ChannelWorld May 2014 Issue

FOCAL POINT: While considering a turnkey SDN solution from a vendor, SDN controller’s capabilities matter. PAGE 37

ChannelWorld STRATEGIC INSIGHTS FOR SOLUTION PROVIDERS | COVER PRICE Rs.50

SUDARSAN RANGANATHAN, MD and CEO, Veeras Infotek, has transformed customer engagement model.

Inside MAY 2014 VOL. 8, ISSUE 2

News Analysis Intel has barely made a dent in the mobile market, while ARM has been wildly successful. PAGE 13

On Record: Lennie Tan Director-Technical Services, Dell Software APJ on Dell’s software strategy. PAGE 18

CASH THE CAPITAL Innovative ways of looking at business growth strategy. Three partner organizations recount. >>PAGE 27

The Grill: Anthony McMahon SVP, Ecosystem and Channels, SAP APJ on HANA as a big goldmine for enterprise channels. PAGE 25

Opinion IT has moved from being the center of connectivity and resource management in organizations. PAGE 22

Feature What are the precautions firms should take to protect files and applications in the event of disaster? PAGE 34

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4/11/14 3:14 PM

n EDITOR’S NOTE

Vijay Ramachandran Work Kills Productivity “More men are killed by overwork than the importance of the world justifies.”

—Rudyard Kipling

H

OW MUCH do you work? I wonder whether ‘suc-

cesful’ people ever get asked that? It’s possible that a better question might be: “Do you work too much?” I suspect that that answer, from people who have achieved more than an modicum of success, in most cases would be in the negative. In today’s corporate world we put so much stock in outperforming others, in putting in longer hours at the office or by working harder, that it seems that we’ve taken the Olympics motto ‘Citius, Altius, Fortius’ (Faster, Higher, Stronger) a bit too literally.

A Prime-Ministerial candidate in our current General Elections revels in hopping from location to location, delivering speeches and meeting voters. When asked how he relaxes, he responds: “Work is my relaxation.”

There seems to be a perception that ours is a world of hyper-competition, a world of matsya nyaya, where the strong devour the weak.

Even if this perception is accurate, isn’t our response still too extreme? One outdoes competition by being smarter, by initiating better responses rather than by putting in more hours, by missing vacations, by spending less time with friends.

Numerous studies prove

that apart from exhaustion or irritation, overwork leads to weakened immunity, debilitated digestion, messed up sleep patterns and a consequent reduction in self-control regarding food and alcohol.

In a recent article for Psychology Today, Emma Seppala, associate director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research at Stanford University, not only suggests attacking the problem in very different ways but also observes that taking time off makes you

n We often clear

our workstations or email, but we seldom do that with our minds—that would make us more efficient and effective by working less.

much more productive.

Quoting from many studies, she observes that overwork doesn’t end in success; that too much self-discipline is taxing actually leads to willpower fatigue; and, that too much focus can actually hurt our creative problem-solving skills. We often clear our workstations or email, but we seldom do that with our minds.

She suggests two ways by which we can actually break the pattern of overwork and become “more efficient and effective by working less.”

DO NOTHING: When do we get moments of insight or creativity, Seppala asks. It’s often not at work. It might be in the shower, while walking, listening to music or relaxing in any other way.

“Things seem to fall into place and just “click” - we have an “AHA” moment.

The trick to self-mastery

actually lies in the opposite of control: effortlessness, relaxation and well-being,” she observes.

“Control is fatiguing, while brain imaging research shows that relaxation is not only restorative but actually leads to enhanced memory and facilitated intellectual understanding...

It’s important that the brain has had time to relax, restore, and reflect,” she says.

A side effect of taking time for ourselves, detaching from work, and relaxing, she adds, is often enhanced positive mood, which research shows also leads to greater insight and better problem solving. So meditate, or do that things you really miss (watching movies, spending time with family).

BE OF SERVICE: Go out of your way to be kind. Help others. That, Seppala says, is a great way to stop focusing so hard and to enhance your positive mood. “Research shows its good for your mental and physical health, you’ll live longer, be happier and even have decreased inflammation even at the cellular level,” she observes.

Networking and meaningfully connecting with others provably, enhances the chance of success.

So, now the question: What are you going to do about it?  Vijay Ramachandran is the Editor-in-Chief of ChannelWorld. Contact him at vijay_ramachandran@ idgindia.com

MAY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

3

FOR BREAKING NEWS, GO TO CHANNELWORLD.IN

Inside INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n MAY 2014

■ ON RECORD 18 Lennie Tan, | Director-Technical Services, Dell Software APJ explains

■ NEWS DIGEST 09 Power of the Joint Entity |

Hitachi Systems announced that Micro Clinic India, an IT services company based in India has been converted to a Group company, combining the products, services, technologies, knowhow, and business resources of the two companies 10 Tough Times Ahead for Smaller Cloud Players | IDC predicts tough times ahead for smaller

Dell’s software strategy to stakeholders, especially partners.

■ OPINION

03 Editorial: Vijay Ramachandran believes that with clearing the mind— would make us more efficient and effective by working less.

42 PlainSpeak: Yogesh Gupta says the advent of mobile devices will accelerate CYOD (Choose Your Own Device) much faster than the erstwhile BYOD concept across organisations.

22 Steve Ragan: Times have changed and the rapid advance of technology has moved IT from being the center of connectivity and resource management.

30

■ THE GRILL

cloud players in Asia as major vendors in the region dropped their prices for core services.

25 Anthony McMahon, Senior Vice President, Ecosystem and Channels, SAP APJ on why HANA is a big goldmine for enteprise channels.

Business is an ongoing juggernaut of highs and lows.

Juggling the short term and long term objectives calls for astuteness, acumen and a certain amount of maturity.

Veeras Infotek, Acme Digitek and Dev IT have their compelling stories to tell, about how they went about change, in order to keep their cash and capital, just like soul and body, not only together, but as a whole in order to grow bigger and better.

■ NEWS ANALYSIS 13 Catching Up | Intel has barely

made a dent in the mobile market, while ARM has been wildly successful.

Cover Photograph by: SHARP IMAGE Cover Design by UNNIKRISHNAN A.V

27 Cash the Capital

■ FEATURE

34 Protect Your Data,

25

What are the precautions companies should take to protect files and applications in the event of disaster?

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Inside

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD n MAY 2014

■ FAST TRACK

■ FOCAL POINT

37 Unlocking the Value SDN: While considering a turnkey SDN

solution, SDN controller capabilities matter. Yet there’s no model for exactly what

20 Gautam Verma, Director, Magic Systems

23 Madan Mohan S, MD, Alackrity Consols, says

tha company wants to be recognised as an IT ecosystem architect, instead of a mere solution provider.

Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India

CHANNELWORLD.IN

Publisher, President & CEO Louis D’Mello n EDITORIAL

says they are a one-stop vendor for Information security solutions encompassing a large portfolio

across UTM, encryption, DLP and alliances with various security vendors .

CHANNELWORLD

Editor-in-Chief Vijay Ramachandran Executive Editor Gunjan Trivedi Associate Editors Sunil Shah,Yogesh Gupta Features Editor Shardha Subramanian Special Correspondents Gopal Kishore, Radhika Nallayam, Shantheri Mallaya Principal Correspondents Sneha Jha, Varsha Chidambaram Senior Correspondents Aritra Sarkhel, Eric Ernest, Shubhra Rishi, Shweta Rao Senior Copy Editors Shreehari Paliath, Vinay Kumaar Lead Designers Pradeep Gulur, Suresh Nair, Vikas Kapoor Senior Designers Sabrina Naresh, Unnikrishnan A.V.

an SDN controller should be, no standards an SDN controller must adhere to. One of the key challenges confronting potential users of software-defined networking is discerning the specific value of particular SDN controllers.

38 Synergy of SDN+NFV

SDN: Understanding how two revolutionary networking developments - SDN and NFV-and how work together. The guiding principle behind SDN remains the separation of network control logic from the physical routers and switches that forward traffic from individual network nodes, based on a real-time view of the network as a whole. NFV is about virtualizing IT resources in software so that virtual implementations may be used to provide important network functions.

n SALES

& MARKETING

President Sales & Marketing Sudhir Kamath Vice President Sales Sudhir Argula Vice President Special Projects Parul Singh General Manager Marketing Siddharth Singh General Manager Sales Jaideep M. Manager Key Accounts Sakshee Bagri Manager Sales Support Nadira Hyder Senior Marketing Associates Archana Ganapathy, Benjamin Jeevanraj, Marketing Associate Arjun Punchappady, Cleanne Serrao, Lavneetha Kunjappa, Margaret DCosta, Shwetha M. Lead Designer Jithesh C.C. Senior Designer Laaljith C.K. n OPERATIONS

Vice President HR & Operations Rupesh Sreedharan Financial Controller Sivaramakrishnan T.P. CIO Pavan Mehra Senior Manager Operations: Ajay Adhikari, Chetan Acharya, Pooja Chhabra Senior Manager Accounts Sasi Kumar V. Senior Manager Production T.K. Karunakaran Manager Operations Dinesh P., Tharuna Paul Manager Credit Control Prachi Gupta Sr. Accounts Executive Poornima n OFFICES

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX Dell India Pvt. Ltd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

HP Storage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 & 15

Emerson Network Power India Pvt. Ltd . . . . . . . . BC

Juniper Networks India Pvt.LTd . . . . . . . . . . . . . IBC

Grass Roots India . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Microsoft Corporation (India) Pvt. Ltd. . . . . . . . IFC

This index is provided as an additional service. The publisher does not assume any liability for errors or omissions.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced by any means without prior written permission from the publisher. Address requests for customized reprints to IDG Media Private Limited, Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India. IDG Media Private Limited is an IDG (International Data Group) company.

Printed and Published by Louis D’Mello on behalf of IDG Media Private Limited, Geetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, India. Editor: Louis D’Mello, Printed At Manipal Press Ltd, Press Corner, Manipal-576104, Karnataka, India.

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News

WHAT’S WITHIN PAGE 10: Hardware, Transition Costs Hits IBM PAGE 10: Tough Times Ahead for Smaller Cloud Players PAGE 12: Cisco’s Managed Threat Defense PAGE 13: Catching Up

F I N D M O R E A R T I C L E S AT CHANNELWORLD.IN

M&A

Power of the Joint Entity

H

ITACHI Systems an-

nounced that Micro Clinic India, an IT services company based in India has been converted to a Group company based on a share purchase agreement and a shareholders’ agreement. Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic started operations on April 3.

By combining the products, services, technologies, knowhow, and business resources of the two companies, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic with 15 business sites in major cities and 150 satellite offices across India is planning its business expansion to create early synergy such as newly providing

DC services, 24/7 high quality managed services, cloud services and boosting virtualization services.

By investing aggressively in human resources and those new business to expand the range of solutions, and by adding the Hitachi products to its product line-up, Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic will provide local corporations as well as foreign corporations including Japanese companies, with a one-stop service ranging from procuring IT equipment in India to system design and construction, operation and maintenance with the aim to approximately 2.4 billion rupees(approx.

4.2 billion yen) by the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016 compared with the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014.

Yoshinori Okami, Director and Chairman of Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic said,” The combination of more than 600 excellent engineers, as well as a strong customer platform of more than 200 clients at Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic, with the advanced IT technology, data centers and other infrastructure that Hitachi Systems has nurtured in Japan over more than half a century will not only contribute to the development of the Indian economy.”

Tarun Seth, MD of Hitachi Systems Micro Clinic said, “We will introduce bouquet of new services and add new products to our portfolio to increase our revenues with existing customers and acquire new customers. We will expand our presence in India, add Human Capital and also make this as the base to expand in Asia and Middle East.”

Hitachi Systems Group is deploying various measures aimed at achieving revenues of 500 billion yen (289 billion rupees) and an overseas sales ratio of 10% in fiscal 2015 as outlined under its medium-term management plan. The present acquisition is aimed at achieving these targets by strengthening and expanding the business in both India and Asia.

APRIL 2014

—ChannelWorld Bureau INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

9

HARDWARE

Riverbed Rebranding Riverbed Technology released a rebranded SteelFusion line of storage appliances, signaling its intention to further centralize its branch office lines and combine as much functionality as possible into a single device.

SteelFusion 3.0 software (incremented from Granite 2.6) will ship on new SteelFusion 1160, 1260 and 1360 appliances.

Two entirely new devices the SteelFusion Core 3000 data center appliance and the

SteelFusion Edge 1360p were launched today as well. The idea of the binary offering, according to Riverbed product marketing director Eric Carter, is to provide a high degree of flexibility and visibility allowing VMs to live on the core unit in a main data center, but be used and managed from the branch office, for example.

The SteelFusion Core 3000 appliance will start at $8,000, while the Edge 1360p unit will start at $8,500. Both are set to go on sale in early May, according to Riverbed.

-Jon Gold

-

HARDWARE

Hardware, Transition Costs Hits IBM

F

gressively to our strategic sales and the cost growth areas. ... As we of layoffs hit IBM’s move through 2014, we profit hard in the will begin to see the benfirst quarter, sending it efits from these actions,” down 21 percent from a IBM President and CEO year earlier.

Ginni Rometty said in a Sales also fell, sliding statement.

4 percent from last year’s IBM made $2.4 billion first quarter to US$22.5 in profit in the quarter, billion for the down from $3 company. billion a year The quarterly earlier. Its earnDrop in profit for the results include ings per share quarter at $2.4 an $870 million dropped to billion, write-off on $2.29, down 15 down from $3 billion a year earlier the basis of the percent. workforce rebalSales fell ancing. hardest in the Over the past few years, Asia-Pacific region, deIBM has been cutting clining by 12 percent to parts of its workforce as $5.0 billion. it shifts its major focus to Revenue from the new focus areas of cloud Americas totalled $9.6 biland analytics services. lion, a decrease of 4 perUp to 6,000 IBM emcent. Revenue in Europe, ployees in the U.S. may be the Middle East and Afat risk of losing their jobs rica however saw a rise by this year.

4 percent to $7.6 billion.

“In the first quarter, we The big drops in revcontinued to take actions enue came in the compato transform parts of the ny’s hardware businesses, business and to shift agcontinuing a downward ALLING HARDWARE

20%

trend. Overall hardware sales fell by 23 percent to $2.4 billion.

Revenue from the Systems and Technology segment slid by 23 percent from a year earlier, down to $2.4 billion for the quarter.

System Z mainframe sales fell by 40 percent.

Revenue from Power System servers for the Big Blue company was down 22 percent.

Revenue from IBM’s services business was also weak. Global Technology Services brought in $9.3 billion, down 3 percent.

Global Business Services generated $4.5 billion, about the same as last year.

Software however did slightly better for the company, generating $5.7 billion, up 2 percent from the same time a year earlier.

Sales of IBM’s key middleware products, which include WebSphere, Information Management, Tivoli, Workforce Solutions and Rational products, were on the up by around 4 percent from the year-earlier quarter, to $3.7 billion.

—Joab Jackson

CLOUD COMPUTING

Tough Times Ahead for Smaller Cloud Players IDC predicts tough times ahead for smaller cloud players in Asia as major vendors in the region dropped their prices for core services. This slashing of prices will make it difficult for small CSPs to sustain in Asia and they have to do something different to gain a competitive edge.

Delivering basic and undifferentiated services on the same 10

old pattern will not work in the favour of these smaller providers who may be acquired by larger providers, said Chris Morris, AVP, Services Asia Pacific, and lead analyst, Cloud Services & Technologies, IDC Asia/Pacific.

“If the smaller CSPs are strong enough with decent customer bases, they will be acquired by larger providers. If

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD APR IL 2014

PRICE DROP: Litmus test for cloud industry

not, then they’re road-kill. In any case, both of the above will drive consolidation amongst the cloud vendors,” said Morris.

Morris adds that most ser-

Short Takes  VMware announced the appointment of Arun Parameswaran to the post of Managing Director, VMware India. He succeeds T Srinivasan, who has decided to step down after five years with the company. Parameswaran from Red Hat India will be responsible for the company’s growing business interests in the region.  Dell India announced partnership with Redington for the distribution of its enterprise products.

The partnership established on national distribution framework will enable smooth availability of Dell enterprise solutions in 33 Indian cities. The solutions through Redington are Dell’s server and storage products.  Sanjay Deshmukh, after a four year stint with Citrix as Area Vice President, India Subcontinent has quit the company. “After a notable stint with Citrix, Sanjay Deshmukh has tendered his resignation to pursue alternate career aspirations,” said the statement from Citrix.

vice providers including AWS, Google, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle and HP want to have the same partners and this can lead to a scenario where partners are confused about selecting these providers.

He suggests cloud providers should use business-oriented apps if they want to generate sales volumes to maintain economies of scale.

“These apps will drive consumption of the basic, low-margin services and trigger growth in adjacent markets.”

CUSTOM INTERVIEW HP

In a matter of seven years, Intensity Global Technologies has grown with HP and risen to become a Platinum Partner, showcasing HP’s complete enterprise product portfolio ranging from networking, storage, servers to security and software solutions.

A SYMBIOTIC RELATIONSHIP Aditya Narain Kakkar, Founder-Director, Intensity Global Technologies, speaks on his journey with HP, and growing organically to become a market player with a difference.

By Shweta Rao What HP initiatives have ensured the growth of Intensity Global Technologies as a channel partner?

In our seven years’ association with HP, we have grown to become one of its Platinum Partners. That says a lot about partnering with HP, which has taken us forward in the quest for growth in the storage virtualization space. HP saw and appreciated the kind of work we did, our strong value proposition to customers, and most importantly, our employees’ loyalty to us. These qualities helped us forge a long-term bond, making us a core partner in the bargain. HP has a very channeloriented strategy; it recognizes its channels and reciprocates with monetary incentives to every value addition one provides as a channel partner.

alike and increase their portfolio of services?

Yes, storage virtualization has played a major role in helping consolidate IT resources and reduce enterprise carbon footprint. It holds the promise of not only supporting increased storage needs, but also simplifying operations, providing for easier data recovery than legacy storage, and improving resource utilization and efficiency. Partners who have interacted with customers with respect to storage virtualization know the serious value addition that the technology brings with it to the table. All businesses today want to be able to centrally manage their storage resources along with reducing software licenses and storage devices. Virtualization yields these benefits.

You’re a strong player in the storage virtualization space. Do you think this technology will bring in additional revenues for SIs and channel partners

What is the biggest benefit of partnering with HP in the storage virtualization space?

A lot of vendors in the market have approached us for association, but the

advantage of providing channel support to HP is being able to promise and deliver services from HP’s Converged portfolio. At Intensity Global Technologies, our aim is to meet the wide-ranging needs of enterprise customers as well as SMBs. Being a HP partner means being able to offer a converged portfolio of services ranging from storage to networking, and thus, becoming a single window interface for every product in the rack for our customers.

How has HP helped you gain more enterprise customers across India?

HP has been very supportive by gathering feedback and rationalizing it comprehensively. It regularly organizes training in areas ranging from pre-sales to implementation and also reimburses certification expenses. We started as a PC company, but today, we work on enterprise solutions—thanks to HP’s training drive. Our internal staff’s stickiness has also tremendously improved as today, Intensity Global is an organization that has strong personnel with the latest skill sets and certifications in sales, business development, and technical capabilities.

This interview is brought to you by IDG Services in association with HP

SECURITY

Cisco’s Managed Threat Defense

C

ISCO ANNOUNCED

Managed Threat Defense, a set of security services for the enterprise that Cisco is providing through two new operations centers to remotely support intrusion-detection, incident response and forensics, among other services.

Cisco Managed Threat Defense requires the enterprise to deploy an appliance on its internal network so that telemetry information can be collected and securely shared with Cisco staff involved in analytics at the two new operations centers, one based in Research Triangle Park in North Carolina’s RaleighDurham area and the other in Sydney, Australia.

The Cisco appliance for Managed Threat Defense includes a number of Cisco security capabilities, such as Cisco Advanced Threat Detection based its anti-malware FireAMP technology gained in the Sourcefire acquisition.

According to Bryan Palma, Cisco senior vice president and general manager of services security practice, the idea is that the important corporate information that the enterprise wants to protect doesn’t ever leave the customer’s network.

Staff at the Cisco SOCs remotely monitor roundfor-clock for cyberattacks using analytics and anomaly detection and at that point, immediately begin to work with the customer to tackle any problems. The focus is on malware-related incidents and advanced persistent 12

threats where stealthy attacker might try to exfiltrate critical information from the enterprise, Palma said. If an investigation and forensics are needed, Cisco’s Managed Threat Defense would undertake that as well.

Although the Cisco 24x7 managed security service is just getting started, IDC analyst Christina Richmond said Cisco’s approach is putting forward a comprehensive strategy for defending against advanced threats.

“Cisco customers have been asking for this from them,” said Richmond.

One question, though, is how this might impact how Cisco sells its standalone security products since Cisco

Around

TheWorld Big Buy by Zebra

Enterprise asset intelligence company Zebra Technologies said it is acquiring Motorola’s Enterprise business for US$3.45 billion in an all-cash transaction. The acquisition will be funded through a combination of cash on hand and new debt, the company said in statement. It expects to fund the transaction with approximately US$200 million of available cash on hand and $3.25 billion that is fully committed to be raised through a new credit facility and the issuance of debt securities.

- Zafar Anjum

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD M AY 2014

Managed Threat Defense consists of “an integrated bundle of components,” as Palma described it. That remains unknown, but Palma notes that the type of customers likely to have the most interest in Cisco Managed Threat Defense are large enterprises.

Though costs for the monthly service provided through the Cisco SOCs will vary based on each customer’s needs, it’s likely to start in

SAP’s Cloud Growth

SAP reported a strong growth in cloud revenue and fast adoption of its HANA platform in the first quarter, while its software revenue dipped from the same quarter in the previous year.The business software company’s revenue grew 3 percent to €3.7 billion (US$5 billion), while its cloud subscriptions and support revenue grew 60 percent to €219 million in the quarter under IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards).Its net profit grew 3 percent to €534 million in the quarter.

SAP’s annual cloud revenue run rate is now approaching €1.1 billion, and subscribers of its cloud applications now exceed 36 million, the company said.

- John Ribeiro

the $100,000 per year range with multi-year contracts.

General availability is expected within the next 60 days.

Another question is how well Cisco’s managed security service will be able to work in networks that are not based entirely on Cisco network and security products. Palma said Cisco anticipates there will be a need “to support telemetry from non-Cisco sources.”

—Ellen Messmer

McAfee’s Intregated Security Strategy

McAfee, now part of Intel Security, has outlined its strategy for helping businesses and government agencies expand their network protection through a combination of integrated technologies.

McAfee has announced a framework that brings network and endpoint together through centralised management which that integrates with both global and local threat intelligence to deliver visibility across all threat vectors.

- Brian Karlovsky

NEWS ANALYSIS n

Catching Up

Intel has barely made a dent in the mobile market, while ARM has been wildly successful

By Jim Turley

I

F THE PC and Intel are joined at the hip, then Intel is hobbled, with 2013’s 10 percent drop in PC sales marking “the worst decline in PC market history,” according to Gartner.

ARM seems to have picked a better partner. Its chip designs have found their way into a staggering 99 percent of mobile devices, which in 2013 saw increases of 50 and 38 percent in sales of tablets and smartphones, respectively.

It sounds like a classic David-and-Goliath story: Intel is the reeling giant clinging to its crumbling PC pillar, while ARM is the nimble mobile player with perfect aim that owns the future of computing. But there are problems with that narrative.

Let’s start with size. In the last 12 months, ARM pulled in a little over $1.1 billion in revenue, while Intel netted nearly $53 billion. The two companies could scarcely be more different: Intel is

vertically integrated, both designing and manufacturing its own chips, while ARM develops intellectual property, period. ARM licenses its processor designs to such stalwarts as Qualcomm, Nvidia, or Samsung, which in turn contract with companies you’ve never heard of -- such as GlobalFoundries, United Microelectronics, and TSMC -- for the actual manufacturing.

As of October 2013, you can add Intel to that last list.

That’s right -- Intel actually manufactures ARM chips.

So ARM and Intel are not direct competitors in the classic sense, though it’s absolutely true that ARM’s approach to the mobile market has been vastly more successful than Intel’s. Moreover, although PCs may be on the decline, Intel x86 processors still own the highermargin server market, where ARM has barely entered the room. It’s also clear that the mobile game is not over, as

Intel gears up with a fresh line of mobile processors and unique new advances in processor manufacturing.

WHY ARM HAS TRIUMPHED IN MOBILE ARM-based chips have dominated the designs for mobile processors in much the same way that Intel’s x86 family of processors locked up the Windows PC market a few decades ago.

A big part of ARM’s success, however, has little to do with better technology.

It’s the company’s business model. Whereas Intel builds chips, ARM only designs them, leaving the physical fabrication to its customers/ licensees. Whether by accident or shrewd planning, ARM pretty much launched the idea of semiconductor intellectual property licensing.

That was important to Nokia, Ericsson, Motorola, and other early adopters of the ARM processor architecture because those companies were making new-fangled devices called mobile phones that needed to be small and run on batteries.

All of the traditional microprocessor companies’ chips were too big to fit, and they were designed to run on AC power. Some needed fans or heat sinks to stay cool.

What sealed the deal, however, was that mobile device makers needed to design their own ASICs intended to power specific devices -- and realized it worked better to integrate a CPU into those ASICs rather than soldering a CPU alongside.

Enter ARM and its CPUfor-hire business model.

Want to mix a CPU in with the other ingredients of your new ASIC or SoC? ARM has your recipe. Like few other companies at that

MAY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

13

n NEWS ANALYSIS time, ARM was willing to let customers bake its CPU into their own devices.

From there it was all momentum. Once ARM gained a toehold in the mobile market, others followed. As with PCs, servers, and most processor-based systems, later products were based on the same processor family as the earlier products.

After all, why switch? If the previous generation worked, make the next generation similar but faster. Gutting a design and starting over with a new CPU family, including new software and new development tools, is a sure-fire career killer.

ARM’S EFFICIENCY EDGE The fact that ARM’s CPU architecture was comparatively simple made it a good choice for integration. A more complicated CPU would’ve been difficult for outsiders to get right -- and might not work.

ARM uses a RISC architecture for its chips.

RISC is perceived as more modern, more elegant, and more appropriate for new designs than CISC. But the differences today are more semantic than technical.

RISC was supposed to be a streamlined, stripped-down approach to CPU design.

Jettison all those messy old instructions you’re not using, the thinking goes, and what’s left is a lean, mean computing machine.

The original RISC designs were indeed very Spartan.

That stopped almost immediately. Little by little, RISC processors like MIPS and SPARC started clawing back many of the features they’d eschewed earlier.

(Hardware multipliers?

Gosh, maybe that’s a good idea, after all.) ARM, like most other RISC-inspired 14

designs of its day, started out simple and gradually grew more complex. Still, it’s cleaner and neater than the barnacle-encrusted hull of the Good Ship X86.

As it turns out, few anticipated the real payoff of this simpler design: lower power consumption. Contrary to popular belief, RISC processors are neither faster nor slower than their doddering CISC forebears. But they are generally more powerefficient, which turns out to be a key differentiator when you’re making battery-powered gizmos.

It’s tough to compare one CPU circuit design to another, but roughly speaking, an ARM design has about one-third the number of transistors of an x86 design.

That’s leaving out the likes of cache and bus interfaces, which can easily consume more transistors than the CPU “core” itself. Indeed, most processors today RISC or CISC - are about three-quarters cache, with a little CPU core lurking in one corner of the chip.

ARM can get away with slashing its transistor budget because it doesn’t support as many architectural features as x86. It has a smaller repertoire of functions -- a smaller assembly-language vocabulary, so to speak. Intel chips can handle BCD-encoded numbers; ARM does binary only. Intel has a built-in loop counter; ARM relies on software-defined loops.

Intel enforces and defends boundaries on code, data, and stack segments, and can automatically trap accidental (or malicious) violations.

ARM processors have nothing like that.

All x86 processors since the ‘386 have implemented a four-level privilege hierarchy intended to prevent low-level code from contaminating high-level code.

This is the kind of stuff complex operating systems do in software, yet the chips implement it entirely in hardware, no code required.

It’s a remarkable feature, but it requires several million transistors to make it work,

and that means power.

The list goes on and on, but the features that the x86 architecture has accumulated over the past three decades don’t always show up in the benchmark results.

System-level functions help with operating-system code or with obscure corner cases, or they were added to enhance security. All of those add-ons make the chips bigger, hotter, and more expensive.

As ARM finds itself designing processors for ever more complex systems like multicore Android tablets, micro servers, and 64-bit machines running hypervisors and multiple secure operating systems, it has to add in more big-boy features that it had originally omitted.

Virtual memory? Check.

Security features? Check.

Wide registers, floatingpoint extensions, pseudoDSP instructions? Check, check, and check. Little by little, ARM is leaving behind RISC philosophy and becoming more like the com-

Intel Taps Chinese Tech Hub To Fuel Its Mobile Processor Business

A

S devices powered by ARM chips flood the Chinese market, Intel is hoping to popularize its own mobile processors with a new center built in the heart of one of China’s major technology hubs – Shenzhen.

The center will focus on helping Chinese hardware vendors build PCs and mobile devices around Intel chips. Intel plans to spend US$100mn through its VC arm to fund local Chinese product development in the areas of convertible laptops, tablets, smartphones and wearables.

The U.S. chipmaker is trying to gro w an ecosystem around its mobile processors in China, but its chips have yet to gain much traction in the market. Instead, rival ARM processors have become the chips-of-choice for many smartphone and tablet vendors.

Part of intel’s challenge is that ARM chips can cost vendors significantly less, especially when building products at the lower-end. Besides Qualcomm and Taiwan’s MediaTek bringing mobile chips to the Chinese market, domestic ARM processor makers including Allwinner and Rockchip. This helps local hardware vendors develop smartphones and tablets at around 1000 yuan ($161) or less.

Intel is responding with its own mobile chip code-named SoFIA that’s designed for lower-end devices. The first SoFIA chips to start shipping in Q4, will use Intel Atom chip with 3G connectivity.

Intel’s CEO Brian Krzanich recently showed off an Android smartphone built with the processor. In 2015, SoFIA chips will come with 4G support. In addition, the company is developing a new 4G modem for smartphones that can run on China’s LTE TDD and LTE FDD networks. It will start shipping in this year’s 2Q. Krzanich also acknowledged the company had missed out on tablets, but the chip maker hasn’t given up on the market. For this year, Intel has set the goal of shipping 40 million tablets with its chips, four times more than it shipped in 2013.

- By Michael Kan, IDG News Service

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD M AY 2014

Birds fly in a V formation to increase the flock’s flight efficiency. In a V formation, all birds, except the first, fly in the upwash of the wingtip vortices of the bird right ahead.

The upwash helps each bird support its own weight. Each bird can achieve a reduction of induced drag of up to 65 percent—thereby increasing their flight range by 71 percent.

The birds flying at the tips and at the front are rotated in a cyclical fashion to spread flight fatigue equally among the flock members.

Ingenious!

HOW INGENIOUS ARE YOU? This year, the ChannelWorld Premier 100 Awards will recognize enterprise channel partners who have implemented ingenious strategies to overcome business challenges. If you are a solution provider with an extraordinary story to tell—of how you did things differently—we would like to hear from you. File your nomination for India’s ultimate recognition in the IT Channel Business. Join the Ingenious 100.

Log on to www.premier100.in/Ingenious100

5-6 JUNE, 2014 l JW MARRIOTT, PUNE

n NEWS ANALYSIS plex processors it upended.

The company has redefined its instruction set at least twice, sometimes sacrificing binary compatibility on the altar of performance, capability, or scalability.

GOING WITH WHAT THEY KNOW As mobile devices become more and more complex, does that leave an opening for Intel? Probably not, at least not beyond a certain point.

For one thing, Intel is late to the party, and we’ve seen how inertia drives this business.

As it stands, Intel’s mobile Atom processors are barely as good as the leading ARMbased alternatives, and the ARM army has an obvious head start when it comes to software, ecosystem, and experience pool. It’s a tough sell to convince an engineering team to change its processor family, software, and development tools in order to buy a chip that’s “barely as good” as the one they’re already using.

By the same token, ARM in the PC business makes no sense at all, at least if you define “PC” as a system running Windows applications.

People don’t buy a PC for the lovely Windows user interface; they buy it for access to their existing PC applications. The ignominious fate of Windows RT has proven that.

ARM in servers makes a bit more sense, mostly because a server doesn’t run very much shrink-wrapped code or have a user interface that anyone but its handlers will see. After all, Linux rules the data center, and Linux can run on ARM processors. Plus, there’s increasing demand for low-power solutions in data centers, because over time the cost of power can outstrip the cost 16

of the hardware itself.

But here again inertia rears its head. Most servers are x86-based and there’s presently no compelling reason to switch. If ARM-based server chips manage to offer a significantly better price/ power/performance ratio, they can probably make inroads. Certainly, some new server makers are eyeing ARM-based designs eagerly, if only because it sets them apart from their generic x86based competitors. But it will be a tough slog.

INTEL’S ADVANTAGE Intel is traditional smokestack industry: Everything from design to manufacturing to sales is done under one roof. ARM is more like a downtown architectural firm, doing white-collar work and licensing its blue-

Every single chip is weighed down with the crushing cost of its birthplace.

Thus, Intel is all about high-volume products -- not specialty niche products. That excludes Intel from a lot of narrow (read: emerging) markets. It also prevents the company from making special spin-off processors with unique I/O, different configurations, or application-specific features. One size has to fit all.

That $5 billion investment has its benefits, however.

It pays off handsomely in terms of faster speed, smaller die size, and lower power consumption. The laws of physics apply equally to everyone, regardless of their processor architecture, and Intel’s current 22nm semiconductor lithography is a full generation ahead of

architectures are gradually converging technologically.

After all, computer scientists have been studying and simulating the best ways to design a processor for decades, and those same findings apply to everyone. ARM has grown more CISC-ified over the years, while Intel’s x86 has become streamlined in other areas.

As it stands, Intel’s manufacturing prowess very neatly offsets ARM’s architectural advantages, at least in terms of energy efficiency. In the performance race, Intel is the undisputed leader, but that may be because ARM doesn’t want to design ultrafast processors, not because it can’t.

To break ARM’s inertiadriven upgrade cycle and crack the mobile market, Intel needs a new product cat-

Intel is one of the few companies left with the financial resources to invest in state-of-theart manufacturing R& D. Everyone else — including all the ARM licensees — have to make do with shared manufacturing, mainstream technology, and less-aggressive physics. prints to others. ARM doesn’t make chips, and Intel doesn’t collect royalties.

That means Intel chips come only from Intel, whereas ARM-based chips could come from any of a number of different vendors -- theoretically. In reality, every ARM-based chip is unique, and there are no second sources. That makes ARM processors every bit as vendor-specific as Intel’s or anyone else’s.

Intel’s emphasis on manufacturing means the company is fanatically focused on volume. When it costs upward of $5 billion to build a new chip making plant that will be obsolete in just a few years, you don’t need an advanced economics degree to see that amortization is an enormous burden.

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD M AY 2014

most everyone else’s. Smaller transistors mean smaller voltage swings, shorter signal-propagation times, and less heat to dissipate. It also means smaller circuit dimensions, which means smaller die sizes, which translates into more chips per silicon wafer. And that means more chips to sell.

Intel is one of the few companies left with the financial resources to invest in state-of-the-art manufacturing R& D. Everyone else -- including all the ARM licensees -- have to make do with shared manufacturing, mainstream technology, and less-aggressive physics.

SLUGGING IT OUT Intel and ARM couldn’t be more different commercially, but their respective

egory. That may come in the form of low-cost Android handsets now being fielded by a handful of vendors.

These new “starter” handsets have little to no established software ecosystem to protect; they’re virgin territory, apps-wise. Android itself runs on x86 as well as ARM (or MIPS), so Intel’s Bay Trail and forthcoming Cherry Trail devices might gain a toehold. An all-in-one SoC with x86 core, wireless interface, and integrated peripherals could make a good single-chip handset platform if Intel prices it aggressively enough.

At that point, history may repeat itself, as Intel sneaks up on ARM from the low end of the market. It would be an ironic twist in a longrunning, high-stakes game. 

The sociable weaver birds are skilled nest builders that boast of the most elaborate community nests. These are divided using walls of grass placed atop a base of large sticks. A single communal site can measure up to two meters in height and eight meters in width. At the entrance to the nest, sharp sticks are placed to ward off intruders.

Ingenious!

HOW INGENIOUS ARE YOU? This year, the ChannelWorld Premier 100 Awards will recognize enterprise channel partners who have implemented ingenious strategies to overcome business challenges. If you are a solution provider with an extraordinary story to tell—of how you did things differently—we would like to hear from you. File your nomination for India’s ultimate recognition in the IT Channel Business. Join the Ingenious 100.

Log on to www.premier100.in/Ingenious100

5-6 JUNE, 2014 l JW MARRIOTT, PUNE

gral part of the portfolio.

ON RECORD n

Lennie Tan, DirectorTechnical Services, Dell Software APJ explains Dell’s software strategy to stakeholders, especially partners

By Shantheri Mallaya

18

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD M AY 2014

The last year has seen Dell making a spate of acquisitions and also the decision to go private. How is Dell positioning itself as a private software company to all stakeholders?

TAN: Even before going private, the acquisition of Quest Software started the journey to communicating the software strategy of the company.

While people might be watching to see what we are aiming at, I would like to state that there is no ambiguity about what Dell is getting at, internally, within our teams.

We have been talking to all our stakeholders, particularly to the partners, about where we are going. Our strategy is to be an end–to-end service provider, with solution provisioning and our software infrastructure offerings being an inte-

What is Dell’s end-toend service provider strategy? And how do the software and services business units’ strategies collaborate?

If you look at the Dell Software business unit within Dell is fairly new; to be honest, we are in the midst of building the Dell Services business counterpart to leverage our software offerings. We do see traction where our products such as firewall and back-up solutions are deployed as part of other legacy offerings and suites. In India, there is a huge collaboration effort between the services and the software businesses in these technologies and for other enterprise offerings such as Windows Management and Migration.

Lastly, we also saw with our Application Performance Monitoring and Infrastructure Monitoring stacks that Dell services has internally embraced these platforms to integrate and go-to market.

Having said that, I believe different countries have different levels of traction.

There will be more exciting collaborations going forward and I am happy to see the developments of the last 12 months that support this belief.

What kind of collaborations are you envisaging between the two BUs in 2014 and going forward?

TAN: For a start, with the managed services business, we (the software BU) are consciously positioning Software Asset Management into their solutioning as a key tool for their outsourcing business

LENNIE TAN | ON RECORD n

Among the significant developments last year, Dell channel restructure made news. What are the changes that actually happened?

TAN: The integration of the various acquired companies/ assets across BUs wasn’t a simple task. Most

$20mn

SOURCE: DELL

offerings. As mentioned, we also have deployed firewall solutions. The good thing is being based out of Singapore, I have close contact with the APJ Services BU. Since the year start (our year beginning February), we are now rehashing and remapping the strategies between the two BUs, to grow, collaborate and maximize cross leverage.

is the annual run rate of Dell Enterprise Solutions and Services Business between FY 2008 and FY2013 now come under the Partner Direct; there is bound to be a bit of sensitivity in these cases. Overall, I think we have been managing the integration of all partners to the Dell partner ecosystem pretty well.

Dell’s renewed aggressive global channel push last year also entailed that large accounts that were direct,

customers in APJ indicating at the moment?

APJ is a big market. Messages can get diluted. So, we (as Dell Software) are making sure the communication is extensive, personal and direct. Within APJ, Dell Software has different set-ups. For instance, in ANZ, we have a direct team and a complementary SonicWall set up that is partner driven. In Japan, it is a more local, traditional set-up, where we have to be sensitive to local ethos, particularly language.

Then come India and China, the big pieces, with their own ecosystems. Korea and South Asia (other than India) are businesses, with a good traction of

subject to the mandates of each technology under PartnerDirect.

So, despite market share figures indicating Dell as a key player in hardware, will hardware sales as such be a declining quotient for Dell, say 5 years down the line?

TAN: Not at all. If you look at Dell, there is a traditional strong PC and server business. At no point will software become the sole talking point. It will be layered on the hardware and services and given to customers.

Software will grow in importance as we will continue to invest in it, but cannot possibly make Dell a pure play

Software will not be the sole talking point. Software will grow in importance as we will continue to invest in it, but cannot possibly make Dell a pure play software company. of our acquisitions, be it Quest Software, which was one of our biggest buys to date, or Sonicwall or Data Protection, have been very much partner driven companies. When we combined all under one umbrella, namely the Partner Direct, there was a fair bit of sensitivity and change management processes we had to exercise and deal with.

In terms of restructure, there is a conscious drive for some APEJ countries to focus on the channels and to leverage the bigger dell partner ecosystem effectively, which we are pushing as a priority now.

Dell Software will push this from its end.

There are traditional partners who have been direct competition to us,

were being released to the channels. Has this happened or will this happen in India as well?

TAN: I would say this is happening in most geographies, with the exception of maybe an Australia New Zealand where a direct approach may be the way out for now. So the change is not specific to India.

We are focusing our channel strategy in the entire APJ and in places such as Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, to name a few, we are nurturing the partners as much as we are doing here. And this is something we ought to have in place; Dell believes partners will be its vehicles to the market.

What are your discussion with partners and the

local partners. Infact, Korea enjoys good branding because a lot of partners recognize the APJ leadership there.

South Asia has 3-4 significant countries, but it is rather a composite market with 8-10 countries coming within and each of these pockets has its specifics.

Clarity in terms of certifications, how partners should work with us and engage effectively forms a key part of the message.

So, the first wave was to get Sonicwall partners into the Dell partner fold.

The second wave, which is underway, is to get Data Protection and Quest partners into the fold. We are getting all the checks ticked. Legacy partners may have to undergo a few certifications, but that is

software company.

If you see enterprise customers also have changed over the years, with the advancement of the cloud and mobility.

They see value in solutions that can change the way their organizations work. We will take the key differentiators to the enterprise and also talk to SMB customers at a holistic level, rather than talk point sales or product.

As Dell Software, we will work towards aligning our GSIs, and also increasing traction among the APJ local partners.

There will be no conflict between Dell Services and our partners. We have mapped out conflict areas pretty clearly, and these areas will be dealt with sensitively. 

MAY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

19

n FAST TRACK

Snapshot

Magic Systems

Founded: 2006 Headquarters: Ahmedabad Branches: Baroda Key Executives: Anita Verma, Director; Juned Shaikh, Head Techno-Sales; Vijaynarayan Bhagat, Sr. Executive–Technical Revenues 2012-13: Rs 5.2 Cr Revenues 2013-14: Rs 7 Cr Employees: 15 Principals: Trend Micro, CheckPoint, Riverbed, SonicWall, Juniper, EMC, NetApp, WatchGuard, Cyberoam, RSA, Websense, Symantec Business Activities: Information Security Solution, Storage & Backup Solution

We are a one-stop vendor for Information security solutions, says Gautam Verma, Director, Magic Systems

E

NCOMPASSING A large portfolio across UTM, encryption, DLP and alliances with various security vendors companies, the value proposition of end to end security company has borne fruit for Magic Systems. Ahmedabad based company managed to grow 35 percent yoy last fiscal due to addition of new customers and nearly 100 percent renewal with the existing ones.

Information security is a fast growing market though Gujarat offers not many opportunities like metros in India, says Gautam Verma, director, Magic systems. But the company pursued its technical approach to suffice the security needs of new corporate customers. “We do not undertake any project without conducting a full-fledged POC at customer site. It’s a clear man20

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD M AY 2014

date across our organization, says Verma. More than 70% staff have a technical role.

Today the company has over 88 percent from information security solutions and services. Most channels do the entire stack from server-

VERTICAL SPLIT 7%

Retail and Utilities

9%

Others

28% BFSI

16%

IT/ITES

17%

Government SOURCE: MAGIC SYSTEMS

23%

Hospitality

Ph o t o g r a p h by FOTO C O R P

Website: www.magic-systems.com storage-security but our core focus is information security, he says.

Magic Systems has an almost equal split of its customers that includes enterprise - 42%, mid-market -38% and SMB contributing 20% of company revenues. Addressing the wide spectrum of the industry helps our team to understand the varied adoption cycle of security offerings across the various segments, he says.

To make the customers understand the importance and how to utilize the security offerings was a time consuming process, he says. UTM is more of a run rate product but we see uptake in encryption and DLP though it takes time for customers to realize the importance of these technologies against modern day attacks.

Magic Systems has end customers in Rajasthan and MP apart from its main focus in Gujarat. We plan to open branch offices in MP and Mumbai within next 12 months, he says.

How does the company manage to balance technologies from various OEMs? “We follow a vendor agnostic approach by understanding the customer needs and their security posture for next few years. Based on our industry experience, we recommend the ‘right technology from right oem’ to them,” says Verma at Magic Systems.  —Yogesh Gupta

Dolphins are able to recognize the calls of specific individuals, ‘signature whistles’, from up to 25 kilometers away, demonstrating their ability to network—despite being under water. By employing several frequencies in each transmission, dolphins have found a way to cope with the sound-scattering behavior of their high-frequency, rapid transmissions, and get their messages transmitted reliably.

Ingenious!

HOW INGENIOUS ARE YOU? This year, the ChannelWorld Premier 100 Awards will recognize enterprise channel partners who have implemented ingenious strategies to overcome business challenges. If you are a solution provider with an extraordinary story to tell—of how you did things differently—we would like to hear from you. File your nomination for India’s ultimate recognition in the IT Channel Business. Join the Ingenious 100.

Log on to www.premier100.in/Ingenious100

5-6 JUNE, 2014 l JW MARRIOTT, PUNE

n OPINION

STEVE RAGAN

IT Departments Dying

E

ARLIER THIS week, I posted a question to Twitter and Times have one reader offered an interesting rant on the topic, one changed and that I felt was worth sharing. The question was simple: the rapid What’s a dumb practice in IT that needs to go away? advance of technology has When I posted the question, I was thinking of things such as moved IT from passwords as a whole or limits on failed log-ins. The idea came being the center from a panel discussion I was watching at a company so I figured Twitter would be a good would, and sell and market to the business of connectivity event, in the same way.” place to seek responses.

This part of the reader’s rant I only partOne reader went above and beyond, and resource ly agree with. IT is part of the company, offering a take on the topic that offers a management only now they are just one business unit spot-on assessment of some of the frustra-

Steve Ragan prior to joining the journalism world in 2005, Steve spent 15 years as a freelance IT contractor focused on infrastructure management and security.

He’s a father of two, and rounded geek with a strong technical background.

22

tion and pressures faced by those working in and around the IT department. The marketing term for this process, Shadow IT, seems to have negative connotations.

However, the always-on, world of instant IT can be a blessing and a curse. Organizations turn to instant IT for quick solutions to problems, which are a boon for business units such as sales, marketing, R&D, and the like.

Sometimes when a request is made to IT, it can take time to see it completed due to the way requests are given a strict triage treatment by the department. It’s painful for both sides, because IT feels the pressure to complete the assigned tasks (put out the fire) and those requesting the service are frustrated with waiting.

However, when security and/or compliance issues are brought into the fold, instant IT can cause more problems in the long run than they solve, which is why larger organizations embrace the process of instant IT, but with limits.

“I think it’s dumb for IT departments to believe that they are part of the company, or that the company will fail without them.

Their competitors are public cloud providers like Amazon, Rackspace, Google, Microsoft and [others]. They need to wrap up this service like an external business

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD M AY 2014

among many, and need to adjust so that they can co-exist with the others. However, depending on the business objectives and needs, if IT didn’t exist, odds are the company would be fine. But that isn’t universally the case.

It wasn’t always like this, but times have changed and the rapid advance of technology has moved IT from being the center of connectivity and resource management to being a one of the providers.

This is why the second part of the reader’s rant makes sense.

IT should determine what each business unit needs in the way of technology and resources, and provide them as a service to the organization. With some basic controls and practices, this model of IT delivery can help productivity, and streamline various initiatives. It shouldn’t be a-la cart instant IT, but something closer to a selfservice IT process.

Plus, self-service IT initiatives tend to make security a bit easier to manage, and it helps lower the number of smaller fires that need to be addressed, allowing the IT staff to deal with larger issues quicker.

The question still stands, feel free to comment or email with thoughts. What is a dumb practice or process in IT that needs to go away? 

n FAST TRACK

Snapshot

Alackrity Consols

Founded: 2004 Headquarters: Bangalore Branches: Mangalore Key Executives: Kirti Madan – Director Operations ; Sandeep Kandra – VP Sale Revenues 2013-2014: Rs.17.8 Crores Revenues 2012-2013: Rs.11 Crores Employees: 35 Principals: CISCO, EMC, APCSchneider Electric, IBM ,HP, DLink, Tyco, Bosch, VMware, Actelis Key Business Activities: IT Infrastructure & Telecom

We want to be recognised as an IT ecosystem architect, says Madan Mohan S., MD, Alackrity Consols.

W

ITNESSING IN re-

cent times a YoY growth of 200 percent organically, Alackrity Consols has truly come a long way since its inception in 2004. Based out of Bangalore, the company, as its MD, Madan Mohan S puts it, started out “focusing on our strengths, which was predominantly networking and security, or what is referred to as in-flight technologies, providing solutions to that space that encompass the three kinds of data; voice, video and text.”

Now it has extended that portfolio into in-store (Storage), incompute, Telecom (Lastmile and Access on conventional terrestrial and mobile space), IT Ecosystem (Data Centre, DR & BCP) and will be expanding into the in-apps (web

and mobile application) technology space.

In its decade long journey, as Madan puts it, the key differentiator that has set Alackrity apart from other System Integrators (SI) of similar size is that they “are one of

TECHNOLOGY SPLIT 10%

Storage

8%

Security

20%

Server Computing

5%

Enterprise Applications

5%

Services

2%

Others

50%

Networking

Photograph by SUJEETH

Website: www.aconsol.com

the few, if not the only SI who also deals with telecom and in access technologies to connect the customer across geographically challenged locations and those in need of access speed and feed of business critical data.”

Shanmugam cites one of the major achievements of his company as pouring resources into getting trained in ‘Ethernet in the First Mile’ (EFM) and in-line powering technologies, enabling the first of its kind implementation in India.

It’s a sign of the company’s proven ability to not only stay relevant to its engagement space and strengths, but provide newer technologies that benefit the industry, that while EFM has only been talked about in India in the past 2 years or so, Alackrity had the foresight to move into it as early as 2007.

“EFM allows an ISP to transfer more than five times the bandwidth on the legacy copper network with fiber as redundancy that is available,” explains Madan.

“What we are trying to accomplish is to not be recognized just as a SI. We want to be recognized as an IT ecosystem architect, which will not only have today’s technologies, but also focus on tomorrow’s technology so that the customer gets his business mileage,”he concludes.  —Eric Ernest

SOURCE: ALACKRITY CONSOLS

MAY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

23

A honey bee performs a carefully choreographed ‘waggle’ that instructs the rest of the hive where to find a food source. This dance communicates the precise direction, the exact distance, and the type of flower. A successful presentation will see several sisters return with her to forage in the field. They, in turn, bring back more pollen and spread the word until the hive is finally full.

Ingenious!

HOW INGENIOUS ARE YOU? This year, the ChannelWorld Premier 100 Awards will recognize enterprise channel partners who have implemented ingenious strategies to overcome business challenges. If you are a solution provider with an extraordinary story to tell—of how you did things differently—we would like to hear from you. File your nomination for India’s ultimate recognition in the IT Channel Business. Join the Ingenious 100.

Log on to www.premier100.in/Ingenious100

5-6 JUNE, 2014 l JW MARRIOTT, PUNE

Dossier Name: Anthony McMahon

Designation: Senior Vice President, Ecosystem & Channel, Asia Pacific Japan Company: SAP Current Role: He leads SAP Ecosystem business to deliver accelerated value to customers across SAP’s key solution areas: cloud, applications, mobile, database and technology, and analytics. McMahon focuses on driving innovative go-to-market strategies, channel expansion, partner specialization, coinnovation with partners and simplification of the SAP partner engagement model.

Career Graph: Before joining SAP, McMahon held senior roles as HP’s VP of Enterprise Storage and Servers in APJ, where he led the company’s converged infrastructure, server, storage, and infrastructure software business. Earlier in his career, McMahon held various positions in management, finance, sales and operations roles over a nineyear period in both Australia and Europe, with TNT Worldwide Express and Ansett Airlines.

n THE GRILL

Anthony McMahon Senior Vice President, Ecosystem and Channels, SAP APJ on why HANA is a big goldmine for enterprise channels.

SAP is bullish on HANA in terms of deployments globally. Are the enterprise channels really biting HANA? There is enough market awareness around HANA but there is also that underpining reality. SAP HANA was the next generation application platform designed from scratch to take advantage of latest technologies including in-memory—provides an impetus to innovation in data platform and application platform that was absent since a long time.

We work with traditional SAP implementation partners to make them understand on how ERP applications look or can look when run on HANA. India is the fastest adopter in APJ region for new net customers on HANA which highlights the competence of channel partner ahead of other markets.

We see a very large shift to cloud or certainly subsription service-based offerings—Be it Hybrid to core ERP (on premise) or totally cloud subscription model. There is co-innovation with ISVs MAY 2014

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD

25

n THE GRILL | ANTHONY MCMAHON become a HANA specialist.

Few large traditional ERP SIs are now partnering with smaller VARs who worked on HANA for a joint GTM. Our prime role is more like speed dating on how we marry partners in the ecosystem that can complement each other’s expertise on different technologies and application platform. Thats a challenge with our army of partners and extended portfolio but we are on course to navigate the best route.

For installed On-premise customer base, it will be a transition. For net new customers, our recommendation is straight to cloud and that cloud should be on HANA. and start ups on their offerings or our applications to move towards HANA. That or platform piece—be it SAP application or not—requires a different set of partners that we need to work with to reach our customers.

Many vendors today pitch a ‘platform’ story. What typical roadblocks hit the partners when they hear, see or learn about HANA? SAP is no longer just an ERP company. It is an oppurtunity and not a challenge when we talk to channels with various partnering models. In APJ, the net new license revenue from SAP platform (HANA, Database, analytics, mobility) is larger than ERP revenues.

We are investing resources for broader reach with customer success stories as channels prepare their technical team to 26

INDIAN CHANNELWORLD M AY 2014

The new ‘Beyond ERP’ SAP means competing with more vendors and their channels. Has the market opportunity increased for your channels? As an ERP application company, we had an addressable market of $200 bn globally. With analtytics, predictive analytics, DB, mobility and cloud, it has swelled to almost double at approx. $400 bn.

It’s true that we compete against other platforms. HANA is only application platform today designed from scratch to run in-memory with latest multi processor technology. Three years ago this business did not exist and today the licenses alone have crossed $1 bn.

Do you plan to go all cloud like Adobe did few quarters ago? Cloud is absolutely a huge push for us. Our business model is however a little different than Adobe that caters to professional designers.

We recognise customers continue on premise for data sovereignity, own concerns and we will work with them on a complementary hybrid model. Maybe they want core ERP financial on premise HR/CRM in cloud or core HQ on prem but subsidiares on cloud.

For installed on-premise customer base, it will be a transition. For net new customers, our recommendation is straight to cloud and that cloud should be on HANA. We are no longer database agnostic as in the past as there are business benefits for customers with HANA as they rewrite applicaitons and optmise them built on in-memory architecture.

Do channels fear the advent of cloud will eventually cannabalise the traditional Onpremise Capex model? There is a recognition in the community that their business model could potentially change sooner than expected. Large SIs with huge services revenues on SAP implementation with little or no -foray into integrated re-

sell or cloud solutions. This model might be perfect for two years but they need to rebalance as per market trend.

The hardware piece is definitely under pressure. Partners can resell our subsription offerings and make margins plus they can wrap their own IP and templates through hosted public cloud.

There is enough consulting business around change managament, HR on public cloud to make good services revenues. The expectations of business outcomes rather than project is accelerating the need to be ready for cloud. We want partners to help our customers to next ways of consuming applications.

Database vendors have been largely successful with vertical or micro vertical approach. Does the same strategy work for Cloud and HANA? The heart or USP of ERP and now HANA has been SAP’s four decades of industry process knowledge. We will take more ownership part of strategy - cloud or on premise—take advantage of HANA we will not offer multiple options. Based on industry know-how and best practices—SAP will be far more prescriptive and simplified on solutions for pharma, manufacturing etc. We have been more complicated in the past but the cloud model allows more control to work closer with partners.

Will HANA become mainstream in India?And do longer sales cycle for HANA means lesser margins for channels ? Maybe couple of years away. I can see a day where majority of erp on cloud runs on HANA. We are not there due to large installed base but the trend is faster for net new customers. In India almost seven in every ten will go straight to HANA. The second indication of it going mainstream is that more partners like OpenText, SAS are getting their applications certified for HANA. The sales cycle for HANA tends to be longer than hardware but less than ERP. But it varies as per customer need and industry vertical. The typical resell model approach will be challenge as more margins are deeply embedded on that technology over a longer period and with the key stake holders of the organisation.

Most HANA deals have been executed with CFO,CMO and not necesarily the CIOs of the organisations.  —Yogesh Gupta

v

CASH THE CAPITAL Innovative ways of looking at business growth strategy. Three partner organizations recount.

By Radhika Nallayam & Shantheri Mallaya

SUDARSAN RANGANATHAN, MD and CEO, Veeras Infotek

lows. Juggling the short term and long term objectives calls for astuteness, acumen and a certain amount of maturity.

Also the process of taking risks to bring in change, make it happen and in the manner planned – these are what make for success stories and case studies. As in the words of Sudarsan Ranganathan, MD and CEO of Veeras Infotek, “Change is not just a word or a philosophy, it is an entire plan for transformation.” Ranganathan has shown the way for his company by ushering in the change, in the way he has envisaged. There is a lot at stake to get the act right - the cash flow, the capital outlay, profitability and a whole plethora of terms that, we know, define a business.

Veeras Infotek, Acme Digitek and DEV IT have their compelling stories to tell, about how they went about D K change, BAJAJ in order to keep their cash and capital, Director, just likeD soul and body, not merely together, M Systems but as one whole in order to grow bigger and better.

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Photograph by SHARP IMAGE

B

USINESS IS an ongoing juggernaut of highs and

n COVER STORY

Delivering Outcomes Veeras Infotek has a very simple, yet remarkable story about an idea leading to change in business model.

H

AVING BOUGHT back its business from Gemini Communication, another Chennai solution provider, in 2012, Veeras was looking at its business in a manner that would not only get the company out of debt of the buyback, but also put the company onto a certain growth mode.

Sudarsan Ranganthan, MD and CEO of Veeras Infotek, recalls, “The

time was such that we were exploring ways in which we could grow into an organization that could run of a model. What was that x factor was the question.

The same year, the company carried out an analysis of how the technology landscape was changing, what vendors were betting on, and how customers’ outlook toward IT was changing. Ranganathan remarks, “We

met 30 CIOs across customer organizations to find out what they expected from us. Customers are increasingly demanding a deeper engagement and they want IT to drive business outcomes. These meetings were such revelations. Based on these trends and expectations, we went back and did extensive synergy, rethink.”

ENGAGEMENT TURN With that began an exciting journey for Veeras to change its entire service delivery model, which it terms as Outcome Based Engagement, which it envisaged to be a multi year transformation plan.

The first step in the process was to map its customers. Veeras used its own CRM tools to plot its custom-

Veeras has taken the route to business transformation for itself as well as its customers.

SUDARSAN RANGANATHAN, MD and CEO, Veeras Infotek 28

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We met 30 CIOs across customer organizations to find out what they expected from us. Customers are increasingly demanding a deeper engagement and they want IT to drive business outcomes. ers—their existing infrastructure, growth indicators of the vertical they operate in, their business outlook, profitability, existing processes, among others.

Following this exercise, to map the customers’ businesses, Veeras embarked on another challenging task, and this was the bigger challenge - training the teams internally. Bringing the cultural mind shift was the crux of the change management. Over the last two years the company has invested close to Rs 25 lakh for coaching and training its employees to enable them to have discussions with customers not from a technical or product perspective, but from a strategy and business outcome perspective.

Veeras hired a New Delhi based company called Tripura Mulitnational to help with the transformation. Tripura’s reps at Veeras had extensive sessions with Ranganathan and then went back with their findings to the teams in order to see where and how ‘change’ could be brought about. This transformation was not restricted to the sales teams, but also went down to the last line of administrative functions as well.

Rangathan opines, “If administration is not included in the process, then the shift is incomplete.” Veeras does not address its people by traditional names anymore. The sales teams are called Business Value Managers; the solutions Team is called the Value Creation and Acceleration team and the Delivery Team is seen as the Value Delivery and Customer Loyalty team.

What did these exercises boil down to? An overhaul of the way customers are being approached right down to post implementation support. For instances, there were projects where

30% y-o-y is the increase in Veeras’s bottomline in FY’13-‘14 over ’12-‘13

Veeras had to counsel the customer to refrain from any buying, the premise being that if the customer didn’t have to buy, why make him expend?

In other cases, there were customers who needed very simple storage, so Veeras thought the better of the situation and did just that, instead of pitching high end storage for such customers. “All it took was to understand whether the investments were meeting customer objectives, in other words we have re-architected customer objectives”, sums up Ranganathan. As a result of the trust building that has happened, seemingly small

SUCCESS SHLOKAS v Outcome based engagement

model helps customers rearchitect objectives and also establishes faster RoI

v Realigning and training the teams internally is the key to a genuine cultural shift to a result oriented engagement model

v Building IP in key areas such as

cloud aggregation and managed services complements the strategic shift within and outside the organization

projects have now started spinning off into larger ones – small storage buys turn into infrastructure management requisitions, or a support engagement becomes an outsourcing project, and not because of any rhetoric or hard sell, but because customers have begun to see value in what is being brought on the table by their solution partner.

Also, it was important to show the ROI as a tangible to customers. The new story would sell only if customers saw value. There have been instances where the objective was to establish ROI or break-even in less than 6 months on projects worth USD 500,000.

Over the last year, though the number of total transactions has gone down, the value of projects for Veeras has shot up. The company has executed about 12-14 projects greater than Rs 50 lacs each, and about 9 projects greater than Rs 2 crore. For the current fiscal year, the company has already garnered a commendable funnel to projects, making the confidence level high. Going forward, Veeras has identified four core areas to focus on—business analytics, consolidation and virtualization, cloud services, and security from a viewpoint of compliance and governance.

Plans are also on to venture into managed services and evolve into cloud aggregation and white-labeled services on which Veeras plans to build its own IP. Ranganathan candidly admits, “We are still not out of the woods since the time we got our business back, but this change, we believe, will definitely spin off large results for us.” Indeed. Veeras’s bottomlines have grown 30 percent in FY 2013-2014 over 2012-2013. That is proof of the pudding.  —Shantheri Mallaya MAY 2014

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n COVER STORY

Forming a new software division required some weighty capital, but Acme Digitek’s smart cash flow technique made it fairly easy. It now owns a highly profitable and growing business.

AJIT MITAL, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ACME DIGITEK SOLUTIONS

Phase It Out Learn how Acme Digitek formed an entirely new software business without any external funding.

I

T WAS a no-brainer for Ajit Mital, managing director of Acme Digitek. He saw it coming—the death of ‘box-selling’. Once an influential component for his company’s growth, Mital realized way back in 30

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2009, that his ‘box business’ would start dwindling down within no time.

And, he was not wrong. The golden era of growth in the hardware business was over long ago. ‘Supply was more than demand’, as Mital puts it.

Five years ago, box selling still drove substantial revenue for many tier-2 systems integrators. PCs, servers and other commodity hardware gave them handsome margins. An increased demand for ‘solution selling’, cloud computing, large outsourcing deals and the changing dynamics of the IT industry wrote the obituary of box selling.

People who could see the future in advance—people like Mital—quickly sensed where the next opportunity is. Software.

“A thought process started 7 years ago when I realized that there is no future in selling hardware. A good case in point for us was IBM, which

very smartly sold off its PC division way back in 2005. Cloud was making its presence felt. IT managers were becoming scarce, leading to IT outsourcing even in smaller towns.

Though my hardware business at that point was unworriedly making profits, I knew there was no future in selling hardware, especially end-points and servers,” says Mital.

Not the one to lose heart, Mital contemplated a metamorphosis of sorts— a systematic transformation from the existing SI business into an Independent Software Vendor. Mital and his team has had first-hand experience on how influential an ISV can be. “An ISV pulls the strings when it comes to any deal. A hardware vendor is always at the mercy of the customer and the ISV. He just sells ‘specs’, but it’s the ISV who actually sells the ‘solution’,” adds Mital.

CAUTIOUS INVESTMENT It was not an easy shift to make. Mital had about 80 percent of his top line coming through hardware box busi-

50% is the expected growth rate for the SI’s software business

veloped matured software practices and developed small applications.

Opening the market In 2013, Acme chanced upon an opportunity that changed its software division’s fate forever. The customer was Gaziabad Development Authority (GDA), which had burned its fingers by outsourcing its ERP project to a leading service provider. The project was later awarded to Acme and it opened up the much awaited opportunity for

“We had to pump in significant money and manpower to make this project a success. The source of funding was our hardware division’s profit.

We could successfully manage the cash flow as our approach was strategic and calculated. Our investment was phased-out as opposed to a huge one-time capital expenditure,” remarks Mital.

The project was a turning point for Acme. The application fetched the award for “The Most Innovative Project in the Country” in Municipalika 2013. “This forum was held under the patronage of U.N. Habitat by the Ministry of Urban Developmentt, in which most of the national level Urban Development Authorities and Municipalities participated, and there was substantial international recognition,” adds a proud Mital.

This also helped the company to get into the cloud space. Acme hosted the entire ERP of Ghaziabad Development Authority (aDAMS - Acme Development Authority Management System)

With an established ERP suite and a reliable cloud model, Acme Digitek’s software business is ready for multifold growth this year. ness. Besides, Acme absolutely had no skill sets around software. It was a bit too early and hence risky too for Mital to put in a huge upfront investment in software. He didn’t know what the outcome was. Approaching third party investors or a bank was thus not a sensible option for Mital. Instead he decided to rely on the company’s biggest cash cow—the then profitable hardware business. He decided to split the investment into different phases.

With a minimal initial investment, Acme kick started its software division. It hired a small team of developers, which started testing the waters without really having any project to work on. The profitable hardware division became the readily available funding option whenever the software initiative needed a boost. For the first three years, Mital reinvested about 25 percent of the profits into the software division. The company gradually de-

the SI. It certainly was a challenging project for a tier-2 SI, but the team Acme was confident. The ‘home work’ that the software team has been doing for months was sure to be rewarded.

Acme came up with a comprehensive ERP suite for GDA, which later on became Acme’s flagship product. Acme also added a citizen service module to the product.

SUCCESS SHLOKAS v Third-party investors are not the only source of funding for SMBs

v Vision and caution allow one to

plan investments well in advance

v Phasing the investment out minimizes risks

v Holding onto unprofitable

business will only result in an imbalanced cash flow

and the Online Property module on Cloud. “Our future marketing strategy is to offer our applications, especially aDAMS and the Online Citizen Portal on a SAAS model and host it on Cloud,” Mital adds.

From zero, software and related services contribute upto 20 percent of Acme’s top line. The profit generated through software and cloud is much higher. On the hardware front, Acme’s focus now is just on large integration projects. The company attempts to manage a smooth cash flow by periodically shutting down divisions that are at a loss, the recent one being its hardware AMC business, which at one point used to be the backbone of the company.

Mital believes that the software business is on a multifold growth path. With a tried and tested ERP suite and a cloud model to rely on, Mital is busy exploring new partnerships and opportunities.  —Radhika Nallayam MAY 2014

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n COVER STORY

The Right Mix DEV IT did the rarest thing. But it did so with caution, planning and a unique funding strategy.

I

T SURE is a cliché. But the adage --don’t put all your eggs in one basket—often proves to be a smart strategy for businesses.

However, companies that look for faster and inorganic growth are often caught in a tight spot that they tend to overlook this factor. But Ahmed-

abad-based Dev Information Technology is certainly not one among them.

DEV IT was bold enough to do the ‘undoable’, but it wasn’t naïve to adopt a thoughtless execution strategy. Read on to know how the company successfully carried through an overseas acquisition, a rare phenom-

enon in the Indian channel space.

THE RIGHT DECISION Defining a growth strategy is probably the most important part of an acquisition decision. Acquisition just for the sake of it was not DEV IT’s intention.

Managed services are an important component in the solution provider’s growth strategy. The company already had a business relations with a North America-based service provider (unable to divulge the details due to NDA between the companies) that leveraged DEV IT’s infrastructure and technical expertise in that market. The company realized that a significant growth in its MIT (managed IT) delivery portfolio can be achieved by a combination of strategic analysis, marketing, sales and

An overseas acquisition was no mean feat for the Ahmedabad-based SI. But it had the right execution strategy to minimize risks and ensure success.

PRANAV PANDYA, FOUNDER & CHAIRMAN, DEV IT 32

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expansion into new market territories.

Acquiring its partner in the North American market was the next logical choice for the company. The partnered company too saw a great value associating itself with DEV IT for better growth prospects. Overall, a win-win equation for both the parties made this acquisition more sensible.

Pranav Pandya, co-founder and chairman of DEV IT explains the rationale behind the decision, “The business we chose to acquire already had an established market presence in that geography. Besides, they complemented our offerings locally. They were poised to grow further with the help of our scaled up service delivery infrastructure. All this coincided with our strategy to access a wider customer

SUCCESS SHLOKAS v Defining a growth strategy is critical for a successful acquisition

v Single source of funding can be a risky strategy

v Relevant funds from relevant

sources may help minimize risks

v Integration of the acquired

company needs equal attention post the deal

riskless option. “We have witnessed a few instances within our state, which alarmed us against going for a single source of funding. We realized that churning out fund from a single source or getting a partner who can invest in

order to meet the increase in operational expenditure. Similarly our third source, utilized to a limited extent, was private resources. They were like the indigenized version of angle investors and was approached only when we required upfront funding for limited period,” explains Pandya.

This unique blend helped the company in ensuring a normal cash flow and profit in existing business.

The strategy to receive relevant amount of funding from relevant sources turned out to be a relatively less risky option for DEV IT. “We did not want to be under any illusion. We knew that we are an MSME firm and we can’t have the luxury of a TCS or Wipro while planning an acquisition. We wanted to minimize

DEV IT was under no illusion. It knew that an MSME firm doesn’t the have the luxury of a TCS or a Wipro while planning an acquisition. The company wanted to minimize the risk involved. base and increase our market share in the North American market.”

The team at DEV IT was confident that the acquisition will help greatly in realizing its goal of becoming one of the top IT service providers in the SMB market. “We wanted to convey the message in the market that we are a serious Managed IT service provider and the acquisition seemed to be the best way to do it,” adds Pandya.

THE UNIQUE MIX Expansion of managed services business was a continuous effort for DEV IT, and not something it started off overnight. It had initiated various activities, though not in a structured way. The acquisition was to be a big step in this journey and a huge boost for its long-term plan in the services space. However, even more challenging was the decision to raise the capital required for the acquisition.

Approaching a private investor or a single resource to fund the whole transaction seemed like the easiest option. However, that certainly was not a

the deal is not the right option for our company,” adds Pandya.

DEV IT team instead relied on a different strategy--a ‘judicious mix of three options’, as Pandya likes to put it. “We had three different sources through which we raised the finance for this transaction. One of the foremost was our own internal sources, which we used to enhance and upscale our service delivery investment.

We also relied on banking finance.

But it was only to a limited extent in

40% growth in Managed IT services post the acquisition

the risk involved,” says Pandya.

Post the acquisition, Dev IT has now successfully integrated both the businesses by reorganizing the activities, systems and employees of the two companies. The result of a successful acquisition is always encouraging. DEV IT now experiences reduced costs and overheads through shared marketing budgets, increased purchasing power and lower operating costs.

“We believe in taking only one step up the ladder at a time, since each step brings risk, uncertainty, and effort.

The crux is that sometimes, the market forces one to take decisions that are laced with fear of unknown. Sometimes, you are left with the choice to take calculated risks. In our case, it eventually paid off. We are seeing the kind of growth that we anticipated.

While each new step brought more opportunities for fast growth, it did also bring more risk. A fragmented and phased-out approach helped us fight off failure,” concludes Pandya.  —Radhika Nallayam MAY 2014

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n FEATURE | DISASTER RECOVERY

PROTECT YOUR

DATA

What are the precautions companies should take to protect files and applications in the event of disaster?

By Jennifer Lonoff Schiff

T

HERE IS no silver bullet to disaster recovery, says Jack Bailey, engineering manager at cloud computing provider iland.

“When outage horror stories take over headlines, executives tend to have kneejerk reactions and look to adopt whatever disaster recovery offering they can implement fastest,” he says. “But every organization and location is unique, and failing to thoroughly assess your situation may lead you to adopt a solution that is expensive overkill or cheap and inadequate.”

And while most IT executives and data management experts acknowledge that there isn’t one failsafe solution to protecting and recovering data, they agree that there are certain steps organizations should take.

What are the necessary precautions companies should take to protect critical files and applications 34

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in the event of disaster? Dozens of data storage, data management and disaster recovery experts share their advice. Here are their top 12 suggestions regarding how to disaster-proof data (files and applications).

1

Conduct a data assessment. “Know your high-value data assets — where your customer information and other sensitive data live, which files are heavily used, who is using them and which departments they align with,” says David Gibson, vice president, Varonis, a provider of comprehensive data governance software.

“With usage intelligence and data classification, you can better prioritize what data you need to have on hand after a disaster and who will need to have access to it.”

“Use the 80/20 rule,” says Michael de la Torre, vice president, Product

Management, Recovery Services at SunGard Availability Services. “Not all data is created equally. It’s costly to ensure that every piece of data is always available and quite frankly most of it isn’t critical to business functions,” he notes. “By applying the 80/20 rule, a company can tier out its critical data and applications to decide which 20 percent is the most crucial to protect,” he says.

2

Work with a trusted partner to disaster proof data and systems. “Use an experienced partner to ensure your [storage and disaster recovery (DR)] solution meets the needs of your business and the capabilities of your IT department,” suggests Peter Elliman, senior manager of Backup and Recovery at Symantec, a provider of online and mobile security solutions. “Consider integrated appliance solutions to reduce complexity, remotely managed backup services to minimize operational impact and risks and consider both internal DR sites as well as DR providers with both on-premise and cloud recovery options.”

3

Define acceptable recovery time and choose the right storage media.

Think about “how quickly you need to restore your data,” says De la Torre.

“The least expensive method is offsite, on tape and de-duplicated,” he notes.

But he quickly adds, “you will pay later when you have to wait for days to restore your data. Understanding the threshold for how long you can wait to restore your data will provide clear direction on which storage medium — Disk or tape? Cloud or on-premise? — is right for your company.”

“Don’t accept mediocrity when it comes to the speed of recovering your data,” adds Jennifer Gill, director of Product Marketing for Zerto, which provides enterprise-class disaster recovery and business continuity software.

“Many companies think a reasonable recovery point objective (RPO, the highest amount of data a company is willing to use) is 24 hours. If the business did actually lose this amount of work/data the impact could be many times the cost of actually implementing any disaster recovery solution,” Gill says. “Find a solution that provides continuous data protection and replication with an RPO of just seconds and a recovery time objective (RTO) of minutes.”

4

Create a disaster recovery plan—and test it.”Have a written disaster recovery plan,” says Gill. “It sounds obvious, but with the complexity of the old way of doing replication and disaster recovery, it is very easy to forget the most important aspect of disaster recovery, actually writing down a plan,” she says.

“In an ideal world, everything from the replication, management, protection groups, failover and failover testing is managed from one single interface,” Gill says. “Specify SLAs for replication, create virtual protection groups, select the VMs to protect and then allow your solution to take care of all the replication in the background.”

“Think through the most likely threats to your business, keeping in mind everything from human error to component failure to natural disaster,” advises Alan R. Arnold, CTO, Vision Solutions, a provider of cloud protection and recovery, high availability, disaster recovery, migration and crossplatform data sharing solutions.

“Creatively examine options for cost-effectively protecting your data in a place geographically distant from those threats. That may require access to a second data center or a cloudbased strategy,” Arnold says. Also, “be sure to account for all servers in your infrastructure (e.g., Windows, Linux, AIX and IBM running on physical virtual and cloud platforms). Your solu-

Three Seriously Secure Cloud Storage Services

C

LOUD storage services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, and SugarSync are convenient, efficient—and notoriously insecure. Files are rarely encrypted, data transfer is typically not protected, and companies are usually able to access your files (even if they state they won’t, they may be legally compelled to do so).

You can utilize a special, ultra-secure provider such as Wuala or Tresorit, or you can encrypt files yourself before uploading them to larger storage services, such as Dropbox.

Wuala. This is a secure cloud storage service offered by storage company LaCie. This service differs from mainstream cloud storage providers in two ways: Client-side encryption of files: All of your files are encrypted locally on your device before being sent to the cloud, which ensures that even on a non-encrypted transfer, no readable data would leak out. This process is more secure than a secure transfer, mainly because it means that nobody except you ever has

tion must address all server types with off-site protection capabilities.”

Then “test this plan multiple times to ensure that it is successful,” adds Andrew Gilman, data director, Actifio, a provider of copy data management. “Testing makes all the difference. It will help CIOs work out any kinks in the plan and ensure that they are ready in the event of a data breach or disaster.”

5

Make sure sensitive data is properly encrypted.”To effectively disasterproof data, it is important to incorporate encryption into the data backup equation,” says April Sage, director, Healthcare IT, Online Tech, a provider of collocation, managed server and cloud hosting solutions.

“A full-scale backup with encryption of the data at rest and in-transit will prevent unauthorized users from gaining access and effectively minimize exposure,” she explains. “It is the answer for security-conscious organizations which must follow regulatory frameworks to maintain security of sensitive data. With encryption, security breaches can be

access to your data.

Tresorit. This is a cloud storage provider that claims to offer “a truly secure cloud storage service.” Security features include client-side encryption, secure data transfer, and secure data centers that are equipped with physical security measures against intrusion as well as uninterruptible power and backup systems. Tresorit’s main difference from Wuala, and other mainstream cloud storage services, is the ability to turn any folder on your device into a secure “tresor.”

McAfee Personal Locker. This is a cloud storage vault that you manage via your smartphone or Windows 8 device.

It can store up to 1GB of data, which you can access from anywhere--but only after you’ve jumped through a series of security hoops.The app requires voice recognition, biometric data (facial recognition), and a PIN to verify your identity before giving you access to your files.

—Sarah Jacobsson Purewal prevented and eliminate a media firestorm that leads to credibility and profit loss,” she continues. And if you use a cloud-based solution, “ensure the process has been vetted and the encryption keys are not accessible.”

6

Regularly backup and snapshot data.

“No strategy will work if you haven’t set up automatic backups,” states Scott Harris, the vice president of Services at Egenera, a provider of cloud management and disaster recovery software. “Whether it is to one of your corporate data centers, your DR site or the cloud, be sure that all critical data is backed up on a schedule that protects your business from downtime in the event of a disaster,” he advises.

“Take real snapshot backups, not just RAID mirroring or database replication,” adds Chris Camejo, director of assessment services at NTT Com Security. “If someone or something issues a command to overwrite or delete data, intentionally or otherwise, your RAID controller or database replication will dutifully delete it from the mirrors as well,” he explains.

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n FEATURE | DISASTER RECOVERY “Removable media (tape) has the advantage that it can’t get accidentally altered unless somebody physically mounts it.”

7

Make sure critical applications are also accessible. “Protecting your data is not enough if you want to keep the business running during an event that causes downtime,” notes Justin Moore, CEO of Axcient, a provider of data backup and restore, business continuity, disaster recovery and cloud continuity solutions. “Ensure critical applications can be virtualized in the cloud so that your employees keep productive.”

8

Don’t neglect laptops. “Most disaster recovery plans are focused on protecting the data center,” says Peter Eicher, senior manager for Product Marketing at CommVault, a provider of enterprise backup and recovery, data management, deduplication, data protection, archiving and ediscovery software.

“While that is certainly critical, ac-

cording to Gartner, almost two-thirds of corporate data lives outside the data center. Laptops, [for example,] are far less resilient than data center servers and disk arrays, and laptops are also subject to loss and theft,” Eicher says.

So it is important to include laptops and similar devices in your DR plan.

9

Follow the 3-2-1 rule. “If an enterprise wants truly disaster-proof data, it needs to follow the 3-2-1 rule: three copies of the data, stored on two different kinds of media, with one of them stored offsite,” says Doug Hazelman, vice president of Product Strategy for data protection provider Veeam.

“By following the 3-2-1 rule, IT eliminates any single point of failure,” Hazelman says. “For example, if the organization relies on SAN snapshots (which are great for backing up frequently), IT will need to find a way to create backups from those snapshots to get multiple copies and move at least one copy off site.”

HP Expands Threat Central intelligence

H

P is expanding its Threat Central intelligence-sharing platform to crowdsource threat data from third-party security vendors, the firm has announced. Threat Central was announced last year as a collaborative system through which community members (i.e customers) could share real-time intelligence on attackers and their methods.

This is now being extended to security vendors in the form of the HP Threat Central Partner Network, with the first names announced being Arbor Networks, Blue Coat Systems, InQuest, ThreatGRID, TrendMicro and Wapack Labs. Threat Central also feeds data into HP’s own ArcSight and TippingPoint offerings.

What sort of data is being contributed by each vendor has not been made clear but HP has already said its own network feeds in sources such as intelligence taken from hacker forums and social media.

“Collaboration is fueling unprecedented innovation in the criminal marketplace, enabling the ecosystem of adversaries to stay ahead of our defenses,” said HP’s senior vice president of enterprise security products, Art Gilliland, senior vice president and general manager, HP. “Crowd-sourced threat intelligence from our vast community of customers, partners and researchers is essential in this battle against cybercrime; we need to stop chasing silver bullet technologies and start sharing actionable intelligence through our solutions, expertise and best practices if we are going to compete and win.”

With some of its traditional business units not doing as well as they have in the past, HP sees security and services as key to its future. As in the security divisions of other large IT houses, threat intelligence is seen as an essential part of that plan.

CEO Meg Whitman last week talked up the possibility of acquisitions. This could include investment in security; HP bought the core of its security division, Fortify Software, ArcSight and TippingPoint (part of 3Com), in 2010.

—By John E Dunn

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10

Keep backups off site, in a safe location.”How far off site depends on the risks you are worried about,” says Camejo. “If your data center is in San Jose and a major earthquake knocks out all your infrastructure, then it doesn’t do any good if your backups are in an ‘off site’ facility in Santa Clara, the next town over. Consider the threats and plan appropriately.”

11

Store data in a secure cloud. “In today’s environment, one of the most secure ways to secure your organization’s data is to put it into a hosted cloud environment,” says Heinan Landa, CEO, Optimal Networks, which provides IT services, support and consulting. “Essentially, you are putting your network into a hosted cloud environment and then it is being delivered to you on-demand. The onus of responsibility for security, updates, redundancy, failover and business continuity rest with your provider.”

“Cloud storage providers now provide secure, highly available services, combined with the maturity of cloud gateways to interface these clouds,” adds Rob Whiteley, vice president of Product Marketing, Riverbed Technology, which provides a locationindependent computing platform.

“Companies can actually improve their disaster preparedness by leveraging multiple cloud storage providers for service and geographic redundancy,” Whiteley says. “Cloud storage improves backup costs, boosts performance and dramatically reduces recovery point objectives (RPO) by avoiding outdated tape and offsite storage methods.”

12

Test for recovery—and test again.”It’s all about the recovery,” states Jarrett Potts, director of Strategic Marketing, STORserver, a provider of data backup solutions. “All the backups in the world cannot save you if you can’t recover to test. [So] test then test some more,” he says. “When you’re finished, test it again. Do random recoveries each week. Do disaster recovery testing and audit your data pools. Always be sure you can recover your data.” 

Focal Point

EVERYTHING ABOUT SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING

Unlocking THE VALUE

While considering a turnkey SDN solution from a vendor, SDN controller’s capabilities matter. By Ethan Banks

O

NE OF the

key challenges confronting potential users of software-defined networking is discerning the specific value of particular SDN controllers.

Controllers, after all, play critical role as the key arbiter between network applications and network infrastructure.

Yet there’s no model for exactly what an SDN controller should be, no standards an SDN controller must adhere to. Despite the advent of the Linux Foundation’s multi-vendor Open-Daylight project that hopes to bring to the industry a unified SDN stack built around a modular controller architecture,

there remain varying opinions among vendors as to the specific services a controller should offer. The pressure is therefore on the consumer to determine what SDN controllers are capable of, and then map those capabilities to their goals.

Even in that context, it may prove difficult for a consumer to buy a standalone SDN controller. The reality is that vendors are frequently bundling controllers into the context of an entire SDN package: software applications, controller, and possibly network hardware as well. But even if you’re considering a turnkey solution from a vendor, the controller’s capabilities matter. After all, there’s life in a softwaredefined network long after the initial turnkey application is old hat.

Here are some things to consider:

RAW PERFORMANCE To talk about raw performance, we first need to define the role the SDN controller is playing in this context. Traditionally, an SDN controller is the piece that allows for the decoupling of the control and data planes in a network environment. In other words, the controller tells the network devices how to forward traffic (control plane), but doesn’t actually forward the traffic (data plane). This scenario is common with OpenFlow (OF) networks, where the SDN controller is chiefly used for the programming of tables in network devices.

In an OpenFlow network, an OF switch receives a packet and acts on it in accordance with its flow tables. But what happens if there is no matching entry

for the packet in the flow table? In that case, the OF switch will send the packet to the OF controller, in essence asking, “What do I do with this?” The OF controller determines what the switch should do when encountering packets matching that flow, and programs the switch. This process is called a flow setup.

For reasons of scale, the number of flow setups per second an SDN controller can support is important to pay attention to. Traditionally, flow setups have been a performance bottleneck for SDNs, so don’t take this aspect for granted.

Coupling a large number of switches with a large number of microflows you wish to control could quickly max out your controller’s flow setup capabilities. But, keep in mind that not every flow will require a call to the controller.

Only those flows that are not yet recognized/programmed require that step, and those will typically be the exception, not the rule.

In fairness to vendors, the challenge of flow setup performance in OpenFlow networks is well known.

Vendors have a number of strategies to mitigate the potential controller bottleneck. Therefore, don’t dismiss a given controller out of hand simply because of raw performance numbers.

A vendor might have a strategy that maps well to your network environment that minimizes the flow setup requirements. Among these mitigation techniques is flow wildcarding, which allows many microflows to be handled by a single flow entry.

TOPOLOGY Another consideration when evaluating SDN

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n FOCAL POINT | SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING controllers is that of your network topology. Let’s start by considering the LAN vs. the WAN. What segments of your network do you wish to software define? While the LAN, or at least pockets of the LAN, is the typical SDN use case, what happens if you wish to perform network virtualization across a WAN? How will the controller work in that model? This is largely a question of functionality.

When your SDN environment becomes too large for a single controller to effectively manage, what options does your vendor offer to help you scale to the wide area network?

SDN solutions that map to the centralized controller model scale out by

going sideways. In other words, you add controllers to handle additional switches. Here’s the tricky bit -- how do those controllers communicate with one another? The answer to that varies by vendor.

While there are some very early discussions in the industry around standardizing how controllers will talk to one another, for the most part, solutions in this space are controller specific. A common federation technique uses BGP for controllers to exchange information. In this way, controllers know how to find different software defined sections of the network and forward traffic between areas. If this functionality is important to you, it’s a key

question to ask the vendors you are considering.

Many SDNs can stand alone under a single controller, but the notion of a centralized controller model is still a potential concern. There are two considerations. The first is how control plane traffic (i.e. instructions from the controller to network switches) is carried. In-band communications means that the control plane traffic follows the same path that all normal network traffic follows. Out-of-band (OOB) communication means a separate physical network is used to carry control plane traffic.

In band is favoured by vendors who wish to learn about a break in the net-

Is SDN Your Next Security Nightmare?

T

HE big buzzword in networking these days is SDN, a decoupling of the data plane and the control plane that allows you to manage physical devices via a software-based controller sitting on a general purpose server.

There are numerous benefits associated with SDN. Instead of having to touch every switch and router, the controller enforces policies by using the OpenFlow standard to talk to the physical networking devices. Also, customers can theoretically use any OpenFlow enabled hardware, meaning you no longer have to buy all of your networking gear from the same vendor.

But before you jump into SDN, be aware that there might be some security risks. That’s the view of Robert Hinden, an industry veteran and Check Point Fellow.

Hinden points out that once you’ve established centralized control of your network on this 38

server, what happens if that server is attacked? What if a hacker gains control of the SDN controller?

Theoretically, the hacker could direct traffic around your firewalls, insert malware into the network, run man-in-the-middle attacks or send traffic to compromised nodes.

Also, what happens when outages or bugs occur in the network? It’s unclear today how the SDN controller would deal with network outages that might require the re-routing of traffic, Hinden says.

In addition to security concerns, Hinden questioned how well SDN can scale. He pointed out that traditional routing and switching is destination based, with the physical devices reading headers and using routing tables to send packets to the appropriate destination.

But SDN is flow-based, which is good because it allows network managers to create

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fine-grained policies. On the other hand, all of those flow entries must be sent out to all of the devices on the network.

Hinden worries that this could get unwieldy.

On the other hand, Hinden sees some positives when it comes to SDN and security. The controller can push security policies to all routers and switches on the network, creating a uniform SDN security posture for all traffic.

Also, if there is a compromised host, for example, the controller can easily isolate that host from the rest of the network, he says.

While it’s still very early in the SDN adoption cycle, Hinden recommends that networking teams and security teams begin working together, because in an SDN world, “all network staff will be responsible for security.”

By Neal Weinberg, Network World (US)

work topology via reachability. The idea is that, if a network device can no longer be reached by the controller, then a topology change has happened, and the controller can proceed to discover the change and make adjustments. Out of band is favoured by vendors who wish to guarantee latency times between the controller and the switches, improve security, and eliminate the risk of data traffic causing control plane traffic to be lost.

In band vs. OOB network management is not a new discussion, but for the SDN consumer, it’s an important point to raise with your vendors. If the controller being considered requires an OOB control plane network you don’t have, that’s another significant element in the acquisition process.

The second concern around a centralized controller is just how it’s centralized. Centralized intelligence doesn’t necessarily mean there’s only one physical device or a cluster of two redundant devices that equal the SDN controller. Some vendors have spread control plane intelligence into distributed virtual machines that communicate and share a common database.

These components may report back to a central piece of controller software, but that might also be a virtual machine. Both models -- a physical controller or controller cluster as well as distributed virtual machines performing control plane duties -- exist in SDN products you can buy from vendors today.

CAPABILITY Significantly, all SDN controllers are not equal in

capability. By capability, we don’t mean raw performance such as controller flow setups, but rather the actual sorts of manipulation of the network the controller can accomplish. Most network operators are not looking for merely an OpenFlow controller. Network operators want to automate the provisioning of as many of their network elements as possible, whether they are OF-capable switches or not. In that context, here are some questions to ask your vendor.

What devices will this controller talk to? You want to know if the controller can talk not only to your network switches, but also to your firewalls, load balancers, virtual switches, cloud orchestration package, and anything else that meets your business objectives. What partnerships does the vendor have? A number of SDN controller vendors have strategic alliances with popular network vendors. These partnerships facilitate communication between the SDN controller and partner appliances. That said, not all SDN partners have the same partnerships.

Therefore, it’s key to be sure you understand what partnerships exist, and what fruit has come from those partnerships as you evaluate your SDN controller. What applications exist today? Some SDN controllers are like empty sketchpads. They are capable of displaying anything, but they need someone to compose a drawing on them first. Other SDN controllers have an application ecosystem that already exists -- someone’s already drawn quite handsome pictures for you. Understanding the

applications that exist will go a long way to determining how effective a role the SDN controller can play in your specific network.

How well documented are the controller APIs? APIs are the mechanism for getting information to and from the controller.

Network applications tell the controller what they require via northbound APIs. APIs are the keys to automation and orchestration. As such, how effectively will your organization be able to leverage the controller APIs? For those seeking a turnkey solution, this will be less of a concern. But for those who wish to write custom network applications of their own, this is a crucial point.

APIs being either both open to customers and well documented is not a foregone conclusion.

OPENNESS VS. VENDOR LOCK-IN In networking, we are comfortable today knowing that network protocols are largely interoperable among vendors. For example, BGP spoken by one vendor’s device will be understood by another vendor’s BGP device. Vendors might extend a protocol with a few proprietary features, but there’s always a standard baseline of commonality vendors are expected to match.

With SDN, the landscape is not so stable. There is no singular way to build an SDN controller; there’s no required set of features. The more you dig into controllers and their architecture, the more you discover how different they are. This is to be expected. SDN is an emerging technology, so a lot of vendors see an opportunity

for differentiation and market leadership by releasing controllers that best represent their SDN point of view.

For the consumer, this lack of standardization raises some awkward questions around controller acquisition. The first is an obvious one: is this controller locking you into a particular solution? That is a really important question to answer.

While a number of SDN solutions are incredibly powerful, they are solving a single problem, aimed at a specific kind of network consumer, and assume you’re running a particular set of applications and network devices.

ations. Can vendor B’s router do what you need it to do? Will your network team be able to manage vendor B’s router? The answers to those questions get baked into the overall acquisition plan, and you move ahead.

With an SDN controller, a transition challenge could be a bit more complicated.

This goes back to the notion of what the controller is actually doing for you.

While risk of switching router vendors is mitigated greatly by standards compliance, we’ve already established that there’s no such thing in the SDN world. Will your network

Many SDNs can stand alone under a single controller, but the notion of a centralized controller model is still a potential concern.

While that solution might work for you today, it can be confining for the future.

Let’s say a few years from now you’d like to change your load balancer vendor to reduce opex, but your SDN controller and associated applications don’t work with any other load balancers. Ouch. That’s a serious risk that might leave you at the mercy of your SDN controller vendor. That sort of risk might be worthwhile in the context of immediate problems it solves, but taking that risk on is a decision worth careful consideration.

Along those lines, will it be possible to migrate to a different controller? If so, how would that transition take place? On the surface, this isn’t much different from any other operational consideration. For example, changing from router vendor A to router vendor B carries with it functional and operational consider-

applications work with a different controller? Apps written for one controller might not work on a different controller without considerable modification.

While Open-Daylight can potentially change that, right now network consumers must take the time to understand SDN controllers well to know what they are locking themselves into.

In conclusion, buying an SDN controller is not a trivial exercise. Such a technology investment requires awareness of not only capability and performance, but also a strong understanding of how that controller will solve specific network problems.

You must have an intimate familiarity with your network functions before adding SDN controllers into the mix. A little research now will go a long way to preventing a large investment mistake. 

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Synergy of SDN + NFV Understanding how two revolutionary networking developments - SDN and NFV-and how work together. By Ed Tittel

F

OR 2013 and beyond, two of the most interesting and most used networking acronyms - and underlying concepts and technologies - have to be SDN (for Software Defined Networking) and NFV (for Network Function Virtualization).

Though many IT pros are inclined to stand these two concepts up against each other, as in SDN vs. NFV, these two revolutionary networking developments don’t represent an either-or proposition. In fact, it instead looks very much like a both-and deal - as in, “both SDN and NFV are likely to find a place in modern enterprise networks and carrier infrastructures.”

Though both terms are subject to interpretation, it’s still worthwhile to proffer 40

definitions to establish what SDN and NFV are about, where they originate and how SDN and NFV differ.

SDN: SEPARATING NETWORK CONTROL LOGIC FROM NETWORK HARDWARE SDN comes out of largescale IP infrastructures where network designers and implementers sought to simplify traffic management and achieve operational efficiencies by establish and exercising central control over packet forwarding. Over time, SDN has also come to describe an open networking environment where elements such as switches, servers and storage may be configured and managed centrally while running on standard hard-

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ware components.

The guiding principle behind SDN remains the separation of network control logic from the physical routers and switches that forward traffic from individual network nodes, based on a real-time view of the network as a whole. In fact, the Open Networking Foundation (a non-profit consortium focused on SDN, defines it as an architecture that migrates control “into accessible computing devices” designed to enable “the underlying infrastructure to be abstracted for applications and network services, which can treat the network as a logical or virtual entity.”

In essence, this means SDN control software sits atop a physical infrastructure layer composed of networking devices, with which it communicates via a control plane interface such as OpenFlow.

The idea is to turn networks into flexible, programmable platforms to optimize resource utilization, making them more cost effective and scalable. By providing APIs for business applications and services, SDN also promises to recast information technology by integrating cloud-based services and capabilities, and high-speed

networking, into the computing fabric.

NFV: VIRTUALIZATION FOR KEY NETWORK FUNCTIONS NFV, on the other hand, comes from service providers interested in facilitating deployment of new network services by virtualizing networking devices and appliances, not through ongoing proliferation of physical devices to fill specialized roles such as routing, switching, content filter, spam filter, load balancer, WAN acceleration and optimization and unified threat management, and so forth. Participants assembled to create an Specification Group for NFV, whose member list includes a majority of major carriers and providers worldwide.

The self-professed goal of the organization is to “define the requirements and architecture for the virtualization of network functions.” Its predictable aims, dear to all service providers, are helping customers reduce capital and operations expenses, speeding time to market for service elements and providing flexible, agile solutions delivered in software running on industry-standard server hardware elements.

Ultimately, NFV is about virtualizing IT resources in software so that virtual implementations may be used to provide important network functions, rather than requiring the presence of one or more specialized physical devices. These virtual devices appear and behave like their physical counterparts on the networks they serve without the need for individual devices to fill their various specialized functions.

At present, the primary focus for NFV in today’s marketplace targets the following niches:

SOFTWARE DEFINED NETWORKING | FOCAL POINT n n Virtual Switching, or physical ports that link to virtual ports on virtual servers, where virtual routers employ virtualized IPsec and SSL VPN gateways n Virtualized Network Appliances, where network functions that could employ dedicated devices can instead employ virtualized appliances for a range of specialized functions n Virtualized Network Services, which provide software-based network monitoring and management services, including traffic analysis, network monitoring and alerting, load balancing and quality or class of service handling n Virtualized Applications, which deliver networkoptimized frameworks and APIs for cloud applications to support an increasingly mobile or BYOD-based user population

MORE COMPLEMENTARY THAN COMPETITIVE To the relief of all parties involved - primarily the enterprises and consumers of high-end networking on the SDN side, and the service providers who assembled themselves to get behind virtualized network functions on the NFV side - SDN and NFV dovetail nicely.

Together, in fact, they represent a path toward more generic network hardware and more open software, where the centralized control and management decreed in SDN can in part be realized through the virtualized functions and capabilities that come from NVF. This applies especially for network management applications and services for monitoring, management, traffic analysis, load balancing and so forth.

Both SDN and NFV capitalize and depend heavily

HP Makes ‘Network Virtualization’ Play With OpenNFV Program

H

EWLETT-Packard is plunging into the rapidly emerging field of network functions virtualization (NFV) with an OpenNV program comprising applications and services designed to virtualize core networks and network functions and allow telecommunications companies to more efficiently compete in the rapidly growing world of rich media.

HP is also assigning high-level staff to lead its NFV business activity as part of its initiative to woo carriers that are desperate to lower costs, pick up the pace of innovation and ward off competition from so-called “over-the-top” players like Google and Skype, which are delivering new video and audio services and content to users via the Internet.

HP’s OpenNFV program has three elements: an open standards--based NFV Reference Architecture; HP’s work with partners to develop NFV applications and services; and HP OpenNFV Labs for testing related applications and hardware, said Werner Schaefer, vp of NFV business at HP. “HP has offered a carriergrade system for many years,” said Schaefer. “We have a pedigree in this.” upon virtualization to enable their respective capabilities - and to deliver upon their promises to separate connections and packet handling from overall network control (SDN) while combining and consolidating specialized functions and capabilities on standard hardware elements (NFV).

Adoption of what Tom Nolle calls a “softwareoverlay network model” means that, in a conglomera-

Telecom companies face stiff competition from the newer, nimbler over-the-top content providers, who have been much faster at deploying and generating revenue from new services and applications, noted Gartner analyst Akshay Sharma.

Carriers have traditionally deployed services that are based on network functions that were incorporated into individual, proprietary hardware appliances, Sharma said. “They’d have to string all these boxes together, but what NFV is all about is taking functions such as session border control or video compression, virtualizing them and running them in server farms, making them elastic and tunable to new business models” NFV eliminates the need to take years testing new functions in proprietary hardware, Sharma said. With NFV, carriers can offer new services based on virtualized network functions running on commodity hardware in the cloud, possibly hosted by third party providers, Sharma added.

HP is serious about NFV, appointing Bethany Mayer, head of HP’s $2.5 billion networking equipment business unit, to head up the company’s NFV business strategy, Schaefer confirmed. tion of cloud-hosted virtual functions, NFV makes use of services as tenants atop NFV infrastructures. Here, tunnels and virtual switches isolate virtual functions to prevent interaction, stymie malicious snooping or attack, and link to cloud-based virtual network interfaces such as those described in OpenStack Neutron.

It appears, then, that the kinds of functions that NFV seeks to deliver work well

As part of OpenNFV, HP is launching a range of applications that have been updated as NFV functions. They include: HP Virtual Home Subscriber Server, designed to allow operators to manage their subscribers’ identities across multiple networks; HP Multimedia Services Environment, which consolidates network applications on a common infrastructure and launches multimedia applications and HP Virtual Content Delivery Network Software, handling the physical delivery of media assets for any content-based Internet service.

In addition, HP NFV Consulting Services, under the aegis of HP Enterprise Services and HP Technology Services, helps carriers assess business opportunities associated with the NFV functionality. HP Financial Services, meanwhile, enables on-demand infrastructure by providing asset management capabilities for customers.

The HP OpenNFV Labs will be located in existing HP facilities around the world, including Grenoble, France; Fort Collins, Colorado; and Houston, with a scheduled open date in early spring.

By Marc Ferranti

within the framework defined for SDN, and that services defined for NFV will help provide the necessary abstraction and separation of the network control and data/ packet planes.

It might be serendipity at work, but this combination appears to offer potent potential for the next revolution in networking. At any rate, it will be fascinating to see how things play out in 2014 and beyond. 

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n PLAINSPEAK

YOGESH GUPTA

Bring Your Own Devil BYOD in reality evokes uncertainty, fear, hope, complexity, and apprehension for CIOs. The enterprise partners are buoyant about its potential.

Where is the disconnect?

Yogesh Gupta is associate editor at ChannelWorld. He is a computer engineer from Mumbai University. You can contact him at yogesh_ gupta@idgindia.com 42

A

FIFTH OF all enterprise ‘bring your own device’

(BYOD) projects will fail in the next two years, predicts analyst firm Gartner. Surprised! And almost each technology vendor continues to pitch BYOD as aggressively as ever. The paradigm shift has compelled CIOs to incorporate ‘devices’ perspective in IT strategy though many are unsure of the road ahead. BYOD is often than not becoming ‘Bring Your Own Devil’ for the corporate world.

It is understood that poorly implemented Mobile Device Management (MDM) policies by businesses are putting off staff as per the prediction. BYOD in reality evokes uncertainty, fear, hope, complexity, and apprehension for CIOs and its team. The enterprise partners too are buoyant on its potential business. Where is the disconnect?

The devil is in the details as they say.

Gartner’s prediction clearly demonstrates that too many organizations are not only dictating use-policies that are too heavyhanded, but also failing to reassure employees that their personal information will not be accessed by the company.

Mobile devices and a barrage of them – tablets, smartphones, phablets is omnipresent across the corporate network. The real problem is more complex than fixing the security policies and allocating access controls for the end points in a corporate network. The associated costs and fast disappearing ROI with BYOD means the advent of a new concept - CYOD (Choose Your Own Device). This unlike BYOD offers a list of devices that can be brought to work. CYOD is much more direct with tangible ROI for organizations as per various industry analysts.

The silver underlining with a hype technology is the associated demand and the growing interest from CIO community. And here enterprise technology chan-

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nels can execute good business through BYOD or CYOD if theyChurn the customer base: The existing and loyal customer base is the right testbed for these technologies. Offer them a unique solution that solves their pain points around data security, ROI and the manageability of devices in the network.

Develop a mobility team: A dedicated team of professionals who understand mobility and it’s topology at customer end. Hire fresh graduates / social media savvy professionals that can add the extra edge to the team.

Align with new vendors: Most traditional companies - big and small - including security companies offer BYOD as part of the mobility stack. Do look for niche start-ups too in mobility space MNC and local - and align with them.

BYOD and CYOD will co-exist depending on the individual customers’ needs as enough innovation continues across the enterprise mobility app world. The success of the mobility strategy depends on the adeptness at CYOD and the value proposition of the technology provider to the organization.

BYOD will eventually shed its devilish (read scary) image as CYOD strives to become mainstream across organizations.

The concepts will become more crystal clear for organizations to lay a safe and big bet on BYOD or CYOD. And I am not talking about the devil bit. 

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