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TIME FOR mGOVERNANCE A
AS MOBILE TELEPHONY HAS ALREADY REACHED MOST PARTS OF THE COUNTRY, MGOVERNANCE WILL NOT FACE THE PROBLEM OF LAST MILE ACCESS.
ccording to the new telecom subscription data released by TRAI, the number of mobile telephone subscriptions in the country is 918.72 million, but the number of broadband connections is only 70.81 million. While mobiles are ubiquitous, broadband is lagging behind and mostly restricted to the urban areas. Also, the average broadband speed is quite low. Until high-speed broadband and computers become available in all parts of the country, our only hope for providing e-services to the people is mGovernance. As mobile telephony has already reached most parts of the country, mGovernance will not face the problem of last mile access. The government has recently announced that during the next five years it will spend Rs. 20,000 crore to provide mobile connectivity in 55,000 villages, which are still untouched by wireless telephony. The money will come from the Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF), according to the telecom ministry. The close to a billion mobile connections that the country will soon have can be leveraged to not only disseminate information and public services, but also for developing initiatives in financial inclusion and eCommerce. The framework for Mobile Governance was notified by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) in 2012. The Mobile Governance Portal and the m-App Store can be accessed at http://mgov.gov.in. Recently DeitY acknowledged that mobile handsets will be the preferred mode for delivering eGovernance services. There is now a clear emphasis on mGovernance. Accessing information and services through mobile phones is not a new concept. Private sector and certain government organisations have been leveraging mobile phones for providing several services in the areas of banking, media, airlines, railways, sports, etc. Smartphones connected to 3G or 2G networks are leading to a world where “always on� citizens, government services and online communities can constantly exchange information. The success of mGovernance initiatives will ultimately depend on the level of participation that the government can get from the private sector - telecom companies, VAS providers, IT companies, app developers, banks, etc. As the majority of citizens will have entry level phones, mGovernance programmes must aim to provide services through SMS, IVRS and USSD integration. To enable secure financial transactions through mobile phones, the telecom service providers will have to be integrated with NPCI (National Payment Corporation of India) gateway. Also, websites of all the government departments will have to be mobile compliant. The transformation required for delivery of services through mobile telephones is challenging and far reaching, but through innovation the myriad challenge can be met. mGovernance can be a game-changer for improving the quality of governance in the country. It can prepare the ground for increased collaboration between citizens, government and businesses, by unlocking the potential of e-services for millions of citizens. anoop.verma@expressindia.com
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DIGITALINDIA THE ROAD TO SMART GOVERNANCE Aiming to empower citizens with robust digital infrastructure, the Digital India initiative may just be the oxygen that NeGP has been needing since 2006 BY PUPUL DUTTA
Technology Senate 2014
column UTTAR PRADESH 18 UNVEILS ITS NEW ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING POLICY Jiwesh Nandan Making Uttar Pradesh the preferred place for electronics manufacturing companies in the country.
TACKLING ADVANCED PERSISTENTTHREATS
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Ambarish Deshpande Enterprises can deal effectively with APTs by asking the right questions .
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WHAT CIOS WANT THE NEXT GIANT LEAP IN ENTERPRISE IT? OR A BUNCH OF SMALL STEPS… The curtain has come down on this year’s Technology Senate, India’s most coveted CIO forum. Presenting our full coverage of the 12th edition of Express Technology Senate.
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CHOOSING THE RIGHT DATA CENTRE PARTNER
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Sunil Gupta Before you sign up with a data centre outsourcing partner, it is imperative to assess the risks
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case study 22
NIC'S CARD PROJECTRIDES ON ORACLE’S DATABASE
interviews 30
National Informatics Centre consolidates 432 databases, across 38 districts, improving system response, data security, and availability
FOR ANOBLE CAUSE In achieving its goal of feeding millions of school children in different states in the country, Akshay Patra Foundation has been aided by the implementation of Citrix Netscaler and XenApp
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The BI solution needs to be built in an agile manner, so that as different analytics are built, the business team validates that and makes course corrections
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announced that it had acquired TwinStrata. The company also provided details of several new products that will redefine the possibilities in hybrid cloud environments
SECURING COMMUNICATION IN GOVERNMENTIN THE AGE OFMOBILITY BlackBerry highlights the need for enhanced security solutions in the government sector during a special event organised for decision makers
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» Aadhaar enrolments in four states get Cabinet approval » Govt to come up with ‘comprehensive policy’ for MSME sector
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» Commerce ministry plans smartphone apps for traders » Microsoft, SAP bring cloud and mobile partnership to India
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President, NASSCOM
DR RAJENDRA KUMAR Joint Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India
RAJAT SHARMA President - IT (Global CIO) - Atul Limited and Director - Atul Infotech
“Price is not the only advantage that open source holds”
» BlackBerry acquires Movirtu to improve adoption of BYOD » Smart Cities to feature Wi-Fi, telemedicine services
R CHANDRASHEKHAR
Moving towards eKranti
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Principal Secretary, IT, Govt of Maha
“Today all sections of the government recognise the importance of eGovernance”
event REDEFINING POSSIBILITIES
RAJESH AGGARWAL
“NPR must utilise backend of UIDAI to ensure uniqueness of record”
DESIGNING THE BI DASHBOARD
36 At EMC Forum 2014, EMC
Secretary, Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Govt of India
‘‘One of the nine pillars of Digital India programme is Broadband Highway’’
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RAM SEWAK SHARMA
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ASHISH TANDON Chairman & CEO, Indusface
“Only agile players can keep pace with the ever smart hackers” OCTOBER, 2014
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MUMBAI Shankar Adaviyar The Indian Express Ltd Business Publication Division 2nd Floor, Express Tower, Nariman Point Mumbai- 400 021 Board line: 022- 67440000 Ext. 527 Mobile: +91 9323998881 Email Id: shankar.adaviyar@expressindia.com Vol 25. No. 10. October, 2014 Chairman of the Board Viveck Goenka Editor Anoop Verma* Chief of Product Dr. Raghu Pillai Delhi Heena Jhingan, Pupul Dutta Copy Desk Aditi Gautam Mumbai Jasmine Desai Bengaluru Pankaj Maru DESIGN National Art Director Bivash Barua Deputy Art Director Surajit Patro Chief Designer Pravin Temble Senior Graphic Designer Rushikesh Konka Layout Vinayak Mestry, Rajesh Jadhav Photo Editor Sandeep Patil MARKETING Regional Heads Harit Mohanty - West Prabhas Jha - North Sanghamitra Kumar - East Dr. Raghu Pillai - South Marketing Team
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Express Computer Reg. No. MH/MR/SOUTH-132/2012-14 RNI Regn. No. MAHENG/49926/90 Printed for the proprietors,The Indian Express Limited by Ms. Vaidehi Thakar at Indigo Press, (India) Pvt. Ltd. Plot No. 1c/716, off Dadoji Konddeo Cross Road, Byculla (E), Mumbai 400027 and Published from Express Towers, 2nd Floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400021. (Editorial & Administrative Offices: Express Towers, 1st Floor, Nariman Point, Mumbai - 400021) Editor : Anoop Verma (*Responsible for selection of News under the PRB Act.) Copyright @ 2012 The Indian Express Ltd. All rights reserved throughout the world. Reproduction in any manner, electronic or otherwise, in whole or in part, without prior written permission is prohibited.
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COVER STORY
DIGITAL INDIA
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SMART GOVERNANCE Aiming to empower citizens with robust digital infrastructure, the Digital India initiative may just be the oxygen that NeGP has been needing since 2006 BY PUPUL DUTTA
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hile announcing the Digital India project in his Independence Day Speech, Narendra Modi made it obvious that eGovernance is going to be a key area of focus for this government. Carrying a price tag of close to Rs 1.13 lakh crore, and built on the backbone of broadband highways and mobile telephony, the Digital India project has the potential of empowering every citizen in the country. The government feels that such a massive IT project will spur large private sector investments in electronics manufacturing, which in turn will create millions of new jobs and support trade. But the most important impact of the Digital India project will be on the National eGovernance Plan, which could now have a fresh lease of life. According to Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Communications and Information Technology, the Digital India project will provide people with a “cradle to grave digital identity” that is “unique, lifelong and online”. The minister says that the overall scope of this programme is “to OCTOBER, 2014
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COVER STORY
prepare India for a knowledge future”, “to make technology central to enabling change” and “to become an umbrella programme covering many departments”. “The focus of this project is on being transformative – to realise IT+ IT = IT, i.e., India Today + Information Technology = India Tomorrow,” says Ravi Shankar Prasad.
ITproject of this scale from the government is a proof of the fact that India is ready to start investing in technology to improve its economic outlook. Nilesh Goradia, Head-PreSales,India Subcontinent, Citrix
Adigital interface can enable the government to engage and interact with the public in a manner that is convenient to them both. Vineet Kshirsagar, Senior Director & Group Head, Government Business at Oracle India 12
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Driving eGovernance in the country At a time, when there is increasing awareness among citizens about their rights with a resultant increase in expectations from the government to perform and deliver, the whole paradigm of governance has changed. Today the government is expected to be transparent in its dealings, accountable for its activities and faster in its responses. Digital India subsumes a mix of services and plans that are just right for reinvigorating the state of governance in the country. Nilesh Goradia, Head-PreSales, India Subcontinent, Citrix, says, “The Digital India project is a step in the right direction; it promises several new possibilities for India. The announcement of an IT project of this scale from the government is by itself a proof of the fact that now India is ready to start investing in technology to improve its economic outlook. If implemented correctly, this project will bring forth a new layer of engagement between the government, businesses and citizens.” Like most citizens of this country, many of the private sector companies are of the view that process efficiency will improve tremendously through the implementation of this project. The success of Digital India project will enable the government to engage with the citizens in a more efficient manner. “Going digital is a need of the hour. A digital interface can enable the government to engage and interact with the public in a manner that is convenient to them both. This initiative will go a long way in bridging the digital divide and empowering the citizens of the country,” says Vineet Kshirsagar, Senior Director & Group Head, Government Business at Oracle India. The rapid adoption of technology in governance will bring government
machinery to the doorsteps of the citizens. Expansion of telephone network, rapid strides in mobile telephony, spread of internet and strengthening of the related communications infrastructure should facilitate delivery of a large number of services provided by the government. Such an enhancement of the reach of government should enable a deeper and better participation of the citizens in the process of governance. Ashish Gupta, Director-Carrier Sales, BlackBerry India, is optimistic about the Digital India project. He says, “India is a unique country when it comes to digital adoption. It has leapfrogged a few steps in its digital journey with its mobile first approach. We believe that a new thrust on promoting mobile connectivity can help India make more progress on the digital path.”
Role of private sector The private sector sees lot of opportunities in the eGovernance space. To begin with, IT industry body Nasscom (National Association of Software and Services Companies) has been making much noise about how the $100 billion industry can be part of the government's ambitious programme. “Nasscom looks forward to the opportunity to partner with the government in achieving this lofty vision. Nasscom has also been working with the government to create a facilitative investment climate, and improve ease of doing business in India by way of requisite policy changes and relevant policy implementation measures for enhanced competitiveness of our country,” says R. Chandrashekhar, President, Nasscom. Prakash Kumar, National Technology Officer – Microsoft India, says, “It is encouraging for us to see the Indian government prioritising technology as an enabler for the transformation and development of India. We see integrating technology into everyone's everyday life, as a huge opportunity to achieve better citizen services, inclusive growth and a digitally empowered economy.” Given that the goal of this project is to provide services in real time from online and mobile platforms, it opens doors for OCTOBER, 2014
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large number of IT industry players to develop platforms, which can help in providing government services and information to people in all parts of the country. “The government will issue certificates that store data – education, residential, medical history, birth certificates etc., in individual ‘digital lockers’ and establish a protocol that enables departments to access them physically without any need for seeing the hard copy. To enable this, the security and data accessibility solutions will have to be accounted for in the deployment plan. Citrix solutions, for example, are designed on an architecture that ensures that data security is maintained irrespective of the number of departments accessing the data,” says Goradia of Citrix. The IT sector in the country employs close to 3 million professionals directly and about 9 million indirectly. In government the number of IT employees is very small in comparison, so it is a no-brainer that the success of Digital India project can be ensured only when the private sector gets involved in a major way for project development, execution and management. For the project to be successful, the private and public sector need to collaborate in terms of resources from monetary to technology support, human resources and infrastructure. “While the government takes up the task of taking the project forward, the private sector will support the project with its resources, expertise and technology,” says Gupta of BlackBerry.
Opportunities and challenges Given the scope of the Digital India project, it is expected that it will open up avenues for extensive participation from the private sector. However, the past experience of private sector companies for working in eGovernance projects has not been good. A key problem is that even the smallest eGovernance project can need the consent of many ministries for effective implementation. Lot of time can get wasted in getting the necessary permissions and regulatory approvals from various ministries involved. The private sector will find it difficult to get enthused about EXPRESS COMPUTER
eGovernance projects if there are endless delays. A system has to be developed to ensure that the projects get implemented in time. Also, in a country like India where many people are not digitally literate, it is a technological challenge to ensure process efficiency, without which people from all sections of society can’t take benefit of the new service. The systems that are developed must be user friendly. If the eGovernance system is so complicated that the end-user has difficulty in using it then it is of little use. The effective implementation of eGovernance initiatives also needs capacity building amongst government employees. New academic courses and modules will have to be developed not just at school and college levels, but also for the benefit of serving government officials in various government departments in the centre and states. At times we find that government projects get stymied due to faulty implementation and outreach. “The government has rolled out many schemes and projects including the NREGA (National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005) and the Rajiv Gandhi state wide insurance scheme in Maharashtra. But due to lack of process efficiency, these schemes faced the challenges of outreach to the lower strata of population. Most processes are manual and contain a number of loopholes which can be exploited. If the government has a vision for Digital India, there should be a plan for improving process efficiency with an emphasis on reaching out to the targeted individuals,” says Goradia. The issue of data security is also an area of concern for a project like Digital India, in which lot of data will have to be put online. “Securing data at all time is going to be a critical requirement that the government has to address before embarking on this ambitious project. The protection of citizen’s information is of paramount importance. The security of critical infrastructure needs to be ensured through strict compliance of the security policy and the use of modern techniques, tools and processes,” says Sanjay Rohatgi, President - Sales, India, Symantec.
India is a unique country when it comes to digital adoption. Promoting mobile connectivity can help India make progress on the digital path. Ashish Gupta, Director-Carrier Sales, BlackBerry India
Securing data at all time is going to be a critical requirement that the government has to address before embarking on this ambitious project. Sanjay Rohatgi,
pupul.dutta@expressindia.com
President - Sales,India,Symantec OCTOBER, 2014
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INTERVIEW RAM SEWAK SHARMA DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND IT
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One of the nine pillars of Digital India programme is Broadband Highway “Cloud computing model can play a major role in providing governance and services on demand to the citizens,� says Ram Sewak Sharma, Secretary, Department of Electronics & Information Technology, Government of India
In his Independence Day speech, the Prime Minister of India spoke about Digital India, where every citizen has access to Internet connectivity and there is good governance through eGovernance. Please provide us an overview of the Digital India programme. Digital India programme is an umbrella programme to prepare India for a knowledge based transformation. It aims to provide much needed thrust to the nine pillars of growth, namely broadband highways; universal access to mobile connectivity; public internet access programme; eGovernance: reforming government through technology; eKranti - electronic delivery of services; information for all; electronics manufacturing; information technology for jobs; early harvest programmes. The vision of Digital India is centred on three key areas - infrastructure as utility to every citizen, governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. Cloud computing model can play a major role in providing governance and services on demand to the citizens. As per the objectives, all shall be provided access to a shareable private space on a public cloud. All citizen entitlements shall be made available on the cloud to ensure easy access. All Government documents and certificates shall become available on the cloud platform. Individuals will not be required to produce these documents for obtaining various services. Also, EXPRESS COMPUTER
portability of all entitlements for individuals would be ensured through the cloud platform. What steps can DeitY take to ensure that the vision of Digital India becomes a reality? The programme will be coordinated by DeitY and implemented by the entire government. DeitY has started taking the necessary steps to ensure the success of Digital India project. DeitY will lay down standards and policy guidelines, provide technical, advisory and handholding support, so that various wings of the government can fully leverage the ICT
The main challenge in setting up of semiconductor wafer FAB is the complexity of the project�
Infrastructure established by the government of India. The existing eGovernance initiatives will be suitably revamped to align them with the principles of Digital India. Scope enhancement, process re-engineering, use of integrated and interoperable systems and deployment of emerging technologies like cloud and mobile will be undertaken to enhance the delivery of government services to citizens. Government cloud shall be the default cloud for government departments. States will be given flexibility to identify for inclusion any additional state-specific projects, which are relevant for their socio-economic needs. We also plan to restructure NIC and strengthen IT support to all government departments at centre and state levels. Position of CIOs will be created in at least 10 key ministries so that various eGovernance projects can be designed, developed and implemented faster. The Prime Minister spoke about providing health related facilities and education to people living in the remote areas of the country through Internet. But the broadband connectivity is quite poor in most parts of the country. So how do we move forward in the direction of having eeducation & telemedicine? One of the nine pillars of Digital India programme is broadband highways. Broadband connectivity will be provided to all the 2.5 lakh Gram Panchayats. The nodal department for this will be DoT. In OCTOBER, 2014
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INTERVIEW
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RAM SEWAK SHARMA DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRONICS AND IT
urban areas, virtual network operators will provide service delivery. The plan is to mandate communication infrastructure in new urban developments and buildings. Also, the National Information Infrastructure (NII) will have nationwide coverage to provide on-demand network connectivity to government departments. SWAN, NOFN and NKN will be integrated under the NII project. You have played an important role in the development of the Aadhaar initiative, which is being used by government departments to weed out illegal beneficiaries in government schemes and also for promoting financial inclusion. In your view what can be done to ensure that the full benefits of Aadhaar become available to the citizens? Aadhaar has been conceptualised not only as an identity authentication mechanism, but also as an aid inclusion in various developmental schemes such as rural employment, health, PDS, etc. Aadhaar is also a key driver for financial inclusion. It may be utilised in opening a bank account which will be quite useful in case of a migrant worker. Aadhaar may be utilised for better management of public schemes like Direct Cash Transfers, Food Security and guaranteed employment etc. It can solve the issues of portability of entitlement of a person from one location to another in PDS schemes. What is your view of the IT-ITES sector in the country? India is regarded as the premier destination for the global sourcing of IT/ITES and accounts for 55% of the global market in offshore IT/ITES services. During the past decade, the total exports by this sector have grown from US$ 9.5 billion in 2002-03 to US$ 40.4 billion in 2007-08 and is estimated at US$ 86 billion in the year 2013-14. The IT-ITES Industry has also created large employment opportunities, with 3.1 million professionals directly employed by the industry and indirect job creation estimated at 10 million. The phenomenal success of the IT-ITES industry has been possible through the pivotal role played by the Software Technology Park (STP) Scheme and provision of fiscal benefits under Section 10A of the Income Tax Act as well as the concerted efforts of the Indian IT-ITES industry. STP Scheme is a special scheme designed to promote the software industry including innovations and growth of 16
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What are the key challenges in setting up of semi-conductor wafer FAB in the country? Setting up of semiconductor wafer FAB is complex project. The successful functioning of FAB involves expertise in operating the equipments so as to give high yield. Second challenge is lack of ecosystem for supply of equipments, its warranty and maintenance, supply of chemicals and gasses. It has to be sourced from abroad and in due course domestic capabilities can be developed. Thirdly, lack of human resources who have training. IIT Bombay and IISc Bangalore have LAB level facilities but commercial FAB manufacturing requires a different level of skill set. People may have to be trained in a working FAB abroad. Another challenge is raising finance for this highly capital intensive project.
Start-Ups and SMEs without any locational and other constraints. Department of Commerce (DOC) has notified 235 IT-ITES specific Special Economic Zones (SEZs). Currently, the SEZs units are eligible for tax benefits as per Section 10AA of the Income Tax Act for a period of 15 years in a phased manner. Further, the SEZ rules were also modified to meet some of the specific sectoral characteristic of the IT sector. Recently, the Government has removed the minimum land requirement for setting up SEZ for IT/ITES, and the minimum processing area requirement is applicable as per category of the cities. The National Policy on Information Technology (NPIT) had been formulated to bring growth to the IT-ITES sectors. In your opinion what kind of impact did NPIT have on the industry? Department of Information Technology and Electronics with the approval of the Union Cabinet, notified NPIT in September 2012. The above Policy lays down a vision to strengthen India’s position as the Global Information Technology hub. One of the key objectives of the NPIT 2012 is to increase revenues of IT and ITES Industry from 100 Billion USD at present to 300 Billion USD by 2020 including export revenue of 200 billion USD. One of the strategies of NPIT 2012 includes creating ecosystem for a globally competitive IT/ITES Industry and to formulate fiscal and other policies to attract investment in IT Industry in Tier II & Tier III cities and rural areas for expanding the base of IT and for creating employment opportunities across the country. The demand for electronic products in the country is rising, but bulk of the electronics that Indians use has to be imported.What is DeitY doing to promote electronic manufacturing in the country? The initiatives taken have resulted in revival of interest in electronic sector. Nearly 45 new proposals for investments have been received involving investment of approximately 18000 crore. While this is small compared to the larger target, clearly reflects a change in trend over the past decade also. We find significant level of interest in some verticals like automotive electronics, consumer electronics, LED manufacturing and industrial electronics. However much more needs to be done. OCTOBER, 2014
INTERVIEW RAJESH AGGARWAL GOVERNMENT OF MAHARASHTRA
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“To simplify government processes through the use of eGovernance, eGovernance literature should be prepared in a simple format,” Rajesh Aggarwal, Principal Secretary, IT, Government of Maharashtra. In conversation with Anoop Verma
“NPR must utilise back-end of UIDAI to ensure uniqueness of record” You have started a new website on eGovernance www.egovernance.guru. Please tell us about your motivation for starting this website. Though there is vast material on eGovernance in public domain, much of it suffers from jargon which can be difficult to decipher, if you are not fully conversant with all the nitty-gritty’s of the subject. To simplify government processes through the use of eGovernance, eGovernance literature should be prepared in a simple format. That is the main reason behind creating this website - www.egovernance.guru. When you were with NIXI you played a role in liberating and promoting the .IN domain.What is your view of the “Dot bharat”initiative in which the domain can be booked in Devanagari script? Unfortunately .IN domains still are priced quite high, and educational domains like .ac.in and .edu.in are still tightly controlled by ERNET. I hope that when vernacular domain names “Dot bharat” are opened up to public, they will be reasonably priced (not more than 100 Rupees per annum). Also sufficient care must be taken to ensure that early domain names are not cornered by the Chinese and German domain name squatters as it has happened in case of the earlier Indian domains. If Indian citizens are able to get these new domain names in a transparent fashion, hopefully, it will lead to development of some good vernacular websites. You have expressed the view that UIDAI and NPR should be merged. Please give us your opinion on the benefits that can come from the merging of UIDAI and NPR. UIDAI and NPR should not work at cross purposes. NPR must utilise back-end of UIDAI to ensure uniqueness of record. One thing which both programmes today lack is guarantying the address correctness of a citizen at any given point of time. In Taiwan, there is one single National Address Registry . Whenever any citizen wants to change his address, he communicates to one single database. Election Commission issues a print request to this single database, which prints lists of all the citizens who are more than 18 years EXPRESS COMPUTER
old, sorted polling booth wise, as per this address database. Thus, coupled with unique ID which will be permanent, and unique address database, which will get modified whenever the citizen changes address, these two things together can revolutionise hundreds of other processes. In his independence day speech,the Prime Minister of India has spoken about creating a “Digital India.” What steps is can the Department of Information Technology in Maharashtra take to enhance the scope of eGovernance within the state? Maharashtra has consistently been at the top of the eGovernance pyramid in the country. After getting to the point of having more than 9 crore UIDAI enrolments in the state, we are effectively utilising the eKYC Aadhaar service to simplify the lives of citizens. The IGR Maharashtra has launched eRegistration for rental agreements. Under this initiative, the landlord and the tenant can sit at home or go to cyber café to authenticate themselves on the IGR portal using eKYC. They can make payment through net banking and print the agreement. Many more initiatives are in the pipeline.
The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has now stated that everything should be on the cloud, and this rigmarole of writing the source code again and again in different ministries and states has to stop.
You have earlier spoken about eGovernance suffering in the country as the databases in different departments do not speak to each other. What steps can the government take to resolve this problem? Our doctors have to first enter data into NIC National Portal and then enter again into State portal. Different state units of NIC write separate code for similar applications. But now things are changing. The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has now stated that everything should be on the cloud, and this rigmarole of writing the source code again and again in different ministries and states has to stop. NIC and the state Governments have also been advised to be more liberal in sharing databases with other departments. In Maharashtra, we have been successful to quite an extent in this respect. anoop.verma@expressindia.com
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COLUMN JIWESH NANDAN
UTTAR PRADESH UNVEILS ITS NEW ELECTRONICS MANUFACTURING POLICY D The mission of the policy is to make Uttar Pradesh the preferred place for electronics manufacturing companies in the country.
The production of electronics hardware is expected to reach USD 104 billion by year 2020. 18
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uring the last couple of decades, the rise in disposable incomes in India have led to increase in demand across all sectors. The demand for high technology products, specifically electronic products has registered a significant growth. According to the Task Force Report*, the demand for electronics hardware in the country will go up to USD 400 billion by year 2020. In 2009, the demand was for only USD 45 billion. The production of electronics hardware is expected to reach USD 104 billion by year 2020. Thus if the current state of affairs prevails, then by 2020 there will be a gap of USD 296 billion between demand and supply of electronics products in India. This rise in demand for electronic products presents an unique opportunity for companies in the ESDM (Electronic System Design & Manufacturing) sector to drive their business by setting up their manufacturing centres in the country. These manufacturing centres will not only cater to the domestic demand, but also produce products for export to other markets of the world. Uttar Pradesh has now taken a bold step for encouraging electronics manufacturing in the state. On August 23, 2014, the Uttar Pradesh government unveiled the new UP Electronics Manufacturing Policy 2014. The policy is will enable many large, medium scale and small companies to set up their manufacturing centres in the state for mass producing electronic products like mobile telephones, TV, DVD, computers, etc. This will also lead to generation of thousands of new jobs for the youth of the state.
Vision & Mission The UP Electronics Manufacturing Policy 2014 seeks to establish a conducive business environment for electronics
manufacturing industry and its allied business partners, so that a large number of small and medium scale enterprises can come up in the state. The vision of the UP Electronics Manufacturing Policy 2014 is “to promote and develop the Electronics Manufacturing Industry within Uttar Pradesh, thereby making Uttar Pradesh a globally competitive and industry friendly electronics design and manufacturing destination contributing towards the overall economy of the state and the nation.” The mission of the policy is to make Uttar Pradesh the preferred place for electronics manufacturing companies in the country. The idea is to provide a sustainable environment for ESDM companies to set up their manufacturing centres. Well trained human resource is of importance to the electronics industry, hence the policy lays down special emphasis on providing the right kind of training to the state’s youth. A Policy Implementation Unit (PIU) has been created to act as a Single Window Clearance unit, which will work closely with the investors and assist them in processing the various incentive related claims laid down under the policy.
Establishment of three clusters The UP Electronics Manufacturing Policy 2014 has been created with the aim of establishing Electronic Manufacturing Clusters (EMCs) in the state. In these clusters large number of electronics companies can operate. In the initial phase of development, the government of Uttar Pradesh is planning to establish and promote small electronic manufacturing clusters. One of these would be set up in Greater Noida, while the process of identifying other two cities is underway. The clusters would be set up OCTOBER, 2014
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in 100 acres of land and ideally be close to markets for better sale.
Incentives The first three electronic manufacturing companies to set up their manufacturing centres in the state are eligible for the following benefits:
Fiscal incentives ●
Capital subsidy A Capital Subsidy of 15% on fixed capital other than land subject to maximum of INR 50 million. This Subsidy shall be provided to first 10 companies on the basis of their date of commencement of commercial operation. ● Interest subsidy 5% interest subsidy for 7 years on the rate of interest paid on the loans obtained from Scheduled Banks/ Financial Institutions shall be reimbursed subject to a maximum of INR 1 crore per annum per unit. ● Stamp Duty 100% exemption on stamp duty. ● Incentives for filing patents Reimbursement of actual filing costs subject to a maximum of INR 100,000 for domestic and INR 500,000 for international patents applicable for MSME units. ● VAT/CST Reimbursement 100% tax reimbursement on VAT/CST for 10 years. EXPRESS COMPUTER
Other incentives & benefits ●
Provision of Land Rebate of 25% on the prevailing sector rates on purchase of land shall be provided either to EMC SPV or the companies within the EMC on purchase of land from state agencies. ● EMC Infrastructure Development The policy targets the establishment of 3 Electronic Manufacturing clusters, for the development of the infrastructure facilities for these EMCs, the state government shall provide a subsidy equivalent to 50% of the grant provided by the Central Government under National Policy on Electronics, 2012. ● Case to case basis The policy shall consider special incentive package for the units investing more than INR 200 crores in this sector. Such incentive package of case to case basis also includes the FAB units establishing in Uttar Pradesh
Subsidy for Industrial Promotion Industrial Promotion subsidy equivalent to 50% of the incentives applicable for new units (setting up in EMC) would be provided to existing units, if additional capital investment for capacity enhancement to the extent of 25% or more on the existing capacities of ESDM units is made in a period of 3 years ● Provision of Incentives to the e-waste recycle companies which are going to be
established in the EMCs. ● A special focus shall be on the skill development for the youth of the state so as to fulfill the industry appetite within the state. ● Development of 2 Acres area as Incubator Centre (warm shell) in each EMC to promote startup/Entrepreneurs/R&D to be operated on PPP mode ● Establishment of Mini Tool Room (MTR) within the area of 2-3 Acres in each EMC under PPP model which may be extended for Allied products ● Permission will be provided to have 24X7 operations and employment of women in all three shifts.
‘Protective Load Status’ EMCs shall be provided ‘Protective Load Status’ by the state government for “Uninterrupted Power Supply”
“One Hand – One EMC” concept The EMCs shall be hand-held under the “One Hand – One EMC” concept. For this, A Mission directorate shall be set up under IT & E department for the successful establishment of EMC and Electronic Manufacturing industry in the state. Jiwesh Nandan is Principal Secretary, Information Technology & Electronics, Mining & Additional Sources of Energy, Government of Uttar Pradesh *Source: Department of Electronics & Information Technology
OCTOBER, 2014
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INTERVIEW R CHANDRASHEKHAR NASSCOM
“Today all sections of the government recognise the importance of eGovernance” R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM, talks to Anoop Verma on the exciting and positive future of India’s IT sector. He also provides his views on the steps that must be taken to ensure speedy execution of eGovernance projects. Excerpts: What is your view of the ITsector in India? There can be difference in the performance of different companies, but overall the IT sector is doing well. The revenues of the industry had bottomed out in 2010. But even in 2010, the industry did not start contracting, only the growth rate came down. Now the prospects of the sector have seen lot of improvement. Last year NASSCOM had predicted that the industry would grow at 12% to 14%, and it actually grew at 13.2%. This year we are predicting that the growth will be between 13% to 15%; this means that this year the growth will be a percentage point above the growth that we saw last year. This prediction is based on the projections of various companies about the position of the orders and contracts that they have from their major clients. If you look at the client side, then you find that economic situation in USA has improved and Europe’s economy has more or less stabilised. If you take all these trends into account, you realise that not only is the industry growing, the growth rate is slightly accelerating. It is being reported that the ITindustry is now hiring fewer people than earlier.Why is that so when the industry itself is seeing healthy growth? Earlier when the industry grew by 15% the employment too grew by 15%, but that is no longer the case. That is no longer the case 20
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because of technology trends. What is happening is that if your industry grows by 15%, your employee growth is only 7%. You are actually able to get higher productivity out of people because now there is better technology available and more automation is possible. However, if you look at the trends then you see that now the industry is hiring in much higher numbers than in 2010. Only the hiring patterns have changed. Earlier a lot of hiring used to be
For higher growth there are many things that the industry needs to do,and there are the things that the government must do
done on the campus and many companies used to maintain a large bench strength. Now because of competitive pressures and changes in the nature of business, the companies are refraining from maintaining a large bench strength. What steps can the government of India take to enable the Information Technology industry in the country to grow at a faster pace? For higher growth there are many things that the industry needs to do, and there are the things that the government must do. One crucial area is that of the start-up community. Many bright youngsters are choosing not to go in for regular employment or even higher studies, they prefer to become entrepreneurs and develop innovative products and services. Such entrepreneurs are an asset to any country. In countries like UK, Canada and Singapore there are special provisions to attract entrepreneurs from all over the world. In India, we have a situation where many new entrepreneurs are being constrained by the bottlenecks in the system. There are a plethora of problems that new businesses face in our country that they don’t face in many other countries. There is problem of regulatory compliance, financing, infrastructure, registration of Intellectual Property, etc. At times, a business has to be closed down, but it is not easy to do that in our country. OCTOBER, 2014
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The good thing is that the present government is aware of these problems and now attention is being given to creating an environment where companies can do their business easily.
services that many not exist today. You are prescribing a standard which may or may not be achievable. So there has to be some amount of give and take during the execution of such complex IT services projects. It must be viewed as a partnership in which both sides collaborate for the achievement of the desired outcome. If the procurement processes for IT services can be reformed then we can see a quantum jump in the speed at which eGovernance projects can be implemented.
Skilled human resource is one of the key requirements for software industry to flourish. What steps can be taken to ensure that adequate ITtalent is available for our ITcompanies? A formal education can provide a person with formal training, but for performing well the individual also needs to have certain skills that are specific to that industry. We need to accept that there will always be a gap between what is being taught in the educational institutions and what the industry may require. To a large extent this problem can be addressed, if we can ensure that our educational institutions have well trained facility and an up to date syllabus. NASSCOM is taking several initiatives in the area of skills. Recently we launched the IT-ITeS Sector Skills Council NASSCOM (SSC NASSCOM), which strongly recommends that learning outcomes (based on National Occupational Standards) need to be introduced to country’s education system. If we can focus on certain key skills then that will lead to vast improvement in the employability of the Indian graduates. There is another initiative called National Skills Registry in which NASSCOM has partnered with the industry to create a national database of registered and verified knowledge workers in the industry. As the former Secretary ITyou have done lot of work in the eGovernance space.Why do so many eGovernance projects get mired by delays? eGovernance has come a long way from where it was at the time when this whole journey started. Today all sections of the government recognise the importance of eGovernance and many of them have taken significant steps in its implementation. However, if you are considering the point where all government services are available online, then that is still very far. Many eGovernance projects face delays because of faulty procurement processes that the government has. The experience of many companies that have bid for eGovernance projects has not been positive. The procurement processes of the government are not designed for procuring IT services, they are designed for procuring hardware or some equipment. When you are procuring hardware, you can clearly state the technological specifications concerning the processor, memory, hard disk, etc., but when you are procuring IT services you are describing EXPRESS COMPUTER
The new government is giving lot of thrust to eGovernance.What can NASSCOM do to promote eGovernance in the country? NASSCOM is in touch with the government and we are making a case for enabling the private sector to participate more vigorously in eGovernance projects. But this can only happen when there is a re-look at the existing procurement policies and other issues. Private sector can be involved in execution as well as financing of the eGovernance projects. eGovernance should be a profit making project for the private companies, for the citizens and for the government. All three entities ought to profit. The thing that we loose or get rid of when we have eGovernance is the inefficiencies that we have in the system. There are more than 3 million people working in the IT sector in the country and in government we have only close to 10000 IT professionals, so it is a no-brainer that the private sector has to be involved in the execution of eGovernance projects. But the private sector can only come in when eGovernance projects make a business sense.
EGOVERNANCE SHOULD BE A PROFIT MAKING PROJECT FOR THE PRIVATE COMPANIES, FOR THE CITIZENS AND FOR THE GOVERNMENT
Even after the implementation of eGovernance in some departments we continue to have one or two manual steps.What is your view on this? The general perception is that eGovernance is not being implemented to a sufficient degree. We have to see eGovernance projects from the perspective of citizens. If eGovernance has been implemented for certain service then that service should be available to the citizen electronically. The problem is that many of the eGovernance projects allow the citizens to use certain electronic facilities, but if you actually want to have the service then you have to go to the office with your documents. If there are 10 steps for availing any service and you have made 9 steps electronic, leaving last one to be manual, then you are still not offering eGovernance from the perspective of the citizen. He still has to come to the government office for finally availing the service. anoop.verma@expressindia.com
OCTOBER, 2014
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CASE STUDY
NIC’S CARD PROJECT
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NIC'S CARD PROJECTRIDES ON
ORACLE’S DATABASE National Informatics Centre consolidates 432 databases, across 38 districts, improving system response, data security, and availability BY PUPUL DUTTA
N
ational Informatics Centre (NIC) is the supplier of technology related services to government agencies and departments. The initiatives of NIC have led to wider transparency in government services through the implementation of online solutions, such as information and service rich websites, and other electronic information systems. NIC has done lot of work for improving the technological systems at Andhra Pradesh's Registration and Stamps department. The department is managing land, marriages, and social services and associated documentation across 38 districts. NIC’s Computeraided Administration of Registration Department (CARD) project, which began in 1997, has centralised all the
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department’s information, including land and duty rates and stamp vendors’ details onto a three-tier architecture, based on a central application server in the head office at Hyderabad. Today Computer-aided Administration of Registration Department (CARD) is regarded as one of the most successful eGovernance projects in India.
Overcoming Challenges The CARD application initiative of Andhra Pradesh began on a high note, but it was soon bogged down by numerous challenges. To begin with, it lacked high availability, scalability, and security for information pertaining to land rates and marriage documentation. Then there was no provision to minimise system downtime and performance
degradation in sub-registrars’ office. There was also the need to implement a disaster recovery site. Lastly, it was important to develop a unified look and feel for interfaces and reports generated by the CARD application. “We wanted to consolidate and upgrade 432 databases from 38 registration districts across Andhra Pradesh onto one database . However, our systems were facing immense problem and as a result the project suffered a brief setback,” says KLN Rao, Deputy Director General, NIC.
Solution implemented In order to overcome the challenges; the decentralised CARD application was converted into 3-tier architecture and deployed in state data centre in OCTOBER, 2014
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Hyderabad. The existing forms and reports developed in Forms 6i and Reports 6i was upgraded to Forms 11g and Reports 11g and consolidated using Oracle Weblogic Suite. Similarly, the database instances running in individual sub-registrar offices was consolidated and upgraded to Oracle Database Enterprise Edition 11g. “The database and application servers are clustered in an active-active fashion to provide for continuous availability, scalability and workload management. A near disasterrecovery site was set-up to provide for business continuity. The entire set-up is managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager Grid Control 11g,” informs Venkatesh Krishnan, Vice President, Technology Business, Oracle India. Rao says that while the entire process of implementing the solution took close to two years, it was a journey full of roadblocks. “Basically, for the computerisation of the CARD project, we first started the services at only two test sites in 1997. Internal change management was one of the key challenges, and it was critical to initiate the project in a decentralised manner. Later, the department expanded the project, making the CARD application web-based and extending its reach to additional internal and external stakeholders. The implementation strategy was aimed to address the functional, technical, and change management challenges in line with users’ adoption pace,” he explains.
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Benefits galore "Migration to 11g WebLogic Server based technology stack helped us reduce the maintenance cost through centrally deployed application and web enabling the CARD application. Seamless integration with external java objects is much easier now with web forms. We could leverage the clustering features of Forms and Reports servers deployed on WebLogic Server, for high performance, load distribution and failover thereby reducing downtime and end user dissatisfaction,” beams a happy Rao. The enterprise management tools helped NIC in automating manual and error-prone administrative operations. Rao further states that with Oracle's Database NIC saw improvement in response time, enhanced data security, and reduced costs, enabling the Registration and Stamps Department to provide better service to its 84 million customers. “The deployment of Oracle solutions also helped increase department’s annual revenue from $110 million in 1998 to $811 million in 2013, in part due to growth in the number of registrations facilitated by having a web-based, centralised architecture,” says Rao. Moving on, NIC plans to build on this solution by replicating CARD application for the states of Telengana and Seemandhra. It also plans to set up a disaster recovery site. Pupul.dutta@expressindia.com
THE DEPLOYMENT OF ORACLE SOLUTIONS HELPED INCREASE DEPARTMENT’S ANNUALREVENUE FROM $110 MILLION IN 1998 TO $811 MILLION IN 2013 KLN RAO, DEPUTYDIRECTOR GENERAL, NIC.
We wanted to consolidate and upgrade 432 databases from 38 registration districts across Andhra Pradesh onto one database to ensure high availability,and security of information OCTOBER, 2014
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INTERVIEW DR RAJENDRA KUMAR IAS
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“The Department of Electronics & IT has undertaken a countrywide initiative on mobile governance,� says Dr Rajendra Kumar, Joint Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & Information Technology, Government of India
Moving towards eKranti The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has started a National eGovernance Plan (NeGP) 2.0 for new electronic revolution, or eKranti. Provide us with an overview of the eKranti framework. The eKranti or NeGP 2.0 framework proposes new and substantially revised models of implementation and service delivery. NeGP 2.0 envisages government wide transformation by delivering all government services electronically to the citizens through integrated and interoperable systems via multiple modes. This transformation in eGovernance will be achieved through undertaking transformational BPR, adopting emerging technologies like cloud and mobile, providing integrated services via interoperable systems and building sustainable organisational and human resource capacities. The number of broadband connections in the country is small as compared to the number of mobile phones. DeitY has been trying to promote the delivery of e-services from the government through the mobile medium. Please tell us about your initiatives in this direction. DeitY has undertaken a countrywide initiative on mobile governance to provide government services. As a part of this initiative, the framework for Mobile Governance was notified in February 2012 and DeitY has created the Mobile Seva platform as the core infrastructure for enabling the availability of public services through mobile devices. Mobile Seva enables the integration of mobile platform with the common eGovernance infrastructure consisting of State Data Centres (SDCs), State Wide Area Networks (SWANs), State and National Service Delivery Gateways (SSDG/NSDG). It enables a government department to integrate both web and mobile based services seamlessly and enhances the access to electronic services tremendously. Availability of government-wide shared infrastructure and services enable rapid development and reduced costs for the departments in rolling out electronic services. The initiative was launched in July 2011 and is currently fully operational with over 1,100 Government departments and agencies at central, state and local levels already using the platform for delivering a wide range of mobile 24
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based services. These departments and agencies have already delivered over 122 crore Push SMS based transactions to the citizens using this platform. DeitY has also made a mobile AppStore operational as a part of Mobile Seva with over 300 live mobile apps for a wide range of government services.
The eTaal project was started to monitor the e-transactions in eGovernance projects including Mission Mode Projects. What can be done to increase these e-transactions? e-Taal provides visibility to the number of etransactions in national and state level eGovernance services being provided in the country. Currently over 11.6 crore etransactions per month are being delivered.However , with the increase in number of services under MMPs and creation of robust ICT infrastructure, number of e-transactions is increasing day-by-day.
Most people in the country don’t have smartphones.They are using entry level devices for communicating through voice and text messages.What kind of e-services can be provided to users of basic mobile handsets. The basic mobile handsets have facilities for voice based communication and text messages. Under the Mobile Seva project, 349 services have been operationalised through Pull-SMS over short-codes 51969 and 166 and long code 9223166166 obtained by DeitY for mobilegovernance purposes. 1,111 central, state and local government departments across the country have been integrated and over 122 crore Push-SMS transactions have been sent to citizens. USSD and IVRS solutions have also been developed. Hence, people can easily obtain SMS, voice and USSD based services through basic mobile handsets. How does the Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) work? Mobile Service Delivery Gateway (MSDG) is a centralised platform which has been developed around open standards and cloud-based solutions and is a key implementation strategy under the Framework for Mobile Governance that was notified by DeitY in February 2012. It has been created by DeitY through its own agency, Centre for Development of Advance Computing (C-DAC). The project covers the entire country and is targeted at all government departments and agencies at central, state, and local levels and citizens. It leverages the massive penetration of mobile phones in India to substantially enhance access to electronic services, especially in rural areas. Real-time status on implementation of the project is available on the Mobile Seva portal (www.mgov.gov.in) and through social media sites (Facebook www.facebook.com/DIT.MGOV; Twitter - @mgovindia). OCTOBER, 2014
INTERVIEW RAJAT SHARMA ATUL LIMITED
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Rajat Sharma, President - IT (Global CIO) - Atul Limited and Director Atul Infotech, talks to Pankaj Maru about why many business and government organisations are now using open source software. Excerpts:
“Price is not the only advantage that open source holds” ou organisation is using open source software in a big way. Is your preference for open source only due to cost benefits or is it because you are able to achieve more adaptability and flexibility through such systems? The prime drivers of open source solutions are factors like TCO, flexibility, adaptability, as well as the scope for better knowledge management. We have our in-house team which engages in conceptualisation, solution identification, POC, internal tests, actual trial dry run, roll-out and the subsequent maintenance of the solutions. A number of organisations prefer to procure their open source solutions from us. We collaborate with our clients in creation of open source solutions, which can drive business efficiency.
security is not a major concern. In enterprise security operations, we use the conventional stringent security solutions and best practices. IT solutions are ever evolving and there is a constant need to upgrade. So how do you decide what should be the quantum of your IT spending? We like to see every IT solution on its merits. When we come across any worthy IT solution that we had not anticipated earlier, then we get a direct approval for having that solution in the organisation. In the current fiscal, we are mostly focussed on enhancing our cloud based portfolio, and on upgrading the mobility systems and the data centre. Atul Limited is also an IT services provider. What kind of demand are you seeing for open source solutions from clients? The response for our open source solutions is encouraging. The enterprises are showing great amount of interest in open-source technologies, because of reliability and the distinct TCO advantage. There is the view that earlier the CIOs used to be apprehensive about using open source. It is assumed that open source solutions can be riddled with glitches. I don’t subscribe to this view. If a solution has been properly designed on open source platforms then it will work with efficiency. Today there is no dearth of CIOs who prefer open source.
What kind of improvements do you see with the usage of open source solutions? The adoption of open source is primarily due to the flexibility and adaptability that such solutions offer. The open source that we have deployed led to the achievement of the desired business outcomes. We have been able to amalgamate these open source initiatives with our core ERP - Oracle eBusiness Suite. These open source solutions are being conceptualised, designed, implemented and maintained by our own in-house IT team. Have you planned any long term strategy for ensuring that the best solution, either open source or vendor driven, gets implemented in the organisation? We have adopted a conscious IT strategy wherein we do not intend to procure any IT solution or application till we have explored and ruled out the open source option, be it on the operating system, application or development or diagnostic tools. At times questions are raised about the security of open source systems. How are you ensuring that you don’t end up compromising on security while adopting open source? We are primarily utilising the open source technology solutions in the application and operating system stack. This is an area where EXPRESS COMPUTER
The adoption of open source is primarily due to the flexibility and adaptability that such solutions offer
Do you think that in future the demand for open source is going to go up? That is certainly my opinion. This open source phenomenon has now developed deep roots in the IT community. In days to come its popularity is going to improve further. Many case studies have been conducted in India and abroad that prove that organisations can derive the same amount of business efficiency and competitive advantage that they would by using expensive proprietary solutions. So it makes sense to go for open source. We have been in the forefront of creating such highly efficient and relatively low cost solutions, many of which are now being adopted by our clients. pankaj.maru@expressindia.com
OCTOBER, 2014
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COLUMN AMBARISH DESHPANDE
TACKLING ADVANCED PERSISTENT THREATS W Enterprises can deal effectively with advanced persistent threats by asking the right questions and differentiating them from traditional security attacks
Unlike the basic or massmarket threats that everyone should be blocking,APTs are unknown threats that cannot be detected by traditional signature-based defences such as firewalls,IPSs and secure web and e-mail gateways 26
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ith the rapid development of newer technologies relevant for corporate network expansion and data transfer, the cyber security landscape needs to transform itself in order to counter a new breed of online malicious entities being identified in India as well as globally. Today it is not just governments and large organisations that fall victim to cyber attacks, but also specific individuals within organisations. The nature of attacks is swiftly becoming more targeted towards the individual. As these attacks become more targeted, they are also becoming more personalised. Further, security today is not just about tackling a breach after it has already happened, but preventing an attack or breach before it actually happens. More importantly, IT security for business has moved from just being the prime focus of CIOs and CTOs to now reaching the purview of business leaders, including the C-suite executives such as the CEO and the MD. They now have the task of taking decisions that include what sort of IT infrastructure the organisations should have in place, as well as which IT vendor a company should choose in order to best suit their company requirements, among others.
Understanding APTs: The challenge One of the biggest concerns that confront large and small enterprises alike is what is known as Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs). An APT is a network attack in which an unauthorised person gains access to a network and stays there undetected for a long period of time. Unlike the basic or mass-market threats that everyone should be blocking, APTs are unknown threats that cannot be detected by traditional signature-based defences such as firewalls, IPSs and
secure web and e-mail gateways. According to a recently released report by Verizon, in the year 2013, 92 percent of data- breaches were perpetrated by outsiders while 84 percent of attackers were able to compromise their targets in seconds, minutes or hours; however 78 percent of data-breach incidents took weeks, months or years to discover. This leaves a significant window that is used by the attackers leaving the organisations vulnerable during this period which can be several years. APTs have both the capability and the intent to persistently and effectively target a specific entity. The motive behind such threats is to steal confidential data and information from a specific person. For instance this person could be an employee of a large organisation be it a bank or a government body. APT attacks target organisations in sectors with high-value information, such as national defence, aerospace, oil and gas, manufacturing, banking, financial services and insurance, among others. In a simple attack, the intruder tries to get in and out as quickly as possible in order to avoid detection by the network’s Intrusion Detection System (IDS). However, in an APT attack, the goal is not to get in and out, but rather to achieve ongoing access to sensitive data and information. Developers of APTs firstly look for vulnerabilities within the system. Post that, APTs evaluate the security controls protecting the system and try to come up with a plan in order to exploit this vulnerability. This entire process takes an incredible amount of time and research and the entire activity can take months if not years to develop.
APTs vs traditional defence system Before trying to get into the aspect of OCTOBER, 2014
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understanding how to detect and counter an APT effectively, one must first fully understand their own business as well. Some of the fundamental questions that one should ask are: What are the entry and exit points of your business that could make your organisation vulnerable to an attack from an unknown entity? Or what are the areas of your business that could come under attack? Asking these fundamental questions enables an organisation to better prepare for such an attack and thereby have the right IT infrastructure put in place, so that an APT is stopped before it actually penetrates through the system and retrieves confidential company data and information. The main goal of an anti-APT operation should be to make it as difficult as possible for an adversary to steal intellectual property of an organisation. Hence, security defences have traditionally been built with standalone products that protect against known EXPRESS COMPUTER
threats. However, with today’s increasingly sophisticated hackers and advanced threats, these traditionally solutions lack the potency to tackle highly advanced threats. In order to counter these threats, what’s needed is a way to get the silos of security solutions working together, sharing intelligence and analysis so that they can adapt, scale, and extend protection to unknown threats as well. As a step forward what is needed is a “lifecycle approach” to implementing a complete, multi-layered defence. The three core capabilities of the lifecycle defence include ongoing operations, incident containment and incident resolution. The lifecycle begins with detection and blocking of all known threats while unknown threats are moved to the incident containment stage. At this stage, threats are carefully analysed and mitigated via closed-loop feedback through which threat intelligence is automatically shared with other security
systems to inoculate the organisation from future attacks. In addition threat information is shared in real time among millions of users in thousands of organisations via a global intelligence network, so the defence system can learn, adapt and evolve to stay a step ahead of advanced threats. Finally, at the incident resolution stage, breaches that do occur are investigated, analysed and quickly remediated, and the resulting intelligence is shared via the global intelligence network, which in turn helps convert unknown threats into known threats. This lifecycle approach can help organisations better prepare for advanced and unknown attacks that might occur so as to completely mitigate the damage, resolve the issue quickly, learn from incidents, and apply new intelligence so that future attacks do not succeed. Ambarish Deshpande is Managing Director, India and SAARC, Blue Coat.
OCTOBER, 2014
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COLUMN SUNIL GUPTA
CHOOSING THE RIGHTDATACENTRE PARTNER A Before you sign up with a data centre outsourcing partner, it is imperative to assess the risks and look at the key selection criteria
Another important point to consider while outsourcing data centre infrastructure and its management is how to seamlessly integrate the organizations’processes with that of the Outsourcing Service Provider (OSP). 28
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ccording to a study by 451 Research, the amount of data centre space is growing the world over, on average, about 9% a year. Cost of power is only increasing and will continue to skyrocket in times to come. Another key factor adding to cost of data centres is the shortage of skilled resources to man data centre operations. Demand is growing faster than supply, making the running of owned-andmanaged data centres to be an extremely complex and expensive proposition for organizations. Data centre outsourcing has emerged as a winning strategy that CIOs are increasingly adopting in India. Several major forces are shaping this market. Physical limitations of existing captive DCs are a major concern for CIOs across the globe. Some of the key challenges faced by captive DCs are:
Advent of high-density computing technologies ● Increasing volumes of storage ● Coping up with increasing power and cooling requirements and escalating costs ● Technology refresh ● Need to consolidate for efficiency and security ● Technologies relating to SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud)
Risks associated with outsourcing The fact remains that outsourcing is not just about the economics. The most important aspect of outsourcing is the level of maturity of the client organization: if the organization is mature enough to manage an outsourced partner, do they have a culture to support outsourcing? These are the factors that one needs to find answers to before
evaluating the financial aspects of outsourcing. Even within the financial aspect, CIOs of client organizations start answering questions like: What is the scale? What is the horizon of the particular investment? What kind of business growth can be expected that needs to be supported by IT? One of the risks CIOs face while outsourcing their data centre operations and infrastructure is associated with the loss of control over their assets and intellectual property. They need to look for ways to put in place a governance framework and to safeguard the intellectual property that might be at risk. Another important point to consider while outsourcing data centre infrastructure and its management is how to seamlessly integrate the organizations’ processes with that of the Outsourcing Service Provider (OSP). It is important that these processes are monitored continuously to avoid the risk of poorly performing processes at the OSP level, and mitigate any issues resulting from it. By the virtue of leaving substantial control of assets and management in the hands of an OSP, there is the inherent risk of business getting affected because of SLA non-conformance by the service provider. Risk of business continuity resulting from this non-conformance should be mitigated by carefully planning the outsourcing strategy, clear expectations setting from the beginning, ensuring choice of the right partner for the deal and putting in place a stringent governance framework. It is also important that the service provider as well as the client organization be sensitive about the changing regulations and their impact on the OCTOBER, 2014
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technology piece. Choosing a partner who does not have the expertise in the domain of the client’s business increases the risk substantially. Finally, financial implication of changing costs and exchange rates, if applicable, has to be monitored regularly. Project times lines as planned and the financial implications of any delays have direct impact on the perceived benefits of any outsourcing deal.
PROVIDER TYPE
STRENGTH
WEAKNESS
Telecom providers
Bandwidth-connectivity
SI capabilities OEM relationships Solution architecting capabilities Life cycle management
System Integrators (SI)
Vertical knowledge SI capabilities Solutioning Lifecycle management Business Models
Dependencies on third party for infrastructure Third party financing Risk taking abilities
Service provider landscape
Technology Providers
Product pricing Future visibility of products
Field support High cost resources Operations management model
DC Providers - ISP
DC infrastructure Telecom provider agnostics OEM relationships NOC capabilities, operations management
Field support SI capabilities Risk taking abilities Business Models
The resulting offering in the marketplace today is very interesting. Service providers are exploring multiple directions to offer these services from various vantage points – each having its own limitations and benefits. ● Major among types of providers are: ● Telecommunication Providers ● System Integrators ● Technology Providers ● Data centre Providers (Table 1.1 gives the details of description, benefits and limitations of these service provider types)
Choosing the right partner Here are some of the considerations and evaluation criteria for choosing the right partner to outsource your data centre infrastructure and management: ● Understanding Provider Types: It is important for client organizations to evaluate service provider types and choose partner based on the present and future needs. Table 1.1 gives details of benefits and limitations of the various service provider types. ● Financial Health: An assessment of the financial health of the OSP is a key consideration. It is important for partner to be able to invest in technologies and people to stay ahead of their competition and able to deliver best-in-class services that can propel your business. ● Innovation: It is important to analyse the innovation quotient of the OSP before signing a multi-year deal. ● Proven Track Record: The partner’s track record in maintaining and delivering solutions on a long-term basis to clients in the same domain as the client EXPRESS COMPUTER
DC Facilities
organization proves the ability to deliver robust and performance-based solutions. It is important that the partner has domain expertise in managing and continuously delivering to clients. ● Responsiveness of the Partner: It is important for partner to be responsive to every need or request of the client organization. Evaluating an OSP on responsiveness to various technology and business demands is a clear consideration to ensure that they are always committed to supporting the future needs of the client. ● Technology Agnostic: OSPs should be able to support multiple technology platforms without selling or being proponents of a particular one. ● Pricing Strategy and Flexibility: The partners’ flexibility in pricing and ability to tweak solutions to meet the needs of the client organization is very critical. Their ability to manage deals, pricing and solution offering is a key consideration. ● Ability to Attract and Retain Talent: In today’s business environment the biggest challenge is the people challenge. CIOs constantly battle with the lack of skilled resources available to run critical parts of their IT. It is thus important to evaluate the OSP’s ability to hire and retain highly skilled people, and keep them motivated.
Product Strategy: The OSP’s product development and delivery strategies are very important in deals that are longterm. It is important that the clients future need, market changes are taken into considerations into the OSP’s product and delivery strategies in order to ensure that growth of the client’s business is never hindered. ● Geographical Reach: For most growing businesses it is important that their strategic partners also have the ability to quickly ramp up their services and reach as and when required. It is important to choose an OSP partner who has a global reach in delivering and supporting services across boundaries. While the advantages are many, the most significant would still remain – peace of mind – from realizing that the organization’s backbone, mission-critical systems are in the hands of an expert, secured and always available to the business. CIOs should evaluate this new breed of service providers – data centre outsourcing providers – who can manage the entire lifecycle of the data centre infrastructure and, of course, not forget to evaluate the risks involved in the whole process. ●
Sunil Gupta is President & COO, Netmagic.
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CASE STUDY
AKSHAY PATRA
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FOR A
NOBLE CAUSE In achieving its goal of feeding millions of school children in different states in the country, Akshay Patra Foundation has been aided by the implementation of Citrix Netscaler and XenApp BY JASMINE DESAI
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A
not-for-profit organisation headquartered in Bangalore, the Akshaya Patra Foundation is dedicated to fighting hunger and malnutrition. Since its inception in year 2000, the organisation has made commendable efforts for ensuring that many more children from poor background have access to wholesome meal on every school day. It was in the year 2000 that the Akshaya Patra Foundation made a humble beginning, serving just 1500 children across 5 schools in Bangalore. Today the organisation has grown into the world’s largest (not-for-profit) midday meal program, which serves wholesome food to over 1/4 million children from 10,661 schools across 10 states in India. The Akshaya Patra Foundation has also made a name for itself by using modern technology to cater to the food related needs of millions of citizens.
Driving efficiency through technology When the Akshaya Patra Foundation began to increase the scope of its work, in terms of both, numbers and geography, the need was felt to centralise and standardise the data on the organisation’s activities. To achieve this objective Microsoft Dynamics Exchange 2007 ERP application was incorporated in in April 2011 across all the locations where the organisation functioned. The issue of throughput while accessing the application through MPLS was a major challenge for the team. Problems were also there due to issues related to connectivity. “Our aim was to provide users a great experience while accessing the application. However, users often faced problems related to speed and connectivity that negatively impacted their experience. Another major concern for the IT team was the security of data, since among other confidential information we also dealt with donor’s data,” says Janarthanan B, Head - IT, The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Currently there are more than 400 users accessing this application. To overcome these bottlenecks, Akshaya Patra began looking for EXPRESS COMPUTER
alternatives. The organisation carried out a PoC with Citrix’s XenApp Platinum and NetScaler solutions and few other vendors on parameters of speed and security. “On both fronts (speed and security), Citrix outperformed other vendors that we were evaluating,” says Janarthanan. The NGO applied for 50 licenses of Citrix XenApp Platinum. Frontier Business Systems, a Citrix partner, deployed the solutions at Akshaya Patra. “We collected the feedback from users located in different branches on the XenApp solution and it was only after being completely satisfied with the solution that we went ahead with the implementation,” says Janardhan. The initial 50 licenses were implemented on a server and users were given access to it. The ERP application was published through Citrix XenApp. Employees are now connected to the Citrix data server and thereby access the ERP. After the pilot implementation of 50 licenses, the better user experience led to the Foundation adding 50 more licenses, increasing the total number to 100. It is certain that the foundation will further increase the number of licenses, as it grows. Citrix XenApp enabled application management by virtualising the ERP and delivering it as a centralised on-demand service to any user anywhere. XenApp helped in controlling and encrypting access to data and applications, thereby improving security.
The Citrix NetScaler has led to vast improvement in the functioning of the ERP application and it has maximised the enduser experience
Implementation after proper study Janardhan is of the view that organisations should conduct proper study of their own environment before going for a deployment of such kind. They should have an assessment from both the vendor and the partner regarding what infrastructure will be supported and what will not be. In Akshaya Patra’s case the particular storage configuration required for high availability feature of NetScaler was not supported by Citrix. The NGO, however, did not opt for high availability functionality, before they finalised the data centre. Citrix Netscaler is hosted on IBM storage, which is located in Sify data centre in Bangalore. According to Janardhan, “The implementation team was not fully aware of the configuration required for our storage. But we managed to have the issue resolved and now we are using the same storage. But this issue did lead to a slight delay in the implementation.” Post implementation, the Citrix NetScaler has led to vast improvement in the functioning of the ERP application and it has maximised the end-user experience. Some of its features include server load balancing, full web app firewall security, fast application acceleration capabilities. XenApp provided users with performance and control of the Infrastructure while NetScaler ensured a secure connectivity. While Citrix XenApp and NetScaler solutions have enhanced security and user experience, Akshaya Patra believes that the real value of the benefits can be gauged after the complete implementation (of the additional licenses which have been procured). “The high-availability configuration enabled recently, helped us reduce downtime and facilitate ease of maintenance,” says Janardhan. At the moment, only ERP is being accessed through Citrix XenApp. Akshaya Patra Foundation plans to incorporate the Donor Management Application as part of the Citrix XenApp. A virtual desktop environment is a longterm plan that the organisation hopes to realise in the coming years. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com
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FEATURE
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
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DESIGNING THE BI DASHBOARD
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The BI solution needs to be built in an agile manner, so that as different analytics are built, the business team validates that and makes course corrections BY SANJAY SHAH
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BC Corporation is a conglomerate of several different types of businesses operating under one single legal entity. Mr. Basu was the head of SBU-A till the past year. But now he heads the BI Initiative.. The group has invested into BI technologies and has started its BI journey by developing several BI applications. The MD firmly believes the continued growth and profitability will depend on taking the right decisions at the right time and based on data rather than on gut feelings. For this he feels that time has come to invest in BI technologies and applications. He has engaged Mr. Waghmare who is a BI Strategist for guidance, and internally the initiative is driven by himself and Mr. Basu. Mr. Basu has over the past quarter interacted with several BI developers and has been exposed to several types of dashboards and analytical reports. He is overwhelmed with the type of reporting which can be done using BI Technologies. So he fixes a meeting with the MD and Mr. Waghmare. The last quarter has ended well, and there has been good top line growth, but the bottom line has also improved because of lower interest costs. Lata (MD’s Secretary): Good evening, Mr. Basu. The MD and Mr. Waghmare are waiting for you. (She winks). MD’s mood is good today. Basu: Thanks, Lata. Basu enters the MD’s room. Basu: Good evening Sir. Good evening Mr. Waghmare. MD: Good evening, Basu. I believe you wish to share some initial dashboard designs with us? Basu: Sir, I have seen various types of dashboards over the last quarter but I am not able to decide how to go about EXPRESS COMPUTER
selecting the right dashboard design for us. Each technology seems to have some pros and cons. In fact, there are some BI tools which focus only on creating charts and dashboards on the top of our cubes and also enable ‘story telling’. (Basu connects his new sleek laptop to the projector and starts a PowerPoint presentation. Various dashboard images come alive on the screen.) Basu: Sir what I did was to collate the data of the products sold by our company and the sales of several of our competitors over the past 5 years. I gave the same data to three consulting companies who came up with their versions of dashboards. Waghmare: That’s a good start. Let’s see what each person has designed. (Basu moves to the slide which gives the dashboard created by the first consulting company.) Basu: Mr. Waghmare. Take a look at this excellent presentation. It shows the map of India and all the customer locations where out and our competitors sales have taken place. In each location we are seeing a pie chart. MD: Mr. Waghmare, this is indeed very interesting. In several of the locations I am noticing that our market share is higher than that of our competitors! Basu: (getting excited because of MD’s response) ...Yes sir and if you click on any of the pie chart you can see the actual number of sales in this adjoining table. The table shows the quantities and values and it is sorted by the highest brand first. MD: Mr. Basu this is an excellent visualisation. I like it.
Waghmare: Please show us the next visualisation. (Basu moves to the next slide. It shows an even better visualisation in terms of 3D maps which shows the comparative sale of each brand in a stacked 3-d bar.. The screen is large and the 3-d graph creates an effect of a physical presence.) MD: I can see the comparative sales very easily and just like in the previous graph, I can see our market share higher in several areas. But I am sure this technology is very expensive. Basu: (very happy as he feels he is being appreciated)...No sir, the overall cost of both the technologies is quite similar. I was also very happy with the 3-d view. It will look very good when you show this to our Board during the next Board Meeting. (Basu is already dreamy eyed imagining the praises being heaped on him after the next board meeting.) MD: Yes, I am quite confident that Board will like this and approve the investment. Waghmare: That’s good. Now let’s see the last presentation. Basu: Sir the last one is quite a disaster. The consulting company has just used simple excel charts and pivot tables to show some data. The consultant has also taken too much time to deliver the result. Waghmare: None the less let’s see it and then discuss. (Basu clicks over to the next slide. Just as he has mentioned, the slide is dull. Both the MD and Basu are disappointed. Basu closes the presentation and looks around for the next discussion.) OCTOBER, 2014
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MD: So Basu, the choice is simple, either select the first one or the second one. The third one need not be considered. (Basu had also been very impressed with the second consulting company, and in anticipation of the MD selecting it, he had even discussed commercials with the company and kept the purchase requisitions ready.) MD: Waghmare, why are you in such a deep thought? Isn’t our decision the correct one? Waghmare: Sir this is the first time I am seeing you getting carried away by a great presentation, rather than great content. MD: What do you mean? Please elaborate. Waghmare: Would your Board be more impressed by a colourful presentation, or by an increase in market share? MD: Increase in market share, of course ! Waghmare: So in both the slides which you have liked, how will you identify five actionable points to improve your market share ? (Basu and the MD relook at the first and second dashboards. They find that the map is covered with pie charts showing the comparative market share. They need to click on each pie to find out their company’s share in numbers and note this down on a piece of paper. After some time they have identified five areas where the market share of ABC is lower than that of the competitor.) MD: See, we have identified five areas where our market share is lower than that of the competitor. We need to focus on this. Waghmare: And is this information something which you have never known? MD: (sheepishly)..That’s true, I have definitely known this. Waghmare: So the first two slides did catch your eyeballs, but they did not give you actionable information, is that right? 34
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MD: Yes, what you are saying is true. We are able to drill down to the lower levels of details, but still the dashboard is not telling me what to do and where! Waghmare: As per my observation most top competing technologies in BI today have more or less similar technologies. Most of them are ‘in-memory’, most of them support geo-spatial dashboards, etc. Basu: So how do we select? Waghmare: While it is important to select the right technology, it is even more important to select the right consultant who understands business and is able to build the dashboards accordingly. It is also very important to tell the consultant what you wish to see. Waghmare (continuing): Being able to draw out an action plan directly from the dashboards is much more important than seeing a few colourful dashboards. I know what I am saying sounds trite, but this is the biggest mistakes made in most BI installations. The BI vendor is very eager to sell fast. So he commissions a few Proof of Concept Projects which work on your data and show you visually appealing images. The selling point seems to be how fast you can create dashboards ! The customer gets carried away and invests in the technology. But when the business team starts its work, it
finds serious shortcomings. Waghmare: Mr. Basu could you open the third slide please? We quickly closed the same earlier, but I managed to catch a few interesting points there. (Basu reluctantly navigates to the third slide. This time the MD looks closely at the numbers. He quickly interacts with the report doing some drill downs and some filtering, and then he creates a view for all to see.) MD: I think the third consultant has used his mind in developing the report. While the report looks very simple, it is power packed with analysis. (Basu is taken aback. He is still wondering how an Excel sheet suddenly becomes more interesting than the map based dashboards!) Waghmare: Sir, can you explain to us what you have seen in this simple looking dashboard? MD: The first time I saw the dashboard, I just dismissed it as a worthless looking Excel Pivot table. But if I had looked at it closely, I would see that the report is telling me something which I have definitely missed even in my discussions with my marketing team. Waghmare: And what is it that you have seen? OCTOBER, 2014
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MD: The first thing I noticed is that in two areas where I have the greater market share as of now, my rate of growth is lower than that of the competitor. My growth rate is only 6.3%, but that of my competitor’s growth rate is 22%. Though my next competitor is fairly small at present, whatever lead we have over him will soon get wiped off if he grows at this rate. Waghmare: That is definitely interesting. And what else have you seen? MD: The second important thing which I have noticed is that in certain areas the market has expanded considerably. For example in Kerala the market has expanded by 28%, but my growth rate in that market is only 8.7%, while my next competitor has grown my 15%. There are also some new entrants in those markets. Waghmare: So in two areas, you need to see why your growth rate is lower than that of your competitor, and in three areas you need to check why your growth is not in proportion to the market growth. That’s five points identified . Congrats! (The team falls silent as the MD swings into action. He asks his secretary to connect one by one to each of the five territories. He has an in-depth discussion with the marketing head of each of the territory as well as the national marketing head who has been conferenced in the call. During the call itself he immediately sanctions a higher advertisement budget for each of the five territories and also a promotion campaign. MD is also constantly working on the third dashboard, filtering and drilling down to lower levels of details. The team on the other side is wondering how the MD has got hold of such detailed and pointed analysis.)
MD: Thanks to the consultant who applied his mind in making these analytics. I have taken the corrective action and hope that the next month numbers are better. Meanwhile Basu, please get in the third consultant as I want to have a detailed commercial discussion with them. Waghmare: Great! With your understanding of the market, now you can talk to your consultant to identify more of such metrics and ferret out more information from the data. MD: Thank you Mr. Waghmare, point well taken! Lata watches Mr. Basu come out of the MD’s cabin. He tears up the purchase requisition he had prepared and throws it in the dustbin. She stifles a smile…
Observations: Creating BI solutions with the required analytical dimensions is THE most important part of the BI solution. It is very important for the Business Teams to
While it is important to select the right technology,it is even more important to select the right consultant who understands business and is able to build the dashboards accordingly. EXPRESS COMPUTER
be a part of the design of the BI solutions. There should be clarity in what is required, and they should ensure that the consulting vendor is capable of understanding their needs and requirements and is able to further build on that. The BI solution needs to be built in an agile manner, so that as different analytics are built, the business team validates that and makes course corrections. This way the final result will be closer to the expectations. Do not expect the BI technology to create magic on its own. BI technology is just a big block of marble. It needs a Michelangelo with a simple hammer and chisel and a lot of imaginative skills to carve out an angel from the marble.
Design Principles: 1 Spell out the key analytics required and see that the vendor has understood the same. For clarity purposes create such analytic requirements on a simple excel sheet so that the consultant is able to understand the underlying calculations and the logic. 2 Create the BI reports using Agile methodology. Involve business teams continuously to review the results. 3 Getting time from business teams frequently is generally very challenging.It is important that the project is monitored by a very senior ranking person in the organisations who can get the required time allocated by brute force if necessary. 4 Do not get carried away just by the presentation. Try to understand what the data is trying to say to you. Once the basic constructs are in place, use the visualization layer to make the presentation more visually appealing and interactive. But keep in mind that the report should immediately identify actionable points without too much of navigation. The great architectural principle of ‘function over form’ applies to BI design also. This article by Sanjay Shah builds further on the article titled ‘BI: When to Start’published in April 15-30, 2014 issue. Sanjay Shah is the CEO of Pune-based Prosys Infotech, which specialises in developing BI solutions on the Microsoft BI platform. He can be contacted at sanjay@prosysinfotech.com.
OCTOBER, 2014
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EVENT EMC
A packed COEX Convention Center, venue for the EMC Forum 2014 in Seoul, Korea
REDEFINING POSSIBILITIES T At EMC Forum 2014, EMC announced that it had acquired TwinStrata. The company also provided details of several new products that will help its customers redefine the possibilities in hybrid cloud environments. BY HEENA JHINGAN
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he EMC Forum 2014 had everything going to raise the expectations of the participants. The forum was held in Seoul’s COEX Convention Center. This was a big moment for the EMC-Korea, as the storage giant was making announcements in the region at the same time when it was holding a global event called the ‘EMC Mega Launch’ in London, where several new products were being launched. The forum at Seoul was attended by over 4,500 technicians, developers and officials from 28 partners. Traditionally EMC holds the Mega Launch event specifically for the markets that they serve. David Webster, President Asia Pacific and Japan at EMC, explained that since Korea is strategically important and is one of the largest markets, they were holding the EMC Forum in Seoul in parallel with the Mega Launch in London. It wasn’t surprising at all to hear the company talk about the journey to hybrid cloud as EMC’s cloud focus is obvious and has been evident for a while now. Last
year, EMC had acquired Adaptivity that provides solutions for accelerating enterprise Cloud transformations. Adaptivity’s (now a part of EMC) SaaS-based solutions provide intelligent cloud decision that determines cloud suitability for each application, cloud selection (public, private, managed or hybrid), including required capacity, and the most efficient migration path for each application. So what kept everyone on the edge at the forum in Seoul was the prospect of having new announcements. The big news at the forum was the company’s decision to invest in the storage management company TwinStrata. EMC had long been trying to take on Amazon Web Services, its biggest competitors in the market, and the only way to do it was to strengthen the cloud capabilities.
Big Announcements This deal with TwinStrata, which is known for selling a data centre appliance OCTOBER, 2014
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called CloudArray that securely connects to cloud storage services to perform off site data replications instantaneously, is expected to help it do so. The company, however, did not disclose the financial terms of the crucial deal. Besides, the company also announced several new products for its Flash, enterprise storage and Scale-Out NAS portfolios. Among them was XtremIO 3.0, which offers new features and configurations, ecosystem integrations, and business programs for EMC XtremIO all-flash arrays. The company claimed the updated version offers more scale, capabilities, and support for consolidated, virtualised, and performance-hungry workloads. Another addition is the VMAX3 Family, which transforms VMAX from enterprise storage to an enterprise data service platform. The platform enables customers to regain control of where best to run specific workloads, within the data center or in the public cloud. VMAX3 is being touted as the foundation for hybrid cloud as it looks to deliver storage-as-aservice. EMC also unveiled an upgrade to EMC Isilon. The new updates will deliver the industry’s first enterprise-grade, scaleout Data Lake, enabling next-generation workloads such as Hadoop analytics, cloud and mobile.
Kevin Kim, President, EMC Korea (left), David Webster, President, EMC APJ (middle), and Brian Gallagher, President, EMC EMSD (right) responding to queries from media and analysts.
adoption, we are working with the enterprises to turn the existing data centres ready for hybrid cloud and in the second phase we are working with the service providers to deliver the public piece of the hybrid cloud. We also partner with private cloud players to deliver hybrid offering,” he said. He believed that this strategy is
Getting strategy right On the subject of the metamorphosis that IT industry is undergoing, Webster pointed that today’s business challenge is to cut operational cost and legacy systems. The enterprises need to react faster to find growth and balance risks. However, the new IT agenda is clearly to provide access to all applications and data through mobile devices. “To help them (enterprises), we have worked with our subsidiaries VMware and Pivotal to come out with more choices for services, including software-defined data centres, service-centric platforms, hybrid cloud computing systems, big data analysis and data security, all of which are tailor-made for the next-generation platform environment.” “In the first phase of of hybrid cloud EXPRESS COMPUTER
David Webster, President, EMC APJ, talking about the changes that IT has undergone in recent times.
working well in every geography they operate in, including India, which is a critical market for the company. According to him, Indian contribution to the company’s business was about 22% in 2013. “APJ strategy seems to be gaining traction. Though Australia and New Zealand are high penetration areas for cloud, we are closely watching cloud adoption in India and other Southeast Asian countries,” he said. Brain Gallagher, President, Enterprise & Mid Range Systems Division, EMC, said, “Fundamental technology has now changed, our strategy is to give customer a choice and not force him to buy just any stack.” Emergence of Flash storage is another important aspect of the change in IT. As per industry reports,almost 3% of enterprise storage will comprise of Flash by 2017. At the event, EMC reiterated its commitment to Flash. “Our Flash array business is rapidly growing. We are now selling some part of Flash in all our arrays, pretty much to all our customers, The new entry point XtremeIO open up opportunity for us in every segment. We are therefore very excited about the new products,” Webster concluded. heena.jhingan@expressindia.com
OCTOBER, 2014
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EVENT BLACKBERRY
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SECURING COMMUNICATION IN GOVERNMENTIN THE AGE OFMOBILITY BlackBerry highlights the need for enhanced security solutions in the government sector during a special event organised for decision makers. BY TEAM EXPRESS COMPUTER
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he increasingly relevant and critical issue of secure mobility in the government sector was brought to the fore at a recent event hosted by Express Computer on behalf of BlackBerry. While mobile device usage is increasing at a rapid pace, so are the concerns around security. These include mobile malware, compliance requirements, and increased security requirement for sensitive data that various government bodies need to protect in the interest of the country. According to various research reports, the government segment is increasingly bearing the brunt of cyber attacks as well as APTs (advanced persistent threats). To cite but one statistic, according to the Internet Security Threat Report 2014 by Symantec, the government sector was the most targeted among all segments (16%) when it came to spearphishing attacks that occurred in 2013. Sunil Lalvani, Managing Director, BlackBerry India, who addressed the audience at the event, referred to the NSA spying revelations made by Edward Snowden and other reports to highlight the growing threats to communication in the government segment, especially heads of states and highly placed officials who are privy to confidential information. He said that to secure the confidential conversations and data, there is an increasing need to encrypt the communication end-to-end so that there is no leakage or threat at any stage. Along with his colleagues from BlackBerry, Lalvani demonstrated how BlackBerry can help keep government data as well as voice secure using a combination of technologies. What is more, BlackBerry now extends its secure communication facility to platforms other than its own, including the highly popular Android platform which is seeing very wide adoption in India and other markets worldwide. Alleviating the concerns of some officials in the audience, Lalvani said that when a government agency or department chooses secure mobility solutions from BlackBerry, the ability to turn the encryption on or off remains in the hands of the concerned department and they can choose the level or type of encryption they want for their purpose. In addition, the solutions enable the users to completely and securely separate their work and personal profiles, including email, instant messaging and access to other applications. This
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Sunil Lalvani, Managing Director, BlackBerry India, along with his colleague speak on how government data can be secured
means they no longer have to use two separate devices to manage their work and personal tasks, which can improve the ease-of-use and efficiency in the government segment. The event was attended by around 30 senior officials from across various government organisations, including National Investigation Agency, Ministry of Defence, Ministry of Communications & IT, National Informactics Centre, Indian Computer Emergency Response Team, National Crime Records Bureau and Border Security Force, among others.
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INTERVIEW ASHISH TANDON INDUSFACE
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Ashish Tandon, Chairman & CEO, Indusface, discusses the evolving security scenario, the growing need for web application firewalls and the challenges faced by CIOs and CISOs in an interview to Sanjay Gupta. Excerpts:
“Only agile players can keep pace with the ever smart hackers” The security landscape is crowded with too many vendors. So why another one—why Indusface? There has been an incremental increase in the number of vulnerabilities in web and mobile applications, leading to frequent online attacks in the last few years. In 2012, 5,291 new vulnerabilities were discovered, and 415 of them were on mobile operating systems. It is a pressing need for an exhaustive range of application security solutions to not only provide total application security to a company’s business but also aid them in the compliance requirements. Indusface was set up in 2004 as a consultancy, which helped and advised organisations on compliance requirements as the IT infrastructure was being laid in the country. In 2010 Indusface built a website security product, IndusGuard Web. It is a zero-touch, non-intrusive, cloud-base solution which safeguards web applications by daily, automatic and comprehensive scanning for systems and application vulnerabilities, and malware. Currently, with a slew of offerings— IndusGuard Mobile, IndusGuard PCI, and the latest IndusGuard WAF—Indusface provides organizations with a complete suite of comprehensive application security solutions. CIOs and CISOs arenow using security solutions at multiple layers, yet the threats and vulnerabilities continue to rise.Your comments, As audiences are moving quickly into the social web, so are the attacks. Additionally, as emerging operating systems/platforms and mobile devices become more popular, they are targeted more; CIOs and CISOs must opt for products that are intelligent and pre-emptive, companies that are continually innovating new solutions and not merely announcing version updates. It is very critical to protect the application layer. Companies recognised this and web application firewall (WAF) came into being. But the risk of false positives, i.e. the obstruction of legitimate traffic that creates service interruptions, has hindered the wide-scale adoption of WAFs. 40
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Indusface is the first company to guarantee zero WAF false positives with respect to fixing of the known vulnerabilities and ensure that no legitimate web traffic is affected.
How relevant or useful are firewalls when most new attacks are socially engineered or persistently targeted? Web application firewalls make the front doors of the web assets stronger. Properly deployed web application firewalls with constant monitoring are like you hiring a security guard to guard your front door. Protecting your keys is still important, but having a guard watching your front door 24x7 definitely helps.
Large vendors have bigger threat intelligence resources and can provide end-to-end solutions. Where does that leave niche solution providers like Indusface? Today’s scenario is very dynamic and technology is evolving every minute. Large organizations have a lot of systems and procedures and processes to follow and hence longer lead times to develop solutions and services. Focussed solution providers like Indusface provide enhanced, cutting-edge security solutions, that focus on issues at hand and can quickly evolve and adapt to the new challenges. Very often the large players are slow to respond to such needs due to stringent and elaborate processes to be followed but the security market calls for constant focus and innovation, as the hackers are also innovating. Only agile players can keep pace with the ever smart hackers. What are the constraints under which CIOs/CISOs are operating? The constraints under which CIOs/CISOs operate include tight budgets; gaps in compliance where shift is required from only compliance to continuous monitoring; need for the company’s own staff to understand security; integrating the security into operations and entire systems development life cycle; and spending time complying with regulations and completing assessments (whereas they should actually be spending energy on mitigating threats), among others. Also, employees are wary of security departments within an organization. The more that people are afraid, the more delayed is their response to bring forward security issues. Sometimes the issues that could have been nipped in the bud become too big and complex, causing considerable financial loss and brand image damage. OCTOBER, 2014
The Next Giant Leap in Enterprise IT? Or a Bunch of Small Steps… The curtain has come down on this year’s Technology Senate, India’s most coveted CIO forum. Presenting our full coverage of the 12th edition of Express Technology Senate.
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AGILE BUSINESSES IN THE ERAOFSMAC The Express Technology Senate, held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia,September 12-14, 2014, saw a long line-up of eminent speakers who provided a comprehensive snapshot of the big ideas that are reframing Enterprise IT. The focus of the event was SMAC (Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud), a paradigm that has entered the lexicon of IT professionals around the world.
(L-R): Anoop Verma, Editor-Express Computer; Aditya Mohapatra, Head IT Promotion, Govt of Odisha; Sushant Kumar Mohanty, Chief General Manager, IDCO, Govt of Odisha, at the launch of "Odisha-The Emerging IT Destination" 42
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CIOs quizzing the panelists
Kapil Mehrotra of Artemis Hospital, recording his video message
Traditional dancers performing at the closing ceremony
Team CIO at the Express Technology Senate 2014 EXPRESS COMPUTER
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UNDERSTANDING THE ENTERPRISE OFTOMORROW In his keynote address, Subramanian N, Technical Director, KPMG India, touched upon the seismic changes that are happening in the business landscape due to the emerging trends of SMAC — Social Media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud
EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2014 Data Centre Evolution In SMAC Era Checkmate The Human Error | PG 45 Let There Be Informal Collaboration | PG 46 Tracking Travel & Expense | PG 47 Going Social: Building A Customer Centric Enterprise | PG 48 Towards Efficient Enterprises | PG 49 44
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he 12th Express Technology Senate at Kuala Lumpur opened with an invigorating keynote from Subramanian. SMAC - Social Media, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud - is not a buzzword, it is the reality of today’s business landscape. Subramanian emphasised that businesses must adapt to an era where a world of information is easily available. Citing the findings of the SMAC survey, co-conducted by KPMG in India and Express Computer, Subramanian said that close to 70% of the organisations that participated in the survey are already using social media channels to drive their business. About 89% of the organisations have implemented a governance, compliance, and security policy to safeguard enterprise data and enable mobility. Touching upon the findings of the SMAC survey, Subramanian said, “About 30% of the respondents think data sovereignty and privacy and physical control is a barrier for adoption of Big Data, whereas 20% of the
respondents think regulatory compliance is a barrier. On the other hand, about 10% of the respondents feel geographic proximity and data theft are also barriers for the adoption of Big Data.” According to the KPMG India - Express Computer SMAC Survey, 10% of the respondents use Big Data as their primary analytics tools, whereas over 45% of the respondents still use traditional Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence tools, Application dashboards and Management Information Systems reports for analytics. Privacy in the cloud is a challenge across the markets. Countries like India and Brazil, are still working on privacy laws. According to the Indian IT Act, breach of privacy is a criminal offence. According to the KPMG India - Express Computer SMAC Survey while Big Data and the ease to adopt it in the age of cloud might lead to a potential boom for consumer facing enterprises, several organisations adopting Big Data and advanced analytics are more concerned about data privacy and security. Subramanian said, “Social media has its own set of privacy concerns.” With mobility he pointed out that the top privacy issues are device theft, lack of device passwords, unnecessary app permission, automated cloud sync, automated updates in social media via mobile app. To deal with these issues, he suggested that the companies should begin with having stronger MDM (Mobile Device Management) and stronger passwords in place. As per the survey, over 62% respondents have a Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution in place. OCTOBER, 2014
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Data Centre Evolution in SMAC Era Satish Vishwanathan, VP, NxtGen Datacentre & Cloud Technologies, spoke about the seminal changes that SMAC had inspired in the data center environments
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alking of the changes in data centres that SMAC has led to, Satish Vishwanathan, Vice President, NxtGen Datacentre & Cloud Technologies, said that about 15 years back, data centres were built for desktop access, but thanks to SMAC it is now turning into a user centric environment. Quoting findings of research agency, Current Analysis, he informed that for about 39% of the Indian enterprises cloud is the top investment priority. “Over the last two years, we have spent time with about 800 customers to understand what they expect from their cloud service provider,” he said. He went on to add that now they they have
identified the seven key attributes of highly effective IAAS provider. “Resilience, security and compliance, flexibility of architecture, integration (hybrid IT environment), scalability, user management, big data analytics (large scale data processing) are the must have strengths to succeed as a cloud service provider,” Vishwanathan said. “However, there is something more important at this point of time that stops enterprises from taking the leap of faith towards cloud and that perhaps is security,” he added. For the benefit of CIOs present at the Express Technology Senate, Vishwanathan highlighted the ideas that CIOs must
Satish Vishwanathan
look out for while they were zeroing on a cloud service provider who would be a right fit. In conclusion, Vishwanathan said, “Cloud deployment has to be looked at as a partnership initiative where all the partners have to understand the needs of the organisation and jointly find the best possible way.”
Checkmate the Human Error Navin Mehra, Regional Manager-West, Fortinet Inc, shed light on the security vulnerabilities that go beyond the APTs and solutions that Fortinet is offering
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n the security domain, the Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs) have drawn maximum amount of attention. Speaking at the Express Technology Senate, Navin Mehra, turned the focus of his audience to the security threats that are gradually seeping into the system, almost unnoticed. “Even if the best possible security solutions are in place, the enterprise needs to be vigilant about the human error that can lead to data breach,” Navin said. There are incidents of cyber-espionage being led from within the country. He went on to say, “One Gig Ethernet ports have already peaked, 10G, 40G and
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100G shipments are now being looked up to. BYOD acceptation has been growing, but it brings new challenges. Social networking is another rising threat.” He added that when we are having massive rise in Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) attacks, the CIO must evaluate more innovative solutions. As per Fortinet’s 2014 threat landscape report, the two factor authentication system is now replacing the password only model, and use of biometrics is set to increase. Also, an increase in attacks targeting Windows XP has been observed as 32% of the enterprises still use this platform. To deal with this menace, he suggested
Navin Mehra
that the enterprises need to upgrade systems or look at stronger firewalls. Fortinet offers 1 TBPS firewall performance. The report also finds that Android malware is expanding into industrial control systems due to BYOD. “Application visibility is critical to managing threats in terms of web control policies. Our solutions are the fastest, and most secure ,” he said. OCTOBER, 2014
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Let There be Informal Collaboration Mukund Prasad, Director & CIO, Welspun Group, shares his views on experience of being a smart CIO in the era when we have everything as a service and the organisations are being buffeted by waves of SMAC
Mukund Prasad
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learly one of the most appreciated sessions at the Express Technology Senate this year, was the one by Mukund Prasad, Director & CIO, Welspun Group. In 30 minutes of information packed free flowing speech, he provided everyone with ample food for thought. Prasad began his session by raising the interesting question - Why is cloud adoption in the Indian market still so low? Despite there being lot of talk about movement to cloud during the next five years, only 10% of IT is actually on the cloud. All the CIOs are gung-ho about SMAC, but hardly anyone has the idea about the percentage of IT budget that is used for managing these solutions. “From a CIO perspective, we have managed enough of IT for development and growth. The question I want to raise is that if you are going to deal with so many service providers how much contracting and legal framework should you know? Where is it leading you? How should your knowledge base go up?” he asked. He went on to talk about the actual time that the CIOs were in a position to 46
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devote to discussing new technologies. He expressed the opinion that the basic challenge for the CIOs is to develop the skill and leadership not only for choosing better IT solutions for the organisation but also to take good care of knowledge workers in the organisation. “SMAC,” Prasad stated, “is here to stay. Those who don’t care about SMAC will slowly be replaced by those who do. Both companies and IT leaders need to work in tandem with each other to deal with the disruption that can be caused by SMAC.” Emphasising on the need for communication, Prasad said that the CIOs must learn to use social media for improved communication across the ecosystem. Citing example of his company, he said that they used social media for connecting with people who left them and later wanted to come back to them, and this helped them in tackling attrition related problems. “Such social interaction leads to formation of informal organisations. If informal and formal organisations connect there can be benefits of collaboration. Research says collaboration is not human behaviour.
Social media can help develop a collaborative behaviour and lead to new ideas,” he proposed. Mobile is another thing, which is creating ripples in the business environment. “I think more than 50% of organisations still need to have a mobile strategy but you can only have a coherent strategy when you have an understanding of what you want to achieve.” “People learn at their own pace and when they want to. The need of the hour is to learn about new technologies, but what we have today is a distrust of newer solutions from IT and this can, at times, prove to be a stumbling block in the adoption of beneficial technologies.” In his advise to the CIOs, Prasad had this to say, “Developing IT literacy, leaving legacy, timely direct feedback, is important for CIOs . Be aware of your value in the organisation, you are there to make a change, know how indispensable you are for the company. Take additional responsibility, a CIO has to be proactive. Designation kills us. Also, CEO cum CIO is a matter of mindset.”
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Tracking Travel & Expense Nick Evered, Senior VP & GM, Japan & Asia Pacific, Concur Technologies, spoke about how businesses can use technology control and track travel and expense related cost
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o most of us it will be difficult to believe that the travel and expense (T&E) cost of employees can be about 5%-15% of the total cost. It might be even harder to imagine that as much as 20% of the T&E cost can be controlled. In fact ,T&E is second largest controllable expense in most enterprises. Many of the CIOs in the audience were surprised when Nick Evered explained that every dollar saved on T&E has the potential to earn $15 of additional revenue. He said, almost 33% of all indirect spends are under managed. About 15% of the frauds take place here in the area of T&E. While 37% companies use manual systems to handle their T&E, 23% use a mix of manual and automated systems. The manual process is, of course, time taking and cumbersome. “Most of the companies that manage their T&E manually often end up with frustrated managers and backend workers,” said Evered. The approvals too take too much time when the system is manual. “If you can reduce approval times, you can get better airfares, improve staff satisfaction, and create synergies among employees across the organisation,” he said. Evered made the point that EXPRESS COMPUTER
Nick Evered
individuals have a tendency to not to fix things till they break down completely. “Leverage your travel and expense investment and decide to fix it. Put your data to work, go mobile,” he suggested. He claimed that since Concur Technologies focuses on nothing else, but T&E they have the expertise in the domain. “Concur provides full visibility into spend and the ability to ensure policy and regulatory compliance. We have about 23,000 clients in 150 countries, and
we handle 24 million users at a given time. We serve 60% of the Fortune 500 companies, this is what gives us the confidence to manage every challenge in this area of business.” “A majority of the companies don’t have a clue about where and why their people are travelling. We got 10% productivity improvement by just restructuring the way we were organised. Such savings can be important for every organisation,” Evered concluded. OCTOBER, 2014
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Going Social: Building a Customer Centric Enterprise This panel discussion shed light on the ways by which social media can be leveraged by businesses for getting closer to their main customers
(L-R): Moderator Jessie Paul, Founder-CEO, Paul Writer in conversation with the panelists Niranjan Bhalivade, CIO, CEAT; Ashish Chandra Mishra, CISO, Tesco HSC; Anjani Kumar, CIO, Safexpress Pvt Ltd.
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he discussion was kicked off by Jessie Paul giving a short description of way by which the social media was being looked at by the businesses. Social media is like a double-edged sword for businesses. Ashish Chandra Mishra,CISO, Tesco HSC, expressed the opinion that using the social platform was an excellent way for engaging with the customer. The social media can be game changer as it can be used for improving the communication between relevant people within the organisation and outside. At this point Jessie Paul injected to raise the concern that there have been instances where the social media has
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become a complaint box. “Customer problems are always there and will be there. But an organisation can use the social media platform to its advantage by developing a system for quicker resolution of grievances,” said Niranjan Bhalivade, CIO, CEAT. Anjani Kumar, CIO, Safexpress Pvt Ltd, said that the social media is not restricted to only Facebook and Twitter. The world is full of social portals with collaboration tools. “As CIOs, we should give right social tools to our vendors and customers. In our organisation we have created a social media board and a budget has been defined; so far the
project has been successful.” However, Mishra said there needs to be a clarity on who responds to the issues that get highlighted on the social media platform. There has to be a chain of command for addressing all the issues. Ultimately it is policy that becomes the starting point for driving social media in an organisation. If everyone starts taking a shot at the customer then it can backfire. Bhalivade suggested that businesses must have a clear policy in regard to social media. This is because the technology keeps changing and new apps keep emerging. “We have the chatter that is extended to employees and customers. If there is a critical complaint regarding a batch of products, the entire team comes into the picture, multiple interactions happen, then the customer also knows about updates. This can generate lot of confidence in the customer.” Dwelling on his own company’s experience of using social media, he said, We did a pilot and learnt if a tyre punctures, the first reaction of the person is to post it on the social media. We cashed on this trend. Our BPO centre responds to such messages, even if the person who has suffered a tyre puncture is not our customer, we offer him details of the nearest dealer. We can also send him a taxi. All this is for building relationship with a potential customer.” Kumar cautioned that communication should not be one way. “In fact,we can communicate better with WhatsApp than with our traditional system of mails, newsletters etc. Technology is ever evolving and it is leading to vast changes.” Mishra said, “Retail industry has perfected the art of managing the social media. If there is a purchase on the site there are Natural Language Processing (NLP) solutions that will pick up sentiments about the products in specific regions, customers, etc. At this point a bit of big data gets married into the social and this helps in predicting what should be the next big campaign.” OCTOBER, 2014
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Towards Efficient Enterprises Today the level of digitisation in India may not be as high as in the developed economies, but digitisation is slowlygaining ground in the country. This panel discussion focused on how greater efficiency can be brought to the enterprises by intelligent digitisation
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ince about 85% of the copies that organisations store are never used, and many of the offices are located in prime localities, it is logical to assume that in absence of proper document management systems, heaps of documents are leading a royal and rather unproductive life in large government offices and enterprises. Talking about the state of data documentation in his company Sanjay Gaurihar Pore said that they are a data centric company, they had started using the data warehousing 6-7 years back, and now they were in a position to offer insights on the fly. Vipin Kumar pointed out that there are documents in the organisations, but no proper repository, therefore there is a whole concept of digitisation coming in. “We are working on a project where we are going to digitise the database of the company, and permit authorisation-based access. “Information is knowledge,” said Alok Bharadwaj, Executive Vice President, Canon. “If we want to convert organisations to learning organisations, EXPRESS COMPUTER
On the Panel (L-R): Dr.Alok Bharadwaj, Executive Vice President, Canon; Sanjay Gaurihar Pore, Vice President – IT, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd; Vipin Kumar, Group CIO, Escorts; Sanjay Gupta, Editor, Express Computer (moderator)
we need to leverage the information. Once large enterprises realise the importance of digitisation there will be a momentum around Document Management Systems. Though, the government is quite weak here, we will soon catch up.” He said there are five basic things critical to digitisation - speed, storage , search, security and statutory compliance. However, digitisation is yet to be accepted in the market, said Pore, “Over the last two years all contracts have been stored in the digital formats and can be retrieved. The regulator has approved demat for insurance policies, but since it is
Amount of critical data is huge, but not all of it is of value,so it is better to outsource.More importantly, life of the digital document and its format in future is more important.
a new initiative, there are still customers that demand physical copy, so we need to provide both formats. We started the digitising on-boarding process about two years back. We have created an online system through which in a matter of three hours, the insurance policy can be mailed to the buyer.” Kumar highlighted the challenges of moving from paper for getting approvals and other processes. “Once you digitise, you can link processes and you can get complete visibility,” he said. Bharadwaj summed up the session saying that the organisations must create an electronic copy wherever possible. “Planned digitisation architecture is important. Outsourcing is the way to go,” he said. Kumar agreed with Bhardwaj’s views on outsourcing; he said that the amount of critical data is huge, but not all of it is of value, so it is better to outsource. More importantly he also expressed the view that the life of the digital document and its format in future is more important. “The best digitisation solutions are those that are future ready,” he concluded. OCTOBER, 2014
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DIALLING IN EFFICIENCY THROUGH MOBILITY Mahalingam Balaji, Research Director, IDC-South Asia, kickstarted day two of the Express Technology Senate with his presentation on Trends in Enterprise Mobility
EXPRESS TECHNOLOGY SENATE 2014 What Is The Price of Data Centre Reliability Mahalingam Balaji
Driving Efficiency Through Managed Print Services | PG 51 Migrating From Products To Services A Peep Into Public Cloud Architecture | PG 52 Converting Data Into Currency Harbinger Of Ink Revolution | PG 53 Mobility: From Reluctance To Embrace App Security: A Status Check | PG 54 Bursting Myths Around Big Data Analytics | PG 55 On Cloud,And Beyond | PG 56 50
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ahalingam Balaji began his address by informing the audience that the area of mobile devices and mobility applications is showing significant growth trends across entire Asia. Citing an IDC Survey conducted in Asia Pacific countries (excluding Japan), he said that people are preferring more of mobile devices, rather than PCs, to access the Internet. IDC estimates that Enterprise Mobility is poised for big growth in India and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 63% and touch $1.8 billion by 2017. applications, using their personal devices. Organisations are increasingly adopting the BYOD strategy. IDC estimates that Enterprise Mobility is poised for big growth in India and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 63% and touch $1.8 billion by 2017. Young and techsavvy people joining the workforce are demanding connectivity to enterprise applications, using their personal devices. This has led to many organisations adopting the BYOD strategy.
He stressed that organisations would want to evolve from “mobilising a person” to “ mobilising the business process” so that they can gain tangible benefits in terms of increase in revenue and/or reduction in their costs due to productivity gains, process streamlining/simplification and increased speed in the workflow etc. “Given the multitude of form factors and multiple operating systems in the mobile devices space, mobilising a business process across a vast spectrum of mobile devices becomes an extremely challenging and very expensive task for enterprises. Often there is no single vendor, who can provide all the required solutions and hence, organisations will have to rely on multiple vendors to develop and deliver such solution. Due to these challenges, organisations are now in the second phase of mobility journey, moving towards a Choose your own device (CYOD) policy which attempts to limit the number of device choices for the employees,” Balaji observed. Presenting IDC's view, Balaji said, the next phase of this journey will be to “mobilise the channel” wherein the enterprises begin to work with their ecosystem partners to enable mobility oriented processes. With the evolution of Internet of Things, enterprise mobility could become a powerful tool for organisations to “mobilise the channel” and gain significant competitive advantages. Many big vendors are getting aggressive on their enterprise mobility strategies and vendor consolidation appears to be on cards. “Consumer devices vendors are collaborating for corporate tablets. The sleeping giants are waking up to the changing trends,” he said. OCTOBER, 2014
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What Is the Price of Data Centre Reliability In this power breakfast session by NxtGen, discussion was held on the issue of disaster avoidance, DR and a contingency plan for data centres that the companies must have in place to ensure business continuity
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he modern data centres are becoming increasingly virtual and elastic, but it is still important to manage this entire infrastructure. With NxtGen, it is possible for the infrastructure to be located anywhere and managed centrally. Enterprises can aslo make use of NxtGen’s own data centre. The discussion was started by T G Dhandapani, CIO, TVS Motor Company.
He touched upon budgetary considerations that often play a vital role in deciding the scope of disaster recovery data centres. He said emphatically,“A DR is important for an enterprise, but what if the DR also fails. Can the enterprise afford to have yet another DR?” Satish Vishwanathan, VP, NxtGen Datacentre & Cloud Technologies, talked about the best possible strategies that enterprises can use to ensure business
continuance. The issue of having managed private cloud also came up for discussion, which having on premise will greatly diminish the constraints posed by space & power. Enterprises can leverage on NxtGen’s cloud enabled system infrastructure to take advantage of elasticity, provision virtual servers as per need, thereby harnessing the power of the “Infinite Datacentre™”.
Driving Efficiency Through Managed Print Services The discussion in this invigorating power breakfast session hosted by Canon revolved around the subject of the expectations that CIOs have from Managed Print Service Providers
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he breakfast session began with K Bhaskhar, Senior DirectorOffice Imaging Solutions, Canon India, asking the guests if they had been able to earn any dividend from the Managed Print Services (MPS) solutions that they had installed in their premises. EXPRESS COMPUTER
Mahalingam Balaji
“Handling the paper is getting worrisome,” he said, “MPS brings accountability, and is also green.” Canon’s Managed Print Services solution enables businesses to save money, increase efficiency and improve productivity. The active management of the print infrastructure and related
business processes can free the enterprises from the hassle of document printing.The CIOs present at the meeting shared their views on challenges in effectively managing the area of document printing. The view that MPS can optimise the printing work in the enterprise, and it is therefore more environment friendly was also expressed. OCTOBER, 2014
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Migrating from Products to Services K Bhaskhar, Senior Director- Office Imaging Solutions, Canon India spoke about the new services that the company is offering to help enterprises manage their document printing infrastructure
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ike any other printer vendor, Canon too is aiming to offer a range of new services which can lead the company to new revenue streams. K Bhaskhar grabbed the attention of the audience in the hall immediately when he began his address by saying, “In an office only two Ps— paper and people need to remain, rest all can be outsourced.” He went on to say that Canon was dedicated to providing organisations with benefits in the areas of cost, convenience, confidentiality and control. “We have been providing these benefits with our Managed Print Services (MPS) over the years,” he said. “The solution is now being used by close to 150 companies. However, the enterprises want a lot more. So what is the next big thing after MPS?”
According to industry figures, employees waste 35% of their time managing documents. If data and documents are handled unprofessionally there are 67% chances of data loss. By 2015, 85% of Fortune 500 companies will not be able to exploit data for competitive advantage. In 2012 alone, there were 1,600 data loss incidents. 1,453 data loss incidents have been reported in 2013. Naturally the organisations are now wary of security of their documents. Bhaskhar proposed that the companies should manage their document digitisation work through the complete bouquet of Canon Business Services (CBS), which includes document scanning, document optimisation, document tagging, and secure storage. He emphasised to the audience that CBS takes care of
K Bhaskhar
everything from digitisation, archival and retrieval, records management, workflow management to centralised non office printing (print room services). He said digitisation solution from the company takes care of visibility, links, access control, compliance, disaster recovery management, destruction management. “Document digitisation is a systematic process, it must be done in a perfect manner.” While concluding, he referred to Macawber Beekay, one of the customers of CBS. He informed the audience about the efficiency that CBS had brought to Macawber Beekay’s operations.
A Peep into Public Cloud Architecture I R Kannan, Vice President-Technology, Converged Data Technologies, presented an engineer’s perspective on the architecture of the cloud
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proves that there is no reason for an enterprise cloud to be expensive. Converged virtualisation infrastructure from CVDT offers many advantages. There is 50-70% lower cost, VM centric storage, greater performance, computing, networking, back up & replication, ultra reliability, one click provisioning, monitoring and alerting, hypervisor, single pane of glass. He said that the company is now working on an India specific MOOCs
I R Kannan
(Massive Open Online Courses) platform, which is likely to be christened ‘Swayam’, indicating self learning. It is expected to be launched on September 25, the birth anniversary of Pt. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya - the Jan Sangh leader. OCTOBER, 2014
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Converting Data into Currency Vikram Kole, COO, MAIA Intelligence, provided useful insights on how real time analysis of information on IT Systems can lead to efficiency
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ikram Kole began by expressing the opinion that in the CIO ecosystem, there are people, process and business goals and all of these need to be aligned for enabling the enterprise to make profits. This means that all aspects of CIOs’ operations should have a measure, so that anything that is not working well gets detected immediately. These measures can help enterprises have the right combination of strategic planning, innovation and talent management. “In the current scenario”, he said, “the information silos exist in each IT ecosystem component. There is no
flexibility to slice and dice data, drill down deeper, no aggregate dashboards to have an overall view of the data. In many cases, the enterprises need to depend on FMS (Function Modules) vendors for data reports.” Kole said they tried to look at analogy between the sales intelligence and IT intelligence . They also looked at financial, manufacturing and project intelligence. “Can there not be a CIO dashboard to give a view of all this?” he questioned. He pointed that out an intelligent platform is the one that can offer excel reports without exceptions and at the same time support right security policies.
Vikram Kole
Talking about MAIA’s platform 1Key, Kole said, “Our platform offers integrated reports and dashboards with pre-built KPIs. These solutions are designed to generate reports that are accurate and effective. They always keep the CIO’s ready for business and IT related meetings.”
Harbinger of Ink Revolution Ram Prasad RV, Senior GM- Sales & Marketing, Epson India, highlighted some of the innovations in imaging and printing space that enterprises can benefit from
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am Prasad RV began his presentation on a rather cheerful note. He stated that for him it was always employee first, customer next, as the employees are the organisation’s ambassadors. In today’s evolving IT environment, the CIO has no alternative except to play a multifaceted role. “The businesses need to take control of their running costs, and they can’t afford to neglect the group efficiency and of the way their business impacts the environment,” he said. Talking of controlling the costs, Ram said that printing is an area where most CIOs think that costs can be cut. The CIOs need solutions that ensure low printing costs, deliver faster prints, and
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are capable of fitting into tight spaces. He told the audience that Epson offers solutions that are compact in size and capable of printing up to 34 pages per minute. The print costs are as low as 12 paise per page (B&W) and 25 paise per colour page. The modern organisations also need to take control of the way their business impacts the environment. To address this concern, Ram proposed Epson’s InkTank series of environment friendly printers. “The Epson InkTank printers offer a distinct advantage as they consume only 12 Watt power while the Mono Laser type printers typically consume about 360 Watt,” he claimed. Stating that Epson has mastered the
Ram Prasad RV
art of imaging across surfaces— paper (printers), screen (projectors) and glass (See-through Mobile Viewer), Ram said, “Epson has defended its leadership in projectors space over last 13 years.” Ram also stressed on the fact that since Epson offers affordable, high quality printing, the CIOs must not shy away from printing whatever that must be printed. “Do not compromise on printing, join the ink revolution,” he said. OCTOBER, 2014
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Mobility: From Reluctance to Embrace The panelists in this session explored what has driven enterprises to embrace mobility. They also dwelled on the myriad challenges that mobility brings
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obile devices and solutions have become integral components of the overall technology strategy of enterprises. Rohan Padhi noted that, “ A company cannot have a mobility strategy, unless it has some policy framework in place for governing the devices.” Mahalingam Balaji said, “We see across Asia that many organisations are still trying to understand mobility.”
(L-R) Rohan Padhi, Associate Director, KPMG; TG Dhandapani, CIO TVS Motor Company; J B Bhaskar, CIO & Executive Member, SBI Life Insurance Company; Mahalingam Balaji, Research Director, IDC-South Asia
“Owing to issues related to connectivity,” said J B Bhaskar, “apps that can capture data offline, have also caught up well.” TG Dhandpani, on the other hand was of the view that mobility can play a seminal role in helping the sales force
achieve their targets.He added that for having this kind of system in place, the back-end has to be really effective. Padhi pointed out that customer centric focus and operational efficiency are two focal points in building an effective strategy for mobility.
App Security: a Status Check There have been many instances where mobile apps have led to data breaches in organisations. Ashish Tandon, CEO, Indusface, touched upon the issue of vulnerabilities that unregulated app usage can lead to
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shish Tandon presented a convincing report on the state of application security in India. His report was based on the vulnerabilities data collected by Indusface’s flagship web application security solution IndusGuard. Tandon said they have about ten years of experience of offering security solutions and they are currently serving about 600 marque customers. The company has now realised that the traditional method of testing apps will not work any more. It is the need of the hour that the CIOs/CISOs must evolve. “On basis of severity,” he said, “the vulnerabilities can be classified as
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critical, high and medium.” Threats like SQL injection, Invalid TLs/SSL are usually regarded as critical. Cross site scripting and source code vulnerabilities are also rated high on severity, but application error messages are generally categorised under medium vulnerabilities. He shared some alarming numbers. He informed the audience that about 95% of critical vulnerabilities remained unpatched for more than seven days, and about 8 in 10 vulnerabilities under the same category remained unpatched for more than 30 days. “Why these vulnerabilities remain open and not closed, is because they are
Ashish Tandon
not easy to fix,” he reasoned. Tandon claimed their web application firewall solution can protect the customers from over one million attacks per month. Majority of the attacks happen across five categories - XSS, insecure cookie, Bot attack, encoding abuse and command injection. OCTOBER, 2014
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Bursting Myths Around Big Data Analytics The participants in this panel discussion endeavoured to demystify the Big Data analytics. They shared views on the ways by which Big Data can add value to businesses
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kash Jain, CIO at Jindal Stainless, opened the forum by saying that for him, maximum benefit can only be accrued when the organisation can find ways for making the common platform of Big Data analytics more user friendly. Shafiq Anjum stressed that Big Data analytics have a great potential for generating value, especially for telcos. He informed that they were still not using Big Data analytics, currently they are relying on Business Intelligence tools. “For telcos, the biggest asset is customer information, which is easily available to them, but with customer behaviour changing, telcos need to track not just the call patterns, but other parameters such as data usage, location, etc. All this information has to be gathered and analysed in real time.” Binod Madhab Samal noted that CIOs should not get lost in the semantics of big and small data; it is all about joining the dots. From the clinical stand point, data has a crucial role to play. EXPRESS COMPUTER
(L-R): Sanjay Gupta, Editor-Express Computer; KK Chaudhary, Senior Vice President, Lanco Infratech; Binod Madhab Samal,CTO, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise; Shafiq Anjum, Vice PresidentIT, Videocon Telecommunications; Akash Jain, CIO, Jindal Stainless
Focusing specifically on the scope for big data analytics in power sector, KK Chaudhary said, “I feel Big Data can bring substantial business benefits in terms of smart distribution of power. Our SCADA systems generate loads of data that can be put to descriptive, diagnostic, predictive and prescriptive analytical use. Most of the industry is in the first two stages (descriptive, diagnostic) use of analytics, it now needs to take the next series of steps.” The panel then moved on to discuss the challenges that are there while one is forced to deal with unstructured data. Chaudhary said that most Database Management Systems provide analytics for structured data, the trick is how to leverage the unstructured. He was making the point that unstructured data is generally pooled in from various sources, but enterprises need a single version of truth, for this data de-
duplication is a must. “Healthcare is full of unstructured data, and there are no standard guidelines for dealing with it. We are in the process of putting the unstructured data in a box for conducting analytics on it,” Samal said. Traditionally Videocon Telecommunications has been using BI; most of their actions are reactive in nature as they are still working on historical and offline data. “We have customer data in most cases, but we lack the ability to do everything in real time.” Anjum said. A bigger concern for the industry, is generating pool of professionals, who are skilled enough to manage the big data deluge. Chaudhary said, “We need to create a skilled army to take up these roles. Individual companies can not create skills, it has to happen at Universities and professional levels. OCTOBER, 2014
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On Cloud, and Beyond Cloud computing has now become much more than the buzzword in India. In this session we had CIOs providing their views on the strategies that must be adopted to take cloud initiatives to the next level
(L-R) Rajat Sharma, President - IT, Atul Limited; Shirish Gariba, CIO, DIESL; Kapil Mehrotra, CIO, Artemis Hospital; Satish Pendse, President, Highbar Technologies Ltd (moderator); Abhijeet Upponi, Vice President – PreSales, NxtGen Datacentre & Cloud Technologies
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loud has started making deep inroads in Indian enterprises,” informed Shirish Gariba. He added that his company had adopted cloud for CRM, mail and other tasks. Talking about cloud adoption by Artemis Hospital, Kapil Mehrotra said, “We have the patient portal and medical records on cloud. There is usually a big queue in diagnostics area. While brainstorming on how to reduce the queue we found many people came to collect reports. So we automated that task with a cloud-based solution. We took approval for hybrid cloud. Now patients can access all kinds of reports, even images (each image needs about 1.2 GB of space).” Satish Pendse observed that in most businesses KPIs were driving cloud 56
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adoption. “It is nice to see that people are moving most of their systems on the cloud, while cost is the key driver, business remains a bigger driver and hence, CIOs want to be business drivers,” said Abhijeet Upponi. He added that there is no set pattern that a particular vertical has to get on the cloud band wagon, each enterprise has a unique business requirement and thus, needs to follow a distinct cloud path. Rajat Sharma agreed with this opinion. He said that there is no one size fits all kind of needs, besides the businesses must keep evolving in order to achieve best results. Coming to the business benefits of cloud, Sharma said the most important thing is to track what are the CIOs
savings through the cloud. In case of DIESL, RoI was a big concern when they started out. “We came to a conclusion that there was requirement for out of turn hardware investment. On the face of it, cloud looked more cost efficient. For us, there has been a net saving of 5-7% as of now. The app works very well, now we don’t have a mail administrator,” said Shirish Gariba. For Mehrotra, the decision to move to cloud came easy. “We were spending money on rent (about Rs 34 lakh a year) to store documents. But on the cloud model, I am paying only Rs 10 lakh for three years, so there is a huge saving.” Mehrotra also vouched for the cloud model. He said that in his experience the cloud is more secure than even the in-house environment. OCTOBER, 2014
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UPTIME CHAMPION AWARD WINNERS ◗
AJIT KUMAR RATH, General Manager IT, Union Bank of India (BFSI), ◗ MUKUND PRASAD, Director & Group CIO,Welspun Group, (MANUFACTURING), ◗ UMESH MEHTA, CIO,Jubilant Life Sciences (HEALTHCARE/BIOTECH/MEDICAL) ◗ PRASENJIT MUKHERJEE, GM-IT, BSES Power (MISCELLANEOUS)
Ajit Kumar Rath of Union Bank of India, receiving the award from B Suryanarayanan, President – Sales & Marketing - NxtGen DataCenter & Cloud Technologies
Mukund Prasad of Welspun Group, receiving the award
Umesh Mehta of Jubilant Life Sciences, receiving the award
Prasenjit Mukherjee of BSES Power with the trophy
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SECURITY STRATEGISTAWARD WINNERS ◗
SHARAD SADADEKAR, CISO,HDFC Standard Life Insurance (BFSI) ◗ VIPIN KUMAR, Group CIO, Escorts (MANUFACTURING) ◗ SAURABH KAUSHIK, Head – IT Security, Lupin (HEALTHCARE/BIOTECH/MEDICAL) ◗ SUDARSHAN SINGH, CISO, Capgemini (MISCELLANEOUS)
Vipin Kumar of Escorts (left), receiving the award from Ashish Tandon,CEO, Indusface
Navin Mehra,Regional Manager-West Fortinet (right), presenting the award to Saurabh Kaushik of Lupin
Sukalyan Fouzdar of HDFC Standard Life Insurance with the trophy. He collected the award on behalf of Sharad Sadadekar
INTELLIGENT ENTERPRISE AWARD WINNERS ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗ ◗
SYED ARIF ISMAIL, Vice President - Technology, ICICI Lombard GIC (BFSI) VIVEK KHANNA, Senior Vice President – IT & Finance, Havells (MANUFACTURING) G RADHAKRISHNAN, Vice President – Systems, Biocon (HEALTHCARE/BIOTECH/MEDICAL) SUDHIR KANVINDE, CIO, IL&FS Transportation Networks (REAL ESTATE/INFRASTRUCTURE/CONSTRUCTION ) VENKATESH NATARAJAN, Vice President - IT,Ashok Leyland (MISCELLANEOUS)
Syed Arif Ismail of ICICI Lombard,receiving the award from Alok Bharadwaj, Executive Vice President, Canon (right)
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Venkatesh Natarajan of Ashok Leyland, receiving the award
Sudhir Kanvinde of IL&FS Transportation Networks, receiving the award
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Aadhaar enrolments in four states get Cabinet approval
Smart Cities to feature Wi-Fi, telemedicine services ROUND-THE-CLOCK POWER and water supply, wi-fi connectivity and telemedicine facilities would be some of the highlights of the 100 ‘Smart Cities’ which the Centre has decided to develop across the country, the Urban Development Ministry has said. According to a draft concept paper for the proposal released by the ministry, better transportation and sewage systems have also been envisaged for the Smart Cities. The sewage system would be such that it would cover entire households with a door-to door garbage collection facility. According to senior ministry official, the draft concept paper contains broad contours for the project and covers the criteria for selection, financing and capacity-building needs.
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In its maiden budget, the NDA government proposed that it would develop 100 Smart Cities in the country and the UD ministry is in the process of finalising the policy for the same. Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu has convened a conclave tomorrow of Urban Development ministers of the states and Union Territories to take their views and suggestions regarding the project. Principal Secretaries of states/UTs dealing with urban development also will be attending the conclave, a UD Ministry official said. Following the interaction with the states/UTs, the Smart Cities proposal will be finalised and submitted for approval of the competent authorities, the official said.
THE CABINET COMMITTEE on Economic Affairs has cleared phase-V of the Unique Identification (UID) scheme to undertake enrolments in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand. With this, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has been given the target of generating 100 crore Aadhaar numbers by the year 2015. “This includes UID numbers issued in respect of enrolments done under the National Population Register process in 12 states/UTs allocated to it,” the government said in a release. “Comprehensive proposals regarding Aadhaar Sampark Kendra, Information, Education and Communication Campaigns, Document Management System and Rent Rates and Taxes, etc, will be prepared by the UIDAI and a revised cost estimate submitted for appraisal of the Expenditure Finance Committee,” the government said. This is in line with the Modi government’s focus on Aadhaar and the PM’s emphasis on using the project for multiple purposes. In his first meeting to take stock of Aadhaar and DBT in July, the PM had directed officials to meet an enrolment of 100 crore “at the earliest”.
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Microsoft,SAPbring cloud and mobile partnership to India
BlackBerry acquires Movirtu to improve adoption of BYOD BLACKBERRY RECENTLY ANNOUNCED that it has acquired Movirtu, a provider of virtual identity solutions for mobile operators that allows multiple numbers to be active on a single device. This improves device management in bring-your-own device (BYOD) and corporate owned personally enabled (COPE) environments. The terms of the transaction, however, were not disclosed. With Movirtu’s virtual SIM platform, both a business number and a personal number can be used on a single mobile device, with separate billing for voice, data and messaging usage on each number. As a result, employees can switch between business and personal profiles easily without carrying multiple devices or SIM cards, and charges are appropriately billed to the company and the employee. Additionally, in 60
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conjunction with the BlackBerry Enterprise Service (BES) platform, enterprise customers will be able to apply IT policies to the business number without impacting the usability of the device for personal use. The acquisition complements BlackBerry’s Secure Work Space, BlackBerry Balance and other partitioning technologies, which give employees the freedom and privacy they want for their personal use while delivering the security and management needed for business use. The new Virtual SIM capabilities will be offered by BlackBerry through mobile operators to provide customers with multiple identity based service offerings. BlackBerry will support the deployment of Movirtu technology by mobile operators on all major smartphone operating systems.
GLOBAL TECH GIANTS Microsoft and SAP will bring their cloud and mobile partnership to India to help improve cloud and data interoperability and deliver new mobile and productivity to enterprises. Under the partnership, SAP applications will be available on Microsoft's Azure cloud platform. The partnership will allow Indian enterprises to leverage the flexibility and scalability of Microsoft Azure for their mission critical SAP deployments, a statement said. The partnership is expected to deliver 200-300 per cent efficiency increase in IT infrastructure deployment and savings of 40-75 per cent on total ownership costs with Azure's 'pay per use' model. The partnership supports SAP Business Suite software, SAP Mobile Platform, SAP Adaptive Server Enterprise (SAP ASE) and the developer edition of the SAP HANA platform on Azure.
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Govt to come up with ‘comprehensive policy’for MSME sector
Commerce ministry plans smartphone apps for traders IN SYNC WITH the government’s drive to harness technology, the commerce ministry is planning to come up with mobile apps for exporters and importers. While the ‘‘FTP App’’ will help traders to go through the voluminous book on India’s foreign trade policy on their smartphones or notebooks, ‘‘EXIM (export-import) App’’ would help them in filling different documents such as shipping bills and other paperwork, a senior official in the commerce ministry said. This will form part of a series of steps which the government is taking to improve India’s ranking in ease of doing business index. The government had recently 62
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announced an umbrella programme ‘Digital India’ comprising various projects worth about R1 lakh crore to transform the country into a digitally empowered knowledge economy. The programme includes projects that aim to ensure that government services are available to citizens electronically and people get benefit of the latest information and communication technology. The vision of the government under Digital India project includes creation of ICT infrastructure like high-speed Internet at gram panchayat level, on demand availability of government services like health, education etc, and digital empowerment of citizens, especially through digital literacy.
THE GOVERNMENT WILL soon introduce a new comprehensive policy for the MSME sector after incorporating suggestions from related associations, Union Minister Kalraj Mishra said. He counted the problems of entrepreneurs in setting up a Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) unit and said that the government would incorporate suggestions from the industry bodies and association so that a progressive environment can be made. The minister said that he has been given several suggestions by the industry people which would be considered positively by him. He highlighted the importance of the MSME sector and said that the country would become a developed nation on the strength of the sector. Mishra said the government was making several efforts for skill development, addressing issues related to loan sanction for micro industries and improving governance by implementing e-governance system. RSS leader Suresh Joshi talked about the element of ‘diversity’ in micro and small level industries and opined that big industries should not be allowed to enter into the business where such small scale units are working in various regions of the country. He said that products of such small units working in regions have their own quality and local identity which vanish when big companies enter into that trade and start manufacturing those products. Gving these units the needed aid will boost employment and pave a rapid way for development of the country. OCTOBER, 2014
REGD.NO.MH/MR/SOUTH/132/2012-14, PUBLISHED ON 28TH OF EVERY PERVIOUS MONTH & POSTED AT MUMBAI PATRIKA CHANNEL SORTING OFFICE, DUE DATE 29 & 30 OF EVERY PREVIOUS MONTH, REGD. WITH RNI UNDER NO. 49926/90