IT Next June 2012 by Manan Mushtaq

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JUNE 2012 / ` 100 Volume 03 / Issue 05

sTRATEGY: Jury Laud Next100 Awards Process

interview: Schmidt on Using Lean Methods for Big Data

boss Talk: Rules of Project Management

bIG Q

CRMâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New Avatar Pg 53

b i g d ata Bi g E x p ec tat i o n s volume 03 | Issue 05

Editorial

Expectation and Exploitation of Big Data Innovation being the byword in the IT industry, jargons have a way of becoming a part of industry lexicon. With each new buzzword, IT managers are compelled to think and evolve new techniques to milk it for business productivity. However, most industry players and analysts vouch that big data is not a mere buzzword. But as the IT manager of an IT services company comments, “Big data is a buzzword. It is about bringing value to the business by segregating sensible data from the huge data generated.” But, what can be done to set up a strong framework that is aligned with business growth and strategy? How to control data growth and streamline it effectively without allowing it to become a disruptive force? What I noticed from the study conducted by IT Next and the elaborate discussions that I had with IT managers, vendors, research groups, etc, is that there exists a skill gap which is the first step to address big data. There is a need to create a new set of professionals in organisations who could be designated as data scientists or data statisticians. IT managers must do an internal search to identify such skilled persons who can work on realtime data and are capable of predictive analysis. Be aware, these are not BI professionals. Many vendors are making conscious efforts to sign up with various educational institutions to provide necessary certifications to enable the players to use data analytics. IT Next found that big data has left most organisations in a state of dilemma. There is a big discussion among IT teams around cost and investment factor, skill availability, technology stacks and majorly, its RoI. While the concerns are justified, IT teams should not worry so much about investment or RoI. Rather, they should use the intelligent techniques already available around big data to their advantage. However, the most important investment is their time, as IT teams now proactively associate with business groups to understand their data journey and exploit data for business advantage.

“IT managers must do an internal search to identify such skilled persons who can work on real-time data” Geetha Nandikotkur

Blogs To Watch! What’s Your Big Data Score? http://blogs.forrester.com/ category/big_data Is big data a big drain on your network? http://blogs.computerworld. com/20190/is_big_data_a_big_ drain_on_your_network How Big Data Changes the Business Landscape? http://www.itbusinessedge. com/cm/blogs/vizard/how-bigdata-changes-the-businesslandscape/?cs=50336 Overcoming the big performance challenge of Big Data in finance http://blogs.computerworld. com/20084/overcoming_the_ big_performance_challenge_of_ big_data_in_finance Big Data Poses Huge Challenges, But Opportunities http://www.billingworld.com/ blogs/insider/2012/05/big-dataposes-huge-challenges-butopportunities.aspx

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The buzz around big data benefits has IT managers looking for large productivity gains

Cover Story

boss talk

interview

19 Act on Your Data Now | Build a data visualisation map to use the information effectively

21 Gain with Best Practices | Using right tools and methods will help IT Managers derive better value from Big Data Insights

36 Beware of IP Thieves

Adherence to security policies is mandatory for protecting IP

42 Cloud-Best bet for Storage Cloud Storage to be the most favoured option for backup and recovery

cover Illustration : Prince Antony Design: Prince Antony

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06 Project Mgmt Rules| Chandramouli CS, Sr Director, Zinnov on rules & authentication in project management

38 John G Schmidt, VP, Global Integration Services| Informatica, on how big data needs lean management methods

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MANAGEMENT Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Vikas Gupta

EDITORIAL

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Group Editor: R Giridhar Executive Editor: Geetha Nandikotkur Consulting Editor(Online): Sanjay Gupta Senior Assistant Editor: Manu Sharma Managing Editor (Desk): sangita Thakur Sub Editors: Radhika Haswani

Next100 - Leadership Jury Laud Next100 Awards Process and give their verdict on the wonderful vision that inspires the awards

DESIGN Sr Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Anil VK Associate Art Director: Atul Deshmukh Sr Visualiser: Manav Sachdev Visualisers: Prasanth TR, Anil T & Shokeen Saifi Sr Designers: Sristi Maurya & NV Baiju Designers: Suneesh K, Shigil N, Charu Dwivedi Raj Verma, Prince Antony, Peterson Prameesh Purushothaman C & Midhun Mohan Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Sr Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

the big Q

opinion 08 Customers Drive Innovation|Sarv Sarvanan, Sr

VP & MD, EMCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Centre of Excellence, India & Egypt, on how customers play an influential role in driving innovation

15-Minute manager 45 Unlock the Data| Industrialisation tactics create better value

53 Social CRM | New Avatar

of CRM-Experts tell you how to blend the existing CRM with the new social CRM using right tools

cube chat 58 Destiny Decides |

Ranganathan NN, BITS, M&M Financial Services, is all out to leverage technology for business advantage

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46 Stress Mgt| Alternative

62 Aisha | Superfone Ninja an

stress management through yoga

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49 Held at Ransom| Mobile Apps are becoming vulnerable to newer threats that are endangering systems

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INBoX

15-MINUTE MANAGER

MAY 2012 / ` 100 VOLUME 03 / ISSUE 04

PAG E 5 0

Strategy: BYOD is a reality T H I S PAG E Review: Review Android PAGE 52 Trends: Finance Management PAG E 5 3 Training Calendar: IT and Telecom PAG E 5 4

See the BYOD Paybacks

I Rest My Case ENTERPRISE MOBILITY

BYOD is real and well blended with corporate IT trend. IT managers must be prepared to deal with it M A Y 2 0 1 2 | ITNEXT

P H OTO S : P H OTO S . C O M

BYOD IS A REALITY

ILLUSTRATIO N : SHIGIL N

Leaving the humour aside, BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) is not a choice that today’s corporate IT can make, but a reality that they should be prepared to deal with! BYOD fundamentally means employees bringing their own devices to accomplish work for their employers. With the consumerisation of IT, almost everyone has access to cuttingedge technologies and gadgets much before they become available through the ‘corporate IT channels’, which usually take a ‘wait and watch’ approach to new technology and are much slower in letting new devices into the network. Smaller organisations and start-ups

INTERVIEW: Unisys’s Bob on how cloud is transforming workplace

BOSS TALK: Managing time tactfully

BIG Q

Obsessed with Green IT Pg 65

Use innovative methods and smart management to meet project goals Pg 12

HEALTHY TIPS FOR WORK/LIFE

BALANCING PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL LIVES TIPS FOR WORK-LIFE BALANCE 1. Don’t overbook. This may seem unusual to people who try to crowbar as much as possible into every workday. 2. Prioritise ruthlessly. Know what’s important and what can wait. 3. Learn how to say no. For effective time management you don’t have to agree to everything. 4. It is about scheduling.

Married to your work? Consider the cost It can be tempting to rack up hours at work, especially if you’re trying to earn a promotion or manage an ever-increasing workload. Consider the consequences of poor work-life balance:

november 2011

* Fatigue. * Lost time with friends and loved ones. * Increased expectations * Track your time Take advantage of your options * Learn to say no * Leave work at work. * Manage your time * Bolster your support system * Nurture yourself When your work life and personal life are out of balance, your stress level is likely to soar. Use these practical strategies to restore harmony.

Live it! There’s more to life than work.

VOLUME 03 | ISSUE 04

BY BAL A VARIYAM

truly believe that Dilbert can see the future; and if there is anyone who can articulate the present, the distant future of the corporate, and the technology world better than any analyst, it is he. One could see in his comic strips on many occasions that he had imagined about the BYOD phenomenon almost four years back, when the first generation iPhone was barely a year old and iPad was still a shiny toy being moulded in Mr Jobs’ imagination.

There are several benefits to an initiative like BYOD, which the IT Manager should take into account. The most obvious one is that the employee buys the device resulting in the reduction in cost to the company. Considering that, these devices are not cheap by any means, which is one of the reasons why enterprises wait for them to be ‘tried and tested’. Once the technology becomes mainstream (which in today’s world could take anywhere from 12-18 months), the devices become generally cheaper. With a BYOD approach cost is not a concern anymore for corporate IT. Employees are willing to spend their own money because they fundamentally love the technology underneath and want to reap the benefits these devices bring. Today’s devices let the employees be connected to not just their work and corporate environment but also to their friends and family social circles. This indirectly brings in the softer benefits such as employee satisfaction and productivity. Since the employees have spent their own money to buy the devices, they will use them and get the work done in a way they would love rather than be forced to use outdated technologies. Productivity tends to go up whenever there is a friendly BYOD policy in place. Allowing employees to use their own devices gives them a sense of freedom in an environment that is known to be restrictive. This in turn increases employee satisfaction and reflects on the company as being employee friendly. By allowing employees to bring their own devices, companies are also ushering in the latest technologies into the network. This necessitates internal systems, processes and services to be upgraded or re-engineered to enable seamless access to data from

H I T T H E TA R G E T

BALANCING PROFESSIONAL AND PERSONAL LIVES

STRATEGY: NEXT100 winners are winning in their careers

who are constrained on spending, tend to avoid huge capital investments in servers and networks and are relying more and more on cloud based infrastructures for their computing needs. In such scenarios, BYOD becomes a natural strategy!

MANAGER

TRAINING EDUCATION WORKPLACE COMPENSATION WORKFORCE TRENDS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

ITNEXT.IN

15MINUTE

Some Good Pieces Of Advice Articles and books have been written on work/life balance. It’s something that most global citizens strive to achieve. Think about it: Have you ever been able to string together more than a week or two of perfect balance between your job and family? This shift in perspective will have a huge impact on your decisions, priorities and stress levels.

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 2

IT NEXT values your feedback

We want to know what you think about the magazine, and how we can make it a better read. Your comments will go a long way in making IT NEXT the preferred publication for the community. Send your comments, compliments, complaints or questions about the magazine to editor@itnext.in.

I read IT Next regularly and observe that the magazine mostly covers subjects related to IT infrastructure. If you could write more on segments like applications management and topics related to enterprise applications, it would draw the interest of readers who are associated with these sectors. I would also like to read stories on methodologies, processes or frameworks of process improvement like PMP, Six Sigma, ITIL, PRINCE2, etc, which would help most of the readers. The topics covered in the 15-Minute Manager section and the cover stories are well identified and presented.

IT NEXT thanks its Readers for the warm response www.linkedin.com/ groups?gid= 2261770&trk= myg_ugrp_ ovr300members

read this issue online http://www.itnext. in/resources/ magazine

Archie Jackson, GM-IT, -Steria India Ltd

The print edition of IT NEXT does an excellent job of covering a wide range of latest topics. Besides, the stories are very relevant, covering subjects related to IT, IT security, IT management, etc. I have not really seen such a spread in any other magazine, including foreign IT magazines. I observe that the articles are lucidly written and the contributions are from industry practitioners, which makes them very relevant to the current scenario. Since IT NEXT is targeted at IT managers or the next generation CIOs, the articles relating to trends and the traits of a CIO are very informative and educational from a career-enhancement point of view. The article on Balanced Scorecard particularly caught my attention and is one of my favourites. However, going forward, I would like to read stories which capture details around hacking incidents and successful remedies being taken to address and counter such incidents. Berjes Eric Shroff Senior Manager, Information Technology, TATA SERVICES LIMITED

Kaushal Shah Head IT, Privi Technologies (Note: Letters have been edited minimally, for brevity and clarity)

ITNEXT<space> <your feedback> and send it to

567678 *Special rates apply

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The coverage on green IT was comprehensive, easy to read with relevant details. Beyond doubt, this will be the future expectation of most readers regarding IT Next. I can always refer to articles published in IT Next that are focussed on challenges related to information management and strategies evolved to meet the business expectations. I have certain favourite topics and would be glad if IT Next covers them. For instance, change management within the IT sector is the biggest influencer. It is important that IT managers use change management techniques to drive better outcomes from smart data to create information in real time. For instance, many companies want to develop information analysis to execute senior level decisions within no time. Improving cross-functional activities using information analysis, besides improving operational efficiency with change management strategies is very much possible. I personally like to read stories on management techniques and its importance in bringing synergy between technology, automation and business functions for better performance. Lastly, I must say that TPL, proposed by IT Next is a great idea and will put the group at the forefront of the industry. If the group takes up more marketing activities for the magazine in the retail, education and visual medium, it would really help.

Boss talk | Chandramouli C S

Leadership

Authentication in Project Mgt

roject management is a combination of art and science. There are three vital factors which become the guiding principles or form the authentication process in project management. These include initiation that relates to work effort analysis, team building, estimation techniques, training and knowledge transfer, and so on. Second is the execution which involves reviews, communication between stakeholders, business analysts, development and quality teams, feedback, management reporting and so on, while the last is finalisation, which is associated with delivery management, review and rollout, compliance management, documentation, lessons learnt, knowledge management, etc.

“One of the greatest project managers that one can derive inspiration from is Steve Jobs, who had a very unconventional way of reviewing projects and motivating people”

The Force Behind PM It is imperative for IT managers to understand that project management is a process which demands all variables and stakeholders involved to come together and deliver value. They play a significant role in carrying the capability to define the goal, making the team accountable, and leading it (the team) to achieve the goal. IT managers must have insights into the various tools and techniques to be used across the lifecycle of the project to measure progress and accountability.

Project Management Myth In industry parlance, project management is loosely defined. It is considered as a middle management role. Every leader runs three to five initiatives across his organisation, which itself is a mega project. One of the greatest project managers that one can derive inspiration from is Steve Jobs. Jobs had a very unconventional way of reviewing projects and also motivating people. He would conduct the product line reviews from his design studio with prototypes in his hand. And we all know of the stories about how Jobs

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motivated his team by teasing and challenging them to outperform their own best. Suggestion BOX

Prerequisites of a Project Manager Project managers should be able to zoom in and out of situations depending on the stage of the project. They should be situation leaders depending on the maturity of the team members, duration and nature of the task. The role of a project manager is similar to the role of a captain in sports. Like a captain, he needs to be dynamic, motivating, calm and lead by example.

“I am a great fan of biographies. I learnt quite a lot about project reviews, weeding out bad ideas, and importance of focus from the book” title: Steve Jobs WRITER: Walter Isaacson P UBLISHER: Simon & Schus ter (US) P RICE: Rs 539

IT Managers’ Domain There is a general consensus that all implementations and projects will overrun time and budget. Therefore, there is a need for CIOs and IT managers to use new age management tools that can challenge the conventional techniques. For better results, IT managers could try using new software tools that would help create a platform and spreadsheets to provide end-to-end information on project execution and process in real time. Chandramouli CS, Senior Director, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt Ltd

Opinion

money wise Sarv Sarvanan, Senior VP & MD, EMC’s Centres of Excellence in India & Egypt

Customers Drive Innovation

espite the army of software developers focussed on developing advanced capabilities for customers in areas of security, virtualisation, information management and enterprise content management, etc, we still find customers influence us to focus on certain technologies that result in innovations.

Ideas Stem from Customer Interactions In fact, our ideas, vision and product roadmap are built upon the inputs received from the interactions that we have with the concerned industry players. For example, customer inputs majorly influence the rollout of our software stack based on open source. Any innovation or transformation that we bring out or announce has a major role of customers and customer relationships behind it. At EMC, we have created a Customer Council—a body comprising technical folks who have constant dialogues with top customers in the industry across verticals (particulary the early adopters of technologies). Our innovations and evolutions are based on the outcomes of these discussions, and the effort is to incorporate the most relevant recommendations. Our workshops on varied subjects help us understand customer consumption patterns and needs. For instance, from a security standpoint, we involve top 12 to 15 chief information security officers (CISOs) in exclusive workshops to get insights into prevailing security trends, the pain points, type

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“Any innovation or transformation that we bring out or announce has a major role of customers behind it and the customer relationships that we maintain” of solutions sought by and so on. This enables us to drive transformation in the product development and bring out enhanced features.

Imbibing Customers’ Best Practices We have started Executive Briefing Centres associated with customers and have partnered with 270 customers to seek insights into their IT usage. The mandate is to take it to 400 this year, to

understand the best practices followed across each domain. Based on the feedback from customers on technologies, product features and also growing needs, we create a training system to further educate employees, the management and the overall team beyond the technologies. To give an example of customer driven innovation, our recent product Case Management Solution (Documentum xCP Saksham) for government and public sector agencies was the result of the series of discussions that we had with CIOs of various government departments. We had regular interactions with over 50 customers across departments to understand the file tracking mechanism and challenges therein, which resulted in major delays. The key lessons we learnt were to give a solution that would automate the workflow process in the government departments, reduce process time, eliminate manual errors and enable transparency and compliance. My team in India developed this product and I would say that it was purely inspired by customer opinion and specific need. Our video surveillance as a service initiative has been driven by customers and the entry level Iomega’s NAS products were the outcome of the feedback that we received from the customers and service providers. I find interesting feedback and insights coming from mid-market customer segment too, with regard to data protection technologies and we are imbibing the lessons and best practices here to bring out further innovations in the category. Being open to customer feedback, our team is constantly working on innovations and the company has invested $10 billion in the last eight years on R&D and about $14 billion has come in the form of acquisitions. Customers are the key drivers in innovating new technologies and making them relevant to the current scenario.

update

IBM & Vivisimo Take to Big Data Analytics

Vivisimo is a provider of federated discovery and navigation software that helps analyse big data

TECH TRENDS | IBM has announced a definitive agreement to acquire

Vivisimo, a leading provider of federated discovery and navigation software that helps organisations access and analyse big data across the enterprise. Vivisimo is a privately held company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Financial terms were not disclosed. Vivisimo software excels in capturing and delivering quality information across the broadest range of data sources, no matter what format it is, or where it resides. The software automates the discovery of data

iPAD

Overall satisfaction with 2012 iPad A record-high 98% of new iPad owners are satisfied with the product, as per research firm ChangeWave 100%

The survey of 200 new iPad owners, focussed on three key topics: overall satisfaction, key features, and the controversial heat issue.

82% 80% 60% 40%

16% 20% 0%

2% Very satisfied

Somewhat satisfied

Source: The Mac Observer (Sati sfcat i on iPad survey 2012)

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Somewhat unsatisfied

0% Very unsatisfied

trends deals products services people

and helps employees navigate it with a single view across the enterprise, providing valuable insights that drive better decision-making for solving all operational challenges. The proposed merger would enable IBM’s big data analytics initiatives with advanced federated capabilities to allow organisations to access, navigate, and analyse the full variety, velocity and volume of structured and unstructured data without having to move it. The combination of IBM’s big data analytics capabilities with Vivisimo software will further IBM’s efforts to automate the flow of data into business analytics applications, helping clients better understand consumer behaviour, manage customer churn and network performance, detect fraud in real-time, and perform dataintensive marketing campaigns. “Navigating big data to uncover the right information is a key challenge for all industries,” said Arvind Krishna, General Manager, Information Management, IBM Software Group. “The winners in the era of big data will be those who unlock their information assets to drive innovation, make real-time decisions, and gain actionable insights to be more competitive.” IBM estimates 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every day from a variety of sources including sensors, social media, and billions of mobile devices around the world, making it difficult for businesses to navigate and analyse.

I llustrations : Raj v erma

Update I n d u s t r y

iPhone Blood Pressure Monitor For the health conscious people like you, iPhone has rolled out Apple Fanatic. Now your loved ones can monitor your blood pressure while you can catatonic Price: $100.

Jabra Freeway Car Speaker

iZen Keyboard

Most people aren’t happy wearing Bluetooth headsets for long durations. This is where the in-car speaker is useful. Chip it to the visor and then connect with the phone via Bluetooth. Price: Rs 6,800.

Show off your ecofriendly side by getting this Bluetooth keyboard which is made from almost 92 per cent bamboo material. Besides the keyboard is recyclable and renewable making it more green than ever. Price: $99.

Cricketing Greats Play the Investment Game TECH TRENDS | Pingar, a pro-

vider of unstructured data management solutions, has announced that Richard Hadlee, Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris have invested in the New Zealand company. The cricketing greats, known for outstanding strategy on the field, have joined with existing investors to help finance and foster Pingar’s initiative to help Indian enterprises improve performance by providing a means to access information stored in unstructured data, files which cannot be easily searched or analysed. Peter Wren-Hilton, Pingar CEO says, “The investment

Richard Hadlee, Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris help the investor group

comes at a time when Pingar is opening a new office in Bangalore, and rapidly expanding its presence in the region.” The new office officially opened recently, with a

Around The World

ribbon cutting ceremony in the presence of both Daniel Vettori and Scott Styris and senior executives from major Indian IT companies. “This investment by these great cricketers, known for their shrewd strategy and performance, shows the clear opportunity to meet the simple business need of turning unstructured data into accessible business intelligence,” Wren-Hilton adds. Richard Hadlee, who joined Pingar earlier, is known as one of the legendary fast bowlers in cricketing history. In addition,the cricketer will be aiding the company to develop new business opportunities, particularly in India. The company is currently expanding its Indian operations.

quick byte

I llustrations : Raj v erma

Tablets will be the Preferred Devices By 2016 Tablets will become the most preferred user computing devices in the next four years, Forrester Research analyst Frank Gillett has predicted. Gillet recently predicted that some 375 million tablets will be sold globally in 2016—compared to around 56 million in 2011. That forecast is nearly double the amount projected by IDC, which said worldwide tablet sales will hit 200 million in 2016. In 2016, onethird of the tablets will be with the business users, out of a total installed base of 760 million.

Sanjay Kapoor, CEO, Bharti Airtel

“The total data usage is doubling every year to reach 3.6 hexabytes by 2014. With the launch of 4G, India will no more be follower in technology but match up with the world”

Source: Computerworld

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update

Tulip Provides BaaS using

EMC Unified Storage TECH TRENDS | EMC Corpora-

Interview AVINASH PURVAR, SENIOR VP-SALES, CISCO INDIA

IT NEXT: What are the technological trends that you observe in the BFSI sector?

EMC technologies are enabling Tulip to offer comprehensive, reliable storage and backup services through cloud computing

PURVAR: With the adoption of internet banking and mobile technologies, we are starting to see an early shift in the behavioural habits of consumers. I see deep footprints in the connectivity, business video, collaboration and data centre related technologies in the BFSI segment.

Using EMC technologies, Tulip will address computing solutions for data storage and backup through hosted data centres. Managed services for online storage and backup offered at the Tulip Data Cityspread across 0.9 million sq ft, with the capacity to house up to 12,000 racks.

What are the challenges is the BFSI experiencing currently? Growing at a CAGR of more than 14 per cent, the BFSI industry needs a highly dynamic, secure and reliable information management system. Besides this, the vertical is compelled to look at innovative and cost-effective IT solutions while meeting stringent guidelines set up by the RBI.

MNCs to Look at 2-tier Cities 250,000 by 2015. There are 93 MNC R&D companies that have operations and market expansion advisory firm, in two cities in India. has released a study titled—Location Commenting about the study, Analysis: Emerging cities in India. Chandramouli CS, Senior DirectorThe study extensively covers and Globalisation Advisory, Zinnov, profiles 12 emerging Tier II locations said, “MNCs have started expanding in India for assessment based on an to Tier II cities due higher exhaustive list of suitability catchment area, lower and cost parameters. attrition, cost arbitrage, etc. Stating numbers, the study Initially looked upon for IT/ highlighted that the MNC BPO services, these cities are R&D talent pool in India Internet users now contenders for setting for 2011 stood at 204,196. It in India in up R&D centres due to the also added that talent base 2011 up from 11 distinctive advantage they is indeed growing at the rate million users in 2010 provide.” of nearly nine per cent every Source: TRAI year and is expected to reach

tech trends | Zinnov, a globalization

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As per Gartner’s report the Indian IT spending is estimated to be $79.8 bn 2012 and BFSI constitutes a significant portion of it. Currently, financial institutions are leveraging technology and its support functions to the maximum.

I llustrations : Raj v erma

13.3 million

What is the IT spend in the BFSI sector expected to be this year?

Photo graphy: Jayan K Narayanan

tion has announced that Tulip Telecom will provide end-to-end managed on-demand storage services and Backup-as-aService (BaaS) using EMC unified storage and backup and recovery technologies from the Tulip Data City in Bangalore. Tulip’s cloud-based storage and backup service offerings are powered by EMC’s VNX unified storage, EMC Avamar and EMC Data Domain technologies for storage and backup and recovery, enabling Tulip to offer enterprises managed services to address the growing complexities related to storage and backup of data. On-demand storage and BaaS are cloud computing-based business models wherein information storage, backup, archival and de-duplication technologies are offered to customers “as per need” and in a pay-as-you-use manner.

What technologies are enabling faster growth of this vertical? Over the past few years, banks invested heavily in sophisticated IT systems. We expect banks to invest on five strategies including mobility for productivity, UC for collaboration, virtualisation for efficiency, video and contact centre

update

Big Data: The Next Gold Rush IT executives and experts take part in a round table hosted by UST Global

TECH TRENDS| UST Global, organ-

ised a seminar to discuss adoption of ‘Big data concepts and technologies’ in Bangalore. The panel consisted of Shailendra Ravi, Senior Director, Global Services, EMC; Ravindra Krishnappa, an entrepreneur; Liz Herbert, Principal Analyst Serving Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals, and Saurabh Suri, Senior Director, Solutions & Services, Big Data & Predictive Analytics. Forrester’s Liz Herbert made her presentation on current trends and the industry focus around big data and was followed by a panel discussion. Key topics for discussion included: hype, reality and impact around big

News @

I llustrations : Raj v erma

blog

data; current industry trends and adoption techniques; how big data technologies are helping bridge the gap. Speaking on the occasion, Ravindra Krishnappa said, “There is a tremendous opportunity for any company that can process this data deluge not only for trending but also for increased predictability.” Shailendra said, “In this age of information explosion, it isn’t just about how much data an organisation has but also about the complexity and variety of their data. The challenge is stitching together previously compartmentalised data from across sources to gain valuable new insights.”

Tech Tidings

Wipro to Acquire Promax Apps Wipro Limited has announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Promax Applications Group (PAG), a player in trade promotion planning, management, and optimisation solutions space for a total purchase consideration of AUD 35 million. Organisations are increasingly leveraging analytics to enhance effectiveness and maximise the return on investment (RoI) of their spend on trade promotions. “Analytics is a key growth driver of Wipro’s growth strategy. The acquisition of Promax will strengthen Wipro’s positioning and capability in management, analytics & optimisation of trade promotions, and further extends our leadership in analytics and information management services,” said KR Sanjiv, Senior Vice President and Global Head, Analytics and Information Management, Wipro. Don Nicol, CEO of Promax added that Wipro is recognised globally for its comprehensive portfolio of services and strategic focus on advanced analytics capabilities. Avendus Capital acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Wipro on this transaction.

App Store from Facebook The App Center will be made available to the public from June 2012

Facebook has revealed that its own online and mobile app store, the App Center, will be made available to the public from June 2012. Facebook said it is opening an App Center for mini-programmes that plug offerings such as Pinterest or Draw Something into the leading social network. The App Center will run programmes for Apple and Android smartphones or tablets. Source: Technorati.com j u n e 2 0 1 2 | itnext

ASK THE EXPERT Data centre infrastructure management

Creating an EnergyEfficient Data Centre

using DCIM software tools combined with virtualisation and cloud computing methods

Photo : Subhojit Paul

How is the DCIM practice going to address the data centre challenges of IT managers?

The data centre infrastructure is not just traditional IT equipment and networks; it also includes power systems, air conditioning, uninterrupted power supplies and generators, and the associated switching equipment. These components are part of an ecosystem, and any change in a component can have detrimental or unintended impact on other components. The key challenges of data centre managers are with regard to downtime, wasted rack space, delayed server deployment, wasted energy, lost man hours, operating outside design parameters and so on. All of these result in missed market opportunities, revised customer loyalties leading to operational inefficiencies, capacity constraints, rise in operational cost and so on. Data centre managers and senior IT managers have realised that the underlying operating costs for these

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dossier

Aniket Patange Director Datacenter Lifecycle Services, Schneider Electric, provides proof points and insights into why DCIM (Data Centre Infrastructure Management) is going to be critical for IT managers in improving the efficiency and reliability of data centres

infrastructures are not as clearly understood as once thought, especially when energy consumption is brought into the equation. The DCIM strategy will impact everything from inventory and change management to capacity planning and carbon footprint reporting. DCIM enables the monitoring and collection of lowlevel infrastructure data to enable intelligent analysis by individuals with domain expertise (eg, capacity and facilities planners), as well as holistic analysis of the overall infrastructure. DCIM tools integrate facets of system management with building and energy management, with a focus on IT assets and the physical infrastructure needed to support them.

How are DCIM tools enabling IT managers in planning and cutting operational cost? New DCIM software planning and implementation tools such as our StruxureWare Data Centre Operation Suite

ask the expert CUSTOM PUBLISHING

“DCIM enables the monitoring and collection of lowlevel infrastructure data to enable intelligent analysis by individuals with domain expertise” improve IT room allocation of power and cooling (planning), provide rapid impact analysis when a portion of the IT room fails (operations), and leverage historical data to improve future IT room performance (analysis). These tools help data centre managers to create a dashboard, monitor and automate collection of data. By correlating power, cooling and space resources to individual servers, DCIM tools can proactively inform IT management systems of potential physical infrastructure problems and how they might impact specific IT loads. Particularly, in a highly virtualised and dynamic cloud environment, this real-time awareness of constantly changing power and cooling capacities is important for safe server placement. These intelligent tools also enable IT to inform the lines of business of the consequences of their actions before server provisioning decisions are made. Business decisions that result in higher energy consumption in the data centre, for example, will impact carbon footprint and carbon tax. Charge backs for energy consumption are also possible with these new tools and can alter the way decisions are made by aligning energy usage to business outcomes. The DCIM Suite allows the IT manager to do an impact analysis and also perform other “what-if” scenarios. For example, the IT manager can simulate the impact caused by taking a UPS into maintenance mode in the software model, ie, see which PDUs, servers and applications will be impacted if a UPS goes down. This simulation capability allows him to take pro-active steps to prevent failures, eg, by predicting overloads or phase imbalances. Just to give an insight into how DCIM drives energy efficiency and power usage effectiveness, its calculation is based on current and historical PUE value which depends upon the current IT load for a fact-based understanding of energy-efficiency at the facility level. At the subsystem level, the calculation is based on energy loss incurred and cost of subsystem, that will determine that cost factor for subsystem’s power usage. As a trend, by capturing environmental data at the device level (eg, power consumed, performance levels and BTUs generated), data centre managers can gain a more detailed view of the environment and, thus, make informed decisions about equipment placement, cooling efficiency, power consumption and upgrades, and capacity planning.

Can you elaborate on how the implementation of virtualisation, consolidation and cloud computing technologies will enhance data centre efficiency?

50% or higher would be the virtualised server’s CPU utlisation when customers go in for virtualisation to drive energyefficiency Source: Schneider Electric Data Centre Science Centre

Virtualisation or physical server consolidation and movement to cloud-based technologies will help in a) Moving towards higher power densities in racks which leads to higher efficiencies in power utilisation b) Creating a more focussed cooling approach as compared to perimeter cooling—which again is more efficient c) Cutting operational costs (man-power, licences and maintenance) by removing underutilised or zombie servers. What becomes more important in a virtualised environment is infrastructure reliability at these higher power densities when packed into each rack. Virtualisation also allows workloads to be dynamically moved, started and stopped—the result can be physical loads that change both over time and in their physical location. Here again, the DCIM software comes in handy to help not only in monitoring the infrastructure but also in utilising the same in the right proportion. The key is to integrate DCIM software with VM manager. Maintaining a highly-efficient, leanly-provisioned data centre in an environment characterised by frequent and sudden load shifting requires a management system that works automatically in real time with the VM manager.

How can an IT manager predict the need for future infrastructure, investments and roll-outs? The StruxureWare Operation and capacity software has the ability to help identify and eliminate stranded capacity. It also presents data on the remaining capacity of the data centre in the form of dashboards. The design and “what-if” simulation capability of the software helps the IT manager to extend the life span of his current data centre. Also, it helps the IT manager to plan for future roll-outs. Besides, enterprises with strong corporate social responsibility programmes or robust green initiatives should target a PUE closer to 1.6. BROUGHT to YOU BY

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Illustratio ns : PRI NCE ANTONY

BIG DATA | COVERSTORY

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COVERSTORY | BIG DATA With all the research and debates over big data, analysts are convinced that it means different things to different constituencies, and the costs and infrastructure planning elements also differ drastically—leaving stakeholders looking for definitive answers to this big game. Hence, IT Next embarked on a study to gain clarity on the various aspects of big data and the steps that IT managers must take to exploit it to organisational advantage. Gartner’s Hype Cycle for Cloud Computing, 2011 defines big data as a term adopted by market to describe extreme information management and processing issues that exceed the capability of traditional IT along one or multiple dimensions (volume, variety, velocity and complexity) to support use of the information assets. While research groups have certain definitions in place, the industry including that of vendors, large project integrators, IT heads and others, have their own take on big data. What they are in agreement is the huge expectations they have from big data, and it is left to IT heads to churn out opportunities from it. Soumendra Mohanty, Global Lead, Information Management, Accenture, says, “Whenever I think of big data, I invariably settle down for information optimisation.” “Collecting large amounts of data for no specific purpose is a waste of both time and money. It is only when you combine sources of data (both within and outside the organisational firewalls) with analytic applications that you can give the information context and make it meaningful for the business. Without this context, it is impossible to gain any intelligence

“IT managers have to face the reality of big data needs in a very short period of time” Dr B Muthukumaran, IT Professional & Consultant

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and you lower the value of the information—plain and simple ‘infonomics’,” says Mohanty. However, it is important to determine if all this makes sense to the IT managers, and how they should use big data as an opportunity for growth.

Will big data make sense to IT Managers? To Dr B Muthukumaran, IT Professional & Consultant, big data makes a lot of sense to business and cannot be ignored. “IT managers have to face the reality of big data in a very short period of time, as business would look at the tricky questions and situations, which big data can resolve.” “All that IT managers need to do is take big data collection and analytics as an opportunity rather than an issue, as this analysis will play a key role in determining the future business strategy for most organisations,” says Vijay Sethi, VP & CIO, Hero Motocorp. Sethi further says, “As I see, a few IT trends are changing the way organisations are working today– the major ones being social media, mobility and cloud. Today, the amount of data being generated is much more than organisations would have ever expected just a few years back.” One more reason for IT managers to associate themselves with big data, as Berjes Eric Shroff, Senior Manager-IT, Tata Services Ltd, observes is, “Business houses have suddenly realised the deluge of data, which has left them overwhelmed and they seek IT heads’ serious support in structuring this data and making it relevant to their productivity. The root cause for this evolution that Shroff observes is the fact that the source of data has changed and its flow is not dependent just on normal business transactions, hence resulting in unstructured data. Dr Muthukumaran says that customers have been using business intelligence tools to streamline data, but BI will only help in analysing structured data.

Where is the Opportunity? Most experts opine that in case of big data, the question is not ‘IF’ but ‘WHEN’. Hero’s Sethi observes that IT managers cannot ignore the phenomenon of increasing information flow, which has to be factored in their businesses and IT strategies. The benefits that IT managers can witness using big data effectively would be targeted social influencer, customer base segmentation, recognition of sales and marketting opportunities, customer behaviours, market sentiments trending, better and accurate business insights involving better planning and forecasting. (Read Gartner Interview, Big Data Gains, Act on Big Data Now for further insights).

BIG DATA | COVERSTORY

Data Now

Act on Your It is time IT managers actually build a data visualisation map instead of merely defining big data. Else, it will be a mindless waste of valuable information

“It is a terrible thing to waste data as information is valuable and cannot be left behind” Grace Kumar, Associate Director-IT, Cognizant Consulting

he big data buzz has invaded the industry and each vendor, be it storage, hardware, security, applications, or some other, is getting his solutions in place to capitalise on the trend. In such a situation, it is imperative for IT managers to ensure that they are not laggards in the big data game. It is time for them to grab the opportunity and make certain internal changes to mine the big data trend to drive growth. Grace Kumar R Associate Director-IT Infrastructure Services, Cognizant Business Consulting says, “It is a terrible thing to waste data as information is valuable. To run a business successfully and have a competitive edge, it is necessary to ensure that we are not leaving such value on the table behind which can create better customer experiences and growth for the organisation,” says Kumar. Dr MVK Sarma, VP-RDW Product Development, Ramco Systems, observes, “It is critical for IT managers to build data visualisation map and put all the infrastructure pieces together to understand the data types; take up business activity monitoring to assess the information usage and thereby reduce dependency on various units for sourcing data flow.” Vivekanand Venugopal, VP&GM India, Hitachi Data Systems, agrees that IT managers need to assess multiple layers in order to capture the trend. He says, “Identify an individual (or individuals) who is knowledgeable and has good insights into social business, social media and cloud models. Build the information evolution, which can interlock IT and business, independent of applications, storage and infrastructure that are available to understand the types of data. The idea, according to Venugopal, is to identify the data being used as information lifecycle management, which can be preserved, used and reused to help the organisation leverage data strength.

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COVERSTORY | BIG DATA Mitesh Agarwal, CTO and Director, Systems Solution Consulting, Oracle India, points that the IT heads need to recognise that they can’t drive big data with the same cost economics as they do the regular business data. For example, in ERP they have to store all the data for a certain number of years, while in the case of big data, not all the data will need to be permanently stored. Most of the data may not have relevance, but CIOs cannot know in advance what to keep and what to discard. In addition, in some cases, only summary data may need to be stored permanently. At the same time, the need for analytical tools has increased because of the deeper analytical processing required. “IT heads need to decide the balance of investments in storage, processing power and software after careful analysis of data needs, its potential value, data processing methods and streams, storage location, assessing analytical tools and so on,” says Agarwal. Berjes Eric Shroff, Senior Manager, Information Technology, Tata Services Ltd, raises an intriguing question: Where and when should the organisation’s IT head start extracting value from the unstructured and structured data? “My suggestion is to start with getting clarity into the business problems and extract value from the data sources which are likely to have an impact on the business,” says Shroff. ”Educating hardcore supporters of conventional analytical and harmonising them with supporters of big data in the team would be beneficial,” points Shroff. Soumendra Mohanty, Global Lead, Information Management, Accenture, explains what IT managers should keep in mind about the data and its nature. “Data can be both big and polystructured. For example, consider the classic

“Educating hardcore supporters of conventional analytical big data in the team would be beneficial for organisational growth” Berjes Eric Shroff, Senior Manager, Information Technology, Tata Services Ltd

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Start with getting clarity on business problems and extract value from those data sources which are likely to have impact on the business. Big problem is not just data volume and data management, it is actually an information optimisation problem. To run business successfully and have a competitive edge, it is mandatory that we are not leaving value on the table behind. Build data visualisation map and put all the infrastructure pieces together to understand data types. Build the information evolution, which can interlock IT and business, independent of applications, storage and infrastructure that are available to understand the types of data. Most of the data may not have relevance, but CIOs cannot know in advance what to keep and what to discard. Summary data may need to be stored.

Hadoop log-collection use case, or MarkLogic’s databases, or even the dynamic-schema parts of relational data warehouses built by Zynga and eBay,” he says. According to him data can be big and yet simply structured. I think, most of Teradata’s and Vertica’s petabyte-scale installations would fit that description, the countless examples of legacy data warehouses would suffice as well. Data can be notso-big but polystructured. Consider, for example, the traditional business applications and associated structured and unstructured data they handle and most of the traditional RDBMS world. “This is what I have advised clients who are puzzled and worried (thanks to the non-stop chatter around big data and constant flow of marketing collaterals from product vendors) about big data implications,” says Mohanty. Mohanty says it is high time we get out of defining big data and get down to the implications it has and the implementations around it. For him, the big problem is not just data volume and data management problem, it is actually an information optimisation problem. John Haddard, Director of Enterprise Data Integration, Informatica, opines that some IT heads are not adequately prepared to access, process, integrate and deliver this data. However, according to him, combining big interaction data with big transaction data will unleash great new opportunities for data-centric enterprises.

BIG DATA | COVERSTORY

Best

Gain with IT managers are bogged down by the challenges, but right methods and tools will enable them to derive better value out of big data

Practices

or the past 40 years, the IT industry has been focussed on automating business processes by using relational databases to process transaction data. The issue now is finding a way for IT managers to derive best value from big data growth, given the humongous challenges of tracking big data. According to John Haddard, Director of Enterprise Data Integration, Informatica, data has become fragmented and locked within operational and analytical systems, both on premise and in the cloud. Data integration technology integrates these transactional data silos. Over time the volume of this transaction data has grown to outpace the capabilities of IT to effectively manage and process what has become big transaction data. This big transaction data is throwing up challenges at IT managers, while creating new opportunities for growth.

Big Data, Bigger Challenges Haddard says that while access to this data is critical for the empowerment of the enterprise, IT organisations are not adequately prepared to access, process, integrate and deliver this data. Combining big interaction data with big transaction data will unleash great new opportunities for data-centric enterprise and drive competitive advantage. Syed Masroor, Head-Technology and Solutions, Netapp India, finds the IT heads facing big data challenges at every stage of their business process. “Every source that generates data is a big data, for instance an organisation Syed Masroor, Head-Technology & outsourcing its credit card transaction to the bank—a huge and particular type Solutions, Netapp India

“The challenge for IT managers is how to analyse data which is sourced from multiple channels and systems”

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COVERSTORY | BIG DATA

Interview of data is generated. A retailer too would have a huge data generated in real time, with a major impact on the business, which through a process will be accessed by the IT manager. This is transaction data,” says Masroor. “The major challenge for the IT mangers is how to analyse data which is sourced from multiple channels and systems,” adds Masroor. According Dr B Muthukumaran, IT professional and consultant, the major challenge for the IT managers at this point of time related to big data is the training, which calls for huge investment. “Putting up a migration plan with the existing infrastructure and data to churn out big data from the associated groups is a challenge,” says Muthukumaran. The key challenge for IT managers and CIOs that Arun Ramachandran, Country Manager, Data Computing Division, EMC India and SAARC sees is to realise the significance of big data and how the evolving economic environment facilitates IT to become a business transformation function. Referring to cost related challenges of big data, Mitesh Agarwal, CTO and Director, Systems Solution Consulting, Oracle explains, “For example in ERP, they have to store all the data for a certain number of years while in the case of big data, not all the data will need to be permanently stored. “Most of the data may not have relevance but CIOs can’t know in advance what to keep and what to discard,” says Agarwal. Harsha E, Head-IT and Consultant, HK Group, agrees that the main impediment to big data usability is that it’s very hard to get all the relevant bits of data related to a client’s portfolio into one place. “Even the most powerful portfolio analytics systems, including those that are based in the cloud and can draw on massive stores of performance and pricing data, don’t always provide a view that draws on a comprehensive data set,” points Harsha.

Sid Deshpande, Senior Analyst, Gartner says that big data analytics holds significant potential for organisations to leverage new and existing data types for competitive advantage. However, due to some key evolutionary issues, enterprises are still evaluating it. Elaborate on the impact of big data on IT heads? Big data impacts IT heads if they start realising that the starting point of any big data project is people and processes and not so much technologies. A critical success factor for big data analytics projects is bringing IT and business closer, or in the case of service providers, bringing them closer to their customers’ behaviour. Instead of going after the low hanging fruits of a few technologies, IT heads need to harness the big data advantage by hiring qualified data scientists and professionals. Secondly, they need to evaluate the business case and specific outcomes of the proposed big data project, before thinking of re-architecting internal IT from a people/ processes/data management standpoint, to avoid investing in tactical projects. Should big data be considered a challenge or an opportunity? Why and how?

Grace Kumar, Associate Director-IT Infrastructure Services, Cognizant Business Consulting, finds that big data could be a disruptive force if not controlled. IT managers are bogged down by the challenges of big data, but using right methods and tools will enable them to derive better value out of big data. Most agree that with big data in the right hands and handled strategically; the massive amounts of information companies collect today, it can become a valuable new asset. EMC’s Ramachandran admits that players seeking additional organic revenue streams should consider tapping Vivekanand Venugopal, VP& GM-India, their data trove to power a new Hitachi Data Systems information services growth engine.

“Information cloud is an ideal tool which has advanced engines to analyse, visualise and repurpose both structured and unstructured content”

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BIG DATA | COVERSTORY New forms of big data are emerging and there are parallel evolutions of technologies, giving rise to an ecosystem of software and hardware products that are enabling users to analyse this data to produce new and granular levels of insight. Since it is early, it is considered as a challenge as there is no appropriate structure worked out to identify big data. It should be clear that big data is neither a technology in itself nor is it a distinct and uniquely measured market of products or vendor revenue. There are no proven cases either. The opportunity could be identified in the selection of hardware and software tools for a big data project depending upon the use, case or project outcome, data type, bandwidth

consideration, integration with in-house infrastructure, compatibility with in-house virtualised infrastructure and project cost. How can an IT manager harness big data benefits to make it relevant to his organisational needs? Some of the large enterprises and communications service providers are exposed to large big data analytics opportunities because the nature of their data requirements closely fits all the parameters that define big data projects. The primary task of the IT managers is to analyse their data based on velocity, volume, variety and complexity. The explosion of information, in both volume and complexity, has brought about a need

“IT managers need to find out the various and multiple data generation points and evaluate them with information management tools”

Best Practices for Best Value Analysts agree that cloud has set the stage to allow big data to be leveraged. “Cloud computing makes big data possible by providing an elastic pool of resources to handle the massive scale of big data,” says Ramachandran. With cloud computing, IT resources are more efficient and IT teams more productive, freeing up resources to invest in big data. He further explains, “Rising IT costs, exploding data volumes, and ever-evolving competitive challenges have spurred new ways of thinking about effective systems for data analytics. All these developments have led to radical changes in database technology and a new approach to exploiting data.” The best practices to measure the value of big data that Dr MVK Sarma, VP-RDW Product Development, Ramco Systems, suggests, is to draw a maturity map information flow and optimise the same.

to drive actionable insights. IT managers can leverage analytics and intelligence tools to perform efficient analysis of unstructured data growth from mobile networks, social media and collaboration platforms, which will help them have a competitive edge. How should they prepare themselves to handle the big data? Firstly, IT heads and managers need to invest their energies in profiling the data to understand and classify it. Secondly, they need to find out the various multiple data generation points and evaluate them with information management tools. Understand the business needs and what the groups expect or do with the data and how it is helpful to them. Evaluation of inhouse skills that can and evaluating data is critical. Work out a possible structure of integrating the ideas with top-level management in terms of data generation. It is important to work out an effective cost structure required in the data analytics process and communicate it to the business heads. The reason is that there is no standard theory available on RoI for big data projects yet. Most of the early adopters of big data technologies use the Apache Hadoop framework today.

“Change is constant and IT managers need to look at technology to streamline the processed data and create a single version of truth by building an analytical system to present it in a structured form to derive value,” says Sarma. Some of the best practices and solutions that Vivekanand Venugopal, VP and GM, India, Hitachi Data Systems, recommends is to go in for well-managed software and hardware to store and search both structured and unstructured content. “Information cloud is an ideal tool which has advanced engines to analyse, visualise and repurpose both structured and unstructured content and also manage them well via advanced systems management capabilities,” points Venugopal. The key focus for IT managers as Netapp’s Masroor observes is to spot big data and analyse how beneficial it is in providing a tangible solution to the business problem. According to Oracle’s Agarwal, to derive real business value from big data, IT heads will require

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COVERSTORY | BIG DATA the right tools which will help their organisation capture and organise a wide variety of data types from different sources. Agarwal says: a) Align big data initiative with specific business goals b) Ensure centralised IT strategy for standards and governance c) Ensure security for big data d) Correlate big data with structured data e) Look at big data as an extension of existing information architecture. “IT managers need to assemble a suitable set of hardware and software components to create big data architecture and leverage commercial quality support with the entire system being supported by a single vendor,” says Agarwal. HK Group’s Harsh points out that in reality a comprehensive view is very difficult to achieve. Say, for example, that an asset manager uses a portfolio management interface that lets him slice and dice data to show risk hot spots, assess historical performance and stress-test client portfolios. “Without confidence in the comprehensiveness of the data, portfolio managers can’t be sure they are getting a single, clear and accurate view of how their clients’ portfolios are performing,” says Harsha. Some of the best methods to derive value from big data according to Informatica’s John Haddard are to use core data integration to integrate all the data silos managed within the enterprise. “Cloud data

According to Gartner there are several categories of vendors that claim to offer big data. There are so many solutions available today. All major IT vendors have solutions but no clear mandates for interoperability and standards: Some of them include: torage vendors and data management system vendors : EMC, OraS cle, NetApp, IBM, Tera Data BI and analytics: IBM, SAP, Pentaho, SAS, Oracle ig data in the cloud: Amazon Elastic Map Reduce, Micrsoft Azure, B Google Packaged Hadoop distributions: MapR, Cloudera, Hortonworks ata integration and management: Informatica, Talend, Composite D software Data warehousing tools

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ig data techniques complement business intelB ligence (BI) tools to unlock value from enterprise information loud computing makes big data possible by C providing an elastic pool of resources to handle the massive scale of big data ore data integration tools to integrate all the data C silos managed within the enterprise ombination of hardware and software (database C management systems) technologies, has contributed towards successful decision-making for the organisation ook at big data as an extension of existing informaL tion architecture nformation cloud is an ideal tool which has adI vanced engines to analyse, visualise and repurpose both structured and unstructured content, also well-managed via advanced systems management capabilities.

integration to retain control over off-premise data managed by cloud computing vendors is one method to address big data,” says Haddard. Other critical tools would include information lifecycle management to cost-effectively and securely manage the growing proliferation and volumes of data in all these applications Finally, IT managers must master data management tools to gain a 360 degree view of authoritative master data assets. Grace Kumar opines that the same simple formula applies, wherein big data techniques complement business intelligence (BI) tools to unlock value from enterprise information. Berjes Eric Shroff, Senior Manager-IT, Tata Services Ltd, observes that on software front, database management systems such as Oracle, Microsoft’s Database SQL Server, MySQL, etc, have been able to cope with such increases in data. On the hardware front, the option of either increasing a server’s CPU, RAM, disk space, etc, or opting for NAS or SAN storage devices, has addressed the needs of the relative quantum increase in the data size. “So far, a combination of these hardware and software (database management system) technologies, has contributed towards successful decision-making for the organisation,” says Shroff.

LEADERSHIP | NEXT 100

Jury Laud Next100 Awards Process The verdict is out and the jury unanimous on the wonderful vision that inspires the Next100 Awards. Prodded for tips to take it to the next level, jury members share some insights

t is beyond doubt that the jury played a pivotal role in the Next100 Awards Process. They had the final say in spotting the future leaders.Â Right from setting the parameters to finally interviewing the candidates, the Next100 jury left an indelible impression on all the stakeholders. In an attempt to gather a first hand impression of the Next100 process and with the view to take the awards process a notch higher, the IT Next team met the juries and sought their opinions and suggestions.

The resultant study aims to capture jury insights into the most important criteria that they think is essential to judge a candidate during the interview. Other insights are around the most interesting part of the awards process, what impressed them most, key personality and professional traits that Next100 nominees or winners should possess, and how the CIO role is changing, as the winners move up the value chain.

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2011 Jury

Vijay Sethi | VP & CIO, Hero MotoCorp Ltd

“Next100 process was a good learning experience to understand the culture of various organisations”

t was a great pleasure and honour to be part of the Next100 jury. It was an excellent experience starting with the first video conference that I was part of for setting up parameters to finally interviewing the candidates.

Prerequisites of a Next100 Winner Next100 nominees should have a minimum number of direct reports to him or her. Nominee should be directly reporting to the CIO, and possess a minimum of 10 years experience.

Important Interview Criteria The interview process was the best part of the selection process. The three vital criteria that a Next100 aspirant must possess are: Business insights to align IT deliverables with business priorities; strategic thinking for a longterm plan and to develop a roadmap; and thirdly, good communication skills are vital for a change leader who can influence the top management.

CIO in a New Avatar The role of a CIO is becoming less and less technical, and it is business first and technology second now. There is a strong inclination towards matrix organisations and dual reporting where some would report to a CIO and to the business heads. A CIO needs to be more driven by relationships, and help the teams remain motivated and charged up. Consumerisation of IT has brought in several changes in the CIO’s role, as IT projects and initiatives in most organisation have moved from ‘push’, where IT team was pushing users to use them, to ‘pull’, where there is lot of pull from users. Leadership teams also expect the CIO to be a change leader in the organisation who can bring about a lot of process standardisation and is an equal partner in contribution to business.

Most Fascinating Part of the Awards Online test for work competencies that focussed on customer management, coping with work pressure, teamwork, and so on, was impressive. The interview part was the most fascinating part, as it was a good learning experience to understand the culture of various organisations.

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LEADERSHIP | NEXT 100 Nandkishor Dhomne | CIO, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Next100 process has been very impressive and selfnomination format has been most fascinatingâ&#x20AC;?

mportant Interview Criteria I think the ability to apply technology to improve the business, combined with technocommercial, project management and change management skills are critical. Other criteria for the Next100 nominees would be the ability to deliver projects within given timelines and budget, make good judgments and be a good team leader.

Fascinating Part of the Awards While the overall format of the Next100 process has been very impressive, the fascinating aspects were the easy self-nomination format, online exercises, jury composition and awards ceremony. However, the final round of selection should compulsorily have a face-to-face interaction with the jury.

The new roles would be: Chief Innovation Officer: Not just changing the processes but changing the business through continuous innovation. Chief Improvement Officer: Continuously improve (automate and standardise) the processes across the organisation. Chief Intelligence Officer: Getting the right data to the right people at right time on right devices.

Chief Integration Officer: Connect various IT systems and bridge the legacy and cloud services. Chief Infrastructure Officer: Optimise infrastructure, reduce the cost and ensure smooth support.

Prerequisites of a Next100 Winner As a prerequisite, a Next100 winner should possess the qualities of being ambitious, energetic and a good team player. 2011 Being passionate with ury J strong business acumen is an added advantage. What will the Future CIO Look Like? The future CIO will be an unusual combination of technical know-how, business acumen and organisational leadership skills. Nandkishor Dhomne CIO, Manipal Health Enterprises Pvt Ltd

NEXT 100 |LEADERSHIP

2011 Jury

mportant Interview Criteria I would consider the results of the psychometric test as the important criteria as it would help in assessing if the candidate is pretending to be different from what s/he actually is. The other criterion would be the major projects the individual has undertaken and the way he addressed the issues that confronted him or her. Getting insights into their team management skills is important, besides the understanding that they have of IT related tasks. Most Fascinating Aspect of Next100 First and foremost, the concept of Next100 is fantastic indeed, combined with appropriate selection and shortlisting mechanism. Identifying prospects for Next100 across the country is a great idea and the way the winners were nominated and recognised was very impressive.

C R Narayanan | CIO, Tulip Telecom

Prerequisites of Next100 Winner I observed a huge variation among the selected candidates and don’t have any prescription to remove this discrepancy. Communication skills are very critical, and in my opinion, the mentoring programme will greatly help in plugging the gaps.

“Concept of Next100 is fantastic indeed, combined with appropriate selection and shortlisting mechanism”

How to Better the Next100 Selection Process According to me, the size of the organisation should be given due weightage. Qualification and experience criteria cannot be diluted under any circumstances. There can be few deserving candidates who will be left out but exceptions cannot be rules. I would recommend face-toface interview or through video conferencing which would enhance the quality of selection.

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Changing Role of a CIO The CIO’s role is going to get more business oriented rather than being technical. They are required to have good domain knowledge in order to carry out their work efficiently and understand the pain-points of the business better.

2011 Jury

Shailesh Joshi Head-IT Godrej Industries Ltd.

“I am impressed by the Next100 concept, the process management and the discipline observed”

mportant Interview Criteria I expect the future CIOs to possess a holistic IT experience spreading across applications and infrastructure. Leadership skill is the key, besides possessing business insights.

Fascinating Aspects of Next100 Awards I am impressed by the concept of the Next100 awards, the management of the process and the discipline observed during the entire awards selection process. Prerequisites of a Next100 Winner According to me one trap that many CIOs fall into is concentrating too heavily on technology and too little on business concerns. The future CIO must be comfortable in both camps and must be able to communicate that at the conference table.

The nominees must keep track of new technology. That doesn’t mean being able to drill down to the deepest level of it, but understanding its application and importance for the organisation.

How to Better Next100 Awards Process While the Next100 awards process is quite well set, certain standard resume format can be observed, so that proper comparisons can be done vis-à-vis experience, qualifications, age etc. I think the personal interviews should be done with a panel and a separate category or consideration for female CIOs is required. CIO in a New Avatar The current CIO will adorn the role of an entrepreneur in the next five years and can inspire a global staff and persuade IT suppliers to collaborate.

The new CIO will be an in-house futurist, measured by the same financial metrics as any other C-level executive, plus a better one: innovation CIOs will also be expected to connect consumers to the company. That means literally allowing them to communicate using social media and mobile technologies, for example, but also conceptually Future CIOs will be required to envision the implications of bigger changes: how workers work, how consumers consume and how suppliers supply. Then they will have to shape those developments for competitive advantage.

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NEXT 100 |LEADERSHIP

2011 Jury

Shantanu Singh Chauhan | CIO, Value First

“If I have to groom someone for the CIO post, I will follow the steps involved in Next100”

mportant Interview Criteria Relevant experience is foremost of all. If the candidate has less than 10 years of experience and he is suitably placed to become the next CIO, it simply means that either the candidate is extraordinary (very unlikely), or that he is just plain lucky, or the company that he is representing is too small.

Fascinating Aspects of the Next100 Process I think the process is appropriately done to select the right candidate. The various skill assessments (managerial and personal) help us understand personality traits and management styles of the candidates. And then the interview process helps us to understand their depth of experience. Finally, the decision is based on various factors, all of which are appropriately placed to select the right candidate. I think, if I have to groom somebody for the post of the CIO at ValueFirst, I will select the candidate through these steps. Prerequisites of a Next100 Winner In my opinion, the candidate should have at least 10

itnext | june 2 0 1 2

plus years of experience with hands on experience in IT infrastructure management.

How to Better Next100 Awards Process I think, we definitely need more CIOs on board, those who are active and willing to add value through communication. One article from each jury member in print, speaking about the criteria is advised. The idea is to help the managers understand and align themselves to what is expected from a CIO. I highly appreciate the personal involvement of the team in bringing the required quality to the process—which is a right step. Changing Role of a CIO The role of future CIO is a complete reversal. He is no more a techie who can give business a patient hearing. He is now a business guy with amazing insights into technology. He needs to make the right decision, select the right partner for a job, manage such vendors and execute tasks.

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WINNING TEAMS | 2012

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EVENT BY

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9.9 Media, the publisher of CTO Forum and ITNEXT magazines, is pleased to introduce Indiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first Technology Premier League - a pioneering initiative to identify and honour corporate IT teams that have knowledge, flair and ingenuity to solve complex technology problems, quickly and correctly. 20 teams in each city will fight to prove their mettle.

event Report | enterprise mobility

Mobility Drives

Agility, Efficiency & Green The two-city event saw IT heads brainstorm ways to make their business more agile using mobility

obility is increasingly becoming a bigger reality for most enterprises. However, while there have been many major deployments of mobility solutions, the top management and the CIOs are often in a dilemma regarding mobility. This was the theme of the two-city event jointly organised by 9.9 Media Ltd, the publisher of CTO Forum and IT NEXT magazines, in association with Dimension Data and Cisco. The panel discussion held in Bangalore on April 18 at the Vivanta by Taj, Whitefield, was followed by a similar event at the Grand Hyatt, Santacruz, Mumbai on April 20, 2012. At both the events,

Panellists discuss about challenges and the roadmap ahead for enterprise mobilit y at the event

R Giridhar, Group Editor, IT Next moderating the event in Mumbai

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Senior it professionals all ears at the mumbai event

enterprise mobility | event Report in-depth and thought-provoking discussions were held amongst top technology decisionmakers on issues related to enterprise mobility. The panellists included Parag Deodhar, CRO and VP, Bharti AXA; Ravindra HS, Associate VP-IS, Sasken Communication; Nandkishore Dhomne, AVP-IT, Manipal Hospitals; Ravinder Vaswan, IT Operations Director, Informatica Business Solutions Ltd; Murtaza E Bhatia, National Manager (Security), Dimension Data and Kalyan Kumar, Regional Manager (Security & Mobility), Cisco. The discussion was moderated by N Geetha, Executive Editor, IT Next. The discussion focussed on critical issues such as how to strike the right balance between the level of support given to the mobile users, and the extent to which business processes enabled users take advantage of mobility. Concern areas such as reducing capex while embracing green alternatives and leveraging enhanced application delivery models through devices such as tablets and smartphones also came into focus. Sanjay Gupta, Country Director Dimension Data, one of the speakers at the panel discussion, said by 2014, Gartner predicts smartphone OS, by popularity, would be dominated by Android, Windows and Apple, and by 2015, Android is expected to have almost 50 per cent smartphone market share. Gupta said that CIOsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; concern is managing consumerised mobility and collaboration in the enterprise, as users want autonomy to create new processes and deliverables on any devices they choose. Therefore, IT must guarantee service levels, metrics, security and support to all users. The panel discussion was followed by a demo of Ciscoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s WebEx, which offers collaboration solutions for online meetings, remote support, and webinars and online events. The event was followed by a similar event in Mumbai, which was attended by a host of IT decision-makers and senior professionals. The panellists at the Mumbai event included Aroon Hingorani, VP, Reliance Capital Asset Mgmt Ltd; V Subramanian, GM and CISO, IDBI Bank Limited; R Muralidharan, CIO, Syntel Inc; Anuragi Raman, Associate Director, Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd; Meheriar Patel, CTO, Globus Stores Pvt Ltd; Suresh A Shan, Head, Business IT Solutions, Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd; Murtaza E Bhatia, National Manager (Security), Dimension Data and Kalyan Kumar, Regional Manager (Security & Mobility),Cisco. The discussion was presided by R Giridhar, Group Editor, 9.9 Media Ltd. The panellists came up with interesting insights into some of the hot topics that included impact of

Sanjay G upta, Country Sales Director, Dimension Data India Ltd, on how it must guarantee service levels, metrics, securit y to all users

Panel in Bangalore: L -R- Nandkishore Dhonne, Ravinder Vaswan, Parag D eodhar, Ravindra HS, Murtaza E Bhatia and Kalyan Kumar

IT decision-makers and senior professionals as part of the audience at the enterprise mobilit y event in bangalore

mobile device proliferation (tablets, smartphones, etc) on the enterprise; the effect of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) trends on organisations; collaboration tools necessary to manage a growing mobile workforce; how to make the mobile environment secure using the right tools and effective frameworks, etc.

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insight |security

Beware

of IP Thieves

Strict adherence to security policies is mandatory given that theft of intellectual property is on the rise BY MACDON N E L L U LS C H & M I C H A E L J S U L L I VA N

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ho will figure out how to provide food and clean water for a world populatiÂo n that soon will reach seven billion people? Who will develop drugs to treat devastating diseases? Who will market the next generation of energy-saving solutions? And who will introduce the next big thing in information technology? These questions spur governments, entrepreneurs, scientists and engineersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; all hoping to strike it big or advance the cause of humankind. But the creators of these solutions are not the only ones racing to answer these questions. Many more are lurking in the shadows to exploit the work of others.

photog raph: photos.com

security | insight The theft of intellectual property (IP) and trade secrets is big business, and the thieves range from corporate competitors to nation-states engaged in economic, industrial or technological espionage. Target No. 1 is the United States, which is responsible for nearly 40 per cent of the global R&D investment. The first nation behind the illicit acquisition of the US IP and trade secrets is China. But China isn’t the only one. More than a hundred nations are engaged in the illegal transfer of technology. Protecting IP and trade secrets is not just in a company’s self-interest. National security, critical infrastructure security, and commercial success require paying more attention to defending the developments that fuel the economy and provide jobs. Here are some measures that can help protect intellectual property and trade secrets from unauthorised access and illegal acquisition: Accept the fact that the threat is real: Many companies ignore the threat— because they think they are too small to be on anybody’s radar screen. That’s not true. The internet is a great democratiser of market presence and competition. No company is immune; no secret is safe. Identify valuable secrets: A common definition, derived in part from the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, is that secrets include all forms and types of financial, business, scientific, technical, economic or engineering information that the owner has taken reasonable measures to protect and which have an independent economic value. This information may be tangible or intangible, and it may be stored, compiled

Key Security Trends to Counter Increasing Threats Cloud & Security Advanced Persistent Threats Secure Mobile Applications Risk Management & Compliance Identity Management

or memorialised physically, electronically, graphically, photographically or in writing. Consider personal information: If the company is required to protect personal information, use those requirements as a minimum threshold of defence. Leverage the security already being deployed. Limit access: Not everyone needs access to IP, yet many companies place few restrictions and barriers to access, even though it should be on a need-toknow basis. Social media: Many secrets are compromised through social media use when employees blog about their work. Engineers, researchers, technologists and others seeking peer review are inclined to post information for review. Unfortunately, such sharing reduces the level of control that companies can exert over protected information. Use encryption: When transmitting secrets, use encrypted email, encrypt documents and don’t share passwords. Create strong password policies and enforce them. Conduct background investigations: Know who is being hired. No one wants to inadvertently hire a spy who is intent

$71 bn security products and related service markets by 2014 from $55 bn this year —Gartner

on stealing secrets, but it does happen. Conduct background reinvestigations: Circumstances change, financial conditions change and so does the motivation to steal secrets. Companies often conduct inadequate, one-time background investigations. Create awareness: This may be the best example of security value. Explain to employees and third-party vendors that information must be protected. Set the tone from the top, starting with the CEO and the board. Approximately half of internal breaches result from administrative error and the mishandling of information. Place a value on secrets: Place a realistic value on the information, and hire a third-party firm to help estimate that value. Calculate the short and longterm value, based on investment level and revenue-stream projections, as well as on the importance of that information to the company’s market and competitive positions—and the ability to continue in business if the information were stolen. Third-party vendor risk: Ensure that vendors are managed effectively through risk-reinforced service-level agreements. Hold vendors accountable for managing security, privacy, threat and risk analysis, and compliance. Articulate enforcement requirements, insist on internal audit access and examine foreign corrupt-practices management processes. Measure success: Measure the organisational success by monitoring and auditing tools, policies and procedures, employees and third-party vendors to ensure compliance. While protecting critical information can be challenging, it is essential in an increasingly hostile world. Our economic, national and homeland security depend on it. Protecting intellectual property and trade secrets may make the difference between business success and failure. MacDonnell Ulsch is CEO of ZeroPoint Risk Research and the author of THREAT! Managing Risk in a Hostile World. Michael J Sullivan, Esq, is a partner in the Ashcroft Sullivan LLC law firm and serves as an executive research fellow at ZeroPoint

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John G Schmidt | interview

Big Data Needs Lean Methods John G Schmidt, VP, Global Integration Services, Informatica constantly advocates the business potential of emerging technologies to his customers. In conversation with N Geetha, Schmidt explains how to harness big data with lean data management techniques

Elaborate on the influence of big data, and how much sense does it make to IT managers at this point of time? The industry term big data means different things to different people depending on who you are asking and it is manifested in different forms. However, the basic concept of big data as we perceive is enterprise information in all its forms—unstructured, structured, and semi-structured—which is becoming massive and as a result, more difficult to manage. For instance, if you look at public sector, in particular government organisations, they have huge information and data flow, which is cumbersome to manage. This is big data. The telecom companies for instance generate phone bills and massive amount of data transaction happens with the bills’ monthly billing data running into 170 pages. Big data is the confluence of three mega trends: big transaction data, big interaction data and big

data processing. IT heads play a pivotal role in implementing effective data management strategies to address this trend. Big data opens up tremendous new possibilities for government organisations in terms of gaining fast and multifaceted insights that can improve public sector capabilities. This holds good for all the verticals, as IT heads can leverage big data trends to business advantage. I would advise IT heads to harness big data with lean data management strategy, which can definitely bring greater business advantages.

Can you elaborate on how IT managers can leverage the lean data management strategy? With the increasing shift towards the virtual world, even for simple functions, with the increasing online and mobile transactions with the advent of cloud computing—one thing is clear—big data is here to stay. However, while

the data is adding up to huge amounts, one pertinent question that arises is, are organisations able to reap as much from this data as they should? In a competitive climate that demands almost 100 per cent efficiency, organisations today are making constant efforts to maximise the return on their data. The organisation that succeeds in such a climate is one that is able to integrate its data in such a way that it minimises wasted effort, provides fast justin-time delivery and engages workers, who clearly understand their role in the entire process and are empowered to drive improvements. Lean data management strategy is used to harness big data to create opportunities. Lean Integration represents such a refined phase of data integration and can take the company a long way to this level of efficiency. Being more specific, data can be managed in a lean or non-lean way. Inefficient processes, high work-in-process backlog, slow batch-oriented

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interview | John G Schmidt delivery and executives who are constrained in narrowly defined tasks characterise a non-lean operation. Lean Integration has been shown to generate up to 90 per cent reduction in project lead-time, 50 per cent gain in integration team productivity and significant and continuous improvements in project quality. It means agility for the business, decreased risk for senior IT executives and lower cost for IT developers and managers. With numbers like these, any organisation has a lot to gain in terms of lean integration.

How do you see the big data challenge across industry verticals? The challenge of the increase in data deluge is invading every sector. Despite the use of the most sophisticated data management tools, every organisation is going through the challenge of data wastage. On an average in every company, about 50 to 70 per cent of the data can be termed as nonaccessed data. The legacy systems that are not being used or have not gone through the migration process, also adds to data wastage and unstructured data category. Ninety per cent of the data warehouses are not actively accessing data residing in it and in some cases, it is not metered appropriately. How does lean data management strategy work? We observe that most data landscape across organisations is fertile with opportunities to improve performance across multiple domains, yet riddled with the pitfalls posed by rising data volumes, complexity, diversity and velocity. Lead data management addresses the challenges of data silos and ensures that all data is trustworthy, actionable and authoritative. This is possible as the lead data strategy proac-

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tively does knowledge sharing, and facilitates co-creation and interaction between the different business and user groups so that it is effectively used.

Can you elaborate on your strategy to help customers harness big data with lean data management? As a strategy, we recommend our customers to use certain tools and data integration technologies to measure the wastage of the data in an operational system. Every data is analysed and by combining large-scale transactional data with new interaction data and taking advantage of lean data management practices, we enable customers to leverage existing resources to reduce costs while

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The organisation that succeeds is one that is able to integrate its data in such a way that it minimises effort, provides fast justin-time delivery and engages workersâ&#x20AC;? improving the response times and quality. Lean data management takes many forms how lean principles can be applied to applications, data warehouses, and portfolio management to maximise the return on data while managing big data growth and its associated costs.

What technologies can customers look at to address big data challenges as part

John G Schmidt | interview data management (MDM) tools to integrate with CRM packages for consolidating the data.

of the lean data management strategy? Most common and recommended practice is to archive the data in a compressed format. Mostly, sectors like banking and healthcare that are bound by certain mandatory regulations would need to compress the non-active data. Banking, healthcare and other sectors have been using business analytics to determine the structured and unstructured data and analyse data quality, besides driving operational efficiency. Technologies like data de-duplication are being looked at to compress data. ETL is another tool, which is being evaluated to derive value of the existing data and gain insights into the data lifecycle. Customers are evaluating master

Find other interviews online on the website www.itnext. in/resources/ interviews

How are big data related solutions addressing customer issues? Our customers spreading across travel, logistics, healthcare, manufacturing, etc, had huge big data challenges. One of the logistic companies has the business need to reduce the cost incurred on the gas and increase operating margins, while providing reliable data for accurate decision-making. We recommend solutions around data quality, identity match option, and data explorer to create a single, unified development environment for trusted and high-quality data. These solutions enabled the company to increase data accuracy and accelerate implementation. The data explorer helped the customer to investigate, discover and map any data record from any source, for reliable and trusted data. Using these solutions, the customer could save millions annually in truck idle time using unified, reusable data quality environment, delivered RoI in three months, saved million using data profiling to enhance truck maintenance system data quality. With the deployment of the solutions, the new enterprise data warehouse may save between $9 and $20 million over two years. The interesting aspect is that the solution was deployed at a manufacturing company in four and half months with team who had previously been unfamiliar with data quality solutions. There have been reduced emissions which supported the organisation’s environmental commitments. The customer could see a comprehensive, accurate picture of the content, quality and structure of its enterprise data. The key benefit

of the data management solution was to solve business problems faster by empowering the business to paticipate in data quality process. Manufacturing companies are increasingly looking at lean data management solutions, as there is a business need to respond more quickly to market change, analyse cost data, and increase efficiency. One such Indian customer, Asian Paints, used analytical solutions to create a customer user interface to create a shared product costing system for the company’s portfolio of paint products. We helped customers integrate raw material, BOM and other data—regardless of its source or structure, including the deployed SAP, Infor Optiva and i2 (now JDA) environments. The solutions helped in reconciling discrepancies in the way Asian Paints’ different systems structure data, thereby maintaining a consistent view of the product costing data across all systems. Asian Paints saw reduction in time needed to run its productcosting model from 24 hours to 20 minutes on using shared model of the product costing system.

INFA claims cloud as the fastest growth driver that can address big data challenges? Can you substantiate the statement? In fact, the cloud model is not a challenge for IT heads. It is enabling them to understand the data challenges better and helping them put up a cloud integration process and allowing them to come up with new offerings. For instance, Amazon has come up with the best data integration platform on the cloud model. The model that Asian Paints evolved, the product-costing model, is also offered as a cloud integrated shared services model.

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insight | storage

Bet Best

Cloud:

for

Cloud storage is emerging as the most favoured option for IT managers for backup, recovery and archival needs

Storage

By M a n u S h a r m a

n the current economic scenario, downsizing and cost containment have become a norm for any organisation. One of the biggest concerns for IT heads today is finding better methods and techniques to protect their information assets and be prepared for quick recovery. To address the cost-related challenges associated with data backup, recovery and archival, cloud storage is emerging as the most favoured option for providing enterprises an easy and reliable medium of backup strategy. Certain best practices could be followed to improve the backup, recovery and archival process.

While most companies prefer to go for a private cloud, there are concerns about upfront investments. To address this some vendors are already offering services termed ‘on-demand private cloud’ and ‘virtual storage on cloud’. Other data centre players are likely to offer similar facilities shortly. While most

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illustrati on: photo s. co m

Testing Waters with Virtual Storage

storage | insight IT heads at this point of time have gone in for traditional disk-based backup depending on the criticality of data, many large enterprises are testing the waters with cloud. Vijayant Rai Director, India & SAARC, Nimsoft & Data Management, CA Technologies, says, “We are seeing a lot of interest specially in the SMB sector in various services like ‘backupas-a-service to the cloud’ and ‘DR-as-aservice to the cloud’. According to Rai, many small businesses barely have the time, money and resources to run all IT operations and at the same time, adequately protect the systems, applications and data that their business depends on everyday. “And most don’t have a disaster recovery plan and solution even though many would go out of business if hit with an unplanned disaster like fire, flood, hurricane or earthquake. Even simple day-to-day challenges like power outages, viruses, malware, and unplanned system outages can cause irreparable harm to their business. DR in cloud offerings is definitely an option being explored by SMBs,” adds Rai. V Srinivas, CIO of Nagarjuna Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd, says, “Data is growing exponentially and is very crucial for any organisation. Hence, backup and recovery are essential. In our company, we utilise about 60 GB of data every month and have hosted the primary data on our Tier IV data centre located at Hyderabad with full backup on the secondary data centre. Even our emails are on Lotus Notes. As such, we are not on the cloud yet. But looking at the future needs we are migrating to the cloud with email to start with.” Sandeep Singh Walia, Assistant General Manager (IT), HT Media, says, “As a media company we have deployed about over 100 TB of data so far. About 45 TB of data is stored as secondary data related to ERP and SAP applications.” Walia added, “We took a conscious decision to move our email services from Lotus to Microsoft 365, which is a cloud-based model. However, we don’t have any plans to move our entire data to the cloud model as yet.”

Best Backup Strategies Reduce overall costs by introducing solutions that are simple, easy to deploy, support heterogeneous platforms, are application-aware and work in physical, virtual and cloud environments Ensure that solutions adopted have clear roadmap to align with the organisation’s future needs and business requirements Adopt newer technologies like de-duplication to reduce the overall storage footprint Ensure comprehensive data protection strategies taking into account the following parameters: 1. Low backup window 2. Using space saving methodologies (incremental, differential, full) to optimise and reduce storage footprint

However, Lakshman Narayanaswamy, Co-founder & VP, Sanovi Technologies, has a different view. “I see this very promising with players like Amazon, Google, Microsoft—all in the race of virtual cloud movement. According to Narayanaswamy, there are two kinds of services being offered—pure storage and storage with application on the cloud, whose benefits are plenty. Vendors like IBM find customers using cloud resilience services for better gains and speed. “The new IBM SmartCloud Resilience services enable customers to protect their data and applications faster, cheaper and in a more flexible manner than they could earlier within a traditional data centre environment,” says Erik Elzerman, Director Trivoli, Software Group, IBM Asia-Pacific. However, there are several challenges that the IT heads need to put up with when it comes to cloud storage.

Cloud Storage Challenges Industry experts say that industry is undergoing significant changes trig-

3. Choose archiving location either to disk, tape or cloud depending upon the criticality of data 4. Implement strategic technologies by adopting integrated cloud for offsite storage, and automated conversion to virtual, so that you have standby machines ready to use in case of failures 5. Protect your information completely by using appropriate security and backup solutions so you may even opt to backup the cloud 6. Data de-duplication can help reduce your backup storage by up to 95 per cent 7. Integrated cloud storage for backup retention, providing an additional disaster recovery location 8. Infrastructure visualisation with Storage Resource Manager (SRM) reporting to proactively avoid problems

gered by the emergence of cloud computing and the explosion of data, posing several challenges to IT heads. “Shrinking backup and restoring windows and also leveraging new technologies like CDP, de-duplication are major challenges,” says Kumar Mitra, Regional Director, India & SAARC, Data Protection, Quest Software. Besides, Mitra observes that aligning new technologies to organisation’s existing framework of e-discovery, policy enforcement, records compliance, and storage reduction is another challenge. “IT departments are struggling to adjust, as they grapple with leaner staff and trimmed budgets, given that the market does not have any salesforce.com like serious players who are on cloud storage, says Walia. Archie Jackson, GM-IT, Steria India Ltd, says that budget constraint is a major challenge as IT heads do not allocate adequate sum for this. Besides planning, cost, negotiations, SLA agreements also add to the challenges. “One of the challenges encountered

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insight | storage commonly is finding a right third party data centre. All the players claim to possess certifications on security, but there is not enough proof of the same when it comes to delivering the task on cloud,” adds Srinivas. According to CA’s Rai, the single biggest challenge for IT managers today and in the near future will be visibility and control of his data and applications that now reside in multiple locations: on-premise, off-premise, with MSP/ private clouds and in third party cloud storage. In addition, it is managing the continuous and explosive growth of data, besides ensuring that applications are always available to the business.

How is Data Stored on The Cloud? Finding enough storage space to hold all the data acquired is going to be a challenge. While certain amount of investment has already gone into traditional hard drives, some also prefer external storage devices like thumb drives or compact discs. But IT heads are now beginning to test the cloud storage models for storing their data. The trend that Rai observes is cloud computing becoming integral to data

“As such, we are not on the cloud yet. But looking at the future needs we are migrating to the cloud with email to start with” V Srinivas, CIO, Nagarjuna Fertilisers and Chemicals Ltd

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Emerging Trends The evolution of data backup and protection solutions have been the direct consequence of the changing business trends over the last few years. Going forward, some key trends include: Support Virtual Environments: With the increased adoption of virtual and cloud environments, clients are demanding intelligent tools that can monitor virtualised servers and offer backup, replication and recovery solutions in any virtualised environments. Application-level Support: The clients prefer comprehensive backup and archiving solutions across applications such as Microsoft SQL Server, Exchange, Sybase, DB2, SharePoint, Active Directory, and Oracle. Intelligent Integration: There is a need to integrate enterprise-class de-duplication across physical and virtual backup products with the archiving solutions. Compatibility/Portability: The solution should support heterogeneous platforms like Windows, Unix, Solaris, Linux among others and should span across virtual, physical, application and cloud environment.

protection. With investments going up, the data protection spending is focussing on management of hybrid cloud environment, investment in public cloud for backup and protection of private cloud. Cloud storage refers to saving data on an offsite storage system maintained by a third party. Instead of storing information on your data centre or

other local storage device, you save it in a remote database and connect to it through the internet. Walia points the advantages of cloud storage over traditional data storage—it enables the user to access data from any location without being concerned about the storage location.

Cloud Capacity and Cost Most agree that for an organisation to buy about one TB of online space, say from Google, will cost about $250 a year. This is the annual fee, which means the recurring costs will be more. However, some online services offer certain amount of free storage. All cloud storage will have a pricing and metering engine. Therefore, it points towards the need for the integration of quicker, more efficient and affordable backup and recovery solutions. Amazon S3 Cloud Drive, one of the pioneers, offer S3, a low-cost data storage service equipped with own web management interface and APIs. In India, players like Tulip Cloud provide managed on-demand storage services and backup-as-a-service (BaaS) among others. CtrlS offers on demand IaaS services with inbuilt multi-tenancy and security and dedicated virtual appliances, and is said to be costeffective.

15minute manager

training Education workplace compensation workforce trends skills development personal development

Page xx

Strategy: Data Management Strategies this page Review: Android 4.0 Tablet page 46 Trends: Mobile Security: Held at Ransom page 47 Training Calendar: IT & Telecom page 48

BY Gav i n M i c h a e l

ost companies today are talking about managing humongous amounts of data. Sectors like BFSI, telecom and retail particularly, deal with massive amounts of information that will be used to evaluate and plan business strategy. To be able to make quick and informed decisions, data needs to reside in such a manner that different teams can use it seamlessly across marketing, finance, product development and sales, for example, and not create a situation where each team has to reinvent the wheel. Given this backdrop, industrialisation of data has become a necessity, and CIOs across the board have recognised this and are exploring ways of making it available across the organisation. The CIOs need to find ways to unlock the potential of the data and utilise it more effectively to drive better efficiency.

il lustratio n: s hi gi l n

Give the Freedom, Share Data CIOs have increasingly realised the importance of decoupling data from applications to deliver greater flexibility, but many of them are discovering that a further step is being demanded of themâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;freeing data to be easily moved,

Data Management

Unlock the Data IT managers need to develop industrialisation tactics to make data available to create better value

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15-MINUTE MANAGER shared, analysed, or integrated. The demand is already there, and is growing rapidly as firms realise the value of data. But CIOs need to cater this demand by ‘industrialising’ the sharing of data. In return, this will help firms extract new value from their data. However, it can be observed that the earlier data sharing activities are ad hoc. Newer data management techniques are required to unlock their potential and to be used for better innovation. Consider the data currently held within a sales team’s CRM system. The same information has value for the marketing team, who could use it to map out customer loyalty trends. A product team may see the possibility of creating a new offering from it. Some financial services firms are already fusing customer, finance and risk data to help spur the development of new products.

Industrialise to Share Data Most enterprises have started recognising that their data has value beyond its original purpose. More companies are beginning to engage in richer data sharing as analytics increase their appetite for more data and drives them to better utilise existing data. To put it in simpler terms, by shifting to a model where data sharing is industrialised, any part of the business could tap into whatever data is required, generating more and more value. Right now, however, most data sharing efforts are ad hoc, leaving a patchwork quilt of integration systems. Data management needs to shift from being an IT capability buried within application support, to becoming a collaborative effort that enables data to be used far beyond the original application it was intended for. Doing so is now possible because of advances in the technologies used to manage, process, and store data. Web pioneers such as Amazon, Facebook, Yahoo, and Netflix that have solutions for their own data-management challenges, have developed many of these.

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Stress Management

Alternative Stress Management

Overview of Yoga Many of the popular techniques found to reduce stress derive from yoga: Controlled breathing Meditation Physical movement Mental imagery Stretching A partial list of Yoga’s benefits: Reduced stress Sound sleep Reduced cortisol levels

What’s involved with Yoga? The practice of Yoga involves stretching the body and forming different poses, while keeping breathing slow and controlled. The body becomes relaxed and energised at the same time. There are various styles of yoga, some moving through the poses more quickly, almost like an aerobic workout, and other styles relaxing deeply into each pose. Some have a more spiritual angle, while others are used purely as a form of exercise. What are the benefits of Yoga? Virtually everyone can see physical benefits from Yoga, and its practice can also give psychological benefits, such as stress reduction, a sense of well-being, and spiritual benefits. What are the drawbacks of Yoga? Yoga requires some commitment of time and is more difficult for people with certain physical limitations. Some people feel selfconscious doing some of the poses. Also, Yoga classes can be expensive, although it is possible, albeit perhaps more challenging, to learn from a book or video. Comparison with other stress reduction methods

Cope with Pressure: Right techniques and focussed practices for better living

As yoga combines several techniques used for stress reduction, it can be said to provide the combined benefits of breathing exercises, stretching exercises, fitness programmes, meditation practice, and guided imagery, in one technique.

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“IT managers will enforce functional style changes in the way data is consolidated, compressed, and backed up” Amit Phadke, Head, Systems & Technology, Kale Consultants Ltd

“Big data is emerging as the most influential aspect in the enterprise, enabling business decisions” Dr Muthukumaran, IT Professional & Consultant

Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos has noted that his company’s advances in data management have helped provide the necessary architecture to develop its cloud storage and data management services and the flexibility to respond rapidly to new ideas.

IT Heads Need a Change in Thinking It has always been difficult to provide business users with the data they need to make effective decisions. At every stage, the siloed nature of data tied directly to applications has thwarted

“Industrialisation of data has become a necessity, and CIOs are exploring ways of making it available across organisations” —Gavin Michael, CTO, Accenture

Dimension of data value as a trend in data services Utility: Data utility is a cornerstone of data value. The concepts of quality, provenance, freshness etc, play key roles in determining the value of data. Uniqueness or exclusivity: Is the data unique or exclusive? Is access to the data controlled and owned by a few or is it available publicly? Ease of production: How easy or difficult is it to ‘product’ the data? This dimension is orthogonal to the previous one. Usage and sharing restrictions: Are there any restrictions, such as confidentiality or regulations, on how the data can be used, shared or stored. Usability and integration: How easy is it to use and integrate the data?

IT’s efforts to manage data consistently across the organisations. To streamline these newer models of data management, efforts must be duplicated for each silo, driving the cost up and RoI down. A data sharing model, by its nature, will accelerate companies towards the notion of centralised data management. By creating an abstraction layer between data and applications, IT has the opportunity to standardise and industrialise data management. However, for getting to this kind of transition, the CIOs need to rethink several issues, starting with how data ownership and responsibility is handled and the skills required within the team for sharing the structured and right data. There are a few key aspects that the CIOs should keep in mind before industrialising data: Rethinking data ownership: Industrialised data sharing demands new ways of centralising processes and tools for data management. At the same time, the notion of data ownership must become more distributed.

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15-MINUTE MANAGER REVIEW

7-Inch Google Android 4.0 Tablet Review

A new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) tablet has now hit the international market, and is competing on a price level that has proved to be popular with other tablets. As the first Android 4.0 ICS tablet in the world, FG-J07, Ainol NOVO 7 Paladin is available for purchase now, with model name FG-J07, branding with Ainol NOVO 7. This new Novo7 (Model name FG-J07) Android 4.0 Tablet is being released to the international tablet-hungry market at a very affordable price. The tablet is the first one to feature Ice Cream Sandwich OS 4.0 Android platform. This Chinese Android tablet PC is a direct competitor to the Amazon Kindle Fire and their ARM processors. Its MIPS technology is expected to perform just as well and at this point looks to be entering the marketplace cheaper than the Kindle Fire price point. Amazonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tablet is expected to increase in sophistication with new versions and enhancements for the Amazon Marketplace. Apple iPads will still have a leg up on speed, quality and acceptance. However, for anyone waiting for after Christmas budget tablets this one will fit the bill for sure. While the operating system is new, the rest of the specs are pretty common. The tablet includes: * 7 inch, 800x480 pixel display * 1 GHz ARM Cortex-A8 CPU * 512 MB RAM * 4 GB storage

imaging: shi gil n

The good news is the PMID701i does feature a capacitive multitouch display, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, and a micro SDHC card for extra storage. Polaroid says the tablet should get up to six hours of battery life while surfing the web, or five hours while watching videos with WiFi disabled.

While the tablet sports Android 4.0 goodies such as a new tabbed web browser and user interface, it does not appear to be a Google certified device. It ships without the Google Play Store, and the user manual instead suggested downloading the Amazon Appstore in order to install third party apps. Source:www.globalmarket.com

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This involves upending the traditional world of data management, which views data as a structured asset and a cost centre. Instead, data management in a services-led world requires IT leaders to think how best to enable the business to easily share and reuse any data they have. Rethinking data responsibilities: It also raises questions about data responsibility. With business units from all over the enterprise creating, consuming, combining, and sharing data, who takes responsibility for it all? CIOs will have to look at working with individual business units to coordinate data responsibility from creation to distribution. Rethinking data skills: Making this transition demands new skills too, with roles such as data curators, data scientists, and data stewards emerging. At a higher level, CIOs will need to consider whether to institute a chief data officer role. Rethinking data valuations: From a business perspective, before data is shared it is important for it to be properly valued, and this concept is changing too. Today, CIOs often think about the value of data in terms of what is required to store it. In the future, the value of data will be determined by its use and business impact. For example, a retailer can use CRM data to improve market share, or an electrical utility can use electrical consumption data to propose usagebased deals for customers. New uses for data mean new values for data. However, what is most valuable is that sharing data generates far more value from it, from enriching product development to strengthening customer loyalty and the ability to respond far faster to datadriven opportunities. The shared model essentially results in the creation of a data supply chain. It will be up to the CIO to start working with business units to coordinate data responsibility from creation to distribution, more as if they were managing the end-to-end manufacture of a bicycle than a workflow of electronic ones and zeros. Gavin Michael is Chief Technology Innovation Officer at Accenture

15-MINUTE MANAGER

Mobile Security

Held at Ransom! Mobile Apps are becoming vulnerable to newer threats that are endangering systems By H ars h a E

il lustratio n: s hi gi l n

he IT industry has been a witness to increasing threats invading organisations and the chief information security officers have been relentlessly doing their best to counter them. However, even as they tackle them, simultaneously newer security threats are invading the marketplace. Mobile applications have become more vulnerable to such innovative threats. For instance, repackaging has become the common tactic in which a malware writer takes a legitimate application, modifies it to include

malicious code, then republishes it to an app market or download site. Besides this, ransomware has been giving sleepless nights to IT managers and security heads. Ransomware is an extortion scheme whereby attackers hijack and encrypt the victimâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s computer files, and then demand a ransom from the victim for these files in original condition. This is being extended to the mobile applications as well.

Risk of Repackaging The fraudsters effectively use the repackaging technique because it is

often difficult for users to tell the difference between a legitimate app and its repackaged doppelganger. In fact, repackaging was the most prevalent type of social engineering attack used by Android malware writers in the first two quarters of 2011. The types of applications most frequently repackaged with malware include games, utilities, and porn apps. For example, DroidDream Light was originally found in 20 utility, nine porn and five game apps in the Android market. Some of the examples of applications repackaged with malware includes Bubble Buster, Chess, Spiderman, Battery Saver App, Scientific Calculator App and of course Porn App. Repackaged apps containing malware create a crisis of trust. To the naked eye, a legitimate app and a repackaged version often look the same with the exception of their permissions. Apps repackaged with malware typically, though not always, require a greater set of permissions than the original app. In some cases, malware writers will pirate paid applications and make them available for free, injecting

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15-MINUTE MANAGER

event calendar Major global events in IT and Telecom during June 2012

malware into the pirated version. Many apps don’t encrypt the data that they transmit and receive over the network, making it easy to seize the data. For example, the risk is when an application is transmitting data over an unencrypted WiFi network using HTTP (rather than HTTPS); the data can be easily sniffed using freely available software. The notable example is that the number of Google services on certain versions of Android, including Contacts Sync, Calendar Sync, and Picasa Photo Sync transmitted their account credentials in plain text, making it possible for an attacker to gain access to other people’s accounts.

Ransomware Rocking event

Venue

Dates

13th Annual Call Centre Week

Las Vegas, USA

June 4-6, 2012

CIO India Conclave 2012

JW Marriott, Mumbai, India

June 7-8, 2012

IDC Asia/Pacific Enterprise Mobility Conference 2012

The Mira, Hong Kong

June 12, 2012

Global Messaging World Congress 2012

London, UK

June 12-13, 2012

IPv6 World Congress

Amsterdam, The Netherlands

June 12-13, 2012

Mobile Network Optimisation India 2012

The Park, New Delhi, June 14-15, 2012 India

WDM & Next Generation Optical Networking

Grimaldi Forum, Monaco

June 18-21, 2012

CommunicAsia2012

Marina Bay Sands, Singapore

June 19-22, 2012

Digital Home World Summit 2012

London, UK

June 19-20, 2012

IDC’s APAC Enterprise Mobility Conference 2012

Dynasty, Sheraton Hotel, New Delhi, India

June 28, 2012

Next Generation Core Networks Summit 2012

Berlin, Germany

June 19-20, 2012

Source: www.allconferences.com

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While computer users in general and mobile apps users in particular are use to threats emerging from worms, spyware, phishing, viruses, and other malware, a new bug now bites them, which is Ransomware. Kaspersky, one of the global leading antivirus companies, warned that ransomware is a serious threat, because there is no way to recover the affected data. But what is this Ransomware all about? Ransomware is a piece of pernicious software that exploits a user’s computer vulnerabilities to sneak into the victim’s computer and encrypt all his/her files; then the attacker keeps the files locked unless the victim agrees to pay a ransom. In a typical Ransomware attack, the attacker reaches into a compromised computer by seeking the exposed system vulnerabilities. If a worm or Trojan victimised this system earlier, the attacker can easily enter the weakly configured system. He then searches for various types of important files with such extension names as .txt, .doc, .rft, .ppt, .chm, .cpp, .asm, .db, .db1,.dbx, .cgi, .dsw, .gzip, .zip, .jpg, .key, .mdb, .pgp .pdf. Knowing these files are of possible crucial importance to the victims, he then encrypts these files, making them impossible for the victim or owner to access. Later, the attacker sends the victim an email ransom or pop-up

15-MINUTE MANAGER window demanding for the encryption key that unlocks the frozen files. Once the attacker locates these files, he might implement several processing strategies. There are three steps that attacker follows. First, he can compress all the located files into a passwordprotected zip package, then he removes the entire original files; second, he can individually encrypt each located file, and then remove the original files. For example, if the original file is “DissertationFinalVersion.doc,” Ransomware will create a file such as “Encrypted_DissertationFinalVersion. doc” in order to label the original file; third, the attacker might create a hidden folder and move all the located files to this folder, producing a pseudophase to deceive the victim. The third strategy, of course, carries the slightest damage, and is comparatively feasible for the victim to retrieve all the “lost” files. Furthermore, when Ransomware attacks successfully take control of an enterprise’s data, the attacker encrypts the data using a sophisticated algorithm. The password to the encryption is only released if ransom is paid to the attackers carrying

“In a Ransomware attack, the attacker reaches into a compromised computer by seeking the vulnerabilities” — Harsha E, Head IT(Consultant), HK Group

out the attack. The attacker usually notifies the victim by means of a striking message, which carries specific instructions as to how the victim reacts to retrieve the lost files. A text file or a pop-up window message is generally created in the same folder where files are encrypted. The text file or message box clearly indicates that all the important files are already encrypted and informs the victim of specific money remittance methods. Despite the fact that the infection record is still comparatively limited,

Safeguarding Against internet Risks nly download apps from trusted sources, such as reputable app stores O and download sites. Remember to look at the developer name, reviews, and star ratings. After clicking on a web link, pay close attention to the address to make sure it matches the website it claims to be if you are asked to enter account or login information. Set a password on your mobile device so that if it is lost or stolen, your data is difficult to access. ownload a mobile security tool that scans every app you download for D malware and spyware and can help you locate a lost or stolen device. For extra protection, make sure your security app can also protect from unsafe websites. e alert for unusual behaviours on your phone, which could be a sign that it B is infected. These behaviours may include unusual text messages, strange charges to the phone bill, and suddenly decreased battery life. ake sure to download firmware updates as soon as they are available for M your device.

Ransomware has become a serious security concern for both businesses and individual computer users. It’s a new form of internet crime that extorts computer files. Ransomware are induced through the internet like other computer viruses such as the Trojan horse, worms, and spyware. This part compares Ransomware with other types of malware from a technological perspective. Recently, Russian authorities arrested ten individuals connected to WinLock, a Ransomware which displayed pornographic images and asked users to send a premium-rate text message costing around US$10 to receive a code which can unlock their machines. The scam hit a large number of users across Russia and neighbouring countries—reportedly earning the group over US $16 million. Security experts have discovered a new ransomware variant in which the scammer demands that the victim purchase a specific amount of pharmaceutical drugs from a Russian online pharmacy to meet the ransom demand. Ransomware programs also may try to embarrass victims to get them to comply quickly, using tactics like displaying adult images. Ransom.A is one program that claims it will destroy one computer file every 30 minutes until the victim pays the ransom. (In this case, however, Ransom.A doesn’t actually delete or encrypt anything—it’s a hoax. Nonetheless, it’s probably a very effective hoax.

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update

open Debate

book For you A platform to air your views on latest developments and issues that impact you

Cloud is a Strategy, not Tactic

Kamal Matta, Head-IT & Telecom, Sonic Biochem Ltd

Vijay Choudhary, Dy General Manager, IT, HRH Group of Hotels

Prakash Kumar, Director-IT, Delta India Electronics Pvt Ltd

Treating cloud like a technology solution purchase is the wrong approach. One needs to take a holistic approach to find out how IT can and should help in the business, while supporting organisational policies in building an operational model. Cloud is a strategy and an approach to create the necessary support. Aligning organisational goals with technology is very critical before jumping into the cloud operating model. Hence, I would say cloud is a corporate decision rather than a tactical strategy and not a technology, which can be bought when one so decides.

Cloud is a corporate strategy and not another technology to adopt. IT is a strategic partner for business and in the present global economy, IT products and services are expected to be perishable. In such a scenario, cloud has direct impact on capital, reducing the risk of investment cost in setting up branch infrastructures and its ongoing maintenance. Adoption of cloud would drive various benefits for internal stakeholders as well as customers in the form of increasing operational efficiencies and business agility. The core concerns of cloud are compliance and risk from security perspective.

Adoption of cloud is not just an improvement of a process or a cost-saving measure. It is a huge opportunity hence, cloud cannot be just a tactical solution but has to be a corporate strategy. This is not about just writing a few scripts or scaling the functions. Rather, it needs a more detailed thought out process, especially studying the direction of the organisation in terms of its future security needs. Since this could lead to a decision on policy, security, legal aspects, data privacy, lifecycle of cloud, appropriate cloud platform for its existing technology—the impact is manifold.

Cloud Journey TITLE: TO THE CLOUD: CLOUD POWERING AN ENTERPRISE AUTHORS: PANKAJ ARORA, RAJ BIYANI, SALIL DAVE PUBLISHER: TATA MCGRAW-HILL PAGES: 119 PRICE: Rs 595 REVIEWED BY: SANJAY GUPTA

Given the nebulous talk around cloud computing, it was high time someone brought out a book that described what is what in a clear light. To the Cloud, written by a trio of authors all hailing from the Global Strategic Initiatives organisation of Microsoft, attempts to do that and a little more. One of the best things about this book is that it is a slim volume rather than a tome and yet manages to give a well-rounded overview of such a complex topic as the cloud. In his foreword, Microsoft CIO Tony Scott says that it’s written for CIOs and IT professionals, from the perspective of a CIO. So it’s commendable that the authors have done justice to that promise and avoided the hard-sell approach typical of most vendors (including Microsoft). They have presented definitions, ideas and strategies in a four-stage framework for deploying cloud: explore, envision, enable and execute—often drawing from Microsoft’s own experience. There are practical tips, too, that IT managers and CIOs will find useful in their cloud journey. IT NEXT VERDICT

Your views and opinion matter to us. Send us your feedback on stories and the magazine to the Editor at editor@itnext.in

itnext | j u n e 2 0 1 2

The authors have explained the key concepts of the cloud fairly well and also given some reallife case studies. Timely and useful. Star Value:

the big

Social CRM

New Avatar of CRM EXPERT PANEL

Kamal S harma, Gr oup CIO & ITIM SBU Head, Mindla nce

The Situation...

C ut it from he re

Can Uday Singh expect better RoI from the social CRM trend and measure its benefits? Analysts are recommending organisations to view 2012 as the year to revisit their CRM strategy, and the potentially disruptive impact it cannot be ruled out. Analysts opine that CRM is entering a new era, where the focus is more on its relationship and less on its management. Going by this trend, social CRM is invading organisations, making the task of measuring the impact of CRM in terms of deploying appropriate tools and technologies to make it more structured, much difficult for IT heads. The most common definition provided by industry experts of social CRM is that it is the business strategy of engaging customers through social media with the goal of building trust and brand loyalty. IT heads across organisations and industry verticals are challenged by this new evolving concept. Uday Singh, Senior IT manager of a large manufacturing company is facing the major chalYour responses count. Log on to www.itnext.in/bigQ to submit your replies. The best entry will be published in the next print edition.

Sebastian Joseph, Pr esident, Technol ogy & FM, Mud ra Commu nications

Meheriar Patel , CIO, G lobus

lenge of aligning the company’s IT policies with the emerging social CRM trend. The common opinion is that Singh can derive plenty of business value by engaging with social CRM. He gets to hear from his peers that one can enhance the organisation’s value proposition by mining social data for information to glean better insight into the industry. The question that is bothering Singh, as most management consulting groups agree, is how to align business goals of the organisation with the social CRM strategy, leverage technology to support the strategy and provide appropriate tools to the employees to participate in emerging business practices and demonstrate effective network. Singh’s anxiety is also related to measuring RoI and justifying the deployment of tools and technologies for streamlining the information and data generated. Against this backdrop, Singh has two big questions that need answers from experts. Their insights would enable him to deploy appropriate tools and make effective use of social CRM.

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the big q

the big questions... What are the appropriate tools and technologies that can help Singh

? ?

use the social CRM platform effectively?

How can the ROI be measured in a purely data focussed environment?

Here are the answers... Social CRM for Business Connect FIRST ANSWER

Kamal Sharma Group CIO & ITIM SBU Head, Mindlance About me: Was instrumental in implementing stateof-art technology solutions in customer environment and ensuring good RoI for customers

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Social CRM brings along with it an array of benefits with mild constraints. The line between different customer relationships and departments is narrowing with the overflow of information. Customers are adopting social technologies at an astonishing speed with organisations unable to withstand the pace. Adoption of social networking enables organisations to connect with customers and groups who share mutual interests. Manufacturing companies need an organised approach and social CRM connects business units to the customers, giving them the opportunity to respond in a real-time basis in a coordinated fashion. Difficulties that usually occur with other software implementations may occasionally come up with CRM as well. Singh should find an easy way to use it, like user-friendly applications, real-time updates and it will in turn increase their rate of success. This will also help him track the results of product pricing and other aspects as well. Companies using social CRM have better control over their customer relationships and are informed with better insights into what their customers are really buying.

Second Answer Manufacturing industry can benefit highly by using new social marketing techniques that can help them in business, starting from driving revenue to brand awareness. Social media not only builds a powerful collection of tools for social CRM, it is also not very expensive. Singh can align the company’s growth with the investment in technologies. This will help him manage social media more efficiently on a larger scale. To begin with, he can opt for free and open tools and invest later in more advanced tools, as the longer one waits, the options multiply at lower prices. One important aspect which should be kept in mind is to equalise the costs with financial benefits, with a focus on social CRM practices for outreach to generate leads. Since social CRM channelises advertising and marketing efforts to reach the target customers, it is important for Singh to focus on this. For the manufacturing industry, the implementation of social CRM is essential. It provides the manufacturing industry with a detailed view of their customers’ relations with them. A focussed understanding of the customers goes a long way in delivering the best to them. A common mistake manufacturers make is not to realise that their customers also change as much as their business is changing. Most manufacturers keep wondering why their customer left for their competitor. Customer relationship is the reason why this happens. RoI is based on past recorded data. If you don’t have much record of social media, calculating RoI is quite difficult. For actual RoI, you have to invest first, and if you are lost in the vicious cycle of calculating benefits vs losses, it’s time to set yourself up for the social CRM wave.

the big q

Create a Blend of Old & New FIRST ANSWER Before looking at tools and technologies, I would advise Singh to revisit his existing CRM strategy. This would enable him to pinpoint the limitations that the existing strategy carries. To address the challenges, there are certain pertinent questions to which he must find answers if he has to work out an effective social CRM strategy. a) What was the original objective of the CRM strategy? Has the objective undergone any changes? If yes, are the changes fundamental or only cosmetic in nature? Fundamental changes would imply shift in business models (eg, brick and mortar to virtual. Cosmetic changes would imply change in client category, etc). b) What are the gaps found in the existing strategy as opposed to the original strategy which needs to be filled in? c) To what extent do social media impact the CRM strategy? And so on. Once Singh has clarity on his requirement and business needs, he can look at the various options available in the market—open source as well as licenced. Singh could choose from a custom-built option (effective but time consuming) to a cloud-based option or extension to existing CRM initiative (if available). Irrespective of the option being selected it is advisable to do a POC to understand how closely the solutions fit the requirement.

Sebastian Joseph President, Technology & FM, Mudra Communications About me: Created new business opportunity through the innovative use of technology

Second Answer Assuming there is a business need for social CRM, Singh needs to redevelop the existing CRM strategy to incorporate social media. The process flow (lifecycle) needs to be identified; usages for each stream must be defined and action points for each streams and the final results devised. When the strategy is implemented in a phased manner, the RoI can be measured at every stage. The cumulative effect of this would help Singh in arriving at a final RoI. This would be theoretical in nature, but practical RoI would depend on the direct benefits that are witnessed by the enterprise.

CRM

Impact of CRM Implementation* 58% of the CRM users deploy the solutions for strategic purposes

70% 60%

58%

50%

42%

40%

25%

30% 20% 10% 0%

Strategic

Operational *Based on multiple choice questions

Tactical So urce: i dc

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the big q

Social Media Means Better CRM FIRST ANSWER

Meheriar Patel CIO, Globus About me: Over 23 years experience in IT industry holding varied portfolio.Â Gained expertise in building enterprise architecture

Social media is being leveraged by companies across and essentially as a novel tool to drive conversion of sales. Strong online presence by the companies is being complemented by the presence of social media. Like other companiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; IT heads, Singh needs to encourage his employees and engage with customers on social media which might indirectly drive small revenues. Any relationship driven on the social media would be social CRM strategy. Social CRM besides creating a strong brand push also builds corporate value in driving good conversions. It is not a tactical but a corporate strategy, which would create a clear path for customer retention. Every manufacturing company has now an online presence, and Singh needs to leverage this effectively. Having a social CRM strategy would enable Singh drive customer experience. Social CRM will lead to data mining which can be leveraged for business advantage. He can look at various data mining and open source tools to structure the data derived through social media platform. Combined with the CRM strategy, the data can be put into effective use to create a brand differentiator.

Second Answer Having a social CRM strategy in place would not call for big budgets. It is only a brand perception, and engaging with right people will fetch better results. Social CRM should be aligned with e-commerce strategy to achieve better RoI and business benefits.

Notes NOTEs

More Resources 56

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Virtual Storage Platform anniversary: http://blogs.hds.com/hu/2011/09/happy-birthday-vsp.html How to avoid information overload: http://marksblog.emc.com/2011/09/episode-108-.html

update

indulge

HOT The hottest, the coolest and the funkiest next generation gadgets and devices for you

Here is a preview of the latest tech toys on the block to add to your arsenal. Take your pick and then go splurging!

MWE Emperor 200 If the chair sucks, then you need MWE Emperor 200. It’s custom built, scorpion-shaped fitted with three monitors, touchscreen control panel and an electricpowered leather seat. Price: ` 23.6 l akh

iPhone 4S Elite Gold You will experience the joy of using a gold-studded iPhone 4S. There are 500 diamonds (100 carats in all) on the phone’s bezel and 53 on its rear. Price: NA

Harry Winston Opus 12 A 18-carat gold time-teller and a serious work of art. The watch has blue metal arms shaped like draggers for traditional minute and hour . Price: ` 1.36 crore

Victorinox 1

NEW TB Swiss Army Knife It’s not just an army knife, it has a powerful tool concealed within to conquer your burgeoning appetite for data on the go—a 1 TB USB 2.0 flash drive. Price: 1,60,00,00

Like something? Want to share your objects of desire? Send us your wish-list or feedback to editor@itnext.in

j u n e 2 0 1 2 | itnext

cube chat | Ranganathan N N

Destiny Decides “Technology always fascinated me and provoked me to think how it can be leveraged for business,” Ranganathan NN, Manager BITS, M&M Financial Services By MANU SHA R M A

A My sucess

mantra “Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond to it”

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fter a 10-year successful stint as IT manager, Ranganathan (Ranga) will step into the shoes of a CIO in the next six months, the most cherished moment for him. He will become the Head of Business Information Technology Solutions (BITS) group at MIBL, the IT unit at Mahindra and one of the subsidiary companies of Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Limited (MMFSL). “I feel destiny is finally favouring me and my promotion as the CIO of BITS is a testimony to the same,” says Ranganathan. The quest for knowledge and growth doesn’t end here for him. After becoming the CIO, Ranga doesn’t intend to confine himself to an IT role. Instead, he intends to acquire business acumen and leadership skills, and be associated with company’s business growth.

“Technology always fascinated me and provoked me to think how it can be leveraged for business. While working out strategies to align technology and business, I am keen about mastering the art of leadership which will help in future growth,” he remarks. Ranga strongly believes in destiny and says that whatever he is today is driven by his destiny. “I wanted to pursue CA after my graduation, but destiny had different plans and drove me into the line of IT,” says Ranga. Recalling his initial struggle, Ranga says, “While I got easily selected for an MCA course, I had to struggle with mathematics and algorithms, as I was from a business and accounting background.” On the positive side, he got the opportunity to learn programming in COBOL, C, C++, FORTRAN, Visual Basic and Oracle during the three-year course, which

cube chat

Fact File NAME RANGANATHAN NN CURRE NT DESIGNATIO N MANAGER BITS (BUSI NESS INFORMATIO N TECHNOLO GY SOLU TIO NS) CURRENT ROLE RESPONSIBLE FOR NEW IT INI TIATIVES. I NVOLVED IN PROJECT M ANAGEMENT,PEOPLE M ANAGEMENT,PROG RES S REVIEW AND REGUL AR REPORTI NG TO THE M ANAGEMENt PROJEC T MANANGER FO R EP PORTAL,BI, KIOSK IMPLEME NTATIO N,MI B L ABHIRAKSHA

“I was interested in pursuing CA, but destiny had different plans and drove me into IT” paved the way for better career prospects. Post this, Ranga got a job in Satyam Computers as a programmer and developed a mobile-based application in C language. “This was equally challenging since MCA was more theoretical in nature and here it was more practical.” In 2002, Ranga got an opportunity to put his programming into use. He joined Mahindra Finance and experimented with his programming skills to develop various business applications using software like Foxpro and web-based applications and implemented HRMS system. “During the migration project, a transition from FoxPro to Oracle, we faced the major challenge of attrition and a new team was to be hired within no time,” he says. Ranga displayed good team spirit and

was supportive of the teams from scratch during the entire migration, testing, implementation and live production process, which gave him an insight into the finance domain. The opportunity for Ranga to take up managerial roles came after five years of his association with programming. In the new role as a project manager, Ranga led mega projects like MF-SANJAYA, EP Portal and service management certifications like the ISO 20000 certifications for BITS, etc. Ranga believes in hard work and attributes his success to the motivation he gets from his parents, wife and friends. “I admire my bosses and seniors who have supported and guided me throughout my career. Everyday, I have something new to learn from them,” he concludes.

WORK EXPERIENCE 2002-PRESE NT– MANAGER, BUSI NESS INFORM ATIO N TECHNOLOGY SOLU TIO NS(BI TS) AT M AHI NDR A & MAHI ND R A FI NANCI AL SERVICES LTD 2001-2002– PROG RAMMER,SAT YAM COMPU TERS AC HEIVEMENTS WINNER OF THE NEX T1 0 0 FUTURE CIO AWARD 20 1 1 CERTIFIC ATIO NS I TIL V3,PRI NCE2– PROJEC T MANAGEMENT, I TIL SERVICE OPERATIONS. FAVOURITE QUOT E “W HAT WE ARE IS GOD ’ S G IFT TO US AND WHAT WE BECOME IS OUR GI FT TO G OD” FAVOURI TE BOOK THE ALCHEMIST BY PAULO COEL HO

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the web f r o m

www.itnext.in Read IT Next stories published online. The links of these stories can also be accessed through your mobiles/smartphones using QR code.

ACQUISITION NEWS

Citrix Acquires Virtual Computer

HOT NEWS

Indian IT Infra Mkt to Cross $2 bn this Year Organisations are focussing on virtualisation and incorporating newer ways of data centre design. The Indian IT infrastructure market comprising servers, storage and networking equipment will reach $2.05 billion in 2012, a 10.3 per cent increase over 2011, according to Gartner, Inc. The IT infrastructure market is expected to reach $3.01 billion by 2016. “Technology’s role in the enterprise is increasing and IT’s closer alignment with business and vice versa,” said Aman Munglani, Director at Gartner. http://www.itnext.in/ content/indian-it-infrastructure-mkt-cross-2bn-year.html CLOUD NEWS

First of its Kind Cloud Integration Citrix has unveiled its easy-touse, team-based collaboration platform, Citrix Podio. This follows the company’s recent acquisition of Podio, a freemium cloud service. http://www.itnext.in/ content/first-kind-cloudintegration-collabplatform.html

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Citrix has announced the acquisition of Virtual Computer, a provider of enterprise-scale management solutions for client-side virtualisation. Citrix will combine the newlyacquired Virtual Computer technology with its XenClient hypervisor to create the new Citrix XenClient Enterprise edition. The new XenClient Enterprise will combine the power of the XenClient hypervisor with a rich set of management functionality designed to help enterprise customers manage large fleets of corporate laptops across a distributed enterprise. http://www.itnext.in/content/citrixacquires-virtual-computer.html

INTERVIEW

Sundar Ram: Big Data Needs Big Decisions IT managers need to leverage the opportunities thrown up by rapid growth of large, unstructured data, says Sundar Ram, Vice President, Technology Sales Consulting, Oracle Corporation, Asia Pacific in an interview. http://www.itnext.in/content/sundar-rambig-data-needs-big-decisions.html

OPINION

Do More with Less How you, a time-pressed IT manager, can make the most of the 24 hours you get every day, opines PH Rao, a Fellow of IIM-B and CEO of the Centre for Symbiosis of Technology, Environment & Management (STEM). Rao says all of us—Bill Gates, Narayana Murthy, you and me—have 24 hours in a day. Not a second less or a second more. Why can’t we all achieve what they have achieved in the available 24 hours? Time management is more about managing ourselves to make use of the time available and less about managing time. Acquiring such skills can lead to personal as well as professional success. IT professionals are paid comparatively better than most of professionals from other sectors. This also means that they generate more revenue (per day/month) compared to others. Collaborating with partners located in diverse geographical areas and constant deadline often calls for changes. http://www.itnext.in/ content/do-more-less. html

from the web VENDOR NEWS

GREENHOUSE NEWS

Nerolac goes Green Compliant Kansai Nerolac Paints Limited (KNPL) has deployed SAP Environment, Health & Safety (EHS) management solution to increase operational efficiency and meet environmental compliance. This is touted as a pioneering step by KNPL among Indian paints companies. KNPL is the second largest paint company in India with more than 2,300 employees. The company was looking to implement clear, transparent, and auditable processes to streamline and automate environmental compliance tasks and reporting.

http://www.itnext.in/content/first-indian-co-calculate-greenhouse-gasesthrough-erp.html

GLOBAL NEWS

China is No. 1 in Smartphone Shipments Canalys has released smartphone shipment estimates by each country for Q1 2012. Total shipments worldwide grew 45 per cent year on year to 146 million units, but significant country and regional differences were apparent. Shipments in the US rose just five per cent year-on-year, in marked contrast to the 81 per cent growth seen across the Asia Pacific region. Shipments in China doubled and overtook those in the US for the first time. In Q1, China represented 22 per cent of global smartphone shipments, while the US accounted for 16 per cent. A year earlier these figures were the other way around. http://www.itnext.in/ content/china-newno-1-smartphoneshipments.html

Oracle Aims to Simplify Mgmt of Highly Available Databases Claims that, with its Database Appliance, a single DBA can deploy high availability clustered DB in two hours. Oracle has announced its partner-led strategy to offer affordable and integrated

MOBILE NEWS

Why Mobile Device Management is Essential for IT Success? Gartner says that without a flexible approach to managing mobile devices, IT costs are likely to go up. Mobile Device Management (MDM) has become a crucial discipline for IT departments, given the increasing number of smartphones and media tablets used within organisations, according to Gartner, Inc. http://www.itnext.in/content / why-mobile-device-managementessential-it-success.html

technology solutions for the mid-market segment in India. As part of this strategy, Oracle is leveraging its ecosystem of partners to enhance adoption of Oracle Database Appliance (ODA), a new engineered system consisting of hardware and software that saves midsize companies/departments time and money by simplifying deployment, maintenance, and support of high availability database solutions. The Oracle Database Appliance provides a lower capacity entry into Oracleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s portfolio of engineered systems.

http://www.itnext.in/ content/oracle-aimssimplify-mgmt-highlyavailable-databases.html

SOFTWARE MARKET NEWS

Worldwide SCM Software Market Grows 12.3% in 2011 The worldwide supply chain management (SCM) software market totalled $7.7 billion in 2011, a 12.3 per cent increase from 2010, according to Gartner, Inc. It was the second year of double-digit growth for the SCM software market as supply chain investments kept their priority status and moved forward. http://www.itnext.in/content/worldwide-scm-software-market-grows-123-2011.html

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update

off the shelf

A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

AISHA A50 Superfone Ninja from Micromax AISHA is artificial intelligence speech handset assistant

key features Mobility | The Micromax A50 Ninja * It provides an intelligent and immakes an effort to provide an affordable mediate response smartphone solution for the masses who * Has back-end tie up with several have longed for a phone which is not just Indian portals smart but also an intelligent device. In * A50 comes on the Gingerbread succession to A85, A75, A73 and A78, Micplatform romax intensifies its Superfone portfolio * A50 has capacitive touch screen by introducing A50. Coming to the smartphone, Micromax A50 Superfone Ninja, it features Android 2.3.6 (Gingerbread), 650 MHz processor, 3.1 inch capacitive display, dual SIM support and 2 MP rear camera. A50 runs on Android version 2.3.6 (Gingerbread) with a processor speed of 650 MHz. The phone features a 7.9 cms multitouch capacitive screen to provide ease to the users. However, with A50, Micromax offers a new innovation to the user in form of AISHA. Through the voice recognition tool, users can initiate a Google search, view stock market details, know phone status, movie reviews etc. AISHA allows you to source the time and weather conditions, pose knowledge questions and a number of jobs to count on. AISHA is an application that translates words into action. By simply speaking to the phone, the users can connect with the people, businesses and activities that are important to them. The handsets price ranges from Rs 4,999 to Rs 12,500.

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Real Music To Your Ears Get ready to experience the sound that will set your heart beat racing. Envent World Wide Pvt Ltd, the consumer electronic solutions major introduces its 2.1 wood speakers that promise to blow your mind away. The multi-utility speakers are equipped with 24W RMS, PMPO of 800W, controls on the front side, external SD/USB flash drive, a knob with LED light to adjust the volume, satellite speakers with metal driver to deliver balanced sound and comes with RoHS Certificate of Compliance. Step up to a subwoofer for louder, fuller bass. With 24W RMS, Get rich, balanced audio from compact satellite speakersâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;whether you mount them on the wall or set them on your desk. Its sound fills your room with deeper bass and has the power to reach every corner, complimenting your home decor, whatever the style maybe. With these multi-utility speakers, you can play your favourite tunes with your external SD/USB flash drive, connect the same with your PC or DVD to enhance your games, music, and movies experience with deep bass. Treat your computer to an audio makeover. Give your music new depth while adding some sophistication to your desktop. The speaker is available in IndiaÂ through its channel network at a price of Rs 3,599.

Product Features * Lightweight satellite speakers * Features thumping bass with unique wooden housing * It gives easy kick-back music * It has a unique sleek look

update

LG Unveils Cinema 3D Smart TV Features * 3D audio generates 3D sound * Equipped with Intel’s WiDi (Wireless Display) technology * Embedded 2D to 3D conversion engine * Magic Motion Remote Control

3D visual | The company has launched 2012 range of Cinema 3D Smart TVs

with World’s Slimmest Bezel TVs. Leading home entertainment brand of country, LG Electronics India has announced the launch of its latest series of Cinema 3D Smart TVs incorporating Cinema Screen design and large screen size 3D TV’s. The Cinema Screen design translates the latest advances in LG’s flat panel TV technology into an aesthetically superior form. The Bezel that surrounds the new Cinema 3D Smart TVs has been slimmed down to negligible levels (1 mm), creating a more optimal and comfortable environment for immersive 3D viewing. The new range of Cinema 3D Smart TVs are accompanied by new Cinema 3D glasses for 2012. Presented in four elegant series, the new glasses are 20 per cent lighter than the previous ones, which were already the lightest in the industry. For gamers, there is the Dual Play feature, which allows two players to simultaneously view their fullscreen perspectives, without having to split the screen, thus offering a much better co-op gaming experience. This can be done with the help of special glasses. The Cinema 3D Smart TV range is available in 21 SKU’s from 32 to 72 inches in the price range of Rs 55,000 to Rs 7,00,000. The new series hits the Indian market from May’12 onwards.

ASUS Notebooks Offers Endless Possibilities Notebooks | With ASUS design thinking DNA, the

company rolls out designed N56VM and G75VW gaming notebook. ASUS has announced the enhancement of the standard of notebook by delivering a greater user experience with the latest unveiling of its new notebooks: Multimedia N56VM and Gaming Notebook G75VW. This new innovation focusses on aesthetic beauty, sound, and touch, all part of the core elements of ASUS design thinking DNA in delivering customers’ happiness. “It is our goal to create and deliver happiness to all of our customers and it is a commitment that can never be compromised,” said Alex Huang, Managing Director,

Alienware Laptop’s New Gaming Edge Alienware, Dell’s high performance PC gaming brand, is taking the mobile gaming experience to a new level with its enhanced gaming laptop portfolio that lets gamers choose a system that best fits their mobile lifestyle. The enhanced systems includes: the M14x, the most powerful 14-inch laptop in the universe, for the gamer who requires a balance between mobility and performance; and the 3Dcapable M17x for top performance with an immersive high-definition, surround-sound sensory experience. The Alienware M14x and M17x laptops deliver immersive sensory experiences, with each offering the latest NVIDIA GeForce HD graphics cards and the Creative Sound Blaster audio chipset with THX 7.1 digital surround sound and Klipschbranded speakers.

Key Advantages * Utilizes SonicMaster Premium audiophile-worthy sound * Wide-view screens with Full HD 1080p * Deluxe look with zinc alloy casing * Loaded with 1.3 TB hard drive & Blu Ray Comb drive

Systems Business Group, ASUS India Pvt Ltd. “Crafted through innovative ASUS DNA, new N Series multimedia notebooks showcase pro-grade sound, stylish elegance, and 3rd generation Intel Core processors under latest Ivy Bridge microarchitechture. Gaming Notebook Asus G75VW further redefines portable gaming,” he adds.

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my log

Sanjay Gupta Consulting Editor, IT Next (Online)

A Recipe for Innovation

In the hallowed corridors of business strategy, the term ‘innovation’ is often put on a pedestal; so high a pedestal that many CIOs and senior IT managers begin to think of innovation as ‘inaccessible’ or ‘not for us’. So when they have attended, say, a fantabulous talk on innovation, they cannot wait—not to innovate but to get back to ‘work’: Where are those new storage boxes to be installed? Or, what are we doing about the Wide Area Network link that went down? Anyone who’s come across this Trojan before—it’s giving me sleepless nights? And the laundry list goes on. Don’t get me wrong. The laundry list is what each of us must keep tending to— in order to keep the washing machine in working condition! But the point I wish to make is, it doesn’t always have to be an either/or situation: both innovations and exigencies can be a part of our daily to-do lists. Provided we look at innovation as our daily bread-and-butter rather than as an occasional icing on the cake. Sure, you can’t deny the significance of ‘revolutionary’ innovations like a Ford Model T or an Apple iPad. Such constant innovations keep companies alive and kicking in today’s hyper-competitive world. According to consultant Max Mckeown, “An organisation that can deliberately, methodically, even joyously renew itself has a ‘killer’ culture… Simply by shortening the cycles of renewal or innovation through

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experimentation, such a culture will naturally replace its own products and services by finding better alternatives.” Sohrab Vossoughi, a US-based innovation guru, is of the view that successful innovation makes a meaningful promise to a company’s customers, one that delivers what they value. Unfortunately, however, most IT managers are tied down to doing routine things. In a recent online poll, more than 80 per cent respondents agreed that senior IT managers usually spend more time in firefighting than on strategy and innovation. For a big majority, almost all the time on hand is spent addressing current problems and challenges. For one, senior IT folks must delegate some of their routine duties to be able to spend more quality time on planning and thinking. Second, they must create or help create an environment of challenges and rewards that allows all team members to think on their feet and come up with alternative, lateral or out-of-the-box ways of doing something. What’s more, for innovation to get woven into the culture fabric, even junior executives down the line should look beyond their core coding or config deliverables and approach work with a better understanding of its impact on business. Once the culture or habit of innovation takes root, it becomes difficult to do things the normal, boring way.

illu stration: ra j ve r m a

Both innovations and exigencies can be a part of an IT manager’s daily to-do list. The trick is to cook it right

3 Essential

Reads

jOHn G SCHmIDt | INTERVIEW

BiG DAtA neeDS LeAn MetHODS John g Schmidt, vp, Global Integration Services, Informatica constantly advocates the business potential of emerging technologies to his customers. In conversation with N geetha, Schmidt explains how to harness big data with lean data management techniques

elaborate on the influence of big data, and how much sense does it make to it managers at this point of time? The industry term big data means different things to different people depending on who you are asking and it is manifested in different forms. However, the basic concept of big data as we perceive is enterprise information in all its forms—unstructured, structured, and semi-structured—which is becoming massive and as a result, more difficult to manage. For instance, if you look at public sector, in particular government organisations, they have huge information and data flow, which is cumbersome to manage. This is big data. The telecom companies for instance generate phone bills and massive amount of data transaction happens with the bills’ monthly billing data running into 170 pages. Big data is the confluence of three mega trends: big transaction data, big interaction data and big

Can you elaborate on how it managers can leverage the lean data management strategy? With the increasing shift towards the virtual world, even for simple functions, with the increasing online and mobile transactions with the advent of cloud computing—one thing is clear—big data is here to stay. However, while

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John G Schmidt on how Big Data Needs Lean Methods Pg 38

Next100: Jury laud the awards process Pg 25

CUBE CHAT | ranGanatHan n n

CUBE CHAT

FAC T F I l E namE r a n Ga n at H a n n n

Destiny Decides “technology always fascinated me and provoked me to think how it can be leveraged for business,” Ranganathan NN, Manager BITS, M&M Financial Services BY MANU SHARMA

MY SUCESS

MANTRA “Life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond to it”

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C u r r E n t D ES I G n at I O n m a n aG E r B I tS ( B u S I n ES S I n FO r m at I O n t EC H n O lO G y S O lu t I O n S ) CurrEnt rOlE r ES p O n S I B l E FO r n E W I t I n I t I at I v ES . I n vO lv E D I n p r O j EC t m a n aG E m E n t, p EO p l E m a n aG E m E n t, p r O G r ES S r E v I E W a n D r EG u l a r r E p O rt I n G tO t H E m a n aG E m E n t p r O j EC t m a n a n G E r FO r E p p O rta l , B I , K I O S K I m p l E m E n tat I O n , m I B l a B H I r a KS H a

WO r K EX p E r I E n C E 2 0 0 2 - p r ES E n t – m a n aG E r , B u S I n ES S I n FO r m at I O n t EC H n O lO G y S O lu t I O n S ( B I tS ) at maHInDra & maHInDra F I n a n C I a l S E r v I C ES lt D 2 0 0 1-2 0 0 2 – p r O G r a m m E r , Sat ya m COmputErS aC H E I v E m E n tS W I n n E r O F t H E n EX t 1 0 0 F u t u r E C I O aWa r D 2 0 1 1 C E rt I F I C at I O n S ItIl v3,prInCE2– p r O j EC t m a n aG E m E n t, ItIl SErvICE O p E r at I O n S . FavO u r I t E Q u Ot E “ W H at W E a r E I S G O D ’ S G I F t tO u S a n D W H at W E B EC O m E I S O u r G I F t tO G O D ” FavO u r I t E B O O K T H E A LC H E M I ST By pau lO C O E l H O

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Ranganathan believes in destiny and his success mantra is how to respond to it Pg 58