Surveillance cameras - Surveillance plays a vital role for monitoring daily operations of a data center. l Fire resistant walls& Fire safety equipment – This will ensure that the facility is protected from high-risk man-made and natural disasters like fire. l Install Intrusion alarm systems - Intrusion alarm system would send out alerts to the authorized personnel whenever the security of the data center is compromised l Temperature and humidity monitoring–Ensures that the server and other hardware components are protected against fluctuating weather conditions. l Continuous Power Supply and backup – Batteries can be in place to automatically supply electricityin case of emergency and diesel generators/UPS can be in place which can supply power supply to data center for prolonged period. l Preventive maintenance checks – Regular preventive maintenance should be done. This

2) Access Control l Secure access to authorized personnel - Access control plays a significant role in data center security. Access to data center should be given to authorized personnel and must be role based. l Two-factor authentication – This is being used widely now-a-days to ensure enhanced access control. It is generally a combination of passcode and access based ID card/biometric authentication. l Remove default accounts - This should be done to ensure credentials are not compromised and misused. l Isolate from parent network where required – wherever possible, layered defense should be used. In cases where the data center is within the premises, separate VLANs should be there and servers should be isolated from parent network unless critical.

3) Server Security Monitor connections to server – Server connections should be virtual and monitored at all times to prevent any unauthorized access. l Logs inspection – All logs (access, system etc) should be monitored to detect any suspected activities. l Establish protective technologies –some of them include malware protection, host intrusion prevention, intrusion detection & prevention systems and data loss prevention l Malware protection – Ensure regular protection by Anti-virus updation, patches installation, vulnerability assessment at planned intervals. l

4) Hardware Have backup hardware – Backup hardware should be available at all times which can be used in case of failure of primary hardware.

Redundancy can be practiced which increases security by providing an extra layer of equipment, personnel, or storage in the event of the primary source’s failure l Secure storage of backup tapes – Backup tapes must be stored in an encrypted form with proper access control. l Separate web server and data server wherever possible to prevent complete loss of business data in case of hardware failure or external/internal hacking. l

5) Business Continuity Planning / Disaster Recovery (BCP/DR) l Have a second datacenter – Just as having a backup hardware or backup tapes may sound like a good idea, enterprises that are dealing with

sensitive/confidential information may also plan for a second data center as part of their business continuity planning to prevent any data loss l Conduct backup restoration drills – Not only does the backup need to be secured and encrypted, restoration drills need to be conducted at frequent pre-defined intervals to ensure the data is reusable and can be restored easily 6) Insider Threat Since it is evident from various reports and surveys that most of the data breaches happen due to insider threats, following measures must be in place to ensure protection against insider threats : l Regular training of personnel l Monitoring of activities l Conduct background checks l Define and test Incident Management Process 7) Regulatory Compliance Although this is not mandatory, however, in today’s era, with the emerging threats, complying and getting certified in few industry best standards like ISO 27001, ISO 22301, PCI-DSS etc. gives an assurance to the customers that their data is well protected.

8) Data Security Whether the data center is located on premises or on cloud, data security is the most critical aspect to be taken into account. Any data and backup files stored ot transmitted with customers or internally must be in an encrypted format or transmitted via secure fiber-optic cables. Backup tapes should also be encrypted and as a best practice incremental as well as complete backups should be taken on defined frequency. Data backups can also be stored at a second location to minimize data loss, however, all data must be access controlled, secured and monitored at all times.

IN A NUTSHELL, The primary objective of implementing data center security controls is to ensure that all foreseeable measures are taken to protect customer’scritical/sensitive information and data assets. Focus should be on implementing preventive, detective as well as corrective controls and early threat detection mechanisms. All key aspects related to data center security must be addressed at the beginning during the strategic planning phase and results of risk assessment must form the basis of selecting the appropriate countermeasures. Regular risk assessments and controls optimization should be made an integral part of the security framework to strengthen resilience against emerging threats.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD

31

DIGITAL DIARY

MAKING ‘THINK DIGITAL’ PART OF EMPLOYEE DNA Shifting focus on getting the machines and humans to work together, continually coexisting and co-creating, businesses will start bringing changes to where they invest, who they attract, what they patent and how they develop competencies that outperform competitors.

O

rganizations worldwide are new in their digital transformation journey. They are either in the process of creating or have just created the role of a Chief Digital Officer (CDO). Most of them are doing their digital transformation internally to improve the overall productivity of different business processes, for asset optimization, creating new age experiences for the customers, employees, others and so on.

32 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

There is massive innovation happening in the marketplace with lots of new technologies emerging and becoming mainstream, such as the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data analytics, machine learning, different user experience technologies, Blockchain, etc., enabling enterprises to get a competitive advantage. While doing so, their emphasis at the outset should also be on creating a ‘Think Digital’ culture in the organization.

WHAT IS ‘THINK DIGITAL’ CULTURE? Organizations are typically perceived from two perspectives – individual and organizational– basis visible and invisible factors. From an individual’s perspective, the visible component is the skill and from an organizational perspective, it is the structure, policies, processes, systems, and infrastructure. The invisible factor is the mindset of the organization. The collective mindset of any organization is its culture and an organizational

DIGITAL DIARY

MANDAR MARULKAR CHIEF DIGITAL OFFICER, KPIT TECHNOLOGIES

“A ‘Think Digital’ culture is when every employee of a company understands the meaning of going digital, starts thinking on how to move towards it, and finds ways to

incorporate digital in everything they do.”

culture is not that easily measurable.

A ‘Think Digital’ culture, as the name suggests is when every employee of a company understands the meaning of going digital, starts thinking on how to move towards it, and finds ways to incorporate digital in everything they do.

Employees of any IT firm have a basic understanding that technology helps solve problems.

But, not everyone will be tech savvy. Those, part of the enabling functions may not understand the need for the company to move towards digital.

It is important to make them understand the power of digital technologies by giving examples from their day-to-day lives. It will simplify their understanding of the digital technologies and make it easier for companies to implement similar ideas internally to improve productivity and drive cultural changes in the organisation.

It is important to train employees so that they have the necessary skills to think and act digitally. While employees will be well-versed in the traditional skills, with the world moving towards digital, the real requirement is to re-skill employees in emerging technologies to avoid massive layoffs. A ‘Think Digital’ culture requires three types of skills – domain understanding, technical expertise and data mining ability.

Employees need to have a deep domain understanding, creativity, passion and curiosity.

They need to know the business constraints and the relevance of what is happening in their project and in the customer domain. They require good storytelling ability and analytical guidance and leadership. Employees with technical skills such as new-age technology coding, platform-based development, agile application developments, cloud-native application development, cyber

security, DevOps add value to and are a musthave for organizations.

Data-mining skills are the most important of the three and essential for every individual, irrespective of their designations or job roles. In the past, companies depended on the analytical abilities of their employees to come up with insights based on the data collected in past reports, and take a right decision. The technology was there, but there was no democratization of the intelligence. But now, if everybody is trained in analytical skills then it helps increase the in-the-moment effectiveness of employees as they will take the right decisions at the right time. The analytics should support the decision-making ability of an employee to come up with quick and worthwhile insights.

The availability of skills coupled with a deep understanding of the company’s key verticals and pain points of its customers will help to evaluate the company’s capability in digital technologies.

BENEFITS OF THINK DIGITAL CULTURE Digital Transformation is relevant for every industry irrespective of the domain, be it manufacturing, retail, telecom, oil and gas, etc.

It is horizontal and based on the culture of the organisation, the priorities of the leadership and the maturity of digitisation within the enterprise.

There is a difference between digitisation and digital transformation. Many organisations have embarked on the journey of digitisation by automating tasks and augmenting business processes using digital technologies. Some organisations have also started digitizing their OT infrastructure by adding sensors. For a long time, OT wasn’t

exposed to the internet or integrated with the IT infrastructure. By adding sensors and collecting real-time data, organisations can come out with new ways for improving operational efficiencies, increasing safety and predictability, along with new data-driven business models. They have the early-mover advantage, and can, therefore, grow much faster than the others. If any company hasn’t started the process then it is wise to start soon or else be left far behind their competition.

Companies in the digital age need to understand the power of digital technologies such as bots using conversational user-interfaces, augmented and virtual reality (AR & VR), cognitive technologies such as computer vision, artificial intelligence, and machine learning, etc. Considering the industry segment and maturity of the existing processes, companies can choose these technologies to automate some of the manual work currently done by their employees. This will make processes intelligent and create a better experience while improving business productivity. The time spent on rudimentary work will be spent on adding more value to end customers.

Once we start focusing on getting the machines and humans to work together, continually coexisting and co-creating, we will start bringing changes to where we invest, whom we attract, what we patent and how we develop competencies that outperform competitors. We will see more task automation, process augmentation and job amplification using digital technologies.

For transforming companies in the digital age, they need to build a team composed of dreamers, designers, doubters, and doers. Collectively represent different viewpoints but share the same vision. The dreamer’s crazy ideas need the designer’s discipline to translate them into different experiments, the doubter’s validation on whether the ideas are worth the investment and commercially viable, and the doer’s skills to build the structures, processes, and ecosystem for implementing the ideas at scale.

Major impediment to adopting digital is the organisational culture. Other barriers include the top management commitment, board commitment, skills and talent perspective, unavailability of the resources, etc. If we get the right culture in the organisation – Think Digital culture – then instinctively there will be lot of push from everybody in the organisation to make it happen in the other areas as well.

Businesses can never come to the end of its digital journey as it is an ongoing process with substantial progress happening. There will be a constant need for building digital leadership, technical skills and educating people on the things that can be automated, augmented and amplified.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 33

CIO TALK

TRANSFORMATION OF THE ENTERPRISE CIO The opportunity and challenge for the CIO today is all about agility. The CIO is necessitated to don many hats – Operator, Technologist, Strategist and Catalyst – in order to drive values in a way which business-oriented colleagues can understand.

T

he Chief Information Officer (CIO) is one that is normally associated with the responsibility of the various Information Technology and Computer systems that support the organization’s goals and objectives. In today’s rapidly changing world, this seems to be more of a theoretical description of the role shouldered by 34 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

the individual. Over the last 10 years, this role has been influenced strongly by technological winds of change leading to a strong metamorphosis in the expectations of the role than ever before. Most CIOs have been fortunate to witness the digital revolution, presenting them with a plethora of opportunities that we could not think of earlier. It has also helped organizations to equip themselves with more capabilities to explore new territories

in niche areas. New business models have been introduced to optimize the use of technology in a better way and strategize business goals.

Consequently, the CIO role is no longer confined to keeping abreast with new technological advancements but also lead changes in his/her organization.

With the advent of highly disruptive technologies in the recent past – Social media, Mobile

CIO TALK

MILAN KUMAR GLOBAL CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, WABCO

“Today, the CIO has to interpret business knowledge and use it to play the enabler between available technologies and their

optimum use to satisfy the customer in the least turnaround time.”

apps, Cloud computing, Big Data and analytics– the CIO role has become all the more important for implementing the above concepts in a highly fruitful way for organizations. Technology has permeated all levels of society, especially social media and cloud apps. For CIOs, just talking about technology is no longer in. Gone are the days of holding bulky PowerPoint presentations to showcase new technologies on the horizon and their use in the digital world. Today, the CIO has to interpret business knowledge and use it to play the enabler between available technologies and their optimum use to satisfy the customer in the least turnaround time. CIOs should strongly focus on digital transformation; to achieve this, it is important to provide accurate information and suitable tools in the hands of customers, partners, employees and helping the business find new digital revenue streams.

A NEW TERRITORY – CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE Of late, Customer Experience (CX) has been assuming paramount importance. CX is all about the ways in which a customer or prospective customer interacts with the organization through various channels– social media, phone, surveys, emails, etc. The roles and responsibilities of the CIO have extended to this area as well, thanks to the advent of technology as an enabler for better customer communication and feedback. Amidst all this, the IT department is still a critical department for the organization, it has to move from being the conventional back-office to one that is more customer-oriented in its operational style.

The CIO assumes the leadership of spearheading the change in the IT department for a new level of

customer experience.

The erstwhile strategies revolving around vendor, suppliers and information systems have given way to a fresh, brand-new strategy encompassing shareholders and end-users of products and services. CIOs need to look upon technology in a different way than before. Today, leveraging technology is the differentiator. ERP systems, CRM and SCM should be designed based on the business processes, backed by an innovative mindset. For the CIO, the customer should take centre-stage in all strategy designs and plans.

THE HUMAN RESOURCES CHALLENGE With all the Artificial Intelligence (AI) talk around about displacing human resources in various industries, they still hold a key in the organization’s strategic decisions. Good leadership shoulders the onus of attracting the best, suitable human resources and ensuring their motivation, satisfaction and enthusiasm. With developing countries stabilizing around the globe, employment opportunities have gone up– an estimated 2 million jobs are expected to get created –making it even more difficult to secure cream talent for your organization over the years. These challenges have forced the CIO to look beyond conventional motivation factors like salary, designation, good projects to more encouraging factors like flexible work timings, demanding projects, better career opportunities and regular performance evaluation.

A NEW DEFINITION OF BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP The erstwhile concept of business relationships is

still valid today, but it is largely defined today by variable factors like technological innovations, a highly demanding business environment, ever-changing regulations and an optimum utilization of technology to meet business goals. The CIO’s challenge today is to perfectly interpret organization objectives and then utilize technology to support the achievement of these objectives.

The wave of digitalization that has swept across the world has made it imperative to relook at and restructure the IT department and the CIOs role in particular. IT is not be considered simply as a database storage server or hardware equipment or computer maintenance department. It no longer is to be only “aligned”, but “integrated” with the business and organization goals. Seniors in the IT department should be on the same page as strategy planners in the executive management, as far as the organization goals and objectives are concerned. IT should serve as an enabler and not merely a cost centre. Simply put, there should exist strong relationships between people with the same set of goals. In addition to this, CIOs should be also able to identify resources with strong innovative and leadership qualities who can partner with stakeholders in all areas to meet their expectations.

Innovation versus Cost Optimization Today, the CIO is expected to perform the balancing act, which happens to be the most important challenge of the role. Some projects will demand a highly innovative spirit from the IT department whereas achieving cost efficiency might be the objective of another project. IT has to work hand-in-hand with different projects, which means that they have to shift gears as and when required– whether it be a conventional computerization of a legacy environment or an experimental project in a niche area.

CONCLUSION The opportunity and challenge for the CIO today is all about agility. The CIO is necessitated to don many hats – Operator, Technologist, Strategist and Catalyst – in order to drive values in a way which business-oriented colleagues can understand.

CIOs occupy a unique spot: they create an opportunity to create innovative growth strategies for their organizations through a mix of business knowledge and profound technology expertise. Needless to say, the employed technology must provide an advantage and also meet the needs of users. Putting their best foot forward in these critical areas will enable CIOs to create the required impact on all stakeholders throughout the company’s ecosystem.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 35

INTERVIEW // APTECH

VISHWAJEET SINGH, CIO AND VP – DELIVERY, APTECH

“It is right to focus on the ROI and Security aspect but it is as important to translate your technology approach to meet your business requirements.”

36 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

APTECH // INTERVIEW

EMBRACING NEW TECHNOLOGY IS ABOUT MEETING BUSINESS REQUIREMENTS Spearheading transformation across enterprise verticals for over two decades, veteran CIO Vishwajeet Singh opens up on the highlights on his journey, his understanding of the ever evolving IT landscape and the role of technology partners like CtrlS Datacenters in helping organizations leverage digital to achieve business targets.

How has been your journey in IT, heading digital transformation for different organizations?

I started my career more than two decades ago,as a management trainee for Xerox in 1996. By education I am a computer science post graduate and also hold a management degree from IIM Kozhikode. After a year at Xerox, I shifted to the software side with Innoserv System where I worked as Team Lead on a project related to Computer-based training CDs. After that I shifted to Indiamart.com, where I started as an assistant manager and went up to the senior management level heading complete transformation for all their big customers, not only on the B2B dot com domain, but also the web part in a complete techno-commercial profile. After that, I moved on to FCM Travels in 2002, which was one of the second largest travel company in the world.

At FCM, I went up to the national IT manager, started heading India, MEA, with China and Hong Kong being additional portfolios. At FCM, one of my projects garnered critical acclaim and a number of industry recognitions. The project was based on complete automation of travel functions, from back office to the customer level, creating a customized ERP of sorts for the travel industry. Not only was the project a huge success from the cost aspect, fulfilling its ROI within 18 months, but also from Green IT perspective wherein we were able to digitize invoicing, removing paper from the process.

In 2010, I moved on to Entertainment World Developers which was a 3000 Crore company and the largest mall operator at that time. I headed their technology framework across diverse business verticals like Mall Operations, Hospitals and Retail brands. Another highlight project came at my next job with Epitome Travel Solutions, wherein we started a new venture from scratch and worked on open source. Till day that is listed on both Red Hat and IBM global websites. Then I moved on to a digital media company based out of US, where I set up their complete IT structure enabling them to start their

operations in India.

In 2016, I shifted to Aptech taking up the post of their first CIO managing the complete operations of a 30 year old company which has multiple brands like Arena, Lakme academy, aviation training, their offline schools by the name of Aptech Montana and so on. Aptech is one of the biggest names in the Education Sector with presence across 42 countries, through institutes or learning platforms which are being leveraged by global educational institutions to run their complete, targeted student lifecycle. We are bringing unique functionalities to the education vertical like videoconferencing for parents and teachers, transparency through remote viewing of classrooms through mobile app, more experienced-based learning by bringing Virtual Reality to our institutes.

In our assessment business, where we conduct examinations for various reputed government and private agencies, we are converting the medium from traditional offline examinations to online exams through CBT platforms, on the lines of the Digital India movement. On an average, we execute close to six million examinations every six months. There are a number of projects in the pipeline and the way market is changing with devices and bandwidths becoming cheaper, we are trying to adapt to new concepts which help us improve the experience we give to our audience and Digital plays a big part in it.

How vital are technology partners like CtrlS Datacenters in supporting your projects and future plans?

We have two partners through which we work with. We use different partner for my passive utilization but for my active utilization and the entire production aspect, I am totally dependent on CtrlS. All my live environments and whichever part of my infrastructure is exposed to the external world is hosted on CtrlS Datacenters, which doesn’t just show the vitality of the relationship but also highlights our confidence in CtrlS’s capabilities. I have both my public and private

clouds with CtrlS. So far the association has come along really well and there have been no issues.

In terms of my expectations for future, I have been working closely with CtrlS on the subject.

Since Cloud is a matured industry now, we expect our partners to be increasingly active while providing their services. I believe a partnership should not be one-sided partnership but there should be active contributions at both ends. Every business vertical has a different set of requirement to cater to and even the challenges associated are very different. This is where we need able guidance from partners like CtrlS. We need to work as active partners to compliment each other’s growth. Businesses like us have requirements which partners like CtrlS fulfill, and there needs to be a fusion which creates a win-win situation for both the parties.

What is your advice to fellow CIOs on evolving role and roadmap ahead?

The Indian technology market has a history of disruption by new trends event before the ones in place are able to reach their maturity level.

There have been frequent changes leading from mainstream computing to virtualization and then cloud. Indian CIOs need to be careful and accurate when evaluating technologies. They need to understand their organization’s requirement rather than just being at par with what is happening in the industry. We need to judge our own needs first before embracing any new technology in the organization architecture.

There can’t be anything which can be benchmarked, because you can’t be certain that if an approach has worked for another business, it will work for you. Apart from just reaping the benefits attached with new technologies and developments in the market but to get optimum result, you have to know how effective it is for your business. You have to work along with the market and you have to be ready for all such changes.

CIOs shouldn’t just be spectators following what is happening in the market but play along with it.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 37

CISO SPEAKS

EMERGING CYBERSECURITY CHALLENGES: A NEW THREAT LANDSCAPE Cybersecurity challenges have increased manifold and there is paradigm shift in Threat Landscape and in spite of substantial spending on legacy security products, advanced attackers are bypassing these defenses easily making the life of Security Professional miserable.

T

here’s no single technical answer.

Attackers will always exist and innovate and find a way into any organization data no matter how secured is the defense mechanism. Breaches are inevitable.

The shift in security outlook needs to change from “keep them out” to “early detection and response before damage is done”.

NEW THREAT LANDSCAPE Attacks have changed in form, function, and 38 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

sophistication. The main difference is the new threats (advanced attacks, APTs etc) are actively driven by humans, as opposed to previous generation attacks which were malware based attacks (viruses, Trojans, worms etc) These advanced attacks utilize both malware designed to infect many systems as well as sophisticated, zero-day malware to infect targeted systems. They use multiple attack vectors like Web, email, and application-based attacks. And today’s attacks are aimed at getting valuable data assets—sensitive financial information,

intellectual property, authentication credentials, insider information—and each attack is often a multi-staged effort to invade networks, spread, and ultimately hack the valuable data.

Limitations of Traditional Single-Vector Defenses Most of the Security organizations are looking for malware based attacks instead of human attackers who may use malware as part of their advanced attacks. Hence new generation of threats are able to bypass traditional security defense.

CISO SPEAKS

SUDIPTA BISWAS VICE PRESIDENT AND CISO, PRIME INFOSERV

“Attacks have changed in form, function, and sophistication with new threats (advanced attacks, APTs etc) driven actively by humans, as opposed to previous

generation attacks which were malware based attacks.”

Firewalls: Firewalls allow generic http Web traffic. Next-generation firewalls add layers of policy rules based on users and applications& consolidate traditional protections such as IPS and AV but do not add dynamic protection that can detect threat content or behavior. l IPS: Works on Signatures, packet inspection, DNS analysis. It will not detect anything unusual in a zero-day exploit, especially if the code is heavily disguised or delivered in stages. l Anti-virus and Web malware filtering: Since the malware and the vulnerability it exploits are unknown (zero day), and the website has a clean reputation, traditional AV and Web filters will let it pass. The volume of vulnerabilities in browser plug-ins like Adobe and the exponential combinations of these browsers with operating systems make it hard for AV vendors to keep up. l Email spam filtering: Spoofed phishing sites use dynamic domains and URLs, so blacklisting lags behind criminal activities. It takes more than 26 hours to shut down the average phishing site.

Malicious code can also be carried in laptops, USB devices, or via cloud-based file sharing to infect a machine and spread laterally when it connects into the network. It is common for mobile systems to miss updates to DAT files and patches, so they are vulnerable to both known and unknown exploits. In general, even up-to-date machines can be infected using zero-day exploits and social engineering techniques, especially when the system is off the corporate network.

Once in place, malware may replicate itself— with subtle changes to make each instance look unique—and disguise itself to avoid scans. Some will turn off AV scanners, reinstall after a cleaning, or lie dormant for days or weeks.

Eventually, the code will pass on login creden-

tials, financial data, and other valuables. Many compromised hosts provide a privileged base so the criminal can explore further or expand his bot net with new targets.

Most companies don’t analyze outbound traffic for these malicious transmissions. Organizations that monitor outbound transmissions use tools that look for “known” bad actor addresses and regulated data. l Web filtering: Most outbound filtering blocks adult content or time-wasting entertainment sites.

Many enterprises restrict social networking sites.

THE FIVE STAGES OF MULTIVECTOR ATTACKS The new generation attacks are complex, use multiple attack vectors to maximize the chances of breaking through defenses. Multi-vector attacks are typically delivered via the Web or email. They leverage application or operating system vulnerabilities, exploiting the inability of conventional network-protection mechanisms to provide a fool-proof defense.

In addition to using multiple vectors, advanced targeted attacks also utilize multiple stages to penetrate a network and then steal valuable information. This makes it far more likely for threats to go undetected. The five stages of the attack life cycle are as follows: System exploitation: The attack attempts to set up the first stage, and exploits the system using casual browsing. It’s often a blended attack delivered across the Web or email with the email containing malicious URLs. Malware executable payloads are downloaded and long-term control established: A single exploit translates into dozens of infections on the same system. With exploitation successful, more

malware executables—key loggers, Trojan backdoors, password crackers, and file grabbers—are then downloaded. This means that criminals have now built long-term control mechanisms into the system.

Malware calls back: As soon as the malware installs, hackers establish a control point within organizational defenses. Once in place, the malware calls back to criminal servers for further instructions. The malware can also replicate and disguise itself to avoid scans, turn off anti-virus scanners, reinstall missing components after a cleaning, or lie dormant for days or weeks.

By using callbacks from within the trusted network, malware communications are allowed through the firewall and will penetrate all the different layers of the network.

Data ex-filtration: Data acquired from infected servers is transmitted via encrypted files over a commonly allowed protocol, such as FTP or HTTP, to an external compromised server controlled by the criminal.

Malware spreads laterally: The hacker now works to move beyond the single system and establish long-term control within the network.

The advanced malware looks for mapped drives on infected laptops and desktops, and can then spread laterally and deeper into network file shares. It will map out the network infrastructure, determine key assets, and establish a network foothold on target servers.

HOW THE NEW GENERATION OF THREATS BYPASS TRADITIONAL SECURITY Cybercriminals combine Web, email, and file-based attack vectors in a staged attack, making it far more likely for their attacks to go undetected. Today’s firewalls, IPS, AV, and Web gateways have little chance to stop attackers using zero-day, one-time-use malware, and APT tactics.

These blended, multi-stage attacks succeed because traditional security technologies rely on fairly static signature-based or pattern matching technology. Many zero-day and targeted threats penetrate systems by hiding newly minted, polymorphic dropper malware on innocent Web pages and in downloadable files like JPEG pictures and PDF documents. Or they use social media sites embedding tweets that include a shortened URL masking the malicious destination. Each time a victim visits the URL or opens the attachment, a malware payload installs on the victim’s computer. This malware code often includes exploits for multiple unknown vulnerabilities in the OS, plug-ins, browsers, or applications to ensure it gains a foothold on the system.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 39

INDUSTRY ADVICE

VIVEK NAIDU VICE PRESIDENT - INFORMATION MANAGEMENT, KODAK ALARIS INDIA

“There are many productivity resources for reducing one’s personal paper usage, but taking a closer look at how paper is used across an

organization will have the greatest impact.”

GUIDE TO GOING PAPERLESS Despite abundance of ways to cut down on paper use, most businesses even with digital transformation efforts under way still have a long way to go in optimizing their methods of moving everything paper-based to digital as quickly as possible.

P

aperwork is an integral part of doing business, but physical paper is not. Reliance on paper documents results in millions of dollars of waste, which could be eliminated or at least radically reduced by going paperless. As your physical paperwork piles up, so will your issues:

40 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

WORLDWIDE PAPERLESS EFFORT The ever-increasing flood of data, and how we manage it, is one of the greatest opportunities facing businesses and governments in the 21st century. Data is ubiquitous and is embedded in countless formats. It’s in email, paper documents, online posts, videos and more. Most of that data is unstructured. Of course, this makes document management chaotic. The first step in this journey

towards digitization is to go ‘paperless’.

Despite the optimism and the abundance of ways to cut down on paper use, most businesses and public agencies have a long way to go. Even those that have digital transformation efforts under way still have many opportunities to optimize their methods of moving everything paper-based to digital format as quickly as possible.BENEFITS OF GOING

PAPERLESS

Organization: No more piles of paperwork.

No more clunky filing cabinets, either. l Efficiency: Digital documents are much easier to manage, store, and retrieve. l Scalability: Without rows of filing cabinets towering throughout the office, a paperless operation requires much less space. l Environmentally Friendly: Reduced printing means fewer trees will be cut down to produce paper. l Faster Communication: Once digitized, a document is available where it is needed, instantly. l Document Backup and Recovery: It is costly and time consuming, or in many cases impossible to replace a paper document. l Less Costly: Storing documents is costly, especially for businesses in prime locations.There are many productivity resources for reducing one’s personal paper usage, but taking a closer look at how paper is used across an organization will have the greatest impact. A key place to start looking is the point where paper comes into your organization, and digitizing it on entry. l

BEYOND BUSINESS // THE STUFF

CIO TOYS

ALARIS

ALARIS S2080W The S2080w is a perfect companion for any CIO looking to go paperless without adding to his daily workload. Built-wise, Alaris 2080 keeps up with the best industry standards and with a compact frame and interactive touch screen capability. The scanning speed is quick and it is worth mentioning that the actual speed matches up and even betters the claimed 80 ppm and

160 ipm by a couple of pages. The scanner has a built-in processor which works as a scanning assistant taking over the redundant tasks like indexing, thus eliminating workload from PCs. Combines with the intuitive control panel to give vital information on errors and better task setup.

The Active feed technology takes care of issues like misalignment and multiple feed issues that

result in rescanning and wastage of precious time.

The scanner also self adjusts for paper thickness and sizes and is able to scan mixed set of documents with ease. Embedded Image processing delivers high quality scanning across devices.

The scanning mechanism has LED Illumination which gives new levels of clarity, optimizes text readability and decreases the prominence of folds and wrinkles on pages. This makes S2080 great fit at digitization of old documents and converting organizations into paperless environments. Info Input Express LE software uses OCR (Optical Character Recognition) for automatic data extraction. The software allows you to scroll through up to 20 job setups and make a selection based on the description or activity. Keeping up with its ability to perform as a scanning assistant, the S2080 is a great network scanner apart from the traditional USB capability. Seemingly business ready, it works seamlessly with Cloud and On-premise applications, and its integrated Web API means that no drivers are needed for installation. Installation can also be performed through the barcode scanning feature. The S2080 can work across devices from PCs, Mobiles and Tablets and can take scanning commands from up to 10 devices at a time. S2080 is complimented by two Flatbed Accessories for Passport and A4 size scanning requirements. All in all a capable offering, the S2080 is the perfect digitization assistant for CIOs in sectors like BFSI, Government, Education Healthcare and Manufacturing among others.

DELL

B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M

DELL XPS 13

Dell XPS 13 (9370) is the perfect blend of technology and lifestyle.

Identifying the growing demand for thinner, lighter and more powerful mobile devices by today’s professionals 9370 scales a minimal 13.3” featuring Ultra Sharp 4K Ultra HD infinity edge touch display with HDR. The XPS 13 delivers more performance with Dell Power Manager which dynamically delivers the maximum amount of power from your processor, while intelligently

monitoring and managing system temperatures. Encased in brushed aluminum, XPS 13 is the first laptop built with GORE Thermal Insulation which provides thermal conductivity levels lower than air in a thin, flexible format, keeping the laptop cool in intense workload scenarios. The 9370 is equipped with the latest Intel 8th Generation Quad Core CPUs and supports 16GB LPDDR3 RAM and 512 GB PCIe SSD. It comes with Intel Ultra HD Graphic card 620 for

crisper resolutions and better video processing. Other features include USB Type-C 3.1 (Gen 1) with power delivery and display port support, password-free log-in with Windows Hello & IR camera. XPS 13 comes with 19 hours of battery life with a built-in of 52W battery.

FEBRUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD

41

THE STUFF // PRODUCTS & SERVICES

NETGEAR

NETGEAR NIGHTHAWK X6S The Nighthawk X6S Tri-Band Gigabit Router offers faster wireless capabilities, a powerful processor, and multi-user MIMO technology for improved performance and lightning fast networking when simultaneously streaming to multiple devices. The router supports voice commands for your WiFi network through

the Amazon Alexa voice service platform.

X6S offers notable combined WiFi speed up to 4Gbps and is powered by a next-gen 64-bit 1.8GHz dual core processor with three offload processors. Standard Nighthawk router features such as NETGEAR genie remote access, ReadyCLOUD and OpenVPN help you

D-LINK

control the X6S from anywhere. Connectivity enhancement features include SmartConnect for intelligent selection of the fastest WiFi band for every device. Network load balancing and segmentation also enables the X6S to mitigate interference, especially useful with your smart IoT devices.

D-LINK CCTV BULLET CAMERAS D-Link CCTV bullet cameras offer the perfect DIY surveillance system, with cameras designed for easy deployment which can be mounted anywhere indoor and outdoor on walls, posts, gates and ceilings. The cameras work with the D-Link CCTV application which allows surveillance and video monitoring in real time. The cameras also support DCMS surveillance solution for managing multiple cameras /NVR /DVR. Bifurcated in 3 models, D-Link CCTV bullet cameras come in 1MP Fixed, 2MP Fixed and 2MP Varifocal Bullet Cameras with HD imaging up to 1080P and IT Ranges up to 35m, built-in support for AHD/ TVI/ CVI/CVBS Output (OSD) and video transmission capabilities up to 300m. D-Link offers a warranty of 2 years on its line of CCTV Bullet Cameras.

42 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD FEBRUARY 2018

RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2017/ 69906 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-01 / 4200 / 17-19

Date of Publication: 28 of Every Month Date of Posting: 1 & 2 of Every Month

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