IT NEXT May 2011 by Manan Mushtaq

IT NEXT

MAY 2011 / ` 75 VOLUME 02 / ISSUE 04

CLOUD COMPUTING: Fear is paving way for euphoria in the cloud

STRATEGY: IT managers prefer smaller firms for quick growth

38 BIG Q

INTERVIEW: McAfeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Sentonas on managing security threats

LICENSED TO GAIN

LICENSED TO GAIN IT managers squeeze the most out of software licensing options using best practices Pg 14

Mahesh Kumar Assistant General Manager- IT Infrastructure, Operations & Support, Maruti Suzuki

Vinay Mehta CIO, Escorts Construction Equipment Ltd

How to drive server efficiency Pg 49

VOLUME 02 | ISSUE 04

EDITORIAL

Playing with ambiguities The entire environment, be it political, cognitive, financial, social, information technology etc., is subject to several ambiguities, making it tough for the players to breeze through. Technology is not an exception to this rule and it is more so as there is no rule of thumb in addressing its complexities. What is that element which is missing that leads to ambiguity in any structure? It is obviously the inadequacies in the information flow. While the other verticals have been trying to bridge the gap in addressing the ambiguous elements, the IT industry, and in particular, the IT heads and senior IT managers, are caught up in this web where the ambiguities get manifested in different forms. The common rhetoric from across the IT manager fraternity is about ambiguity and confusion prevailing in the IT business transaction and deployment process. Most of the IT projects get fizzled out because of ambiguity surrounding the discussion between vendors and customers. It gets critical to understand each other’s language which synchronizes the thought process and freezes the deal. The current cover feature on ‘Software Licensing’ enabled us to look into certain ambiguous situations that the IT managers dealt with during business transactions. One of the IT heads was very categorical in saying that most of the time the vendors’ language is vague while transacting the deals. “There is so much ambiguity between their statements and their actions, which leads to frustration,” says a senior IT manager. The reason for this is inadequacy in information. However, the IT managers have been smart and making smart moves to play around these uncertainties. They seem to be evolving fundamental project management strategies to address the so called transactional ambiguities that are thrown up from time to time. One of the key initiatives that the IT managers are advocating is to evolve methods within a project management or any transactions or procurement process, which ensures provision of adequate information. The second would be to look into the internal process of what is the current structure and need, and a have tool to judge the adequacies and inadequacies. The

“IT managers are evolving strategies to address transactional ambiguities.” GEETHA NANDIKOTKUR

Blogs To Watch! Leadership and Social Effects: http://www.dlaka.com/leadership-skills/ Top 10 Benefits Of Leadership: http://briandoddonleadership. com/2011/04/28/top-10benefits-of-leadership/ Celebrate Failure: www.smartplanet.com/blog/ business-brains/-8216celebrate-failure-8217-management-tips-from-a-computergame-visionary/616enefits Of Leadership Leadership: The way to life http://www.caclubindia.com/ share_files/leadership-the-wayto-life-37917.asp Your views and opinion matter to us. Send your feedback on stories and the magazine at editor@ itnext..in or SMS us at 567678 (type ITNEXT<space>your feedback)

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LICENSED TO GAIN IT managers squeeze the most out of software licensing options using best practices

Page

INSIGHTS

BOSS TALK

INTERVIEW

22 Remote Access Remote access is becoming more popular, more complex and more risk-prone, necessitating IT shops to understand the issues involved

26 From Fear to Euphoria

Motorola’s Atrix 4G Android 2.2 smartphone can use the Lapdock to turn the device into a complete computer.

32 A Speedy, Multiplatform Browser The latest version of Firefox matches Google’s Chrome.

34 Small is the new Big IT managers want to work in smaller firms in order to learn and grow.

05 Win the Confidence | Dinesh VictorManaging Director, SIP Academy on how to win employee confidence

38 Potential threats are increasing | Michael Sentonas, VP, CTO - APAC, McAfee, on managing security

C OV ER PHOTOGRAPHY: SUBH OJIT PAUL

29 Smartphone or PC : How about both?

C OV ER DES IGN/IMAGING: ANOO P PC

While security and regulatory concerns may still keep some skeptics away from the Cloud, fear is paving way for euphoria

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Content Page.indd 2

4/28/2011 10:30:13 PM

ITNEXT.IN

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

EDITORIAL

Page

Group Editor: R Giridhar Executive Editor: Geetha Nandikotkur Associate Editor: Shashwat DC Sr Correspondent: Jatinder Singh Copy Editor: Akshay Kapoor

SMALL IS THE NEW BIG | More and more IT managers are choosing to work in smaller firms in order to learn and grow in a better way.

OPINION

DESIGN

THE BIG Q

10 Tech Talk: Mobile

49 Business Case: Server |

Malware Monster looms large | by Berjes Eric Shroff, Manager – IT, Tata Services

How to increase over all operational efficiency?

15-MINUTE MANAGER

54 Follow Your Instinct |

43 F-1 apps for mobile | The

screaming V8s have come back to town! With one or multiple apps, keep up with the F-1 action 44Tips and Tricks | Find out apps that could make your mobile safe

Sr Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Binesh Sreedharan Associate Art Director: Anil VK Sr Visualiser: PC Anoop Sr Designers: Prasanth TR, Anil T, Joffy Jose Anoop Verma, NV Baiju, Vinod Shinde & Chander Dange Designers: Sristi Maurya, Suneesh K, Shigil N & Charu Dwivedi Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

CUBE CHAT “It’s the inner soul that guides and inspire people,” says Manish Kumar Sinha, Head IT, On Dot Couriers & Cargo

SALES & MARKETING Brand Manager: Siddhant Raizada (09990388390) National Manager-Events & Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) National Manager -Print , Online & Events: Sachin Mhashilkar (09920348755) South: B N Raghavendra (09845381683)) North: Deepak Sharma (09811791110) West: Hafeez Shaikh (09833103611) Assistant Brand Manager: Swati Sharma Ad co-ordination/Scheduling: Kishan Singh

OFF THE SHELF 56 Creative Launches Ziio Tablets | Wireless enter-

tainment beyond music listening

47 Myths of the cv | You’ll

be surprised to know that many things you thought were essential to your resume are not that important...

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M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

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INBOX

COVER STORY | STORAGE SPECIAL

15MINUTE

STORAGE SPECIAL | COVER STORY

MANAGER

TRAINING EDUCATION WORKPLACE COMPENSATION WORKFORCE TRENDS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

WHAT TO LOOK IN A TABLET PAG E 5 0

Strategy: The Art of Managing T H I S PAG E Tips & Tricks: Speed Up Browsing PAG E 4 8 Personal Development: Give up to be successful PAGE 51 Training Calendar Career booster courses PAGE 52

BY KAUSHIK KUMAR

P HOTO G R A P HY: P HOTO S.C O M

he market is getting demanding day by day, which is increasing the pressure on businesses and IT. In this ever growing business environment, numerous different processes, activities, and systems are used to run the business. These include numerous workflows and procedures; some manual, some automated; that may or may not be formally documented including a variety of departmental applications and legacy databases that are likely disjointed and not well-integrated. Moreover, difficulty in getting accurate data, timely information and improper interface of the complex business functions have been identified as the hurdles in the growth of any business. So, time and again, depending upon the velocity of the growing business needs, one or the other applications and planning systems have been introduced into the business world for crossing these hurdles and for achieving the required growth. They are: Management Information Systems (MIS) Integrated Information Systems (IIS) Enterprise Wide Systems (EWS) Material Resource Planning (MRP)

STRATEGY

THE ART OF MANAGING Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) facilitates flow of information between all of a firm’s business functions A P R I L 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

IM AG IN G : B IN ES H S R E E D H A R A N

APRIL 2011

IT MANAGERS TAKE THE CUE The panacea lies in how they adapt to the changing trends, accept cloud and do intelligent provisioning while going green. BY N GEETHA

ITNEXT | A P R I L 2 0 1 1

Cover Story.indd 12

A P R I L 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

3/28/2011 11:39:50 PM

Cover Story.indd 13

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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 agree that a manager should treat the subordinates well. An effective manager should be able to inspire people down the line to get their work done rather than rebuke or toss the information. A person delegating the task should be in a position to set the example by ‘doing’. The written text provides comprehensive information on management gestures which is of great help to people.

IT NEXT THANKS ITS READERS FOR THE WARM RESPONSE www.linkedin.com/ groups?gid= 2261770&trk= myg_ugrp_ovr 300 members

READ THIS ISSUE ONLINE http://www.itnext. in/resources/ magazine

PARVESH KUMAR

This refers to the boss talk article written by Vishnu Gupta, “Save time, not money to excel.” I must say that the article is written in a simple and effective manner, throwing light on some very important points. These small notes can change the way we do our daily activities.

PERTISTH MANKOTIA Head-IT | Sheela Foam

SHWETA MUKHRJEE Engineer, ITDC

I’ve found the article “What Chokes My Internet” very impressive and interesting. Today, modern networks are very complicated and proliferation of different internet-enabled services has added to this. A step by step analysis of the problem would always help, provided the base work is already done. In the case mentioned in the article, I am assuming that a good corporate level UTM box or firewall is already placed between the ISP router and company intranet. The first thing Ravinder should do is to check the MRTG graph provided by ISP for getting the bandwidth utilization report of upload and download from the company’s internal network. He can confirm whether the problem is from his internal network or it is the ISP who should be taken into account for not providing proper bandwidth or latency for the customer’s internet traffic. From the MRTG graph, you will get a graph of both upload as well as download, based on the utilization. All firewalls are equipped with strategic tools like ACL (Access Con-

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 1

trol List), QOS and policy based management of available bandwidth. Configuration of JFLOW and CFLOW is one thing the network administrator should do in advance, along with SNMP in all network enabled devices. With SNMP, malfunction in any of the device can be displayed on the dashboard along with an alarm generation. With JFLOW/ CFLOW information captured through network management software like NetFlow Analyzer, Solar-Wind will give information about which service, which IP and which user is utilizing the internet bandwidth and in what ratio. The router, firewalls, gateway devices can show the online sessions passing through the device with information like source/destination IP, port numbers session utilization, the duration of the active session, etc. From here, he can catch the culprit responsible for getting the internet bandwidth to its bottleneck. Now, this culprit can be a user trying to download a big movie or a virus/ Trojan that is generating unsolicited traffic from inside the network Also, further analysis of the JFLO/CFLOW information will help him understand the network traffic.

This refers to the article “CIO on demand”. My sincere thanks to the author who has explained the entire theory so well. I am sure there will be a very large size of SMEs looking for these types of solutions to protect their business interest from SME ERP vendors. SHEELA GUSAIN IT Manager, BlueTech

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—EDITOR (Note: Letters have been edited minimally, for brevity and clarity)

BOSS TALK | DINESH VICTOR

PERSON NAME | BOSS TALK

MANAGEMENT

Win the Confidence

he greatest challenge that the head of every organisation faces is to win the employee confidence. The journey to being good and reach the path of greatness is really tough. Innumerable hurdles that are hazardous in nature confront the heads, which demand a matured mind to deal with. In my opinion, it is the responsibility of a CEO or a managing director in every organisation to ensure that the organisational values are appropriately adhered to by the entire project and team leaders etc., and not just restricted to HR alone. Constant message to these team heads from the top is mandatory to ensure that they maintain absolute transparency in communication with their teams.

“Handling issues with objectivity, fairness & absolute transparency in communication will win employee confidence.”

Build the Trust Clarity in the thought process is an absolute need for any organisational head. More than that, it is vital to communicate this in a coherent manner to the entire organisation, preferably to every employee. The message could be about anything, be it a welfare measure, organisational restructuring, financial status, new initiatives etc. My experience has been that it is best to be open with your employees while making them feel that they are the family members of the organisation. It is important to empower them to take decisions on critical aspects, which will build their confidence levels and make them more responsible. One should ensure that the organisation has nothing to hide except the critical business secrets.

Way to do Mutual confidence could be built through constant dialoguing and communication with the employees. It is crucial to balance between information confidentiality and employee involve-

SUGGESTION BOX

This book aims to describe how companies transition from being average companies to becoming great ones. WRITER:JAMES C. COLLINS PUBLISHER: WILLIAM COLLINS PRICE: INR 730

ment. Experience is the best teacher. Having experience combined with internal discussions with the senior management will provide more clarity in going forward. I’ll give you the example of a situation that I deal with as the head of an academic organisation. Working with nearly 80 franchisee operations, the task is huge as far as winning the confidence of my community is concerned. The confidence of the employee and the academic fraternity depend upon the kind of infrastructure that both the administrative and IT team could provide, besides my support. In my view, employee confidence cannot be managed independently. It needs to be managed holistically, and if employees believe that their future is secured and the organisational top management is capable of dealing with issues in complete fairness, the confidence will improve. In this regards, the book, “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t” from Jim Collins is thought provoking. It helps the team leaders in organising themselves better and not to lose control over their temperaments during a crisis situation and not to give up.

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

Nokia Phones with Microsoft OS on way TECH TRENDS| The partnership between Nokia and Microsoft is apparently proceeding on schedule, according to public comments by one executive. In turn, that suggests Nokia smart-phones running Windows Phone 7 could arrive by their scheduled release date sometime in 2012. “Negotiations have progressed very well,” Kai Oistamo, Nokia’s Head of Corporate Development, told Reuters on April 4. “They will be concluded well on schedule,” he added.

Y MOBILIT

Do you think the iPad makes a good enterprise device? (NUMBERS IN %)

59% of the IT managers surveyed are of the opinion that the iPad definitely makes a good enterprise device.

SOURCE:IT NEXT SURVEY

Nokia and Microsoft’s negotiations over their smart-phone partnership are apparently proceeding on schedule.

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35% No

6% Don’t know

59% Yes

TRENDS DEALS PRODUCTS SERVICES PEOPLE

But according to Nokia’s publicly released Form 20-F 2010 report, the deal continues to carry some substantial risks. “If we fail to finalise our partnership with Microsoft or the benefits of that partnership do not materialize as expected, we will have limited our options and more competitive alternatives may not be available to us in a timely manner, if at all,” reads one section of the report. “Our expected transition to the Windows Phone platform may prove to be too long to compete in the smartphone market longer term,” it adds. That aside, the deal also presents some potential benefits for the two companies, as they both seek to challenge Apple’s iPhone and the Google Android smart-phones that currently dominate the market. Under the terms of the agreement, Nokia will apparently leverage its expertise in hardware and design to “help bring Windows Phone to a broader range of price points, market segments and geographies.” It will also collaborate with Microsoft on development and joint marketing initiatives. “We expect the transition to Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform to take about two years,” the document continues. “While we transition to Windows Phone as our primary smartphone platform, we will continue to leverage our investment in Symbian for the benefit of Nokia, our customers and consumers, as well as developers,” it adds.

PHOTO IMAGI NG: SHIG IL N

UPDATE I N D U S T R Y

TECHCOM’S MULTIMEDIA SYSTEM

JABRA SPEAKTM 410 UNVEILED

SMC LAUNCHES ATM ROUTERS

Techcom has introduced the SSD 7000R – 5.1 channel multimedia home theatre system. It has a Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD), built-in digital FM radio & tuner. It is available for Rs. 3,400.

Jabra has launched the Jabra SPEAKTM 410 in India. As per the company, the Jabra SPEAKTM 410 is small, powerful and designed for portability. It includes the industry’s only truly 360-degree microphone.

SMC Networks has introduced ATM routers. This router connects to 3G networks using the user’s existing USB wireless modem. It also connects with many wireless peripherals and other Wi-Fi devices.

Loss of Smartphones Poses Big Enterprise Risk TECH TIDINGS| While smart-

phones have become an indispensable tool to communicate, work, share and collaborate, if not addressed, its risks can make you sweat with worry. A recent survey by Norton reveals that 53% of adults in India are victim to mobile phone loss or theft. Despite this, only two in five Indians currently have a password to protect their data. The report adds that the need for mobile protection is becoming important with users losing or having phones stolen an average of 1.5 times over the past five years. As annoying as it is to lose their mobile phones, 77% of

Survey reveals 1-in-2 Indians is victim of mobile phone loss or theft

victims considered the loss of contact information the worst part of the experience. Not surprisingly, more than half of the victims said that they were willing to pay a ransom to

AROUND THE WORLD

resolve the situation. However, in reality, victims end up paying nearly three times that amount to resolve the situation. Despite this, almost 3 in 10 users said that the situation was never resolved and in cases where it was resolved, 12% said that it took more than a week. “Mobile phone loss and theft is a significant issue for Indians today,” said Gaurav Kanwal, Country Sales Manager, India, Symantec. “As smartphones become more pervasive in our lives, there is a greater need to protect the data on such devices. This is one of the reasons why Norton is taking security beyond the PC to develop solutions that protect consumers, regardless of the device they use,” he added.

QUICK BYTE

“Gates cheated me,” alleges Microsoft Co-founder In “The Ideaman, a memoir by the co-founder of Microsoft”, recalling those early days when the company was founded, Allen makes some damning allegations against Gates, who apparently not only cheated him of his ‘fair share’, but also was keen to upstage Allen during his weakest period in life, when he was afflicted by Hodgkin’s disease. Mainly, Allen touches upon his partnership with Gates when they first met at Seattle’s Lakeside School in 1968.

AKIO TOYODA, PRESIDENT, TOYOTA MOTOR CORP ON PARTNERING WITH MICROSOFT TO INTEGRATE WEB SERVICES WITH TOYOTA’S VEHICLES, PROVIDING ‘TELEMATICS’ APPLICATIONS FOR CARS.

“This new partnership is going to develop future mobility and energy management for consumers globally.”

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

India BI Market to Grow 16% in 2011: Gartner TECH TRENDS | The market for

INTERVIEW AMAN MUNGLANI Research Director, Gartner

BI ranked number five on the list of the top 10 technology priorities in 2011, according to Gartner’s annual global CIO survey.

hoping that the resulting transparency and insight will enable them to cut costs and improve productivity and agility down the line,” he added. Gartner’s view is that the market for BI platforms will remain one of the fastest growing software markets despite sluggish economic growth in most regions. Organisations continue to turn to BI as a vital tool.

Data Centers Unprepared for Disasters: AFCOM The top-shelf issues have remained the same for several years. Chiefly, the national association of data center managers and enterprise IT executives, problems relate to the proper use of energy, physical and digital security, has confirmed that a high number of space limitations and convergence of data centers are not fully protected functionality into smaller devices. from potential disasters. This problem According to AFCOM, has the potential of bringing PERCENT SAY hundreds, possibly thousands enterprises to their knees. THEIR DATA CENTER HAS NO of data centers are not The March 11 earthquake BACKUP PLAN prepared well enough for and tsunami, which knocked potential disasters. out or severely damaged More than 15% of many data centers in respondents to AFCOM’s northeastern Japan, has survey said their data center brought this issue into clear Source: AFCOM has no plan for data backup. focus for the entire industry. TECH TRENDS| AFCOM, the inter-

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IT NEXT: What is the kind of growth you are seeing in the storage market in India? What are the key drivers for growth? MUNGLANI: The external controllerbased disc market in India grew at 17.8% in 2010 over 2009 and we expect the growth to continue in 2011 at 16% over 2010. The government vertical would be the biggest driver for growth in the storage market in India in 2011. While the government spending on storage contributes about 8-9% of the overall storage spend in India, going forward, we expect its contribution to increase to about 18-20%. We also expect to see increased traction in the SMB market that would fuel growth. The BFSI and telecom sectors would continue to drive storage demand. What do you think would be the key storage technologies for the next two years? Companies have seriously started looking at technologies that improve efficiency in their storage infrastructure. Therefore, while data deduplication is still at a nascent stage in India, we expect to see good traction for it in the Indian market. Storage virtualisation, on the other hand, would see slower adoption, as it is not a one size fit all solution. While it may make sense for some enterprises, it may not be suitable for other enterprises and SMBs. Automated storage tiering will be the most important technology in 2011. Organisations are realising the importance of tiering. By Varun Aggarwal

PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

Business Intelligence (BI) software in India is forecast to reach revenue of $65.4 million in 2011, up 15.7% over 2010, according to Gartner. Worldwide BI software market revenue is forecast to grow 9.7% to reach $10.8 billion in 2011. Business intelligence ranked number five on the list of the top 10 technology priorities in 2011, according to Gartner’s annual global CIO survey. “It’s a sign of the strategic importance of BI that investment remains strong,” said Bhavish Sood, Research Director at Gartner. “This market segment has remained strong because the dominant vendors continued to put BI, analytics and performance management at the centre of their messaging, while end-user organisations largely continued their BI projects,

UPDATE

Billions Lost Due to IT Network Outages in 2010 A new survey reports that 25% of enterprise IT systems suffered unplanned outages of 4 hours or more in 2010

TECH TRENDS| A survey of 7,000 busi-

nesses reports that 25% of enterprise IT systems suffered unplanned outages of 4 hours or more during the past year, costing billions of dollars in profits. IT systems integrator CDW, on March 22, released results of a study about business continuity/disaster recovery methodology that indicates 25% of all enterprise IT systems suffered unplanned outages of 4 hours or more during the past year. Based on this data, CDW said it estimates conservatively that such network outages cost U.S. businesses $1.7 billion in lost profits last year. In

NEWS @ BLOG

its Business Continuity Straw Poll, CDW queried about 7,000 mediumsize and large U.S. enterprises about significant network disruptions they had experienced since July 2009. The survey aimed to ascertain how well businesses reacted to disruptions and to determine the measures IT managers are taking to improve their business continuity and disaster recovery capabilities. “The survey confirms that while many businesses believe they are prepared for an unplanned network disruption, many are not,” said Norm Lillis, CDW VP of System Solutions.

M&A

AT&T buys T-Mobile USA AT&T is buying T-Mobile USA for $39 billion in cash and stock, a move that would make the carrier the largest in the US and accelerate its 4G LTE network deployment to catch Verizon Wireless. AT&T agreed on March 20 to purchase T-Mobile USA from Deutsche Telekom AG, paying $39 billion in cash and stock for the struggling phone carrier to help accelerate its 4G LTE (long term evolution) network plans. AT&T will pay Deutsche Telekom $25 billion, with the remainder to be paid in AT&T stock for T-Mobile in a deal both companies’ boards approve and expect to close in 12 months. Deutsche Telekom will take an 8% equity stake in AT&T, according to the deal terms. The blockbuster deal makes sense on a number of levels, starting with the fact that both run GSM technology, an important characteristic for network compatibility. T-Mobile has 33.7 million mobile subscribers, but finds itself struggling to compete with top carriers Verizon Wireless and AT&T, which serve over 94.1 million and 95.5 million subscribers, respectively. The buyout would stand to make AT&T the largest U.S. carrier if the deal passes regulatory muster.

WIN PHONE TO OVERTAKE IPHONE BY 2015 WINDOWS PHONE PLATFORM TO CONTROL 19.5% OF SMARTPHONE MARKET by 2015, according to research firm Gartner

According to Gartner, Microsoft’s strategic partnership with Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia will drive wider adoption of a variety of Windows Phone models over the next several years. Gartner isn’t the only independent market research firm predicting this. In late March, IDC predicted that Windows Phone will vault into the No.2 spot worldwide by 2015 with nearly 21% of the market. M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

TECH TALK BERJES ERIC SHROFF Manager – IT, Tata Services

Mobile Malware Monster looms large

he threat that unmanaged mobile devices pose to the enterprise is quite visible now. Businesses widely support organisational use of mobile phones to improve productivity, reduce the costs and for a range of other benefits. The popularity of smartphones and the increase in the number of services they offer means a parallel increase in the number of malicious programmes used by cybercriminals to make money from mobile device-users. Currently, some of malware’s most prolific transport methods – instant messaging, IP network traffic, web browsers and email attachments – have made their way to the common user on a mobile platform. Many of these applications had been available previously on smartphones and on windows mobile, but the mainstream user-base had not adopted the technology. Now, iPhone and Android-based applications have ushered in a much more seamless interface that allows even the everyday user to quickly load and use applications, as well as use instant messaging and social media sites, through their phone. As the user base grows, so will the number of threats posed against it.

Spectres to Mobile Security Due to their ubiquity and functionality, smartphones will most likely cause an increase in criminal research and development efforts. Cloud-based services may also represent a new target, not only for data theft, but also for cheap

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 1

as well. Unlawful schemes, such as redirecting mobile internet bankingusers to phishing sites and stealing passwords sent by banks to mobile phones, are being used. Mobile threats have become more complex and include the emergence of mobile bots and other remotely controlled software.

Making Money out of Malware As usual, the world of mobile malware is dominated by programmes that send text messages to fee-based short numbers. The use of SMS trojans is still the easiest and most effective means for malicious users to earn money. However, last year, sending fee-based text messages ceased to be the only illegal money-making scheme for virus-writers developing threats targeting different platforms. Kaspersky Lab last year detected a Trojan that makes calls to international fee-based numbers.

What Lurks Ahead

The popularity of smartphones and increase in the number of services they offer means a parallel increase in malicious programmes infrastructure or resources within criminal enterprises. The growing popularity of the Android platform has inevitably drawn the cybercriminal’s attention. Most mobile threats continue to target the Java 2 Micro Edition (J2ME) platform, which is supported by a huge number of mobile devices. That means it is not only smartphones that are at risk of infection, but basic mobile phones

SMS trojans unfortunately put in place no pre-conditions that would facilitate a downturn in the number of SMS trojans. The law in some countries still needs improvements and cybercrimnals can still use short numbers with complete anonymity. The Android platform is gaining popularity among users, and as a result, cybercriminals will show an increased interest in it. There will be an increase in the number of vulnerabilities detected in a variety of smartphone platforms, and possibly the launch of attacks using these vulnerabilities. Additionally, we should not forget about tablet PCs. We will have streamlined devices with larger screens running iOS, Android, BlackBerry, etc, which means malware will be able to run on smartphones and tablets. There is also the fact that most people who own tablets will also own a smartphone, driving up the number of potential victims and increasing the number of threats targeting them. The author is Manager – IT, Tata Services

PHOTO GRAPHY: JI TE N GANDHI

OPINION

Mahesh Kumar Assistant General Manager- IT Infrastructure, Operations & Support, Maruti Suzuki

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 1

Vinay Mehta CIO, Escorts Construction Equipment Ltd

SOFTWARE LICENSING | COVER STORY

LICENSED

Gain IMAGI NG: ANO OP P C

PHOTOGRAPHY: SUBHO JIT PAUL

IT managers squeeze the most out of software licensing options using best practices BY N G E E T H A

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

epeatedly, there have been reports around the absurd nature of software licensing structures that vendors throw up. The vendor and customer relations have ever since been strained as the former is eager to lock the later for ever, while the later insisting on cutting non-value adding maintenance and license cost. However, with technological changes such as cloud, virtualisation and mobility, coming into vogue, there are bound to be certain changes in the software pricing and licensing models. The common refrain that I hear from the analysts and customers alike is that the software licensing and pricing is not customer friendly and needs modification. Perhaps the launch of multi-cores from chip vendors too has intensified the challenges for the customer. While the ambiguity is the result of many manifestations, the senior IT managers and the IT heads have been making smart moves in unfolding the licensing mysteries, while making judicious decisions to drive the cost benefit.

What’s the fuss? It is all about the challenges that the customers face in procuring software licenses irrespective of the product range, which escalates the cost and drains the kitty. Vikash K Agarwal, President, Tally Solutions Pvt. Ltd., finds the ambiguity about various options available for customers without a common yardstick for comparison. “Most often than not, software licenses for similar or competing products differ in nature, as in some could be a “perpetual license” while some are “time based”, some could be “number of users” based while some are “server/CPU” based. Adding to it is the complexity of bulk discounts. Services get included in the license cost and all of these put together results in ambiguity for the customer during the buying process,” admits Agarwal. Sandip Chakraborty, VP-IT, Bharti Axa General Insurance has experienced vendors’ monopolistic attitude towards pricing concepts who are eager to win the price war. According to Chakraborty, the problem starts in the second year when the IT team is saddled

“Problem starts in the second year when the first AMC bill is slapped even before the software has moved into production” SANDIP CHAKRABORTY, VP-IT, BHARTI AXA

“Service providers will buy back to back licenses as per user need, and customer will pay for the license” SANDEEP MENON, COUNTRY MANAGER, NOVELL

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Cloud W

hile efforts are on to monetize cloud based services, the cloud invariably adds to the customers’ agony and confusion with regards to software licensing model. A consensus on how it should be put into effective use still dodges the industry. While most IT heads get euphoric about the cloud and its cost reduction techniques, the challenge lies in getting clarity on license usage for every software and hardware configuration used and its compliance to the licensing policies. Getting an account of effective patch management, upgrades and security strategy involved is also a challenge. “With the capex model getting stronger, the customer gets locked in with the vendor under the cloud model and the dilemma would be around the usage or non-usage of

with a huge amount of customization and project over-run when the first AMC bill is slapped even if the software has not moved into production. The software vendors are not concerned as to whether the business objectives of the customer are with the software. Their start date of AMC never coincides with the actual ‘go live’ date of the customer. Chakraborty opines that while the hardware manufacturers are increasing the processing power of servers at no steep increase in the price, the license cost of software to run in those servers is being increased quite substantially by the software vendors. For example, IBM has stopped manufacturing X-series quad core servers and has brought the much powerful 6-core server at a price difference, which is hardly in the range of Rs 2 lakhs to Rs 4 lakhs.

SOFTWARE LICENSING | COVER STORY

Economics the current infrastructure licenses.” observes Mahesh Kumar, Assistant General Manager- IT Infrastructure, Operations & Support, Maruti Suzuki. “The TCO may still be a concern for customers under this model, as there are no straight instances which makes cloud a proven initiative as far as licensing models go,” adds Kumar. Vinay Mehta, CIO, Escorts Construction Equipment Ltd., believes that it is still a selective decision amongst the customers to move to the cloud as per the current scenario. ISVs too seem to be doing little to simplify or adapt to the licensing demands and changes in the virtualised environments to generate interest. However, Rana Gupta, Business Head India & SAARC, SafeNet India opines that ISVs are encouraging SaaS based subscription models with regards to software licensing demands. “Currently, 20% of the customers are going in for the traditional SaaS model, who will now move to the

cloud based subscription model, and the ratio is likely to increase,” avers Gupta.

However, because of Oracle’s software licensing policy, which is attached to the core factor of the hardware, the software cost has gone up as high as Rs 80 lakhs (difference between quad core and 6 core) which is making the projects unviable. The CIOs have to make a painful decision as to whether to hard partition the servers up to quad core and degrade the server performance or to invest much on virtual machine configuration. Chakraborty’s agony is not without a reason, as the company spends Rs 4.5 crore towards software license procurement and maintenance, with an annual incremental cost on the rise. The hardware-based approach to licensing server software, according to Chakraborty, is giving rise to additional cost of software in case of hardware upgrade and virtualisation year on year.

Open source vendor Sandeep Menon, Country Manager, Novell India, finds the ambiguity in the traditional licensing model, which is not designed to handle the current procurement process where the finance head drives the opex model. Anand Naik, Director, Systems Engineering, Symantec India, admits

LICENSING IMPACT Cloud computing too does not allow the customers or vendors to track the licenses with regards to the number of CPUs or cores, as they tend to be variable on the cloud. But, it may be different from a private cloud stand point. Prince Sudersanam E, GM - Base Component Development, Ramco Systems Ltd., argues that if the customer has a private cloud, he would be paying for both the software license and also for the cloud subscription. “If he looks at pure software as a service, he would pay for the software usage over the cloud, where his data resides along with others,” says Sudersanam. Sandeep Menon, Country Manager, Novell India, says that service providers will buy back to back licenses based on the user who will pay for the license too.

40% of the cost would be incremental on software license procurement

Ganesan Arumugam, Director-Partner Sales, VMWare India, finds virtualisation impacting the cloud based licensing model where the service provider will not take perpetual license. VMware has rolled out a pricing model as part of its VSPP (Virtual Service Provider Programme) where the cloud service providers will offer virtual machines on the monthly usage and charge them on that. “About 15% of our customers have moved to the public cloud model to deploy our VMs and I would not see any change in the licensing cost,” maintains Arumugam. Akash Deep Vashishta, Head-IT, Care India, argues that cloud computing is expensive in license procurement too. “We tried to negotiate with Google Doc to source some of the services through cloud model, but it is priced heavy,” says Vashishta. Most agree that meaningful service levels and service credits will help mitigate the inherent risks. Sandip Chakraborty, VP-IT, Bharti Axa General Insurance, points that the cloud solution may not be best suited for companies that require greater control due to corporate constraints and data sensitivity.

that organisations of all sizes are getting increasingly frustrated with the procurement complexities and time commitments normally associated with managing a myriad of software licenses and renewals from numerous technology vendors. Naik argues that limited resources, maintenance, support, variations in terms and conditions, boxed products, complex contracts, compliance fears and cost constraints, however, have made software licensing an increasingly challenging discipline for both procurement and IT departments. For Vinay Mehta, CIO, Escorts Construction Equipment Ltd., convincing the management to upgrade to the newer versions of the software licenses is a challenge, as it is associated with new investments. His peer Pertisth Mankotia, CIO of Sheelafoam, admits

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COVER STORY | SOFTWARE LICENSING

“I strike a balance between open source and proprietary software which will balance my cost” PERTISTH MANKOTIA, CIO, SHEELAFOAM

“Several software licensing options without proper yardstick for comparison leads to ambiguity” VIKASH K AGARWAL, PRESIDENT, TALLY SOLUTIONS

that the cost of software, be it from Oracle, Citrix or others, turns out to be quite expensive, and is rising at an alarming pace. Akash Deep Vashishta, Head-IT of Care India, a NGO, faces a strange situation where there is no clarity in discussion from vendors. “While procurement, renewals and auditing happens as a routine, we are not clear about their terms and conditions,” he says. In another instance, Vashishta claims that Microsoft, which outsources its audit to KPMG, doesn’t have a single clue as to which customer is using what, and hence makes random checks and snaps a huge service fee. Challenges are umpteen and there have been certain changes too in the vendor approach as new licensing patterns evolve.

Solving the Open Puzzle O

ne can observe that the software licensing models are being disrupted by the emergence of the cloud, virtualisation, multicore processors etc. Alternative licensing schemes or models, though not ubiquitous, are emerging from the familiar open source and SaaS to other models, which are based on pricing. While the battle between open source and proprietary software is on, many companies have attempted to solve this puzzle in their own capacity. Both are equally vital for the IT heads and co-exist in every organisation. However, the point of debate would be to understand in what ratio it is being deployed in any organisation and about its growth strategy. The open source vendors have been consciously influencing the customers across the industry segments in adopting to open source by showing better return on investments. Sandeep Menon, Country Manager, Novell India reiterates that open source is gaining prominence with the cloud and hosting models coming into vogue, as cus-

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tomers opt for a Linux based platform to host their solutions. “I noticed customers using 70% of proprietary software and 30% of Open Source, but this is narrowing. I would easily find a 50:50 ratio in consumer preference,” says Menon. Menon observed more SLAs being signed around email, storage, printing services, CRM etc., on the Linux platform.

COST COMPONENT The trend observed amongst most customers is that they rely on open source software products as well, while core deployments have already been made around closed software. Some non-critical functions are deployed on open source. Interestingly, Vinay Mehta, CIO, Escorts Construction Equipment Ltd., has deployed the RedHat Enterprise Linux platform to drive the firm’s ERP solutions in an effort to lower the total cost of ownership. Mehta finds open source making inroads into various segments around the ERP environment, particularly vendors like

IBM, Oracle, Novell, Red Hat etc., encouraging open source. Pertisth Mankotia, CIO, Sheelafoam, directly advocates to shift to OS if the proprietary software vendors try to arm twist. “I chose a 50:50 ratio in the deployment of open source, as my front end applications run on Linux,” claims Mankotia. “Our desktops run on open source,” he adds. Invariably, the cost factor plays a big role, as the trend goes that about 20 to 25% of the total IT spend goes towards procuring software licenses. The IT heads opine that about 10% to 15% of that goes towards open source deployments, which is likely to increase in the future. For an organisation such as Care India, an NGO, it hardly matters if it is an open source software, as far as the functional requirements are met. As per Askash Deep Vashista, Head-IT, Care India, the entire document management systems is deployed on the Open Source framework. The factors that are fueling interest amongst the IT managers are around customization capabilities of open softwares,

SOFTWARE LICENSING | COVER STORY

BEST IN ACTION Eye on concurrent usage and scalability Balancing open versus proprietary Good negotiation skills D ifferentiate between corporate licensing and others

“Technical evaluation and negotiation skills combined to get OS bundled along with hardware will save huge cost” MAHESH KUMAR, AGM-IT INFRA, MARUTI

N egotiate to bundle with hardware for better cost

The traditional vendor-client licensing models, such as single user-single license, multiple users-shared license and temporary or fixed period licenses, are paving way for newer models. The cloud revolution is throwing up several questions and excitement amongst both the vendors and customers alike (see the box – Cloud Economics).

Dhananjay Chandrashekar Rokde, Practice Head-Information Security, Arcon Risk Control witnesses that most software vendors are beginning to work on a trust model and signing up ELAs (Enterprise License Agreements). According to him, this is a good change from the old ‘buy as you use’ model, as it provides an umbrella cover for the whole year. The industry is witnessing usagebased models, a transition from traditional vendor-client model to classification models, pay-per-use model; remix models and technology partnerships, to provide unlimited

which could be used to develop further having a copy of the source code. With Indian organisations giving a shot at open source, Dhananjay Chandrashekar Rokde, Practice Head-Information Security, Arcon Risk Control, finds the advent of distributed applications such as office applications over the wire and online productivity suites posing a threat to proprietary software vendors. Arcon is in its final phase of testing MySQL at an enterprise level. Andy Karandikar, Head Marketing, Red Hat finds the subscription model drawing customer attention, as they can avoid paying the upfront cost, which forms 80% of the cost in case of proprietary software procurement. The customer trend towards transition to opex model is paving way for more open source deployments. Karandikar recommends the customers to avail subscription benefits, a large portion of it being custom built, which he considers as a competitive necessity.

“The advantages that customers could see is that it keeps systems secure, acts as a trusted access support, automates every day maintenance tasks by the vendor, gets the latest software faster, allows to keep the technology under control, acquires better performance and support, protects the investments and enables to grow the technology infrastructure responsibly,” according to Karandikar. Novell’s Menon agrees with his peer and says that the subscription model, as against the traditional AMC, would drive down the cost substantially. “Customers will be paying just one-fourth of the cost towards subscription in open source category as against proprietary software annually and run mission critical applications on these platforms,” Menon reiterates. From a spend standpoint, according to Sandip Chakraborty, VP-IT, Bharti Axa General Insurance, the company spends about 9% of the total IT spend in procuring open software.

C o-ordination in procurement, legal and IT critical

Progression with Licensing

access to the vendor’s technology, which is referred to as ‘Buffet’ deals. Symantec’s Naik believes that the licensing models should offer corporate customers and clients in the academic and government arenas a simpliﬁed purchasing process. “Our programmes enable procurement with a single purchase order, with products delivered in a single shipment, and on a single invoice,” claims Naik, and adds, “This reduces administrative costs, accelerates procurement capabilities to suit business requirements, It provides customers a single Symantec Agreement Number (SAN), which enables them to view, track and manage the license and renewal agreements. Vendor like VMware provides greater flexibility to customers in buying the licenses as per their requirement based on the number of CPU licenses they would need. “To get the price benefit, the chassis is given to the customer as a straight license sale,” maintains Ganesan Arumugham, Director-Partner Sales, VMware India. Mahesh Kumar, Assistant General Manager - IT Infrastructure, Operations & Support, Maruti Suzuki, finds changes evolving in the usage pattern where the customers are going in for three year ELAs to derive greater benefits. However, Kumar says that the licensing renewal definitions vary from vendor to vendor and are sometimes vague. Tally’s Agarwal agrees that the emergence of virtual licensing and cloud based licensing are examples of such changes, besides the examples of various software offered as a

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COVER STORY | SOFTWARE LICENSING CASE STUDY: DHANANJAY CHANDRASHEKAR ROKDE, ARCON

Idiot Proof Licensing

One way of getting more clarity around the software licensing model for Dhananjay Chandrashekar Rokde, Practice Head-Information Security, Arcon Risk Control, would be to make it direct and idiot-proof. It means to make it as a commodity, which once bought or sold, will be entirely a customer’s property. Commenting on the vendors’ arm twisting approach, Rokde says, “I would celebrate the day software license procurement becomes like buying a shirt. You like the brand (software vendor) and the color (software variant), then pay up and it is yours forever.” The point of mention is that vendors carry unnecessary frills around their licensing models, having too many flavors and business requirements, squeezing everything into one, which multiplies the confusion.

COST FIASCO Rokde finds that about 80% of the cost is associated to being the incremental cost in software procurement, which would be towards renewal and new purchases. Arcon is spending about Rs 25 lakhs on software licensing this year, and for Rokde, the top challenge is convincing the senior management that just buying one CD and installing it across all PCs is illegal, even in case of having professional teams. Of course, amongst the myriad of issues, the most irking aspect for him is capacity planning, while managing the count of licensing based on utilization. Rokde provides an instance of a company growing at a rate of nearly 15% year on year having 400 users and 20 power users. The question that arises is how many desktop licenses need to be bought? The firm zeroed in on procuring 400 licenses, with a 5 to 10% surplus. If the company adds another 20 users for an adhoc project, the additional licenses come at a premium and are too costly to justify to the management. This results in a major cause for non-compliance to software licensing, which puts the company in trouble.

WAY OUT While there is no straight answer to counter the vendors, there are methods that Rokde finds would help save some cost and result in optimal usage of the licenses. For instance, keeping a strict vigil on utilization, frequent audit for license count and actual utilization would bring in transparency. “It is critical to prevent system administrators from installing any software without a proper workflow and integrating this with change management,” he says, and opines that the priority would be to procure a license management system if the environment is too large.

“I would celebrate the day software license procurement becomes like buying a shirt” DHANANJAY C ROKDE, PRACTICE HEAD-INFORMATION SECURITY, ARCON RISK CONTROL

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“combined pack”, which creates a winwin scenario, both for the provider (multiple software are sold together and customer retention) and the customer (better pricing and a higher integrated experience). Andy Karandikar, Head – Marketing, RedHat India, finds increased use of the subscription model, which is built around the Opex model where the onus lies on the vendor to constantly deliver value for five years with no major rise in the cost. “A different flavor of subscription model is being evolved to address small enterprises, which would lower the total cost of ownership for the customer,” confirms Karandikar.

Smart Move As the business expansion is happening across organisations, the need for additional licenses also rises. The IT spends towards procuring licenses also go up, thus posing a challenge to the IT heads. Certain insights into understanding the customer spend on software licensing revealed that on an average, every company spends about 20% of its IT budget on software licensing, which turns out to be huge, besides the annual maintenance, which is about 22% of the solution cost. There are always new licenses around security and virtualisation that is not part of the allocated budget. The eyebrows can rise on every request that the IT manager places before the management to procure additional licenses or an enhanced version. One way for the customers to check the cost, as Prince Sudersanam E, GM Base Component Development, Ramco Systems Ltd. recommends is to study the current requirement and needs in terms of scalability and concurrent usage while revisiting the licensing needs. The IT managers and heads firmed up their position by working out best practices that could save their cost. The IT heads seem to be striking a proper balance between proprietary and open software, subscription model versus AMC to drive better benefits. (See box on Open Puzzle). For instance, Sheelafoam’s Mankotia who spends around Rs 80 lakhs on ERP

SOFTWARE LICENSING | COVER STORY CASE STUDY: ESCORTS GROUP

Open can save cost The Rs 3500 crore Escorts Group believed in balancing its software-licensing portfolio and deployment strategy. Not deterred by the proprietary software critics about open source not providing sufficient performance, Escorts did go in for Open platform Linux to deploy its ERP solutions. Vinay Mehta, CIO, Escorts Construction Equipment Ltd., found the software licensing cost soaring high with increased use of proprietary software. However, he had the task of striking a balance and justify the cost. He had the challenge of working with tough senior management who did not believe in enhancing the software versions owing to the cost being very high.

OPEN INITIATIVE While Escorts depended upon proprietary software such as Microsoft for its desktop and laptop OS and other security software, Mehta tried out Linux platform from Red Hat to deploy ERP on to it. “While I had the options of going in for HP Unix and SQL, I intended to go in for Linux and recently implemented Linux 4.5 version from Redhat,” Mehta reiterates. Since Escorts used Oracle ERP solu-

and adds more licenses for additional users has gone in for OEM boxes from the OS standpoint to address the cost factor. “I am also maintaining a balance between proprietary software and open source, which would balance my cost as well,” says Mankotia. Escort’s Mehta has spent about Rs 3 crores on software licenses. Besides a 22% recurring support cost, he opted to go for the Linux based platform for running ERP. Mehta believed in having good negotiation skills, which resulted in a major discounting process. Maruti’s Mahesh Kumar, who spends 40% of the IT budget on software licenses, believes that having awareness

tions, it was essential to be certified by Oracle to rule out any interoperability issues.

NOT WITHOUT A REASON Opting for the open platform was not without a reason, as Mehta observed substantial cost reduction in software licensing. It was easier to migrate to Linux based solutions and the support was very consistent. Mehta pointed that besides saving a substantial cost and also convincing the management, the room for negotiation on licensing cost for ERP and related platform is concerned is immense. “We will be in a position to negotiate skillfully on ERP

software and also open source subscription acquisition, which is another reason for getting attracted to open source,” Mehta observes. “Sometimes, the negotiations result in procuring a discount upto over 70%. In this case, too, we are paying for the functions we use with a conviction of having constant support from the vendor,” he adds.

SOUGHT AFTER While Escorts spends about Rs 12 crores on an average on IT infrastructure, about 20% goes towards software licensing. “Had we gone in for proprietary software for ERP platform too, it would have escalated our IT cost,” remarks Mehta.

“Effective negotiations with vendors will result in procuring a discount upto over 70% in the ERP space on open platform” VINAY MEHTA, CIO, ESCORTS CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT

about differentiating corporate license structure versus perpetual license is critical. “Technical evaluation skills and

20% of the ITbudget in every organisation goes for software license purchase

effective negotiation skills to bundle OS along with hardware would result in huge cost savings,” points out Kumar. Care India’s Vashishta and his team have learnt the tricks of the trade and recommend having a software assurance programme in place, signed by the vendors, which involves special discounting and on-going support for three years at a marginal cost. Bharti’s Chakraborty believes in having complete co-ordination with procurement, legal and IT, and work in harmony to procure, negotiate licenses and maintenance contracts and installation and de-installation by the respective departments.

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INSIGHT | NETWORKING

Remote access is becoming more popular, more complex and more riskprone, necessitating IT shops to understand all the issues involved.

PHOTOGRAPHY: PHOTOS.COM

BY N I C K KO L A KOW S K I

Remote Presents Security

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NETWORKING | INSIGHT

nce upon a time, remote access wasn’t a pressing concern for most IT administrators. A combination of on-premises servers, desktops and phones met the needs of workers commuting to a central office. However, as with nearly everything in the world of enterprise IT, technology evolved to the point at which this centralized model no longer applied to most businesses. More workers began telecommuting remotely, sometimes from a continent away, while road warriors

developed a culture of rarely visiting the home office. With a VPN and a corporate-issued laptop, these employees could interface with their company’s network. For IT administrators, remote access became a larger and more complicated task. Even that model, however, looks simplistic and antiquated compared with the one burgeoning across the enterprise landscape. With more employees clamoring for tablets and smartphones—and wanting their IT department to integrate their personal devices into the corporate network— the task of offering secure, simple

“For companies trying to figure out whether they’re going to build internal apps for their employees, should they bet on iOS and Android and PlayBook? It’s a challenge.” —Chris Fleck, VP, Solutions Development, Citrix

remote access threatens to become a monumental challenge for IT pros at every level. Nonetheless, ubiquitous remote access provides many advantages. These solutions, in conjunction with the Cloud, can make remote workers more flexible, while lowering an organisation’s costs. “The ability to pay as you go is a big plus,” says Mike Pugh, Vice President of Marketing for J2 Global Communications, which offers businesses a variety of communications services such as e-mail and unified messaging. “If it works, businesses can keep it and ramp it up, or else round it down,” he says. “On the enterprise side, you get the ability to work it within the enterprise environment. For smaller companies, the ability to adopt what you please is somewhat easier,” he adds. That appeal could be driving what industry experts see as a significant uptick in the number of businesses that are gravitating toward remoteaccess solutions. “Over the past six months to a year, it has become really wild,” says Martin

Access Complexity,

Issues

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INSIGHT | NETWORKING Hack, Executive Vice President of NCP Engineering, whose products include a centrally managed VPN solution and personal firewall. “The demands of users have increased dramatically in terms of people wanting to connect anytime, anywhere,” he adds. “Before we started using NCP’s technology, our 180 home health aides were not connected to the corporate office when they were visiting patients,” Fred Cruz, IT director of American Hospice, a hospice service provider, wrote in an e-mail to eWEEK. “This meant, after a long day in the field, they still had to fill out paperwork and update each patient’s physician and nursing team. This manual process could take hours,” he added. That changed after the introduction of remote-access technology. “Today, after patient visits, the home health aides simply connect to our enterprise application from their mobile phones and upload the latest information and activities,” Cruz says. “This data is available to the patients’ primary physician and nursing teams,” he adds. But the explosive growth in iPad and Android-based device usage also caught some IT pros by surprise. “They had a VPN gateway somewhere, and now these users are coming out of the woodwork and saying they want to connect,” Cruz says. “It became very evident that people were not prepared for it at all, and now they’re dealing with the aftermath: Endpoint security is basically nonexistent,” he adds. In addition to security issues, the latest remote-access model threatens to swamp IT administrators, and possibly workers, in a rising tide of complexity. On the back end, much of this complexity is due to the need to introduce four or five different applications or platforms in order to enact a single solution. For example, a server from one vendor may run software from another, delivering applications or services to a variety of devices built by still other manufacturers. Adopting a cloud service can alleviate some of this unnecessary intricacy,

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“Over the past six months to a year, it has become really wild. The demands of users have increased dramatically in terms of people wanting to connect anytime, anywhere.” — Martin Hack, Executive Vice President of NCP Engineering

but many organisations remain bound to on-premises or hybridized legacy systems. Fortunately, tech companies have been working on ways to alleviate these issues, even beyond making sure their VPN is secure and warning employees about clicking on possible malware links.

The need for security “IT administrators care about data at the end machine,” Tom Quillin, Intel’s director of Security Technology and Initiatives, told eWEEK. “That means data encryption. In 2011, every machine ought to be taking advantage of data encryption. Our policy is that every primary end-user machine must have data encryption,” he added. In previous years, data encryption was liable to drag down a machine’s performance in significant ways. Helping alleviate that issue are newer and faster processors, including

The task of offering secure, simple remote access threatens to become a monumental challenge for IT pros at every level.

Intel’s, whose latest versions have the mathematics of the encryption operations built into the processor instructions. Another security issue revolves around introducing a streamlined and reliable method of end-user authentication into a network. To that end, companies such as Intel have focused on developing antitheft technology that can remotely wipe a smartphone or render a laptop totally unusable. On top of that, new hardware is introducing an additional security factor into the password process. Intel Identity Protection Technology embeds a token that creates a six-digit number, which is valid for 30 seconds and acts as a second password. Hewlett-Packard’s new EliteBook p-series includes a fingerprint reader and proprietary face-recognition software that scans the user’s features via the webcam. Other dual-factor password systems require the user to carry a token or key-fob that generates a new secondary code every few seconds or minutes. Virtualisation and isolation are other strategies used to make remote access a safer proposition. “Isolated virtual machines allow IT to compartmentalize different spheres of operation,” Quillin explains. “Now I can create spheres where workers manage their corporate e-mail accounts and connections to the CRM to do their real work. The advantage of that architecture is that you’ve created isolation between work

NETWORKING | INSIGHT and personal tasks, and isolation enhances security,” he adds. Still another security issue involves keeping up-to-date on which remote workers can access their corporate network from offsite. “I hear almost every day about people forgetting to deactivate employees after they leave the company,” NCP’s Hack told eWEEK. “The biggest security breaches over the past five years were attributable to people still having VPN access after leaving an organisation,” he added. Businesses with large numbers of remote employees may find themselves forced to periodically cull their access lists by hand, painstakingly deleting ex-employees one at a time. Introducing a management system that keeps tabs on employees and their access can limit the time and hours spent on that sort of security maintenance.

Reducing complexity That ties in with the second issue confronting IT administrators in this new paradigm: complexity— and the ways in which it can be winnowed from everexpanding remote-access networks. “Corporate IT is saying, ‘I’m already stretched to the gills, and you’re bringing in these other smartphones and PBX and password issues and administrative issues,’ and it’s an unwelcome burden on them,” says Kevin Gavin, Chief Marketing Officer for ShoreTel, a purveyor of unified communications. “They see it as a potential nightmare that adds to their increasingly complex infrastructure. The vendor that wins is

Earlier, data encryption was liable to drag down a machine’s performance in significant ways. Helping alleviate that issue are newer and faster processors. the one that makes it simple,” he adds. “Consider the complexity factor: When systems are complicated, they’re more costly to manage. But there’s a more enlightened group of IT users who are asking: Why does it have to be so complicated?” he says. A simplified system also has the benefit of appealing more to both IT administrators and end users, which can help increase the rapidity of a remote-access solution’s adoption into both SMBs and the enterprise. That requires a drive from IT to streamline the component chain involved in remote access, or giving serious consideration to porting associated applications to the Cloud. “I think it’s a combination of awareness and, at the same time, making the life of users as seamless

“In 2011, every machine ought to be taking advantage of data encryption. Our policy is that every primary enduser machine must have data encryption.” — Tom Quillin, Intel’s director of Security Technology and Initiative

and easy as possible: not seven to 10 clicks to get to the VPN connection, but one click,” says NCP’s Hack. “We’ve seen the best results come from making it easy, where the user has a good feeling,” he adds. More and more, employees want to bring their personal tech into the enterprise—or else have their IT department procure the latest and greatest consumer devices for business use. The proliferation of tablets and smartphones throughout the enterprise virtually ensures a certain amount of complexity built into the system, no matter how strong the efforts to minimize it. In the end, IT administrators may find themselves forced to select from a smaller number of platforms to support—particularly when it comes to developing proprietary applications that allow employees to perform company-specific functions from a remote location. “We’re a small example of what companies have to do now, in terms of selecting a winner,” says Chris Fleck, Vice President of solutions development for Citrix. “For companies trying to figure out whether they’re going to build internal applications for their employees, should they bet on iOS and Android and PlayBook? It’s a challenge,” he adds. That challenge has led to some companies adopting a wait-and-see attitude toward iOS and Android. Vendors like Citrix also offer solutions that give remote workers ubiquitous access to applications from a broad range of devices. In the end, the solution for many of the complexity issues associated with remote access may lie in the Cloud, with services that spare IT administrators the costs and time associated with managing on-premises support for workers’ devices in the field. Whatever the ultimate solution, though, it’s clear that remote access is not only here to stay as a business model, but also burgeoning in popularity—and, in the process, becoming a major issue for IT shops everywhere.

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INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING

From

Fearto

Euphoria While security and regulatory concerns may still keep some skeptics away from the Cloud, fear is paving way for euphoria

BY G JOSL I N V E T H A K U M A R

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PHOTO GRAPHY: XX XXX XXXXX X

t is now hard to imagine life without the convenience of online banking and trading, with the ‘Anytime and Anywhere Banking’ phenomenon having weaved magic into the operations of financial institutions and wooed the investor community. Yet, security concerns have been a deterrent to net-based transactions for long, even threatening to hinder the growth of e-commerce that now holds great hope for business – both retail and wholesale.

CLOUD COMPUTING | INSIGHT

Buoyant Market Even NASDAQ uses the Cloud for data storage. Reports say that NASDAQ adds up to 80GB of data everyday to the cloud. Many of the world’s top exchanges, security firms and investment managers have already thrown their weight behind managed infrastructure and have begun evaluating various cloud options. Market data demonstrates that cloud computing has well gone past the realm of hype. Gartner report projects worldwide cloud services revenue to reach US $148.8 billion by 2014 from $58.6 billion in 2009. The report also points out that the financial services sector is among the largest early adopters of cloud services. Significantly, they are beginning to go beyond emails and archiving, as these alone cannot make a persuasive business case for cloud computing. Tall projections are coming from Springboard Research, which has determined that 45% of organisations in Asia Pacific, Excluding Japan (APEJ) are either currently using or planning cloud initiatives, which is up from 22% in 2009.

Secure trading revolves around 3Cs The three Cs are Collaboration, Communication and Compliance platforms that facilitate secure trading. When market players pitch themselves on a combined cloud-based communication, collaboration and compliance platform, they are in effect

Financial markets brace up for collaboration cloud not just to cut costs, but for enhanced communications and trading services. Identity and trust management are key components for trading. enabling secure trading, immediacy and ubiquity. These critical attributes demand and thrive on real-time data. One area that holds the potential for rapid acceptance in financial markets involves collaboration services. This does not necessarily have to be viewed within the narrow confines of voice, video telephony and messaging. While communication and collaboration services in a cloud are increasingly gaining momentum, add the compliance layer to it and the result is a compelling and integrated delivery mechanism. As the world has begun the shift from a capex environment to an opex model, with focus on a secure cloud, the value from converged collaboration,

TOP 10 STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGIES FOR 2011 Cloud Computing obile Applications and Media M Tablets Social Communications and Collaboration. Video. Next Generation Analytics Social Analytics Context-Aware Computing Storage Class Memory Ubiquitous Computing abric-Based Infrastructure and F Computers

communication and compliances services for the finance vertical is multidimensional, going beyond the cost factor. Collaboration, after all, is not just about software and technology; services also play a significant role in keeping businesses connected. For telephony, the cloud may just be business as usual. In fact, it may well be described as one of the earliest cloud services, delivered through equipment located somewhere in operator networks. The range is a lot wider now than when it was just voice, having evolved into Communication as a Service (CaaS) mechanism – telephony, email, conferencing (web, audio video), instant messaging and so on. As an outsourced model for business communications, CaaS includes telephony and associated services, such as VoIP, call centre applications and voice/video conferencing. In fact, institutions can go for bundled offerings with the Everything-as-aService (EaaS) model. A vital advantage is the flexibility it affords them to go with a usagebased “pay-as-you-go” approach while simultaneously helping them avoid building a dedicated technology infrastructure that entail huge capital expenditures. With cloud technology delivering service elasticity, they can scale up and down with ease, depending on their requirements and the budget. The dynamic changes even further the tradinng in an environment where voice-trading capabilities are in play. A unified suite will give market players a cost-effective and flexible option, even while offering enhanced collaboration through multiple channels of communication, while making sure

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However, things have changed for the better because foolproof encryption, firewall technologies and multi-layered security mechanisms have helped erase apprehensions and led to sustained growth in electronic trading and business. To add to it, financial markets, generally prone to cyclical recessionary storms, are now increasingly open to the idea of even embracing cloud-based services. While security and regulatory concerns still inhibit the foray into cloud, particularly when it concerns transactional data, the fear is combined with ecstasy in trying out this model.

INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING there is no compromise on compliance with evolving regulatory requirements.

Agility and Resilience This assumes greater significance with innovations in trading systems that are integrated into the communication platform and housed in a cloud. In fact, with systems that leverage the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) to deliver collaborative multimedia capability (voiceenriched trading, web communications, e-commerce, etc), firms can realize maximum agility, cost-effectiveness, resilience and interoperability. SIP is a signalling protocol used to establish various forms of communication sessions in an IP network and help transform the network into one capable of delivering innovative, next-generation converged services.

Dashboard for Value-Added Collaboration Clearly, multiple elements are at work in delivering a rich and wholesome experience for investors â&#x20AC;&#x201C; various channels of communications and live market information (from voice, video and messaging systems as well as from market data and trading applications) at their fingertips. How can it all be glued together to give users a cohesive, simplified experience while networking the global financial community with a collaboration suite that addresses their mission-critical requirements? This is crucial, as market situations may change within fractions of a second, thereby making quick opportunity-spotting paramount. This can very easily be addressed through a dashboard, at the desktop or on mobile devices. This is an integral part of trading, facilitating swift and effective decision-making while allowing users the ability to deal with multiple realtime events.

$149 40% billion: The projected worldwide cloud services revenue by 2014 from $58.6 billion in 2009, according to a report by research firm Gartner.

Is the projected CAGR growth of cloud computing market in India by 2014

Importantly, be it data delivery or end-to-end collaboration, everything needs to be 100% secure in financial markets. So, identity and trust management are key components of a new-generation trading platform.

cloud-based services, including a nextgeneration range of trader voice and collaboration services. Besides helping them lower expenditure, the cloud also gives them the flexibility to interact, collaborate and trade securely - and with greater compliance. Moreover, market players can retain the look and feel of their existing interface, as the cloud does not require them to rip off their current technologies. They can pick the services they want and migrate at their own pace. They have the leeway to choose either a complete migration to the cloud or a hybrid configuration for collaboration, communication and associated services. These are business-critical solutions, but their optimal delivery and maintenance are enabled by remote monitoring and enhanced resilience options available through the cloud, housing all required management tools. Top service providers with a global footprint have ramped up their offerings to take both multinational corporations and small and medium business enterprises through the paces in this space. The financial sector will find greater appeal from end-to-end collaboration and secure trading than from mere email and storage services. Besides improved collaboration, other significant offshoots for them include reduced financial risks and the ability to quickly seize opportunity from enhanced interactions. In short, it is about transforming business while realizing dramatic economies of scale through delivery of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Anything as a Service, anytime and anywhereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;.

Compliance and Trading What makes the cloud even more allencompassing is its potential to go beyond communication and collaboration and enable financial companies to take on the challenge of ensuring compliance with regulations that can evolve and vary from country to country. Various tools available through the cloud give them the power to fulfil all regulatory requirements. These compliance services equip them with the ability to record, tag, store and retrieve all forms of communication data, regardless of location and device. The result is not just better audit trails, but also simplicity in adherence to demanding policy controls. In an environment where revenues are shrinking and regulatory restrictions are applying enormous compliance pressures on market professionals, one cannot shy away from cutting costs and enhancing profitability. This is one of the reasons why the financial community is paying serious attention to cost-effective

The financial community is paying serious attention to cost-effective cloud-based services, besides nextgeneration trader voice services. 28

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Source: Gartner

REVIEW | INSIGHT

SMARTPHONE

or PC?

Motorola’s Atrix 4G Android 2.2 smartphone on AT&T’s network can use the Lapdock to turn the device into a full-fledged computer. Read on...

otorola’s Atrix 4G is the first Android-based smartphone available on AT&T’s network that’s capable of giving the Droid family of Verizon Wireless smartphones a run for their money. The device, which began shipping last month and is priced at $199 with a twoyear service contract, arrives just in time to counter the launch of the once AT&T-exclusive Apple iPhone 4 on the Verizon Wireless network. Boasting snappy applications and network performance and a highresolution display, the Atrix 4G easily holds its own with the best Android devices I’ve tested so far. For road warriors, it may well surpass that competition when combined with its optional Lapdock accessory. AT&T sells the Lapdock bundled with the Atrix 4G for $499, plus $45 a month for data tethering. The device turns the Atrix smartphone into a full-fledged computer by simply plugging the device into mini USB and HDMI (High-Definition Multimedia Interface) connectors built into the dock’s phone cradle. The Lapdock looks like a full laptop—complete with a large display, keyboard and pointer—but it lacks most of the software of

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BY C L I N T B O U LTO N

HOW ABOUT BOTH?

4/28/2011 11:09:45 PM

INSIGHT | REVIEW a typical personal computer, with the exception of Mozilla’s Firefox browser and Adobe Flash Player. Instead, the Lapdock relays the applications running on the Atrix 4G, on which the device also depends for WiFi or wireless WAN connectivity. The concept of enabling traveling workers to carry their Android phone and a lightweight 2.4-pound Lapdock (there’s also a desktop version that resembles a traditional docking station) to any remote location without begging for an ad hoc computer setup is compelling. However, in my tests, I found room for improvement in its execution. In particular, the Webtop application that enables the connection between the pieces of hardware, performed a bit slowly at times. Also, switching between apps and views was not always smooth. For example, I’d click

on the button to add something to the software’s app tray, and it would “think” for several seconds. Overall though, AT&T customers looking for a high-end Android handset (or an Android customer looking to go to AT&T) should strongly consider the Atrix 4G. At a $300 premium over the handset alone, the Lapdock is a bit pricey, particularly when combined with an additional $45 per month for tethering. However, users can achieve a similar result by opting for the $99 HD Multimedia Dock and sticking with WiFi alone for use with the Webtop app, thereby avoiding the tethering fee.

Speed is impressive Supported by AT&T’s HSPA+ (Evolved High-Speed Packet Access) network, the Atrix 4G is super fast. The only Android device I’ve tested to date

Supported by AT&T’s HSPA+ (Evolved High-Speed Packet Access) network, the Atrix 4G is super fast. Motoblur easily keeps you up to date with your Facebook and Twitter friends, in real time, in one place.

Just look at your home screen to find real-time Facebook updates, incoming email - all at the same time. Resizable widgets let you prioritize and personalize.

Using the webtop applications and compatible docking stations (sold separately), you get the kind of large screen, rich web browsing experience one would expect from a PC.

that was comparable in network performance was the Android 2.3-based Samsung Nexus S on T-Mobile’s network. On the downside, call quality on the Atrix device was unremarkable. The Atrix 4G is 4.6 inches long, 2.5 inches wide and 0.4 inches thick—the perfect size for my hand. At 4.8 ounces, it’s heavier than it looks, but not so heavy that you’d fumble it in surprise. The phone’s corners are rounded, much like the Samsung Galaxy S devices I’ve tested. Unlike other Android devices I’ve tested, the power button for the Atrix sits atop the phone in a sort of bezel, which I found cumbersome when switching on the device. I much prefer the raised button on Droid X for powering on and off. The Atrix 4G’s 4-inch screen sports a new technology from Motorola: qHD (quarter high-definition) with a 960-by-540 resolution. While the Atrix 4G screen won’t be mistaken for the brighter (but lower-resolution) Samsung Super Amoled display, it’s close. It’s very crisp, very bright. I could really tell the difference in screen quality holding it next to the Droid X. For example, “Angry Birds”—one of my standby test applications for display quality and responsiveness—was gorgeous on the Atrix 4G. It was faster and crisper-looking than on my Droid X. Between the unit’s responsiveness, its 1GB of RAM and 16GB storage (expandable to 48GB), the Atrix 4G provides a solid platform for the current slate of Android applications. In fact, every app I tested performed well, including Facebook and Twitter for Android, YouTube, Google Places, Google Latitude, app launcher, Google Maps and Gmail. As for the OS, I’m more than comfortable with Android 2.2, which in my opinion is the first decent Android smartphone OS build. The touchscreen keyboard is something I’m very accustomed to with my Droid X, but others have found the keys too narrow for their taste. Fortunately for those users, Motorola has said that the Atrix 4G will be getting the bump to Android 2.3 later this year. The Gingerbread

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REVIEW | INSIGHT keyboard is certainly superior to the one in Froyo devices. There are different search provider options configured on the Atrix 4G: While Yahoo is the default search, the voice search icon in the Yahoo browser bar offers Google Voice Search when you tap the button. So if you input text with your fingers, you get Yahoo results, but your voice-powered searches are handled by Google. Moreover, Vlingo’s voice search app has been pre-integrated to provide spoken search commands. Finally, the Atrix 4G employs a Google search bar across the top of one of the seven customizable home screens, so you can always tap that to search by hand or voice. The Atrix 4G camera is a 5-megapixel tool with digital zoom and LED flash. Pictures were crisp and bright, and snapping shots was quicker with this handset than with my Droid X, whose 8-megapixel camera suffers from some latency. The Atrix 4G captures video in 720p, with playback at 720p at launch, but Motorola said this will be upgraded to 1080p over the air later. Battery life for these smaller Android handsets keeps getting better, and the Atrix 4G (which uses a 1,930 mAh) was better than my 4.3-inch-screen Droid X, which tends to chomp a bit more power.

Plugging into the Lapdock For enterprise workers, the Atrix 4G experience isn’t complete without the Motorola Lapdock, a device that looks like a typical notebook, but which sports a small phone cradle just behind the unit’s display. It comes with a power cord and two USB ports on the back for plugging in a mouse or flash drive. When I plugged the Atrix 4G into the dock, the two devices took a

Widgets can actually combine and continously sync your most-used content, including your contacts from your personal and work phonebooks and from Facebook and Twitter, your email accounts from Yahoo and gmail.

While Yahoo is the default search, the voice search icon in the Yahoo browser bar offers Google Voice Search when you tap the button. So if you input text with your fingers, you get Yahoo results, but your voice-powered searches are handled by Google.

few seconds to communicate before the unit’s Linux-based Webtop application began rendering the home screen of my test Atrix unit on its 11.6inch display. In addition to the home screen, the Webtop application displayed a tray full of application icons across the bottom of the screen. Using buttons on the laptop dock’s touchpad, I was able to toggle between a “mobile view” and a “stepback view,” with which I could scroll through my open apps and browser screens. There are also buttons for the phone dialer, phone contacts, e-mail, Motorola’s HD entertainment center, file manager, Firefox and Facebook. Users may add apps or web pages, sort of like bookmarks, by clicking a button in the lower right-hand corner of the display. I tested Facebook, Google search and Gmail, which updated to the latest mobile Gmail version on my Atrix 4G

Motorola’s Atrix 4G is the first Androidbased smartphone available on AT&T’s network that’s capable of giving the Droid family of Verizon Wireless smartphones a run for their money.

directly to the dock. The file manager lets me sift through my phone’s files easily enough, pulling them up in a familiar file menu. The true gem here for enterprise workers is the ability to work in their Atrix 4G’s Gmail or Microsoft Exchange messaging and documents on the big screen. Moreover, when a user gets a call, he or she can simply mouse over to the dial app on the Webtop, click a button and answer a call. Users may make calls the same way, accessing their contacts on the dialer on the Webtop and clicking a button—all hands free. The sound quality is solid: In my testing, it was akin to a user being on speakerphone. I could power down the Lapdock by closing the screen, but the Webtop app on the Atrix 4G kept my apps in state. That enabled me to return to work when I reopened the dock screen or plugged the phone back into the dock. This is a big bonus for corporate road warriors who need to dash off to that meeting at the last second. While attached to an Atrix 4G, the dock accessory charges the handset, even when the dock is not plugged into an electric outlet, which was handy. But, I found that the Atrix 4G got super hot when I had it in the dock for 30 or more minutes. It felt like a piece of toast when I removed the phone from the dock.

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INSIGHT | REVIEW

MOZILLA’S FIREFOX 4:

A Speedy, Modern, Multiplatform Browser

The latest version of Firefox matches Google’s Chrome on many fronts, but lacks its Group Policy-based management support. BY JAS O N B R O O KS

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PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

irefox 4, the first full-point release of Mozilla’s popular open-source web browser in nearly three years, combines user-interface, performance and web-standards support enhancements, along with new provisions for making user data both more and less accessible across the network. On one hand, the browser ships with a newly integrated Firefox Sync feature, which enables users to synchronize bookmarks, preferences, browser state and passwords between Firefox and Firefox Mobile browser instances through a server that’s either hosted by Mozilla or self-hosted. On the other hand, Firefox 4 builds on the private browsing features included in previous releases with new “do not track” functions for users concerned with the trails they may be leaving as they traverse the Wwb.

REVIEW | INSIGHT As a speedy, modern, cross-platform Web browser, Firefox 4 is well worth evaluating for any organisation, particularly those with a heterogeneous mix of client operating systems. On this multi-platform front, however, organisations should also keep an eye on Google’s Chrome, which tends to match Firefox in features and performance, and also offers the Group Policy-based management support that Firefox 4 lacks. For those already running earlier versions of Firefox, Version 4 will be worth the upgrade—provided that any of a user’s indispensable add-ons are compatible with the new version. Firefox 4, which I tested in release candidate form, is available for free download at www.mozilla.com/en-US/ firefox/. It comes in versions for Windows, OS X and Linux.

IMAGING: ANOO P VE RMA

Testing Firefox 4 Speed is one of the most important evaluation characteristics for any modern browser, particularly concerning JavaScript, on which most web applications depend. With Firefox 4, Mozilla debuts a new JavaScript engine, called JägerMonkey, which in my tests delivered significant speed increases on JavaScript benchmarks. I tested the x86 versions of Firefox 3.6.15 and Firefox 4 RC1, downloaded straight from Mozilla’s website, on my Ubuntu Linux notebook. On the SunSpider 0.9.1 Java-Script benchmark hosted at the project site for the WebKit rendering engine, Firefox 4 turned in an overall score that was more than four times faster than Firefox 3.6.15. On Google’s V8 JavaScript benchmark suite, Firefox 4 turned in overall scores that were over eight times faster than version 3.6.15. Firefox 4 has also come closer to Google’s browser in its appearance. Many of the user-interface changes in the latest Firefox edition are aimed at reducing the amount of real estate the browser occupies, putting more emphasis on the web content. Like Google’s Chrome, the tab bar in Firefox 4 moves to the top of the

Firefox 4 features an integrated settings and password sync utility that works across separate desktop and smartphone Firefox installs.

interface, and the traditional menu bar (File, Edit, View, etc.) can collapse into a single “Firefox” button—a much thriftier use of space for these seldomclicked menu items. I particularly appreciated these UI changes while testing Firefox 4 on a netbook machine, where vertical space is in short supply.

Refining tabbed browsing The Mozilla team has continued refining the tabbed browsing feature in Firefox 4. The first of these refinements to catch my eye was the “App Tab” feature, which allowed me to convert any browser tab to a narrowly sized tab, pinned to the far left of my tab bar, which would automatically open in future browser sessions.

Firefox 4 combines user-interface, performance and web-standards support enhancements.

Elsewhere on the tab-management front in Firefox 4 is Panorama, a tabgrouping feature that was previously known by the code name “tab candy.” Panorama is designed to help users deal with large numbers of tabs, which, as any web user can attest, can quickly multiply out of control in a typical day’s browsing. I used Panorama to arrive at a zoomed-out view of my open tabs, and to drag related tabs into separate groups, which I could then dive back into individually. I used Panorama’s search feature to locate particular tabs from the zoomed-out Panorama view. Affecting my browser habits is the integration of Firefox Sync in Version 4. Sync, which was previously available as an experimental feature under the handle Mozilla Weave. It enables users to synchronize their browser settings, bookmarks and passwords in an encrypted form to a central server. I tend to browse the web from a handful of different machines, and the Sync feature made it much easier to switch between these systems. eWEEK Labs Editor in Chief Jason Brooks can be reached at jbrooks@eweek.com.

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INSIGHT | STRATEGY

Small is the New

Big ince the inception of the theory of organisational structure and behaviour, management gurus have relentlessly worked upon the hypothesis that could aid and assist young managers to learn new things to scale up fast. This involves planning, training, development, taking new responsibilities and initiatives. Many people think that to be groomed as a leader, one must need to understand the dynamics of the profession in a well established set up where processes and scope are well defined. It is also true that there

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More and more IT managers are choosing to work in smaller firms in order to learn and grow in a better way. BY JAT I N D E R S I N G H

is limited opportunity to put such learnings into practices at these places. The consensus shared by most of the IT managers suggests that while working with large corporates reduced the risk factor initially, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the young enterprises that nurture the aspirations of an individual by giving him new roles and responsibilities. Considering the various challenges involved in moving up the hierarchal ladder and learn things out of the box in a traditional setup, it seems wise decision for many IT Managers to prefer working for smaller firms. This would help them involved in multiple projects which will

provide new experience and enhance their competency.

Think Big In the complex business environment, success follows those employees who are ready to take on challenging roles, which gives them the opportunity to grow in terms of technical, managerial and humanitarian expertise. â&#x20AC;&#x153;A big picture focus, process understanding, adoption and refinement and networking are sufficient for one to successfully manage challenges in a bigger organisation, while in a small

PHOTOG RA PHY: PHOTO S .CO M

STRATEGY | INSIGHT

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INSIGHT | STRATEGY organisation, one needs to think and act like an entrepreneur and constantly be on the toes to look out for new opportunities in all the areas,” shares Tarun Gugnani, Head of Engineering, CustomerXPs Software, who shifted from a large organisation to a nimble and smaller one. While one may need to forego the fortune of having a good salary package, convenient working environment and steady growth opportunities in a traditional set up, it’s the job role and responsibilities that drive the aspirations to work in a startup or a new organisation. What’s more, there have also been many instances where new firms have helped managers in becoming successful and established entrepreneurs. “I am happier now because I can put my learnings to use and lead from the front – and I am proud to be making a difference,” Gugnani adds.

Is Small Really Big for You? PROS: Quick decision making because of limited hierarchy Ease of communication More recognition of your work Challenging but flexible working environment Exciting opportunity to drive New projects from the scratch Easier to get recognized

Having said that, one need not forget that success also depends upon individual skills, appetite for success and how innovative one wants to be in life? “I guess it’s more to do with passion. I would rather prefer to work with a team of two passionate people than doing mundane things in an organised set up,” says Vishal Bisht, an IT manager turned CEO of Marksman Technologies.

Look for Quality of Experience (QOE)

“In larger firms, moving up to the hierarchy chain is difficult and it’s predictable that who will be next in line boss,” Jatinder Aggarwaal, Project Manager, HCL Technologies

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“There is no point working as a small fish in big pond after a while. After gaining certain experience, if you fulfil the job criteria, even a bigger organisation should be fine to hire you at a desired position,” says Tanu Kaur, Senior HR Consultant, SPPN. And once you enter the organisation, your career graph might have a slope directly proportional to your performance. Consider a case where one individual is working as a delivery manager in a large firm and another individual is working as CIO in a smaller firm. Now assume both have the same experience and similar qualifications. Suppose there is a third large firm that needs a CIO; then, it will probably give more weightage to an individual who is already working as the CIO. “Smaller firms typically don’t have many senior positions or managerial roles. Also, it has been observed that

CONS: Lack of Good Infrastructure Limited Man power and equipment Frequent Changes in goals and vision Challenges related to revenues No paid vacations, retirement benefits and full-coverage health insurance

people in smaller firms, especially at managerial levels, stick on for a longer period than larger firms. Therefore, moving up the hierarchy chain is a little difficult, and many times, it is very predictable that who will be the next in line boss,” says Jatinder Aggarwaal, Project Manager, HCL Technologies. Additionally, it is also not very difficult to move up the ladder in small firms, as every person from the top to the bottom knows you and your work, and whenever an opportunity comes by, it is very easy to put yourself forward. Whereas, in large firms, you are working as a hidden employee, which would result in some key members of the management not knowing you. More so, in terms of job security, the recession has taught us that it’s at the large corporates where employees are more vulnerable to job loss rather than small and medium firms. Also, for an IT manager who can come up with new ways of doing things, a smaller firm is certainly the best way to take ideas to the board. However, in a large setup, even finding out whom to suggest ideas to, can literally be a dogfight.

The other side Nevertheless, the journey to the top is full of challenges even in smaller firms. First of all, there are no well defined systems and procedures, and therefore, work is more manual and people

STRATEGY | INSIGHT are more dependent on you, unlike in larger firms. Also, in smaller firms, one has to play multiple roles, including that of sales, presale, engagement management, account management, programme management, people management, admin etc, while in larger firms, almost all of these are well defined roles. Since large organisations have a good amount of IT budget that can be used to buy and manage latest IT technology, it has some negative sides as well. Also, as each person has a defined role in his area, i.e. network manager is looking after only the network, a security person can only work for the security, it’s very difficult for a person to gain knowledge of other areas in this kind of environment. On the other hand, despite providing immense opportunities, small organisations have a limited budget for IT, which sometimes stops them to accept new technology. Another critical factor is the budget and limited resources (i.e. men, machine etc). As the resources in small level enterprises are limited, a person needs to be involved in almost all sorts of IT activities. This helps them to learn more on every type of trouble shooting, which is not at all possible in a large firm.

Factors to consider Before trying hands at a new venture, especially on their first job, it is advisable that an IT manager should consider the financial stability of the company, the role, customer portfolio and the growth opportunities. According to the experts, the probability of having these is much higher in medium and large organisations. Also, there are certain other benefits that may follow in bigger organisations. You get much more exposure and there are immense opportunities for learning and growth. For a smaller firm, an IT manager should be capable of managing work using limited resources. At times, there is lack of processes, which lands you into an adhoc working environment. Another factor where the impact is limited is the growth opportunities, which is because of

“I am happier to have experienced working in both large and small set up because I can put to use my learning(s) and lead from the front.” Tarun Gugnani, Head of Engineering, CustomerXPs Software

a smaller pyramid. This results in lesser opportunities for your resources and you, leading to lesser motivation and higher attrition. Job security is also one of the challenges that might be there. “There are people who complain about benefits and perks being quite less or non-existent in a small setup. While beneficial packages like insurance, vacation time leaves may not be as ample with smaller employers, this same group may have more flexibility when it comes to other perks such as flexible work schedules or working at home,” observes Deborah S. Hildebrand, Columnist, Career Advise. However at times, it may be the opposite as well. “I started my career with a smaller organisation and had

opportunities to learn and apply the learning there as well. However, when I moved to a bigger organisation, I realised that the opportunities, the learnings, the challenges and the risks were of a higher magnitude than those in smaller organisations,” says Chirag Srivastva, Head, Mobility Centre of Excellence, CSC, India “So, I had to spend some effort in getting new capabilities to address the new challenges. The learning curve was smaller because of access to a lot of resources to help you learn and perform, and the organisation’s growth model that sets you up for success,” he adds. The IT industry is more of a people oriented industry. The most important resource that you have are people. So, people management realted issues form the basis- be it client, senior management or the team. For any manager, being a good leader is very important. “With regard to the IT industry, the motivating factors would be self passion to excel and work closely with the cusotmers, besides building new acquaintances. A manager should be a good team player, should be proactive and innovative,” adds Srivastva. More importantly, to make yourself dependable even in the best of times, one needs to be aligned with the company’s processes, culture and ethics, and should be able to set the right expectations and manage expectations of all the stake holders to grow as a leader of tomorrow. After all, it’s not the pond, it’s the quality of fish that matters in a longer term. Nevertheless, at the end of the day it’s all about handling ambiguity, ability to transform the business with limited resources, meet deadlines in all circumstance. It is equally important to have good energy, enthusiasm, passion, perseverance in the growth journey. Is is always recommended to be leading the team while working along with them which would help the organization meet its goals. This will also enable the individual to build the self esteem. Smaller firm will always push you to the forefront which may not be the case in large firms.

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INTERVIEW | MICHAEL SENTONAS

“POTENTIAL THREATS ARE INCREASING” The security threat landscape has been changing quite drastically in the past few years. In an exclusive interaction with Shashwat DC, Michael Sentonas, VP, Chief Technology Officer - Asia Pacific, McAfee, spells out the challenge before the IT managers and the ways they can cope with it.

How has the security landscape panned over the past few years? What have been the defining factors? Specific to the threat landscape, we see a very sizable amount of growth of malicious software every year, which are hitting the internet and organisations globally. At the moment, we typically analyse 1,00,000 malware samples per day. And we catalogue 60,000 new threats every single day and that’s a significant number if you look at what it means at an hourly level or even down to a per minute level. It’s around 41 threats per minute and that is significant because people at homes, larges enterprises and government networks use the internet every minute of the day. That means you’re not up- todate as far as protection against the latest threats is concerned. Now some people might argue that out of 40 odd threats per minute, there might be few that

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actually hit the network. Even if it’s 10 or 5, if you don’t update your anti – virus, that’s 5 threats that you have a risk to every single minute of the day. It is very hard for people to keep up with all the malware and vulnerability threats. If you look at the year 2010, we detected more threats in that one year than in the previous 20 years combined; so that causes some significant stress, as to how can you protect yourself internally and keep up with the latest security threats. Another interesting trend that we have seen in the last 12- 18 months is that a real focus of the attack is to solidly compromise a firm’s network. In some cases, we have seen that people don’t know that these attacks are actually inside their network for more than 12 months. We released a report called “Night Dragon”. It was a specific attack that focused on oil & gas sector. In that particular example, there had been networks that had been compromised as early or as late

as 2007, and if you look at that as an example and compare it to the threats that we see today, in several cases, peoples’ networks has been compromised for more than 2 to 3 years and they were losing information all along. It’s quite a common technique or a common threat landscape that we are starting to see.

How can enterprises cope up with threats? Though a lot of people are taking a traditional approach by deploying 12 – 15 products from different vendors, it has not worked. If you look at security courses, they always try the defence and death method. If one product gets it wrong or one vendor gets it wrong, the other product will catch up. But typically, what I saw was that a lot of organisations use the exact same technology to detect the threat that is bought from 5 different vendors, and that model has not worked. What it actually creates is a management

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

INTERVIEW | MICHAEL SENTONAS overhead because people end up looking at 5 different places every time there is a threat. Now imagine having a critical incident; all your security technology does not collate any of these information, so somebody has to sit there eyeballing the system trying to pull information over the phone, which doesn’t work. So what I recommend to people is to have a look at technology, to have different detection techniques over different products. There is no point in implementing the same type of blacklisting on your desktop, server, gateway, and even on some of your network security appliances, because you are reactively trying to look at what’s happening at your network. Use different types of technologies. The benefit is that if you can get all of those technologies from one vendor or from a small number of vendors that carve out the information, you can see everything that’s happening across from your mobile device to your server all in one place. In case you update your patches, everything is consolidated on a single platform and that is typically a more efficient way. We are finding a lot of people are now looking for such a technology globally as well as on the Asia Pacific Level, since it takes a lot of complexity out of our network.

One of the prime concerns these days is Stuxnet and the likes. How valid are such concerns? Firstly, Stuxnet is an interesting piece of malware that we would be studying for the next few years and would be talking about it for a few years. The level of complexity of Stuxnet is very high. Individuals that developed it were extremely competent and extremely intelligent. What made

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Stuxnet interesting was that it was designed to target networks which showed how vulnerable our critical infrastructure could actually be. It also used legitimate digital certificate that had been stolen. Once a device is connected to the network, it caused a significant damage. Hence, I think that it’s showing people that our networks are very fragile. The risk is increasing, the vulnerabilities are increasing, the potential threat is increasing, but the amount of money people are spending on security is not increasing and that is going to be a recipe for disaster at some point of time. We want to be spending a little more time to make sure it does not happen.

“What I saw was that a lot of firms use the exact same technology to detect the threat that is bought from 5 different vendors, and that model has not worked.” How has the security landscape changed with the addition of mobile devices like iPad, etc.? It’s another interesting and exciting area to look at the benefits that these technologies provide us. The benefits are huge and I think there is a typical consumer technology that is now coming into the workplace. The definition of what an endpoint inside every organisation is fundamen-

MICHAEL SENTONAS | INTERVIEW age the fact that if somebody in an organisation loses corporate information from their iPad? The firm would want to make sure that the corporate data is not lost. From an IT support perspective, if you don’t install an app and you’re trying to use that app to connect your phone to you business, is your company ready to configure that app? So it is going to stretch out the traditional support model and the security area as well. For example, the Android platform has had a number of malware examples developed for that platform and Google had to remove more than 50 malicious apps from their marketplace that were downloaded 50,000 to 1,00,000 times. This shows the complexity and vulnerability of these platforms.

tally changing and will continue to change in the following years. The operating systems of various tablets have been introduced by Google, Samsung, Symbian. It has become a situation where a consumer technology has ended up in the workplace and you have to manage 5 to 10 operating systems. Some of these technologies have no security. For example, you can‘t buy a full anti – malware technology for your Apple iPhone, nor can you install a firewall or a data loss prevention technology for it. So we might have an issue at some point of time with these devices, like IT management, support and security. I am not sure if a lot of organisations are ready to manage the complexity of the types of Endpoint. How do they man-

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

There is also this perception that Apple devices, namely iPads, are more robust and secure in comparison to Android tablets. What is your view? It is a good thing that people are deciding which device to support and which not to. Let me give you a different perspective; if you allow 10 users of a company to remove the security technology and let them browse the internet for a day and let them download whatever they want, they will be vulnerable to security risks. But if you use an iPad and download applications for the device with no security, it is a risky proposition because you may have to jailbreak your device to access it, which makes it vulnerable to security risks. But even if you use it without jail breaking and put corporate information into it, it is vulnerable to security risks, as it doesn’t have any anti-malware technology. So, there are a whole range of issues people are going to start to deal with if they are not already.

What are your views about the threats from social networking? How valid is the concern? As a result of a huge rise in social networking, the threats in social networking are definitely on the rise. It is one of the threats predictions of 2011 and obviously the malware rise will tend to follow the technologies and the applications that people use more and more. Social networking websites like Facbook and Twitter are used more and more. So unfortunately, the malware developments will be seen on those platforms. A lot of malwares and scams that are served on Facebook have got nothing to do with the social networking site itself, but preys on the general public, like phishing attacks and other scams pretending to be emails from Facebook or Twitter. Over the years, with rapid adoption of consumer devices and technologies within the enterprise, the line between enterprise and personal threats has blurred. Now, a malaware on Facebook is as much as a threat to an individual as it is to the enterprise. What’s your take on this? The lines between a consumer and a network threat have definitely blurred. A threat won’t discriminate by nature. It doesn’t pick and choose a network. If a piece of malware is developed to exploit, it doesn’t discriminate between Adobe Acrobat or Windows Internet Explorer. It is going to attack a government network, large enterprises and small & medium businesses. What has changed is the targeted attack. Now there are focused attacks that are targeted at specific networks or certain people within those networks. Hence, it is a significant challenge.

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING EDUCATION WORKPLACE COMPENSATION WORKFORCE TRENDS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

ZOMATO APP FOR FOODIE PAGE 46

F1 Apps for Mobile THIS PAGE Apps to make your mails safe PAGE 44 Myths of the CV PAGE 47 Training Calendar : Career booster courses PAGE 48

BY V I S H A L M AT H U R

he Formula-1 season is well and truly under way now. The action is going to be extremely riveting. However, you may not always be around a television to catch up with the live action. In such a scenario, use your smartphone. With one or multiple apps, you can keep up with the action on the track. Download the correct app and get complete timing boards, sector times, full lap time charts, and even the track position of the cars on a virtual track.

PHOTOG RAPHY: SHIG IL N

F1 2011 Timing App CP Eevery F1 fan will love to have access to this app. Open the app and the first screen offers a mix of the lap time boards on half the screen and the completely active 3D map of the track the race is being held on. This map shows car positions on the track, with corner numbers. Users can either see the birdâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye view of the positions on the track, or select a driver or corner. To select a driver, click on his name on the lap time board on the top half of the screen. The view will be zoomed in to focus on the car of that driver, be it while he is on the track, or in the pits. Click on the name again to zoom back out. Click on any corner number to

APPLICATIONS

F-1 APPS FOR MOBILE The screaming V8s have come back to town! With one or multiple apps, keep up with the F-1 action! M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER

By Soft Pauer Available for Android, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Price: Rs 1,455 on Android Market; £19.99 on Apple App Store Download size: 11.28 MB to 15.1 MB

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TIPS & TRICKS

APPS TO MAKE MOBILES SAFE

OTHER ESSENTIALS The easiest way to secure your smartphone is with a password, making it the best place to start. For example, an alternative to standard alphanumeric passwords, Android Pattern Lock, lets you create a passcode by connecting four to nine dots on your phone’s screen. To unlock the device, you must redraw the same pattern. The feature is included on Android phones.

Security for smartphones is crucial now that so many of us use them frequently.

Security for smartphones is crucial now that so many of us use them to make business calls, check work e-mail and store information. We sampled several apps designed to take the risk out of computing on your phone. Here are the results: Iris Scanning To use the eyeD Biometric Password Manager, you take a picture of one eye using the app and your phone’s camera. You can then store sensitive data on the app, which will unlock only after you take another photo of the same eye. We tested the app with several people, including siblings, and it blocked out impostors every time. Remote Lock and Wipe If a thief tries to swap out your SIM card, McAfee WaveSecure locks your phone, rendering it unusable. You can also log on to the WaveSecure site to locate your lost phone on a map, lock it, and remove contacts, text messages, and media. The app, which is available for Android, BlackBerry, Nokia, and Windows Mobile phones, quickly pinpointed our phone on a map and locked it. Voice Encryption Kryptos uses military-grade 256-bit encryption to scramble smartphone calls, making it difficult for eavesdroppers to listen in. The app, which is available for iPhones and Android phones, provides a separate calling interface that you can use to make secure calls over Wi-Fi. The app was easy to use, and calls sounded mostly clear.

PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTOS .CO M

zoom the map in on that particular part of the track. Click again to zoom out. Just above the map is a scroll box with text based updates of what is happening on the track, drivers heading into/out of the pits etc. All data here is regularly updated, for the practice sessions, qualifying as well as the race. Rotate the device to landscape mode and the map occupies most of the space, with the chart moving to a little space on the left, vertically, while the scroll text updates shift to the bottom of the screen. Any updated are flashed on the map. For example, during the first practice session, we saw the flash “every driver has an extra set of hard tyres to use this session”. However, once a new session starts, the app downloads anywhere between 3MB and 5MB of data, before it starts pulling in the updates. Not only this, the F1 2011 Timing App CP also updates users with the latest news updates. The full text based commentary of the various race weekend sessions is also available, with only important updates flashed for the practice sessions, and much faster updates available for the qualifying and the race itself. While this is a perfect app for the F1 fans, the price may put off quite a few. The price of £19.99 on Android Market and the Apple App Store is a bit steep, considering the fact that this is essentially an annual subscription cost. Once the 2012 season gets underway, you will need to pay more to download the updated version of the app for that season. However, if you have money and have an Android phone or any of the iOS devices? Well, then you definitely need to get this application! The fun of watching the race unfold on the 3D map will be worth the entire moolah you rake up for this app.

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“With various collaboration models, one need not wait for months to complete the project” — Ponani Gopalkrishnan, VP, IBM

“IT managers need to adopt a platform for security that confirms to their deployment needs” — Michael Sentonas, VP and CTO, Asia Pac, McAfee

Formula1.com 2011 This is one app which is available on a wide variety of smartphone platforms. Chances are you will get this app for your phone. And the best part is that it is free. Before you can access the application, there is a one-time sign up process which you need to complete with Formula1.com. The app starts with the

latest race weekend details on the home screen, be it the in progress weekend or the next upcoming one. For those of us who are constantly confused when the race starts, this one shows all session start timings, both in the user’s local time as well as the race location’s local time. Click on the Live Timing tab, and this opens up the lap time leaderboard,

You may not always be around a television to catch up with the live F-1 action. In such a scenario, use apps on your smartphone.

FREE APPS FOR BLACKBERRY The Blackberry smart phones offer you a host of free applications ranging from Amazon Application to Neosistec CarFinder. Here is the top 5 on the list: BBNotePad: This acts as a text editor. You can use the app to write full-length documents or code. BeeTag: You can use 2-D barcode scanner to scan barcodes on ads or product brands. After scanning, this app will give you product information, text and URL information for the particular products. Amazon Application: The app allows you to shop for your day to day needs from Amazon. BlackBerry Messenger: The apps use BlackBerry OS’s PIN to send messages to your friends and relatives. Boopsie: This mobile application searches your data in seconds. Source: Honeytechblog.com

with the option of reading text based commentary as well. Track data is available as well, with the info about Track Temp, Air Temp, wind speed, humidity and even wind source. Lap chart feature is only updated during the race. The lap chart attempts to graphically illustrate the difference in lap times between most drivers, but can be a bit daunting for most people at first. Also available for instant access is the race weekend dates for the entire year. This is good news for those of us who want to book tickets for the Singapore Grand Prix! The drivers and constructors standings (championship points table) are also available for access. While this app does not have the frills of the F1 2011 Timing App CP, the fact that this app is available on more smartphone platforms, and doesn’t

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER REVIEW

ZOMATO - THE PERFECT APP FOR THE FOODIE!

cost a thing, may well make this the preferred app for most F1 fans.

By Formula1.com Available for Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Blackberry and Symbian Price: FREE (on all platforms) Download size: 1.1 MB to 2.3 MB

ESPNF1

Zomato is possibly the ultimate application for the foodie! Restaurant menu, location, contact details and even user reviews are available in an instant. The application will also identify your location and offer a choice of restaurants in the area, if that is what you want. It is time to make the smartphone search for food! PROS: Simple layout, easy to navigate and use, determines the location and offers restaurant results accordingly. CONS: Menu card images do not always show up properly. GETTING THE APP: Very simple Downloading the app is pretty simple. From the phone’s web browser, just head to the website http://www.zomato.com/blackberry. Use the Wi-Fi or 3G/EDGE/ GPRS, whichever you wish to, and download the 400kb application. Installation takes a couple of minutes post downloading. LOOK AND FEEL: Simple elegance The Zomato app essentially has a clean layout on offer. On the home screen, there are three options available. “Discover” lets Zomato identify your location via the phone’s built-in GPS (or cell tower location) and offer a random restaurant for you to try out. The “Explore” option lets you search for restaurants either via the automatic location discovery method or by manually entering a location and getting a list of restaurants in the vicinity. The third is the “Search” option, which lets you search according to a restaurant name, cuisine type or by location. The theme of white and red is prevalent throughout the app. The white background with red icons lends it a clean, yet catchy look. PERFORMANCE: The food finder! While the Zomato app works only in certain cities at the moment, it does work wherever it is supposed to work! Currently available in Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru and Pune, Zomato will not disappoint. Download the app and sign-up/sign-in to the Zomato account. OUR TAKE: For the foodie

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One look at the ESPNF1 app and you will be amazed at the extremely clean interface, and the fact that it still manages to pack in so much information. Live race commentary, news updates, complete race season calendar, drivers and constructors championship tables and even an image gallery. On the home screen, you will usually get a countdown timer for the next race, with the news articles below it. These are the latest news items available. The News tab takes you to more news articles as well as features, which can be filtered by date, team or driver. The content here is completely immense, and some of the featured articles available for your reading pleasure are actually world class. The Calendar tab lists all the races of the season. Users can access the race commentary from here, by clicking on the race currently in progress. There are live timesheets during the race, commentary is available for all sessions (including practice sessions), photo gallery from the race weekend and all circuit details. The circuit details include current conditions, the profile of the racetrack, a historical lowdown on that particular circuit, how the Grand Prix has evolved at that racetrack and the schedule of the events during that race weekend this year. This is a lot of information, something anyone with an interest in historical events would love to read up on. This app is also available on three major smartphone platforms, and the price of FREE makes this a very good app to download.

By ESPN Available for Android, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Symbian Price: FREE (on all platforms) Download size: 1.8 MB

15-MINUTE MANAGER

F1 2011 Live24 (also known as Livesports24 F1 Racing) This is the app which is meant for the complete F1 fanatic. This has blended complete functionality and colourful graphics, along with a lot of features. On the home screen, there is a lot of stuff. Multiple boxes offer a lot of info. The first box shows the countdown to the race and the race updates when it goes live, the venue and the track weather conditions. The second tab shows the date and time of the various sessions scheduled

for that race weekend. Below that is the drivers championship standings box, with the driver’s individual cars. You need to flick through this horizontal box to see the driver positions, signified by their cars. The navigation tabs are at the bottom of the page. Click on News and you get all the updates for the F1 world. Races tab has the schedule of races for the entire season. Click on an event, and that takes you to a page with detailed results from qualifying and the race sessions, circuit details as well as the weather conditions.

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

MYTHS OF THE CV You’ll be surprised to know that many things you thought were essential to your resume are not that important... BY YO G ES H BA N SA L

The image gallery is also available, and so are dedicated profiles for all individual drivers, complete with their career stats. F1 2011 Live24 is a superb app, which offers a lot of info, in a very colourful interface.

By Genera Mobile Available for Android, iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad Price: FREE (on all platforms) Download size: 1.1 MB to 1.6 MB

our resume is your marketing tool, which acts like an ice breaker and builds your brand. A resume gives facts and benefits that highlight how your abilities and skills that can be of use to the employers. The resume is not meant to impress your future employer, as impressing the interviewer is YOUR job. Having a beautiful resume alone cannot fetch you a job. It will help you get acquainted to the employer. Crafting a winning resume is a myth; there is actually no perfect resume for any job type. A useful resume is a document in which the employer can clearly see how your experience and ability can help them. There is another conviction that you’re not supposed to rewrite your resume, but the fact is that resume is not irreversible. There are always new elements added to your resume which provides new perspective to the employer. Having new perspectives would always help the employer in understanding your goals and aspirations and set his own expections. While the mention of personal information and objectives are important, it is critical to comprehend what the employer would expect from you. Also, the belief that a lengthy

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING CALENDAR

Career booster courses for you!

PROGRAMME

VENUE

DATES

Developing Managerial Competencies for Higher Performance

Fore School of Management

Marketing to the Bottom of the Pyramid

IIM Calcutta

May 9 2011May 12 2011

Personal Growth & Group Development

IIM Calcutta

June 20 2011June 25, 2011

Work Life Balance for Women Executives

Fore School of Management

July 25-26, 2011

Revenue Management & Pricing Optimization

IIM Calcutta

August 3, 2011-August 5, 201

Work Life Balance for Women Executives

Fore School of Management

July 25-26, 2011

Finance for Non-Finance Business Managers

Fore School of Management

September 5-7, 2011

Supply Chain Certification for Manufacturing Enterprises

ISB

July 1-4, 2011

Certificate Programme in Strategic Retail Management

Indian School of Business

July 16-December 22, 2011

Micro Analytics

IIM KOZHIKODE

June 15-17, 2011

April 25-27 2011

resume will not yield effects is a myth. The one-page rule is probably the most common myth about a resume. Candidates resort to a myriad of unhealthy practices to restrict their resume to just one page. Many wellmeaning college counselors also advise their students to be concise and limit their resume to one page. If you have held only one job, then don’t try to create a five-page resume, but if your background merits are lengthier, then don’t try to fit everything on to one page. Another misconception that people have is about cover letters. People have a concept that nobody reads cover letters, but the fact is many managers and recruiters DO read them. Cover letters can tell potential employers a lot about your individual communication and organisational skills, as well as how committed you are towards finding the right job. Prospective employers read cover letters with one critical question in mind: What’s in it for me? So, answering that question in a way that is clear and concise will increase the likelihood that you’ll pass through to the next stage of the screening process. Another critical area is personal interests. Job seekers feel that employers want to know about their hobbies. Your resume is a tool to express your interest in the position and to get the opportunity for a face-to-face interview. Before you list your personal interests, ask yourself if adding them makes effective value addition to your resume space. During the face-to-face interview, there will likely be very natural opportunities to discuss your personal interests. Your resume, however, should showcase your professional value to the employer. The answer is finding a balance. Why a resume fails is because the applicant forgets the basic rule of getting a job; the process isn’t about showing how good you are, but showing how you can help the employer achieve their goals and how you can be an asset to the organisation. The author is Founder & CEO, ApnaCircle.com

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 1

Virtualisation

the big

Business Case: Server EXPERT PANEL

M a nish S hahs GM-IT, Indu sF ila

The Situation...

Cut it from he re

Witnessing the major growth of computing power on servers in the last few years, Aswini Rao, who heads the IT desk of her firm, has a major task on her shoulders, which is to drive the efficiency of these servers. It is said that servers are far more powerful than they once were, unless the company has grown at the same rate. The organisation has invariably added a huge amount of servers to the infrastructure. The firm perhaps followed the trend of deploying more servers as part of the three or five year budgetary plan. As most organisations face the problem of surplus deployments, Aswini’s firm too is going through the similar phase with the cost of maintenance going up. However, she opines that the servers are probably underutilized at this point of time. Aswini is faced with the challenge of increasing over all operational efficiency, reduce capex and find a way to utilize the servers more optimally, which could help reduce future investments and Your responses count. Log on to www.itnext.in/bigQ to submit your replies. The best entry will be published in the next print edition.

V inay H ing e Ma naging Partner – VH Consu ltin g

Binu L akshman Man ager IT, H onda Siel Cars India L imited

rule out new deployments. Obviously, a series of interactions with her colleagues and peer groups compelled her to look at server virtualisation as the solution. Aswini’s thought process revolved around breaking up those servers into virtual machines and addressing that utilization rate. This led her to opt for server virtualisation, as she felt it made sense at this point of time. To give a background, Aswini’s organisation, for instance, has 50 servers. Her problem is to find how many physical servers and Virtual Machines (VMs) can she move and at what periodicity, so that she can see good savings. Besides, escalating server utilization rate, she intends to witness benefits around driving energy efficiency with savings on power and carbon emissions. She intends to drive higher utilization of servers and reduce cost. She also intends to implement disaster recovery in virtual environments to store copies of virtual machines in comparison to physical servers. The idea is to take a 360 degree approach.

M A y 2 0 1 1 | itnext

the big q

the big questions... If Aswini deploys server virtualisation, how many servers she

should start with and how many VM’s does she need to use? What are the cost savings she would derive?

Can she implement disaster recovery in a virtual environment and store the copies of Vms? How? What are the cost benefits that she can achieve?

Here are the answers... ‘reduce no. of physical servers’ FIRST ANSWER

Manish Shah GM-IT, IndusFila About me: Designed and deployed the IT infrastructure for various small to medium companies across India. He has been with Indus Fila for nearly 9 years now, and has a total work experience of over 20 years.

First of all, Aswini will need to assess her existing servers in terms of: 1. Compute and other resource availability 2. The percentage of utilisation 3. Criticality of the applications on servers 4. Age of the servers, i.e., support available, etc. Post assessment, Aswini might find that 10% of the servers are running very critical applications, which should not be virtualised. However, Aswini can consider replacing these servers with newer and greener ones. This will involve capex, but in turn will contribute to the overall reduction in power, cooling requirements and heat generation. Servers, which are running at around 60% of utilization and are not too old and are not out of support, can be continued as it is, subject to power and cooling utilization, heat generation, etc. The rest of the servers can be moved to a virtual environment. Assuming that the existing servers are about 2–3 years old, running at 25–40% utilization, they can be virtualised in 1:3 to 1:5 ratio, thereby requiring 6 – 8 new servers. Reduction of the total number of physical servers from 50 to about 16 (8 new, 8 retained) gives a 70% reduction in the overall number of servers. These new servers, which are more power efficient and less heat dissipating will, 1. bring down overall power consumption by about 80%. 2. Heat reduction (and hence cooling requirement) by about 70%. 3. Require lesser server admin so to manage the environment. 4. Require lesser racks and lesser rack space. Aswini might find some of the current entry level blade server offerings from the leading vendors ideally suitable for her organisation. A six blade server with SAN storage might be the right fit for the organisation.

SECOND ANSWER The actual DR plan will depend on the RPO and the RTO of the organisation. A simple solution will be to create snapshots of the VMs at regular intervals. These snapshots can be restored to any of the physical servers in a matter of minutes. This will give a very low downtime, leading to increased efficiency and very low management overhead. For those applications requiring high availability, cluster instance can be implemented in an active/active or active/passive mode. This solution will not require investment in any additional hardware, as the instance can be brought up on any of the existing physical servers, thereby saving a great deal of money, in terms of hardware, cooling and manpower.

itnext | M a y 2 0 1 1

the big q

‘plan for large scale rollout’ FIRST ANSWER Implementing server virtualisation is very similar to any significant IT initiative a company goes for. Creating a business case is many a times challenging. I would recommend Aswini to go for a pilot project, document the learning, generate data to prepare a business case, demonstrate the benefits, and, prepare a plan for a large scale rollout. It is not possible to arrive at a formula about how many physical servers can be moved as virtual servers on a single host system. The factors that influence the sizing include: OS and its versions, application architecture, database, I/O requirements, number of users and peak load, and, current processor and RAM load trend. Similarly, your choice of virtualisation platform is equally critical. By taking into account your goals, business context and technical skills availability, one needs to select the platform. There has been ample material available in the public domain to narrow your choices and also consulting a peer from another user organisation will educate Aswini on the issues that come up once the solution enters production phase. Based on my personal experience, it is possible to arrive at 15% to 40% cost savings by going for virtualisation.

SECOND ANSWER When it comes to a disaster recovery strategy, I always recommend that you should think about your data and operating environment separately. Whether your application is running in a virtual or non-virtual environment, you need to look at your data backup policy the same way. Based on your DR and backup policy, you may go for a local or remote backup and may use a media strategy such as: Direct to Tape, Disk to Disk, Disk to Disk to Tape, etc. When it comes to taking backup of the system stack, you need to have your change management processes in place. After every change in the system stack, the backup can be done by way of cloning the virtual machine in the production environment and restoring it in the DR side infrastructure. The cost benefits will be notional in nature such as reduction in risks associated with manual configuration/deployment of apps to the DR side in the absence of virtualisation..

Vinay Hinge Managing Partner – VH Consulting (a shared CIO service) Formerly: VP-IT at Dmart and GM-IT at Raymond About me:Have 10 years of experience in online marketing and 12 years of experience in information architecture.

Top Security Concerns Related to Virtualisation

ity secur 100

Business and IT executives across 15 countries reported serious security concerns about Virtualized IT Environments

Compliance issues

81%

73%

37%

Hypervisor Privilege

Data Sprawl

85%

Cloud privacy

Source: Frost & Sulliva n

M A y 2 0 1 1 | itnext

the big q

‘you can save resources with dR’ FIRST ANSWER Virtualisation enables consolidation of servers, as it allows all the necessary tasks to run on fewer servers that are being utilized to near capacity levels. This reduces overall energy consumption, cooling requirements, and data center space requirements. If Aswini goes for server virtualisation, she should consider: n The vital parameters of the servers. n She can put 40-50 VMs on a single physical environment for test and development environments. n 12-15 production VMs should be moved to one physical machine.

SECOND ANSWER

Binu Lakshman Manager IT, Honda Siel Cars India Limited About me: Have handled prestigious ERP implementations for clients like Schindlers India Mumbai, Kellogs Mumbai, Honda Siel cars India Limited, Super Cassettes Industries .

Aswini can go for disaster recovery in virtual environment and store the copies of VMs. First, she has to identify the applications and systems that are business-critical and then focus on their recovery effort. She would have to go for DR software. There are several advantages of doing DR in the VM environment: 1. H ardware savings: Instead of spending money on buying or upgrading new servers for each application, Aswini should create 5 VMs on each physical machine. 2. T he virtualisation software provides hardware independence, so Aswini does not need to standardize on one hardware vendor or platform. 3. O ptimized disaster recovery process: VMware virtual machines back up servers at the disaster recovery site in real time. If one machine needs rebooting or fails unexpectedly, another machine with redundant virtual machines takes over.

Notes NOTEs

More Resources

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SLA Best Practices: http://www.cisco.com/en/US/tech/tk869/tk769/technologies_white_paper09186a008011e783.shtml What about SLAs?: http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/blogs/all/saas-bpo-convergence-what-aboutslas/?cs=38590

CUBE CHAT | MANISH KUMAR SINHA

Follow Your Instinct

“It’s the inner soul that guides and inspire people--be at any level and therefore one should never even try to dupe the same,” says Manish Kumar Sinha, Head IT, On Dot Couriers & Cargo BY JATIN D E R S I N G H

W MY SUCESS

MANTRA Have faith and give your best in whatever role you are assigned with.

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 1

hile many people contend to have different faces for their personal and professional lives in order to be successful in the long term, it’s not the case with Manish Kumar Sinha, Head IT, On Dot Couriers. For him, it’s the inner soul that guides and inspire people - be at any level, and therefore, one should never try to dupe the same. “Whenever you decide to do something, ask yourself if it is the way you want to do everything,” he says. A firm believer of making his presence felt through hard work, Sinha considers hype as just a tool that can be used to create awareness among the target customers. “At times, a perfect combination of both is required to win and contribute towards organisational goals. However, the taste of this recipe would be

always good, as you have worked hard for it,” he adds. He however cautions that in the growing competitive scenario, it’s just not hard work, but also innovation that helps one to outlast their competitor. “It always works when you keep publishing new initiatives, notices, alerts and policies to highlight the importance of your work and contribution,” he says. When not at work, Sinha enjoys writing poetry, watching movies, and cooking. For him, God is the best friend who always talks with him. Sinha is also a stern disciplinarian and has a dream of Time magazine interviewing him for a feature one day for his social contributions. He takes his inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi and his quality of unshaken faith. “No matter what the circumstances were, but with his

CUBE CHAT

FACT FILE NAME MANISH KUMAR S I N H A CURRENT DESIGN AT I O N HEAD IT CURRENT ROLE STRATEGIC TECH N O LO G Y PL ANNING, SYST E M S & VENDOR MANAGE M E N T, IT INFRASTRUCT U R E DEPLOYMENT & OPERATIONS MANAGEMENT EXPERTISE ERP, CRM, E-COM M E R C E , & MANUFACTURI N G SOLUTIONS – IMPLEMENTATIO N S WORK EXPERIEN C E 2009 –PRESENT HEAD IT, ON DOT COURIERS & CAR G O

PHOTO GRAPHY: S UBHO JIT PAUL

No problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking. That’s why I keep myself more aware at all levels to keep learning and moving forward in life. solid faith, he was able to spread the vision of freedom in the entire nation,” he says. Each one of us must have faced some problem or the other that seemed like a coloosal challenge. Similarly, Sinha has also had his share of challenges. He recalls, “In 2004, when I joined On Dot, the previous IT manager left the IT Department with stolen hard drives, source code, no documentation, deleted websites, changed panel passwords and modified financial entries. Within 1 month of my joining the firm, the government increased the tax calculation and it was really a tough task to create an application patch that picks processed data, reprocess it in a new format and prints the bill after studying the database table flows. With just me, 1 developer and 1 functional guy,

we implemented the system at the national level. Because of budget constraints, we created small teams of computer operators and transformed them into system administrators. That motivated them, and in just 2-3 months of training, they become skilled professionals, without having any certifications or degrees. This idea generated a win-win equation for all 3 business units, i.e. management did not have to spend money for extra talent, we got a great team of individuals without increasing the cost, and operators got free training and a career break as well. According to Sinha, no problem can stand the assault of sustained thinking. “That’s why I keep myself more aware at all levels in order to keep learning and moving forward,” he signs off with a smile.

2007-2009 MANAGER SYSTE M S , AMENSYS INC. (I T SERVICE COMPA N Y ) , PL ANO (TX, USA) AS MANAGER SYSTE M S 2005 -2007 SYSTEM ENGINE E R , PENTAGON SYSTE M , MUMBAI 2004 SYSTEM ADMINISTRATOR , PANACEA BIOTEC (PHARMACEUTIC A L ) 2002-2004 HEURISTICS INFORMATICS (I T SERVICE COMPA N Y ) , GURGAON, INDIA 1998 -2002 MAWAI INFOTEC LT D. (IT SERVICE COM PA N Y ) , NEW DELHI FAVORITE QUOTE SO WHAT, I WILL W I N FAVORITE BOOK “MY EXPERIMENTS WITH TRUTH” BY MAHATMA GANDH I , “THINK & GROW R I C H ” BY NAPOLEON HI L L .

A PMR A IY L 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

OFF THE SHELF

A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

Creative Launches Ziio Tablets Creative takes wireless entertainment beyond music listening

Asus releases new graphic cards Asus has launched the Asus GTX 590 graphic cards, which use the dual Nvidia GF110 cores. With Asus exclusive Voltage Tweak to drive the card at 918MHz, it enables DirectX 11 gaming in the high resolutions and with all details and effect, as well as smooth and realistic 3D gaming and movies through Nvidia 3D Vision Surround for three-screen displays. According to Vinay Shetty, Country Head, Asus (India), “The ASUS GTX590 will provide superlative graphics performance to discerning users and along with various unique features like Voltage Tweak, Smart Doctor and Gamer OSD maximize the power and functionality of the GPU to provide gamers with the much needed edge over their competitors.”

MOBILITY | Creative Technology has KEY FEATURES announced the release of a new wireless * Compact touch screen tablet entertainment solution comprising of * 16.8 million (7” version ) and 262K Creative ZiiO 7” and 10” Pure Wireless color (10” version) display for Entertainment Tablets. laser sharp images “With the release of the Pure Wireless * Android 2.2 Operating System Entertainment range of devices, we have * Bluetooth 2.1 EDR brought personal entertainment beyond (with apt-X and A2DP) the confines of a single room to the entire house,” said Ernest Sim, Regional Sales Manager for the Indian subcontinent at Creative. The company claims that the Creative ZiiO tablet is the world’s first apt-X enabled touch screen tablet — which runs on Android 2.2, delivering one of the most proficient wireless audio performance that one can expect from an Android-based tablet in the market, differentiating it from similar devices. The Creative ZiiO is available in 7” and 10” display models. The 7” model is in white, while the 10” model is in black. Both models come in 8GB and 16GB memory capacities. Creative ZiiO 8GB tablets will be available in India at select outlets at suggested retail prices of Rs 17,999 (7” tablet) and Rs 21,999 (10” tablet).

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As per the company, Dual GF110 GPUs boost performance over the former top-of-the-line GTX 580 reference design, enhancing graphics processing capabilities for the strongest Nvidia Fermi-based product delivered to date on a single circuit board. PRODUCT FEATURES • The ASUS GTX 590 uses a core that runs at 612MHz. Asus exclusive overvolting utility Voltage Tweak takes advantage of this new power, allowing users with aggressive cooling to push the card further for up to 50% faster clock speeds at 918MHz. • Full support for Nvidia 3D Vision Surround, driven by the capabilities of this dual-GPU card, easily handles full HD 3D output simultaneously on three displays.

UPDATE

Techcom Unveils New Speaker System FEATURES The SD/USB input facilities provided in the system enables direct playback of music from memory cards and data storage devices – so users can just plug in a pen-drive or an SD Card and enjoy their favourite music. That is convenient, especially when people like to carry their favourite stuff in portable and mobile devices.

AUDIO | Techcom’s latest offering in the consumer electronics market is the SSD 3300 FM, which as per the company, is a hi-tech 2.1 multimedia speaker system. The 3300 FM offers a friendly user interface coupled with a fully functional remote control for ease of operations. According to Techcom, the LED display adds to the clarity and crispness of information and subsequent control of the system. The company says that the digital MP3/CD player enables playback of sharp, digital quality music for an enriching experience. The built-in digital FM radio allows the users to tune into their favourite station as per their convenience. The USP of the device is its SD/USB facilities. The SSD 3300 FM by Techcom is now available in the market at a price of about Rs. 1,550.

Aditya Infotech Unveils New Corsair Headset AUDIO | Aditya Infotech Ltd has announced the availability of the Corsair HS1A headset for gamers and enthusiasts in India. “Since Aditya will be exclusively distributing the Corsair HS1A headset in India, we are already geared up with our sales & marketing strategy to create interest amongst the target users and to boost up sale of this new offering,” commented Sanjay Gogia, Country Manager at Aditya Infotech Ltd. As per the company, the HS1A uses 50mm drivers to deliver detailed audio reproduction with clean, accurate bass and sparkling clarity in the mids and highs. The HS1A uses replaceable memory foam earcups for a custom, reliable fit. The extra-large diameter and deep-dish design help prevent them from touching the user’s ears. The Corsair HS1A Headset is priced at Rs. 4200.

Buffalo launches Drive Station Duo Buffalo Technology has unveiled their power packed Drive Station Duo. Built in with USB 3.0, USB 2.0 and eSATA interfaces, it is best suited for home as well as smaller working environments, which require large data storage. Offering an easy raid configuration, this device provides a speed of 5.0 Gbps for USB 3.0 and 480 Mbps for USB 2.0 and 3 Gbps with eSATA Interface. “With data transfer speed of up to 10X faster as compared to USB 2.0, this unit is a two bay RAID enabled drive with RAID 0 for performance and RAID 1 for redundant storage.” said Susumu Kobayashi, Country Head, Buffalo Inc. The Drive Station Duo also gives additional storage to quickly backup the user’s multimedia files. DriveStation Duo is available in combination of two variants – HD-WLU3/R1 Series with USB 3.0 Interface and HD-WLSU2/R1 Series with USB 2.0 and eSATA interface.

KEY ADVANTAGES * 50mm drivers for high-quality audio reproduction * Detailed audio reproduction with clean, accurate bass and clarity in mids and highs * Circumaural, closed-back earcups for superior noise isolation * Memory foam earpads provide a custom fit * Includes two sets of earpads to customize user comfort * Noise-cancelling microphone with flexible, rotating boom works good for in-game chat, Skype, and other VOIP applications

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

INDULGE

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

The future is here! Get ready to see movies like never before with the Phillips Cinema 21:9 Gold TV. Or click some awesome pictures from the 40 megapixel Hasselblad H4D-40 Ferrari Edition camera. HOT PHILLIPS CINEMA 21:9 GOLD Surf the net, record live TV, or update your FB.

CABASSE LA SPHERE These speakers have a spherical design, making them cool! PRICE: $1,76,000

PRICE: TBA

MEGA HURTZ This is the ultimate paintball machine, which you can use to run some havoc on your friends, though in a fun manner! PRICE: $3,600

NEW HASSELBLAD H4D-40 FERRARI With a 40 megapixel sensor, this camera can capture truly life-like pictures. PRICE: $29,499

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

ITNEXT | M A Y 2 0 1 1

UPDATE

OPEN DEBATE

BOOK FOR YOU A platform to air your views on the latest developments and issues that impact you

Can outsourcing be considered a viable option for telcos?

RAVINDER DAGAR, MANAGER DMS & AV/CV AT VIDEOCON TELECOMMUNICATIONS LTD The entire telecom industry is struggling to retain its margin and sustainability in the market, which results in the selection of average vendors who compromise on quality. An iota of doubt crops up if it is a good option to outsource. With telcos going all out for the outsourcing model, the driving point being the cost pressure, it invariably results in wrong selection. Speed being the buzzword in telecom where things change overnight, a certain amount of outsourcing is a viable option.

BHAVITA SAXENA, IT MANAGER, HCL TECHNOLOGIES Bharti TeleVentures outsourced its IT and network infrastructure to IBM and Ericsson respectively. It turned out to be successful as it was not a traditional outsourcing model, but a business transformation set up. The model was based on ‘On-Demand’ finanancial pyament model that gelled with Bharti’s growth strategy. Outsourcing for the sake of just cutting down on cost is not a great idea, unless the deal brings in new capabilities and reduce the total cost of ownership in an intelligent manner.

CHARU BHARGAVA ASSISTANT MANAGER-IT, SHEELA FOAM Globally speaking, the first successful outsourcing case in telecom was that of the Bharti Group, provider of network, resource, equipments, and IT. These services were outsourced to IBM, Ericsson, and, Siemens. Many Indian operations followed suite to outsource services prior to their launch. It is not about just outsourcing that brings valu; it is about the value built over the long run which drives operational efficiency. It goes with the experience that the service provider carries, which results in judicious outsourcing decision and profitability.

The India Way Success lies in the world learning from Indian businesses AUTHOR: PETER CAPPELLI, HARBIR SINGH, JITENDRA SINGH AND MICHAEL USEEM PUBLISHER: HARVARD BUSINESS PRESS PRICE: RS 695

The “unbridled pursuit of self-interest”, hallmark of the American model of economic development, popularly called the “Washington Consensus”, led to deep, self-inflicted injuries. Global financial meltdown, the result of unrealistic business ventures seeking profits, has offered enough reason to unlearn what was learnt over the past 50 years from western economies. Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, one of the biggest votaries of this model, admitted that he had made a mistake in pushing for “greater reliance on market forces and reduced government controls”. The initial success of the US model, according to The India Way, published by Harvard Business Press, which drove business restructuring was not received well. Business leaders looked at tips from Indian businesses. A compilation of top 105 interviews, the book depicts Indian approach to “running companies centred on a concern for multiple stakeholders and their needs.” IT NEXT VERDICT The book, pleasantly heavy with insider accounts, will help Indian businessmen understand themselves in the global scheme

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

of things. It will also inspire managers . STAR VALUE:

M A Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

MY LOG

SHASHWAT DC Associate Editor, IT Next

ILLU STR ATION: ANOOP -P C

What if Apple was Orange? One can discern that most great company names are rather destiny, not design. Have a look.

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3 ESSENTIAL

READS

INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING

CLOUD COMPUTING | INSIGHT However, things have changed for the better because foolproof encryption, firewall technologies and multi-layered security mechanisms have helped erase apprehensions and led to sustained growth in electronic trading and business. To add to it, financial markets, generally prone to cyclical recessionary storms, are now increasingly open to the idea of even embracing cloud-based services. While security and regulatory concerns still inhibit the foray into cloud, particularly when it concerns transactional data, the fear is combined with ecstasy in trying out this model.

From

Fearto

Euphoria While security and regulatory concerns may still keep some skeptics away from the Cloud, fear is paving way for euphoria

BY G JOSLIN VETHAKUMAR

Secure trading revolves around 3Cs

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The three Cs are Collaboration, Communication and Compliance platforms that facilitate secure trading. When market players pitch themselves on a combined cloud-based communication, collaboration and compliance platform, they are in effect

TOP 10 STRATEGIC TECHNOLOGIES FOR 2011 Cloud Computing Mobile Applications and Media Tablets Social Communications and Collaboration. Video. Next Generation Analytics Social Analytics Context-Aware Computing Storage Class Memory Ubiquitous Computing Fabric-Based Infrastructure and Computers

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I M AG I N G : P R ASA N T H T R

the time he wrote the manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux, he had lost the cap. So, the manual included an appeal to readers to return his Red Hat if found. On the other hand, some names are crafted with much thought and yet destiny plays its dubious hand. So, back in 1997, when a couple of Stanford University geniuses thought of setting up a search engine based on page ranks, they creatively named it as Googol, a term for 1 followed by 100 zeros. Sadly, the cheque received by an investor was made out to ‘Google’. To cash it, they went ahead with the misspell, and the rest, as they say, is history! Meanwhile, a majority of names are much mundane. For instance, Microsoft was named so, as the company was devoted to microcomputer software. HP was named after its co-founder Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard. EMC was named from the initials of the founders, Richard Egan and Roger Marino. Similarly, Infosys is ‘Information Systems’. Wipro is an acronym for Western India Palm Refined Oil Ltd. Intel stands for Integrated Electronics, while IBM stands for ‘International Business Machines’. So, Shakespeare was indeed right; names are incidental to success and failure and there’s nothing much to them. In fact, back in the 70s, if a young Jobs named his company as ‘Orange’, we would have still loved him equally, if not more.

P H OTO G R A P H Y: X X X X X X X X X X X

Many years ago, a certain bard from Avon had famously proclaimed in one of his many masterpieces, “What’s in a name?” Post that defining proclamation, mankind has kind of internalised the philosophy. There is but little attention paid while naming products, services or even companies for that matter. It is hard to digest that some of the brand names that we have come so much to love, were mere acts of coincidence than those of deliberation. Let me share with you some such geeky tales. Urban legend has it that after many months of racking their collective brains, the geeks at a California garage were given time till 5’o’clock in the evening to come up with a credible name for their new firm, pending which the chief geek, Steve Jobs, would go ahead and name the company on his sole discretion. Since no one was able to come out with a nice innovative name, Jobs made true his bluff. As the clock stuck 5, the only thing a hungry Jobs could think was of his favorite fruit, the Apple. Little wonder, ‘Apple’ was the best that he could come up with. Somewhat similar is the tale of Marc Ewing, who was given a cap with red and white stripes by his grandfather. Since Ewing also happened to be a genuis of the bits and bytes domain, he was much in demand for sorting things technical and was dubbed as the guy in the red hat. By

Security and regulatory concerns may still keep some skeptics away from cloud? Pg 26

Small companies are proving to be an attractive destination for IT managers for growth Pg 34 INTERVIEW | MICHAEL SENTONAS

“POTENTIAL THREATS ARE INCREASING” The security threat landscape has been changing quite drastically in the past few years. In an exclusive interaction with Shashwat DC, Michael Sentonas, VP, Chief Technology Ofﬁcer - Asia Paciﬁc, McAfee, spells out the challenge before the IT managers and the ways they can cope with it.

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Michael Sentonas, CTO, McAfee, spells out the security challenges Pg 38