IT NEXT SEPTEMBER ISSUE by Manan Mushtaq

IT NEXT

SEPTEMBER 2010 / RS. 100 VOLUME 01 / ISSUE 09

INSIGHT: The

Emergence of Liquid-cooled data centre

INSIGHT: Social Media debuts on the enterprise space

INTERVIEW:

WHEN DISASTER STRIKES

E ID U G L A IV V R U AS

VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 09

ON HOW TO MITIGATE DISASTER AND

ROM IT Pg.10 F D N U O B E R

A 9.9 Media Publication

42 TECH TALK

Sandeep Aurora delves on the transformation of Intel

The security driven enterprise Pg 51

EDITORIAL

Building a Safety Net The growing dependence of organizations on their IT infrastructure and services has propelled disaster recovery (DR) and business

continuity planning to the top of every CIO’s agenda. The biggest reason for this is the high risk and cost of downtime. The inability to access and use production systems, especially by customers and suppliers, can wreak havoc with the organization’s carefully nurtured reputation and relationships—and result in large business losses and lost opportunity costs. Think of bank, a travel web site or a retail POS system. This is one reason why recovery time objectives are now specified in hours instead of days, even for very large, complex systems. To cope with disasters you need a well-drafted plan. Begin by identifying and classifying data that is critical to the enterprise, and then formulate a strategy to safeguard it. Evaluate the value of the information at risk, and set the recovery time objectives. That’s because the impact of downtime, regulatory risks, and business opportunity costs have to weighed against the eventual cost of installing and operating the DR solution. Invest in documentation, awareness and training—and in enforcing good practices. There is little point in having a good DR system if no one is making data backups. Test and measure regularly—corrupted backups are of little use as are unreliable recovery processes. This is where adopting best practices and tested solutions make for good ideas. While scope and scale of disasters are hard to predict, good IT managers are learning to prepare for them. Here they are getting help from a wide variety of technology and solution providers. Available options now include traditional hardware systems like redundant servers and clusters, RAID, tape backups and remote sites to third-party services for disaster recovery. These third-party services come in many flavours, including co-location providers, DR service providers and cloud-based DR solutions. Over the next few years IT managers can expect virtual and cloud-based offerings to mature, and play an increasingly important role in DR. It is likely that these services will be offered both by traditional DR service providers, as well as new players. Service options will include IT-recoveryas-a-service, backup-as-a-service, and on-premises backup to a storageas-a-service disk target, also known as disk-to-disk-to-cloud. Growing competition will compel service providers to innovate, become more flexible and responsive, and improve support for virtualized environments. Disaster recovery is set to become less painful and more reliable.

“Evaluate the value of the information at risk, and set the recovery time objectives” R GIRIDHAR

Blogs To Watch! The Enterprise IT acquisition game: http://blog.fosketts.net Disaster Management using Social Media and Open Source : http://governingpeople.com Your views and opinion matter to us. Send your feedback on stories and the magazine at r.giridhar@9dot9.in or SMS us at 567678 (type ITNEXT<space>your feedback)

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

Editorial.indd 1

8/28/2010 12:31:58 PM

CONTENT FOR THE L ATEST TECHNOLOGY UPDATES GO TO ITNEXT.IN

S E P T 2 0 1 0 VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 09

Facebook: http://www.facebook. com/home.php#/group. php?gid=195675030582 Twitter: http://t witter.com/itnext LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/ groups?gid=2261770&trk=myg_ ugrp_ovr

WHEN

STRIKES DR or BCP is akin to an insurance cover against a calamity. Here is primer on how to set up DR

Page

INSIGHTS

BOSS TALK

INTERVIEW

18 Suiting for CRM’s next wave 26 The Power of Collectives Enterprises are warming up to the benefits of new communication tools that engage audiences non-hierarchically

30 It’s all about work Wireless communication is reaching a point at which enterprise IT managers can depend up on it for fast, reliable communications— both inside and outside the office

04 Green is a double whammy| Jay J Keller,CIO, MAS

42 We are n’t a semiconductor company now| Sandeep

Holdings, Srilanka

Aurora, Director, Sales, Intel

C OV ER DES IGN AN D ILLUSTRATIO N : BINESH S REE DHARAN

To prepare for a new wave of CRM, it’s important to learn from the mistakes and pitfalls of its early years

ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

Content Page-01.indd 2

8/28/2010 12:53:25 PM

ITNEXT.IN

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

EDITORIAL

Page

Group Editor: R Giridhar Associate Editor: Shashwat DC Sr Correspondent: Jatinder Singh

BLUE FOR GREEN. IN YOUR MACHINE Water is increasingly being harnessed for its unique properties in the big boxes sprawling IT backyards. Here’s a tab on this trend

OPINION

DESIGN Sr Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Binesh Sreedharan Associate Art Director: Anil VK Manager Design: Chander Shekhar Sr Visualisers: Anoop PC, Santosh Kushwaha Sr Graphic Designer: Suresh Kumar Sr Designers: Prasanth TR & Anil T Designer: Sristi Maurya Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul

50 Training Calendar | A list

05 Money Wise: From support to strategic|By Manoj

Garga, CFO, Shape 2012 Project Office, Metro Cash 51 Tech Talk: The security driven enterprise| by

of career booster courses

CASE STUDY 38 Well begun, half done |

MPCB is now ready to enter the next phase of automation

CUBE CHAT

Prashant Mali, President at Cyber Law Consulting

52 The Pragmatic Dreamer |

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished,” says Berjes Eric Shroff, Manager-IT, Tata Services

45 Project Management | A

project is successfully managed when it is properly budgeted 46 Healthy Living | Ways to lower your hypertension

SALES & MARKETING VP Sales & Marketing: Naveen Chand Singh (09971794688) Brand Manager: Siddhant Raizada (09990388390) National Manager-Events & Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) GM South: Vinodh Kaliappan(09740714817) GM North: Pranav Saran(09312685289) GM West: Sachin N Mhashilkar(09920348755) Assistant Brand Manager: Arpita Ganguli Ad co-ordination/Scheduling: Kishan Singh

OFF THE SHELF 54 Simtronics unveiled new desktop PCs | The PC range

comes with 15.6, 18.5 and 20-inch LCD monitor options

47 Manage IT | Quality and In-

novation Co-exist

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS

48 E-Mail Etiquettes| What is expected when you send a mail?

Sr. GM Operations: Shivshankar M Hiremath Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre Logistics: MP Singh, Mohamed Ansari, Shashi Shekhar Singh

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S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

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8/28/2010 12:53:28 PM

BOSS TALK | JAY J KELLER

GREEN MANAGEMENT

Green? Green!

ately everybody in the corporate world has been going green: the talk has been of green this, green that! What is this hype all about it? Do we really need to “go green”, or is it just another of those passing phases? I don’t believe it is, simply for the following reasons: First of all, green is a must in today’s sensible and responsible business environment—which also an environment, in which, when a customer wants it, he gets it. If not from you, then from somebody else. You have no choice! What is green exactly? For many, green IT is just server virtualisation undertaken to save energy, space and maintenance costs. Yes, that’s a part of it, but, that’s only 2 per cent of the costs for not being green! So, where is the rest? Yes, in all the other small and large processes that a company has. A little hint: it’s there in the AC effectiveness, travel costs, supplier compliance with green principles, employee transportation, recycling of waste, water usage and paper flow through the company, and so on and so forth. Talk to your board and they will tell you that it costs a lot of money to fix all the above processes, and takes a lot of people, too. But, there’s no way out, but to spend the money. If you are in IT, like me, green is a double whammy! You need to be green in the IT and that alone is quite a job. But, that’s just a percentage of the job. For the reminding 98 per cent of a firm’s processes—you need to be involved as well. How would you know if you improved and saved money if you cannot measure it? And here is the next issue you deal with, before you can report on the savings, you need to measure the actual—and even before that, you need to know what you want to measure and why.

Boss Talk.indd 4

“Green is not only an IT problem, it’s one that touches the whole firm. To be successful, you need to be lean, too”

The book, in one go, combines lean and green, and what I like even more: a paperless live! The idea is not new, but Bell takes it to the next level

See, green is not only an IT problem, it’s one that touches the whole firm. To be successful in the green initiative, you need to be lean, too. So here’s a suggestion on how to start: Collect your main processes in the company  Analyse these for effectiveness and efficiency  Measure time, money and resources that the current process uses  Redefine it to optimise its flow, and therefore, use less time  Note areas where you see a potential for being greener  Implement that leaner process  Start to realise the potential areas for the green initiative, and save even more  Lean can save you 15 (and more) per cent easily. In a year, SAP saved $120 million worldwide by just realising the low-hanging fruit.  Do not forget to enjoy what you are doing! You (the IT guy) are driving the cost savings, but 98 per cent is for the benefit of the business! They will love you!.

WRITER: GORDON BELL, JIM GEMMELL (HTTP://TOTALRECALLBOOK.COM/) PRICE:RS 300

The author is a CIO of MAS Holdings, Sri Lanka

SUGGESTION BOX

ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

8/28/2010 12:33:02 PM

OPINION

MONEY WISE MANOJ GARGA CFO, Shape 2012 Project Office, Metro Cash

From support to strategic

PHOTO GRAPHY: RADHAKRIS HNA

ill say a few years ago, IT function within an enterprise wasn’t considered to be extremely critical. Indeed, IT and technology was important for the sake of operations and alignment, but it had little role beyond that. Thus, effectively, the IT guys were dubbed as the support guys; you called them when you needed support or some machine was down. But then, much like the Green Revolution in the 80s, the IT Revolution took place in the 90s, and that changed everything in its wake. India, in a matter of years, till then known to the world as the land of elephants and naked sadhus, transformed into a land of IT services’ companies and BPOs. With the change happening outside, it was only a matter of time before the IT function within the organisation was spruced up. From a pure support and cost-center, the IT function started to become a strategic and profit-center. In fact, I have been privy to a lot of organisations where the IT people play a very strong role as influencers of the business technology. The CIOs from these companies are no less a decision maker than say the CFO, CMO or even the CEO. In terms of stature, the IT function has come at par with most other functions like marketing, finance, etc. So the big question is what next? Now that the IT guys are like celebrities within the enterprise, where do they go from here? Or is there really a need for them to go anywhere; why not just sit down, relax and enjoy the fruits, right? Wrong! Complacency is the biggest enemy and the IT guys are no exception

“The next frontier for the IT function is to play a bigger role in business” to it. The next frontier is to play a bigger role in driving up the business. For this to happen, IT must be prepared to meet business needs even before they arise. They should try and be pace setters and drive larger benefit to the shareholder value. The other big focus for the IT function should be on simplicity. Usually, lot of the IT managers are accustomed to speak in technical jargon, which is often Greek and Latin to our ears. So, for instance, when a buying decision of a new datacenter is being made, it is not only important to have the technical specs ready on hand, but also the business specs, like what is the RoI, what is the depreciation, etc.

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

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8/28/2010 1:23:41 PM

Intel acquires McAfee M&A | Intel Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire McAfee, , through the purchase of all of the company’s common stock at $48 per share in cash, for approximately $7.68 billion. Both boards of directors have unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close after McAfee shareholder approval, regulatory clearances and other customary conditions specified in the agreement. McAfee, which has enjoyed double-digit, year-over-year growth

WEB 2.0

The acquisition reflects that security is now a fundamental component of online computing

Enterprise 2.0 Spending is expected to grow at around 400% in the next five years (NUMBERS IN US $BILLION)

3.66

2.72

Update.indd 6

2013

1.91 2012

0 SOURCE: FORRESTER RESEARCH

1.25

2011

2009

4.65

2010

The biggest gainer will be tools like Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn

TRENDS DEALS PRODUCTS SERVICES PEOPLE

and nearly 80% gross margins last year, will become a whollyowned subsidiary of Intel, reporting into Intel’s Software and Services Group. The group is managed by Renée James, Intel Senior Vice President, and General Manager of the group. Graham Titterington, Ovum Principal Analyst, Software, says, “The active involvement of a company with the influence and resources of Intel in the information security arena will have a major impact on the future of computing.” According to experts, Intel’s objective is to incorporate more security features into its chips. For users, and for businesses, this will be welcomed, but clearly there is a risk of monopolistic behaviour damaging the market. “The situation brings echoes of what we saw in 2002 when Microsoft, in conjunction with Intel, proposed a secure computing platform under the auspices of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, and Microsoft’s Palladium project,” he further projects.. Intel, notably has made a series of recent and successful software acquisitions to pursue a deliberate strategy focused on leading companies in their industry delivering software that takes advantage of silicon, including gaming, visual and embedded devices. McAfee, based in Santa Clara and founded in 1987, is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company with approximately $2 billion in revenue in 2009.

I LLUSTRATIO N: ANO OP PC

UPDATE I N D U S T R Y

ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

8/28/2010 12:34:19 PM

POCKET BATTERY CHARGERS

ZOOM YOUR EMOTIONS

FOR FASTER DEVELOPMENT

GlacialTech has launched a the ML30, MM30, and MF30 battery chargers which also incorporate an intelligent microcontroller to monitor and supervise the whole charging process. It is designed for better efficiencies.

Fujifilm’s new super-zoom digital compact camera capture the smallest of the details with 18x zoom! It also has the capability to quickly shoots two images in rapid succession.

Fujitsu Semiconductor has launched 8-bit Microcontroller with Built-in Analog Comparator and Operational Amplifier to meet the demands of industrial equipment - such as induction cookers, power tools and auto-testers.

India Broadband base to surpass 75 m TECH TRENDS | In the next five years, the 4G infrastructure market will reach an accumulated $ 1.5 billion Driven by the growing deployments of 3G and WiMAX networks, the Indian broadband base is expected to surpass 75m by 2015, says a recent research report by Maravedis and Tonse Telecom. “The recent auctioning of 3G and 4G spectrum will unleash a broadband economic driver value, thus far evasive to India,” says Sridhar Pai, co-author of the report and founder of Tonse Telecom. “The unmet demand for

Infrastructure opportunity has moved to a new level

broadband resulting from poor wire-line infrastructure will be met by a combination of 3G and 4G technologies, including WCDMA/ HSPA, 802.16e and

AROUND THE WORLD

TD-LTE, over the next five years,” he added. “The Indian telecom market will transform from a voicecentric industry to a dataeconomy,” said Adlane Fellah, Research Director at Maravedis. The key findings of the report are: * Accumulated 3G enabled data subscriber base (notebooks, modems and dongles) will reach 40m by 2015. * 4G subscriber base including 802.1e and TD-LTE adopters will reach 33 m subscribers in 2015. * In the next five years, the 4G infrastructure market will reach an accumulated $ 1.5 billion * Innovative device and data -bundling packages will become the norm to meet consumer and business user requirements.

QUICK BYTE

PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTOS .CO M

Worldwide Mobile Device Sales Grew 13.8% in Second Quarter of 2010 Worldwide mobile device sales to end users totalled 325.6 m units in the second quarter of 2010, a 13.8% increase from the same period in 2009, says a recent report from Gartner. The report projects smartphone sales to end users accounted for 19% of worldwide mobile device sales, an increase of 50.5% from the second quarter of 2009.

SALESFORCE.COM CEO MARC BENIOFF ON THE FAILURE OF GOOGLE SO FAR TO MAKE ANY OF ITS TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES SUCCESSFUL OTHER THAN WHERE IT IS ALREADY DOMINANT (ONLINE SEARCH):

“GOOGLE IS NOT THE HOT COMPANY ANYMORE. THEIR STOCK HAS BEEN MOSTLY FLAT FOR FIVE OR SIX YEARS NOW.”

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

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8/28/2010 12:34:23 PM

UPDATE

BPM to drive process efficiencies TECH TRENDS | Gartner has

INTERVIEW ALOK BHARDWAJ Founder and CEO, Hidden Reflex

By 2012, 20% of customer-facing processes will be knowledgeadaptable

same period, 40% of business managers and knowledge workers in Global 2000 enterprises will use business process models to support their daily work. Also, there are various new technologies that are expecting to emerge during this period.

Polycom, McAfee to develop secure UCC TECH TIDINGS | McAfee and Polycom have announced a framework for a global strategic alliance to jointly develop and deliver secure Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC). This is a proactive approach to further enhance the security features of Polycom’s video, telepresence and infrastructure solutions. Polycom plans to design solutions that feature McAfee threat protection, shielding Polycom telepresence users, from the desktop to the fully immersive suite, from potential and increasingly sophisticated security threats while making it easier to comply with privacy and confidentiality mandates. According to the joint statement the

Update.indd 8

alliance will address a growing need for enhanced security, as organisations of all sizes increasingly turn to video conferencing and telepresence to reduce costs, improve productivity, and maintain operations in the face of business disruptions. The enhanced protections can also help IT managers in regulated industries – from health care to financial services – lessen the burden of meeting compliance and reporting requirements. The alliance has three main areas of collaboration: joint research and development, sales and market alignment, and participation in activities promoting innovation and standardization of UC security solutions.

IT NEXT: What inspired and motivated you to launch the web browser, Epic? The web browser is increasingly the most important piece of software on your system and its usage is high and going higher. One key inspiration was to develop a tool that could help Indian language conversation and discourse move online as effortlessly as English. Considering the market is already cluttered with web browsers, how will Epic be different? Indian language support is pervasive in Epic. We support 12 Indian languages in our built-in, free word processor as well as in text boxes on almost all websites. Users can chat, send e-mails, search, post comments and do anything else in Epic in Indian languages in an instant. And more importantly, it holds about 20 pre-installed communication apps that enable users to multitask or accomplish simple tasks quickly. Can you brief us on the Epic browser’s key security features? The most important part of any security system is the user and the user’s common sense; so our simple address bar tweak gives users a new tool to make sure they’re secure before they enter important login credentials. We provide warnings to users when they attempt to visit a website known to host malware or any malicious software or is in anyway untrustworthy (e.g. disreputable e-tailers as well). By Dominic K

PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

made five predictions on the advancement of Business Process Management (BPM), among which one forecasts that by 2013, dynamic BPM will be an imperative for companies seeking process efficiencies in increasingly chaotic environments Another prediction is that by 2012, 20% of customer-facing processes will be knowledgeadaptable and assembled just in time to meet the demands and preferences of each customer, assisted by BPM technologies. Also, by 2014, Business Process Network (BPNs) will underpin 35% of new multi-enterprise integration projects, according to Gartner. It also projects that by the

ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

8/28/2010 12:34:26 PM

UPDATE

Adobe to acquire Day Software The acquisition will enhance Adobe’s web content management capabilities

M&A | Adobe Systems has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Web Content Management (WCM) vendor Day Software in a transaction valued at approximately $240 m. The acquisition will enable Adobe to combine its Omniture online marketing suite, which provides web analytics, with Day Software’s WCM, digital asset management, and social collaboration tools. The combination will enable Day Software and Omniture customers to optimize their websites as part of their efforts to enhance the user experience and convert a higher rate of visitors to customers. According to the company, the acquisition will enhance Adobe’s

NEWS @

I LLUSTRATIO N: ANO OP PC

BLOG

portfolio and plug a gap in its functionality, and will also provide benefits for Day Software’s customers. The company currently boasts to have a large portfolio of interactive application and document capabilities including Adobe Flash, Flex, Adobe LiveCycle, and PDF. This can enable organisations to create more innovative web content to help them acquire and retain customers, and users of Communique can also use these capabilities to enhance their customers’ experiences. In addition, the acquisition will allow Adobe to compete in a new market that will put it into direct competition with WCM vendors that have web analytics capabilities.

TECH ALLIANCE

IBM, IIT Bombay collaborate on mobile web research IBM has announced an Open Collaboration Research (OCR) project with the Industrial Design Centre (IDC) at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT Bombay). According to the company, the research collaboration will focus on the development of new designs for mobile device interfaces that can easily be used by people who are semi-literate or illiterate, as well as individuals who have limited or no access to information technology. The project aims to develop simple, inexpensive mobile phone user interfaces for everyone, regardless of geography or education level. It also aims to introduce new levels of ease-ofuse to mobile phone interaction via developed software technology that will be made available to the public through open source. The multimodal interface is expected to offer a simpler, inexpensive option for the underprivileged to reap the benefits of information technology.

RIM ‘OPTIMISTIC’ ABOUT BLACKBERRY IN INDIA “BLACKBERRY MANUFACTURER Research in Motion is “optimistic” that the company can resolve security demands from the Indian government regarding its popular smartphone,” | David Goldstein in his blog post at <http://www.TelcoNews.com>=

According to Reuters, RIM has promised India a technical solution for decoding encrypted BlackBerry data, a step that could allay Indian security concerns about the smartphone and avert a shutdown. Indian authorities, who met with RIM officials, also pledged to go after other companies, like Google and Skype, to protect the country from cyber-spying and attacks planned over the internet. S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

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8/28/2010 12:34:27 PM

WHEN

IMAGING: BI NESH SREE DHARAN

B Y S H A S H W AT DC

ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

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8/28/2010 12:37:56 PM

DISASTER RECOVERY | COVER STORY

STRIKES 26th July, 2005, is a day that no Mumbaikar will ever forget. It was the day that the city was brought to its knees under a torrential deluge. The flood was caused by a sudden opening of the skies, and a record rainfall of 994mm (39.1 inches). Some 5,000 people perished as the incessant rains virtually submerged all in its wake. Mumbai, the financial capital of India, drowned under the monsoon fury. It’s a day that everyone remembers as 26/7. And it was not merely the human cost alone, financial losses running into a few hundred crores. As the waters rose, many companies had to close shop and remain shut for the next few days—till the waters receded. Huge losses occurred because several companies were caught completely unaware and unprepared to face a disaster of such magnitude. Many were unable to resume business for days or weeks because their IT systems were completely destroyed. Some went bust.. To understand the Mumbai disaster better, let’s take a closer look—especially at the banking sector. Almost all major banks (largely PSUs) are based out of Mumbai. Most had their core data centres in Navi Mumbai. As floodwaters rose and drowned these centres, banking transactions across the country S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT

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8/28/2010 12:37:59 PM

COVER STORY | DISASTER RECOVERY

Minutes Last transaction Hours Days

Recovery point objective

were adversely affected. Branches and commercial establishments were unable to function. ATM networks of banks, including State Bank of India, the nation’s largest national bank; ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and several foreign ones like Citibank and HSBC, stopped functioning from the afternoon

of 26 July at all centres of Mumbai. Progressive loss of connectivity with central systems in Mumbai took ATMs around the nation off line on the following days. The importance of DR (disaster recovery) hit home. Companies, across domains, be it

DR Principles Clustering

Remote date replication

Local data Replication Cost Two storage backup recovery Traditional back-up

Days

Hours

DR isn’t backup

Minutes

Seconds Instant

Recovery time objective

Most IT executives don’t have a whole lot of confidence in their company’s business continuity strategies. The reason for this lack of confidence isn’t necessarily based on a lack of will, but rather on a lack of budget. Though IT organisations generally have enough funding to support their ongoing IT operations, they typically run short of funding when it comes to buying the secondary infrastructure required to deploy a robust business continuity plan. As a result, most IT organisations have no real business continuity plan in place—or else they have a plan to support key assets that’s tenuous at best.

One of the single biggest fallacies is that many technologists is that they confuse DR with backup. They think of DR as a backup system that resides in an offsite

The question is, Does it really have to be this way? The answer is, No. A number of products have recently come to market that not only distribute workloads across multiple devices, but also automatically pick up for each other if one of the products fails.

WHY THERE IS NO BUSINESS CONTINUITY

This situation exists primarily because the vendor community has always viewed business continuity as an opportunity to sell additional products. In effect, vendors are using the fact that IT products can fail as an excuse to sell additional products to their customers.

a bank, telco, or a BPO, realised the need to have an alternate set-up, which could cushion the impact of such a disaster. Ever since, each company has been trying to put in a DRC (disaster recovery centre) in place. But the truth is, it is not as easy as it seems. Not only from a technological point-of-view but also from a business perspective, there are lots of “ifs and buts” that need to be ironed out. As Jacob Livingstone, manager IT, BEC Ltd., states, “Disaster Recovery involves preparing of disaster before occurrence and supporting and rebuilding of infrastructure almost instantly without business disruption or in short business continuity in fail safe mode.” The emphasis is on being predictive, i.e., preparing for an event before it even occurs.

For example, the Oklahoma division of 7-Eleven manages the IT infrastructure for 100 stores from its Oklahoma City facility. The division is in the process of deploying wireless access points across these 100 stores as part of an effort to improve its inventory control system. But instead of choosing one of the better-known providers of wireless access points, the company opted for Aerohive’s wireless access points, which are mutually supporting in the event of failure.

According to Mike McTice, a senior systems programmer and integrator at the company, this means that if an access point were to fail, 7-Eleven would not have to immediately dispatch someone to fix it. More important-

ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

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8/28/2010 12:38:01 PM

DISASTER RECOVERY | COVER STORY location. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there is some similarity, but the basic idea, intention, or the function of DR is vastly different from that of backup. Pertisth Mankotia, head IT, Sheela Foam, compares DR to insurance. “DR is a hedge against a calamity that could take place in the future.” Thus, if you have a single data centre, consider how and where you want to move your data out of harm’s way. Solutions could range from purchasing a high-quality fire safe and putting backup tapes inside it each night, to paying for a remote hot backup site where servers are constantly running and data is being replicated near realtime. The migration process could involve a combination of steps, such as making backup tapes and moving them to a remote location on a set taperotation schedule, and then replicating data to another storage repository across the internet

Major Factors affecting security spend within the enterprise Source: The Global State of Information Security Survey, 2010

39%

Economic Downturn

37%

Regulatory Compliance

41%

Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery

ly, the company would not have to pay for additional wireless access points just to serve as a back up. A similar concept is at work in a new generation of Ethernet switches from Woven Systems, which are plugged into a mutually supporting fabric of switches. This system allows load to be automatically balanced, and, in the event of a failure, the other switches on the network automatically kick in to make sure there is no disruption in service. When you think about it, this is the way all enterprise-class technology products should work. If they did, the underlying infrastructure would be intelligent enough to provide an embedded business continuity capability. With that in place, it would also be a lot easier to wrap people’s minds around the whole sustainability issue, which dominates much of the discussion taking place in the boardroom today. The core element of creating a business sustainability strategy is to break down processes into a set of modular components that can be easily replicated in the event of some type of disruption. But if the underlying IT infrastructure is too fragile or expensive to support a sustainability strategy, the issue becomes moot.

38%

Internal Policy Compliance

32%

Company Reputation

forces companies to take a hard look at their IT infrastructure. A lot of business executives don’t want to have a conversation that basically ends up with them having to authorize additional IT budget allocations. As a result, they wind up shorting the IT budget in terms of what is really required to sustain the business. In effect, this means most companies are betting that a major business disruption isn’t going to happen, rather than putting appropriate plans in place beforehand. The best answer to this conundrum would be for every product to simply plug into a fabric in which every device automatically supports every other system, but it will probably be a few years before that happens. This means IT people need to have real conversations about the costs of sustainability, given the fact that the business basically runs on the back of the IT infrastructure. Of course, insisting that technology vendors provide distributed load-balancing capabilities as a core feature, rather than as an expensive option, would be a major step in the right direction. By Michael Vizard © Ziff Davis

The good news about all the fuss over sustainability is that it

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COVER STORY | DISASTER RECOVERY

How Sheela Foam prioritised its DR rollout Sheela Foam Risk Assessment Analysis for DR Srl

IT services or Servers

Natural threats such internal flooding, external flooding, internal fire, external fire, seismic activity, high winds. (A)

Human Threats such as robbery, bomb threats, burglary, vandalism, terrorism, civil disorder, chemical spill, sabotage, explosion, radiation contamination, hazardous waste, vehicle crash, stoppage (Internal/External), computer crime. (B)

Impact on Business

Resolution Time

0 - 10

0-10

Total A

Probability

Impact on Business

Response Time

0 - 10

0-10

Total B

Greatplus ERP Services- Sheela Foam (Application & Database)

Greatplus ERP Services (Distributors)

Greatplus ERP Services (Joint Ventures)

Greatplus ERP Services (Joyce Foam-Australia)

Document Management system

File Server

Mailing Services

domain controller (DC)

Design Management Software

FTP & Catia Server

SMS Services

Sales Slate (Sales Force server)

Web server

Qlick-View Server (Business Intelligence)

Data warehouse Server

IP Surveillance Storage Server

Voice Recording server

Anti Virus & WSUSU Server

Take a piece-meal approach The ideal way to go about planning a DR is to prioritise what needs to be covered. DR is like an insurance, everything cannot come under its wake. Thus, in times of a disaster, the DR cannot replace the actual data centre, but it can ensure that some fundamental functions are not impacted. If your business requires all systems to be up and running at all times, then you need to dig deeper. Rajesh Agrawal, manager IT, Jindal Pipes, says, “Based on the company’s BCP (business continuity practice), the DRP could be tailored to give either

Probability

COMPANIES, ACROSS DOMAINS, BE IT A BANK, TELCO, OR A BPO, REALISED THE NEED TO HAVE AN ALTERNATE SET-UP, WHICH COULD CUSHION THE IMPACT OF A DISASTER 100% recovery, or partial recovery of essential services necessary for continuing the business. In today’s context of 24 x 7 online operations of businesses required to cater to the global market

with geographical time differences, it is preferable to have fully-automated 100% recovery. This is more expensive than the partial DRP options, but is more cost-effective as far as the busi-

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DISASTER RECOVERY | COVER STORY

Total Score (A+B+C)

DR Roll out plan Based on Total Score Phase-I : 175-200 Phase-II : 150-174

(C)

Phase -III : 100-149 Phase-IV : 50-99

Probability

Impact on Business

Response Time

Total C

0 - 10

0-10

176

Phase - I

176

Phase - I

176

Phase - I

176

Phase - I

162

Phase - II

162

Phase - II

142

Phase - III

142

Phase - III

139

Phase - III

135

Phase - III

Phase - IV

Not Needed

ness operations are concerned.” To start off, create a matrix of functions that need to be up and running, and prioritise them accordingly (look at the DR matrix as was prepared by Mankotia for Sheela Foam). Rahul Khattar, GM-ES, Seclore, has sequenced the process like this: 1) Get an Excel sheet to map the existing set-up in terms of criticality, business value, confidentiality, detailed business functionality, data size, laws and restrictions that apply, etc. 2) Now rate each of the elements. Note: The weight each of the individual elements may differ for each application.

C OURTESY: SHEEL A FOAM

Technical Threats such as power failure/fluctuation, heating, ventilation or air conditioning failure, malfunction or failure of CPU, failure of system software, failure of application software, telecommunications failure, gas leaks, communications failure etc.

This matrix was created by Pertisth Mankotia for designing a DR plan for Sheelafoam. In consultation with different functionaries within the company -- by assigning points -- Mankotia was able to prioritise his DR rollout. The functions that scored high on the list were taken on the first phase, while the rest were saved for later.

3) Once this is done you should move each of apps into three buckets (in-house, cloud based, remote full DR setup location) with “in house” having the lowest number of points.

People priority Choosing a good off-site location is also important. As one needs to find a place that is as far as from the original data centre in terms of geographic proximity, but not far enough, so as to be unmanageable. You need to keep in mind all the worst-case scenarios, right from a earthquake to political upheavel. Ravi Sharma, GM-IT, Watson Pharma, sum-

marises the same, “First is the DR strategy—which applications to be hosted. Is the DR on different seismic zone?” Also, while technology, investment and location is important, don’t forget the “man factor”. In the end, there should be an assigned person who should be responsible for DR and be a know-all guy. The person should not only be aware of the technical backups but also the processes that need to be followed in case of an exigency. Most often, people forget that while putting in the infrastructure is crucial, putting up a person is equally so. Under ideal circumstances, there should be a senior resource located at the DR site. But in case that is not possible, the site should be remotely managed under expert guidance.

Offsite or outsourced? Finally, over the past few years, there is a rising debate on doing DR in a cloud ecosystem. Many third vendors, like Amazon, Salesforce, etc., offer solutions that work to this end. But as stated earlier, DR can be tricky. The reason is simple, the data that you will want to have with you in times of disaster is extremely crucial or critical for your business. And, despite all the security assurances, one cannot be completely sanguine about privacy or security of this critical data. Hence, even though, DR over the cloud seems like a win-win scenario, organisations like banks or telcos are wary about it. Balwant Singh, head IT, IndoAsian Fusegear, empahsises on the need to have stringent SLAs and contracts in place before moving to a cloud. “I will prefer my own DR site as it gives 100% control. Otherwise, working on a cloud can be a good option provided all the checks are in place.” In the end, like 26/7 was an eyeopener for many banks and enterprises, don’t wait for a calamity to strike before going in for DR. Like the old adage goes, prevention is always better than cure. Thus work out a bailout strategy for your IT and business processes for when the clouds bursts open or the earth quivers.

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COVER STORY | DISASTER RECOVERY

Anupam Saraph, CIO, Pune City

Karanbir Singh, VP IT, BSES

Daya Prakash, CIO, LG Electronics

Top tech honchos share their insights on DR and BCP

Security and privacy concerns are completely dependent on the way DR set up is planned. If the DR set up is planned in house then you take care of as a part of RGC (Risk, Governance and compliance) policies. If it is hosted outside then it must be covered through strict SLAs.

TG Dhandapani, Group CIO, TVS Motor & Sundaram Clayton Group

An organisation should adopt an appropriate business continuity strategy based on recovery point objective and recovery time objective which are driven by the capability of an organisation to invest in such systems and the capacity to wait for IT system to resume in natural way.

The challenges are to identify the failure modes and resulting business loss vis-a-vis plan DR investment accordingly. One has to identify failure modes and estimate business loss in these modes which will lead to plan DR options and give a way to a right kind of DR system in that required invetment to save the business loss. The steps taken are that IT leaders have to come into the business analysts’ role and find out options for the business continuity under very diversed conditions which can result in loss of business.

There are a lot of “Black Swans” in putting up a DR site. For instance, where? The most important purpose of DR site is to ensure it remains accessible and available. Will your DR location remain accessible or available to you without legal, political, social, environmental or operational issues? Or, how secure is your data? Do the legal, political, social, operational elements get to your or your clients critical data at your DR centre? How does hosting/exposing the data to various local/ remote/cloud servers alter the risks and recovery issues?

TIPS ON DISASTER R 16

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DISASTER RECOVERY | COVER STORY Dhiren Savla, Director IT, CRISIL - Standard & Poorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Company

Pertisth Mankotia, Head IT, Sheela Foam

Pratap Gharge, EVP & CIO, Bajaj Electricals

DR is like an insurance cover and must be treated like one. You do not expect your DR to be useful all the time. It is only at times of crisis or an exigency, that the DR site will come into play. Hence, planning & strategy of a DR must be done keeping the same in mind. One also has to ensure that the DR technology selected will work well within the organisational framework. The ideal way to go is to create a detailed matrix, wherein the different functions of the company are mapped with their priorities. Based on this matrix, the DR strategy can be worked out within the enterprise.

Suddhar Siddegowda, Head--IT, MAF Fashion

PA Kalyanasundar, GM IT, Bank of India

Challanges we face while planning for DR site is to have balance between Recovery Point Objectives & Recovery Time Objectives, and the investment capability of the organisation for the DR. For different industry segments, criticality perceived by the organisation for IT infrastructure is different, what might be important for one, might not be so for other. Hence business continuity planning investment justification with the top management becomes an issue.

Never forget the person behind the machine. It is very important to nominate a person, who is responsible for the smooth functioning of DR and BCP. The person, should know all the policies and possibilities when comes to business continuity. By assigning DR to a person, an organisation can then concentrate on other aspects of business.

The choice of thirdparty cloud or remote location or over cloud depends on a few factors, like, what is the risk assessment in terms of dependability of the vendor. What is the cost/ benefit analysis, and the emergency response mechanism in place. Another factor that plays an important part is the service level agreement adherence of the vendor. And finally, there is the security and privacy of data to be considered.

One of the common challenge for DR is right sizing of infrastructure. This challenge can largely be addressed by clearly articulating RTO, RPO, RCO and getting them validated by the business. Another common pitfall is that while the DR setup is created and made operational, the DR plan or periodic tests are not carried out. This leads to the risk of DR not working in case of exigencies. Also, DR is one investment which is sparingly used but its one of must have things!! This makes it a good candidate for cloud as capacity on demand could really make it very attractive.

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INSIGHT | CRM

P U G N I T S I ’ U M S R CR

T X E N AVE W

, it’s M R e of C akes v a ew w the mist n a for n from e r a ar ep ars To pr rtant to le s early ye t impo itfalls of i and p Y C H É LD

When I wrote the CRM handbook: A Business Guide to CRM, in 2002, companies were spending tens of millions of dollars on CRM software, but industry analysts were predicting that 80 percent of CRM projects would fail. Mistakes and pitfalls of CRM’s early days are now legendary. Companies rushed to embrace CRM technologies, only to discover that automation couldn’t fix broken business processes, absent strategies or bad data. Consultants keen on helping beleaguered companies get back on track proselytised the importance of change management to CRM initiatives,

but that didn’t stick. As executives continued to aim their silver-bullet technologies toward the customer experience, they remained mired in incumbent business processes and traditional success metrics. Everyone wanted to participate in vendor evaluation, but no one wanted to own the streamlining of order-to-cash processes or new measurements for customer satisfaction. Despite millions of dollars spent on CRM technologies, it really was business as usual. Most executives now admit that they were ill-equipped to launch their CRM efforts. Hopes for automating

customerfacing business processes and achieving the celebrated “single view of the customer” were dashed as sales, marketing and customer service executives came to terms with the fact that CRM was more than just a technology solution.

New best practices Today, however, new corporate strategies are resuscitating the need for deliberate and sustained customer management. Is your company ready for the next wave of CRM? Smart executives are heeding the lessons of firms that have gone before

PHOTO GRAPHY: I STO CKPH OTO

IL BY J

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CRM | INSIGHT

them. They’re aligning CRM efforts to corporate strategies and forgoing technology investments until their road maps are in place. They’re forging partnerships with consulting firms that have structured delivery approaches. They’re being deliberate about incremental deployment, and are keeping the customer top-of-mind every step of the way. Grange Insurance, based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of these forward-thinking companies. “We were lucky that we had an executive team willing to invest in the customer experience,” says Mike Buzek, the vice president of EODB (ease of doing business), “but we knew we couldn’t sit around building vision statements and conducting focus groups. We had to craft solid requirements, identify the key stakeholders and define how we were going to execute. And we could never lose sight of what is best for our agents and policyholders.” Buzek and his team are a reflection of the new best practices in customer management. Here are five habits followed by savvy business owners of customer-focused programs: n Don’t call it “CRM.” The term is fraught with baggage. Customer initiatives are now business-owned

and branded. Wander the halls of any large company’s sales or marketing organisation and you’ll hear “customer experience management” (CEM) or “voice of the customer” mentioned long before hearing the CRM acronym. n Remember your business model. CRM at a telephone company that wants to understand the calling behaviors within micro-segments to bundle products and services will look very different from CRM at a health care provider that wants to migrate to an end-consumer model, which will look different again from CRM at a retailer with a loyalty card. Understand the boundaries of CRM for both your company and your industry. When in doubt, map out desired outcomes. n Keep social media in perspective. Many customermanagement experts are betting on so-called “social CRM” to resuscitate moribund CRM efforts. But where the customer experience is concerned, your company’s Facebook fan page and Twitter account are merely two additional communications channels. Your brand and your dialog with customers transcend social media. Recently, a manager at a bank confided, “We’re putting all this effort into social media to get closer to our customers. But we still can’t see the

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INSIGHT | CRM total set of products and services a customer has on a single screen, never mind whether [he or she is] profitable or not.” Social media goals should be a part of a rich set of customer-focused capabilities. n Consider the cloud. That “customer’s next likely purchase” pop-up doesn’t just magically appear on the callcenter rep’s screen. It’s the product of some rigorous integration and heavy-duty back-office analysis. When it comes to CRM functionality, even small and medium-size companies often have sophisticated processing and storage needs. Don’t let your existing technology infrastructure—or lack

There’s a good chance that data quality is being compromised and that there are, in fact, multiple versions of the truth. As our knowledge of how to deploy CRM the right way has evolved, so has the sophistication level of customers, who are demanding increasing control of their relationships and have higher expectations. To opt in to receive marketing campaigns means a clear quid pro quo from company to consumer. Businesses need to expand their customer conversations beyond knowing a customer’s purchase history and offering a product based on nextsequential purchase analysis. Engaging

PURCHASE ANALYSIS ‘CLOUD’ HAS MADE MORE NOISE AND IMPACT THAN ANY OTHER NEW KID THAT EVER ARRIVED thereof—be an excuse not to launch new CRM efforts. There are plenty of CRM solutions in the cloud that support pay-as-you-go models, while forgoing significant infrastructure and setup costs. n Don’t forget about the data. That “single version of the truth” promised by so many CRM vendors has ceded to the reality that many of yesterday’s CRM tools have become today’s legacy systems. New customerfocused strategies mandate that the huge volumes of data being generated are accurate, meaningful and reconciled across disparate silos. Indeed, a single version of truth about a customer is as much a product of formal data governance processes as it is about a centralised technology platform. The litmus test is the answer to this question: What’s your system of record for customer data? If the answer is, “We have more than one system of record for customer data,” then there is actually no system of record for customer data.

a customer in a relevant dialog at the right time means optimising the mix of business processes, operational functionality, and information access to give traction to the brand and encourage customers to re-engage with you.

What you should do now Is your company reviving its CRM program? Or have you been given responsibility for a highly visible “know thy customer” effort? Either way, there are key steps you should consider to launch your customer initiative the right way. First, whenever possible, align your CRM effort to corporate strategy. Most enterprise CRM efforts will ultimately transcend individual lines of business and drive additional competitive advantage and efficiencies. By linking a new CRM program to a key strategy that’s acknowledged by upper management, you will cement top-level support. Few executives will scorn a customerfocused project that’s been strategically aligned. And engaging executives is a

surefire way to secure adequate funding for your effort. Know your road map. Is your company entrenched in TV and outdoor advertising at the expense of targeted online conversations with customers and prospects? Should you start CRM with your business customers—the 20 percent who produce 80 percent of your revenues—and forego consumers for a year or two? Where you begin will determine where you end up. The key is to do so in circumscribed increments. Be willing to change measurements. Compensate your employees for adopting fresh, customer-centric behaviors. The most reliable way to ensure everyone is on board is to change measurements and accompanying compensation structures. My firm helped an automobile company build a CRM strategy in its call center. For its standard brand, the automaker compensated call-center reps based on the number of calls they could take per hour and per day. But for its luxury brand, the automaker paid reps based on the results of post facto customer satisfaction surveys. All customers received good service, but the most profitable customer tier got the best service, and those serving them had an incentive to optimise it. Lastly, don’t forget to manage expectations. The hardest part for Grange was defining the road map, Buzek confirms. “We invested in a clear and incremental delivery plan that is focused on continuous improvement, and then we socialised the plan with stakeholders,” he recalls. “That way, everyone understands the value of improving the customer experience. Our CEM program will help us realise the incremental impact of a superior insurance experience so we can continue to deliver those “wow” moments. That’s good for us, our agents and our policyholders.”

Jill Dyché, partner and co-founder of Baseline Consulting, performs advisory services in customer and data strategy delivery. She has written The CRM Handbook: A Business Guide to CRM and two other books on the business value of information. © eWeek

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INSIGHT | GREEN DATA CENTRE

BLUE FOR GREEN. IN YOUR MACHINE

Water is increasingly being harnessed for its unique properties in the big boxes sprawling IT backyards. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a tab on this trend BY P R AT I M A H A R I G U N ANI

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GREEN DATA CENTRE | INSIGHT “The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.” —Henry David Thoreau

Water which caress stones is now caressing some IT monolith. With mounting energy costs, the challenges of cooling power-guzzling IT horses and awakening of the green conscience is resting upon water. A Swiss university has launched a watercooled supercomputer in collaboration with IBM. The system, called Aquasar, has been installed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and includes both water-cooled and air-cooled IBM BladeCenter servers for direct comparison with traditional systems. And this is why it gets interesting - Aquasar delivers 450 megaflops per watt and provides enough energy to heat a building. These water-cooled machines were designed and manufactured by IBM scientists in Zurich and Boblingen, Germany. This is an interesting and shallwe-say a ‘cool’ project wherein Aquasar is built as part of a research program, studying use of waste heat from liquid-cooled supercomputers, and has participants like ETH Zurich, IBM Research – Zurich and ETH Lausanne. In another news, in December, a major UK bank will deploy what three European companies’ have jointly created a chiller

Advantage Liquid l Waste heat could be delivered at useful temperatures like 160 degrees F (65 degrees C) l Pump energy could be minimized enabling PUE levels of 1.05 or better to be achieved l Data Centers could be silent as there would be no need for fans l No humidity problem, no humidifiers

called Turbomiser. The unnamed bank will install the chiller in its new data center currently under construction in England’s south. Turbomisers entail use of watercooling and aqua-condensers. Back in September, a data center initiative kick-started- it expected to use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center, making it what the company calls, one of the “greenest” computer centers in operation. Vette Corp a provider of data center thermal management solutions, was selected by Syracuse University and IBM to deliver cooling infrastructure in

heat from the microturbines into chilled water that is used to cool the data center’s servers, with sufficient excess cooling to handle the needs of an adjacent building. The IT equipment will be cooled using Vette Corp’s water cooled LiquiCool Rear Door Heat Exchangers rather than with traditional air cooling such as Computer Room Air Conditioners. This March, Boston IT Solutions (India) Private Limited showcased its water buckets at CeBIT 2010 in Hannover, Germany. Unveiling what it calls, the latest evolution in their range of liquid cooled server and storage solutions,

IN ADDITION TO ENERGY SAVINGS FROM WATER COOLING EFFICIENCY, ADDITIONAL OPERATIONAL SAVINGS CAN BE REALISED what they touted as world’s most energy efficient data centers. The data center project represented a partnership among Vette, Syracuse University, IBM, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). It is expected that this $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center will use smarter technologies focusing on the actual infrastructure of the data center itself, not just the computer hardware and software. IBM and Syracuse are creating a liquid cooling system that will use double-effect absorption chillers to convert the exhaust

Water is

4000 times more efficient in removing heat than air Source: IBM

it claimed that the exclusive use of liquid cooling data centres and large scale server installations could reduce their cooling costs by up to a phenomenal 93 per cent when compared to air cooling. In 2009, Boston IT had announced the evolution in their range of liquid cooled servers at Supercomputing 2009. This one featured patented “modular liquid immersion” technology from Iceotope Ltd, that leverages the thermal superiority of liquids to reduce the operating costs of large-scale computing facilities such as data centres. Then there is a collaboration announced this July, between SynapSense and GE for dynamic data center cooling, where GE and others invested $5m into product that aligns cooling with IT load in real-time. The list goes on, from IBM’s concept of Zero emission data centre and changes around community heating, to re-use of wasted heat and chip stacking. We see that water cooling is actually evolving across concepts to practical scalable dimensions.

Why Water? According to IBM, water is 4,000 times more efficient in removing heat

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INSIGHT | GREEN DATA CENTRE than air. Micro-channel liquid coolers bring water directly to the processors. This allows for thermal resistance between the processor and the water to be reduced to ensure that the processor operating temperature stays below the 85 C ceiling. In it comes to proof of the pudding, Boston has patented “modular immersion technology” from Iceotope Under this technology, each server motherboard is immersed in an individually sealed bath of inert liquid coolant which passively transfers heat away from the sensitive electronics to a tightly integrated heat exchanger formed by the wall of the bath where water is continuously recirculated and cooled. And IBM, with the Swiss feat, explained that it uses up to 40 percent less energy than a comparable air-cooled system and which contributes waste heat to a building heating system. Higher coolant temperature results in higher output temperature, which allows the machine to contribute about 9 kW of thermal power to the comfort heating system of university buildings. According to IBM, this reduces Aquasar’s carbon footprint by up to 85 per cent. Compared to traditional air cooling systems the two liquids are thousands of times more effective in capturing and tra nsferring heat, thereby requiring much less energy to run the overall system as the water can be allowed to run warmer whilst still providing adequate cooling, as Boston would argue. What it exactly does is that it eliminates the requirement for CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units and reduces the need to operate chillers by exchanging heat directly with the air outside the data centre.

Air Vs Water Back-of-the-envelope

calculations

WHAT TO REMEMBER? WHAT TO REMEM

1 2 3 4 5 6

For the cooling to operate properly and deliver the flow and pressure required by the racks at any location in the data center, all cooling equipment must be not just installed but fully operational from the first day itself. It can lead to inefficient energy consumption until the data center is fully populated.

Some liquid-cooling units are definitely more efficient than CRAC units. But they still utilize very powerful air movers that squander a significant amount of power.

For the components to achieve long life, the water should include a mixture of antibacteria and anticorrosion materials. Water being about 3400 times more efficient than air in removing heat, the heat extraction at the rack level could be done by a passive rear door heat exchanger or using a hybrid of passive rear doors and cold plates for high-power components inside the servers 4...

Data center ambient temperature is a big factor with efficiency grades. Try your alternatives. A centrifugal chiller would save five per cent in energy consumption for every 2°F increase in chiller water temperature and would produce 19 per cent improvement for every 10°F decrease.

reveal how cooling typically accounts for 30 per cent or more of electricity operating costs in traditional air cooled data centres due to the requirement to operate Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units and refrigeration plant (chillers) to circulate large volumes of cold air to the servers. If it is possible to eliminate the

REMOVING EXCESS HEAT FROM DATA CENTRES IS AS MUCH AS 4000 TIMES MORE EFFICIENT VIA WATER THAN IT IS BY AIR, ACCORDING TO IBM 24

requirement for CRAC units and reduce the need to operate chillers by exchanging heat directly with the air outside the data centre, you get free cooling. As Manoj Nayee, MD Boston, explains, liquid cooling not only reduces the noise and power normally generated by fans at the server level but it can also be used to totally eliminate air cooling within the server room to deliver dramatically improved thermal efficiencies. An interesting paper by Shlomo Novotny in January, 2010 further highlights that maximum availability and redundancy of the cooling system in an air-cooled data center is accomplished by adding 20 per cent or more CRAC units for extra cooling capacity in case of failure or when there is

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GREEN DATA CENTRE | INSIGHT

EMBER?

7 8 9 10 11 12

Energy usage can be mitigated by using a water-side economizer that connects through a heat exchanger to the RDHx when outdoor temperature is appropriate. Localized liquid cooling at rack level and rack proximity eliminates one of the most inefficient elements of data center infrastructure cooling. It also reduces energy consumption, and allows for higher rack-level compute density.

Liquid cooling enables cooling modularity with a “pay as you grow” investment. In May 2010, cooling system failure in a London data center prevented customers in several parts of the UK from accessing the data network of O2. An air conditioning failure in one of its sites caused two nodes which carry network data to overheat and resulted in intermittent data access for customers.

Any data centre still needs power to run and, unless it comes from nuclear or renewable generating sources, it’s still indirectly causing CO2 to be emitted, albeit to a lower degree.

You still need power to run the data centre kit even if you don’t need power to run chillers. That’s a trap we still have to figure out.

routine servicing of a CRAC unit. Liquidcooled data centers accomplish redundancy and availability more efficiently. As he explains quite poignantly, the liquid-cooled data center uses just the right amount of cooling needed for the IT racks. The coolant distribution unit (CDU) a device that separates the outside water, which typically includes glycol for antifreezing, thus reducing the liquid heat transfer capacity, from the secondary liquid loop leading to the racks. This loop could carry either refrigerant or water. “Water in this loop would have a high heat-transfer capacity, as it does not need glycol. In a very large data center, this CDU could be replaced with larger centralized CDUs, saving on equipment cost. In areas

where freezing is not an issue, the CDU could be eliminated and the secondary conditioned water loop could come directly from the chiller. Thus, by extracting the heat at the source, new data centers could

80 %

of the IT area could be reduced by densification utilizing liquid cooling

eliminate traditional air cooling by using only liquid-circulating pumps to transport the heat to a chiller or to a water-side economizer.” His paper explains. As data centers install high-powerdissipation racks, air cooling certainly is becoming challenging. The traditional way of cooling such high-power devices is through low-populated racks (low power per rack), rack spreading (getting more air from the floor), hot and cold aisle containment, and creation of small dedicated areas for high-power-density racks. The main problem with all the solutions optimizing and utilizing airflow and CRAC units is the thermal and energy inefficiency of heat transport by air.

For the user In a report, IDC had warned that CIOs are still not implementing optimum data center management practices. A data center uses approximately 40 times more energy than an office building of equivalent size and the cooling infrastructure represents approximately half of the total energy use within the data center, if some estimates are true. In addition to energy savings from water cooling efficiency, additional operational savings can be realized. The reason – you don’t have to supply cooling to the unpopulated IT areas. A United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Efficiency, August 2007 showed how data centers consume one or two per cent of the total U.S. energy consumption. Energy consumption in data centers has been only been growing, according to the EPA, at 12 per cent a year. Increasing heat density, which demands more cooling, and the cost of electricity have pushed data center operating costs to exceed the costs of the IT equipment itself. Cooling has suddenly dashed on to the top most rungs in the data centre pecking order. Water, couldn’t have poured in at any better time here. If not all the answers, it is certainly raising some good questions. When it comes to the word ‘liquidity’, it was definitely not just a co-incidence that it entered business vocabulary. Now it’s time for IT vocabulary to decide.

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INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION

THE

POWER COLLECTIVES OF

Enterprises are warming up to the benefits of new communication tools that engage audiences non-hierarchically BY JAT I N D E R S I N G H

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ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION | INSIGHT ON A CAVALIER SATURDAY EVENING, a month ago, Yogesh Bansal, the Founder and CEO of Apnacircle.com, was set to retire early to his bed, till he received a call from his business associate, informing him about the integration of the web platform of ApnaCircle, a community for professionals, with a worldrenowned social networking site. Well, this was the news for which he and his team had waited for long. “Wow! This is something that merits to be shared instantly with my team who worked hard to make this happen,” murmured a charged up Bansal. He unfolded his laptop to log in to his customised enterprise blog. “Great news guys, your efforts and hard work have paid off. We have managed to partner with a world-renowned company, on which we have been working for so long. Congratulations!” he wrote. To his amazement, in less than an hour, a series of congratulatory messages, discussing ways to promote this achievement among the web platform users, started pouring in. Bansal was not sure if he could receive a similar reception from his partners or employees, on a casual weekend, had the same message been communicated through an e-mail, or any other channel. “Connecting via new-age tools is inarguably the best interactive approach, which makes a long-lasting impression in modern day communication,” Bansal notes, while recalling the moment. No wonder then, even before the week started, a plan was in place to promote a new idea, developed in a fun-driven, participative environment, without giving any serious trouble to the team. And, that’s how the modern day communication should function—if one needs to outsmart competitors and gain first-mover advantage.

Changing perceptions When compared to 1.0 communication channels (read e-mails and shared folders), industry experts today are convinced that applying real-time collaboration tools is the only way to increasing productivity—instantly. And, it is a major method to encourage positive participation from employees,

stakeholders and partners. “Use of collaborative tools can help organisations circulate the information of ongoing process and projects, that too, with complete transparency. It fosters the evolution of concepts and inferences, as a wide spectrum of people are involved,” says Jacob Livingstone, Manager-IT, BEC. One can evaluate its utility by way of ideation events and solutions received for a specific problem, or work products being delivered using such tools. What’s more, groups can be built for opportunities, that work in parallel, which may result in shortening of delivery timelines. This becomes increasingly important for any organisation, that is geographically spread out. Let’s take an example of a company like Persistent that encourages its employees to be a part of the networking platforms and tools to connect with their customers, counterparts, professional group members, open source communities and former colleagues. Commenting on the importance of customised collaboration tools over social media platforms, Swapnil Paranjpe, Senior Project Manager–Enterprise Collaboration BU, Persistent Systems, says, “Enterprise collaboration tools are centred around attaining collective intelligence and staff collaboration at the organisation level, or with partners. These include features such as staff networking, expert recommendations, information sharing, expertise location, peer feedback, and real-time collaboration. At the personal level, this enables employees to enhance social awareness and their profiles and interactions.” For Tulip Telecom, the important lesson, while adopting the new media for partners and employees, was that social media marketing is not just about creating an account and sitting on it. You need something extra to make it effective, rather than just hoping for customers to come looking for you. The company has an in-house social engagement platform for employees named Tulip Café where employees are free to share, create groups, get into active discussions and share presentations. “On a daily basis, in fact sometimes at hourly

. “CONNECTING VIA NEW AGE TOOLS IS ARGUABLY THE BEST INTERACTIVE APPROACH, WHICH ALSO MAKES A LONG-LASTING IMPRESSION IN MODERN DAY COMMUNICATION,” —Yogesh Bansal, Founder & CEO, Apnacircle.com

“WE HAVE IMPLEMENTED IDEAS, SOLD PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, CHANGED BUSINESS PROCESSES AND MUCH MORE THROUGH COLLABORATION,” —Manish Mehta, VP, Global Online at Dell

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INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION

Document a clear security and crisis management policy Ensure maximum scalability and flexibility of the medium, with features that can be turned on and off like a tap Formulate the moderation team comprising of members from various functions Define the level of member involvement and cross dependencies Chalk out the expectations from the platform

STEPS TO ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION 2.0

THE FUTURE OF COLLABORATION By 2014, social networking services will replace e-mail as the primary vehicle for interpersonal communications for 20% of business users By 2012, over 50% of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but standalone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5% penetration Through 2012, over 70% of ITdominated social media initiatives will fail Within five years, 70% of collaboration and communications applications designed on PCs will be modelled after user experience lessons from smartphone collaboration applications Through 2015, only 25% of enterprises will routinely utilise social network analysis to improve performance and productivity Source: Gartner

intervals, there needs to be something relevant the platform should offer to its audience,” says Sujoy Mukherjee, AGM, Marketing–Tulip Telecom. A couple of years ago, the company started an open-platform enterprise networking tool called Grey Gambit to develop a link with its customers—the IT leaders. “Recently, we had 1,200 and more members with us. We managed to rope in encouraging participation in all sorts of activities,” says Gaurava Yadav, Project Manager for Grey Gambit

Making the right connections Since microblogging is a modest expense (often as low as US$1 per user, per month), there is no need for elaborate RoI studies—prior to piloting the service. However, experts believe, it’s critical to identify “key business goals” that an organisation wishes to achieve, before deploying a solution. A thorough brainstorming—as far as employee feedback is concerned—can be of great use to the organisation. “Time has come to adopt smart practices that not only help businesses to reduce expenses, but also provide them practical ways of collaboration

81% of all marketers who use social media said it generates more exposure for their business Source: Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 2009

and communication,” says Karthik Padmanabhan, Country Manager– Lotus Software, IBM India (South Asia). “We have implemented ideas, sold products and services and changed business processes through collaboration,” stresses Manish Mehta, VP, Global Online at Dell. The company uses microblogging services, such as Yammer, to foster sharing among employees, as well as to share critical events within the organisation. “Yammer also integrates with the e-mail and can be used to share documents and links between employees,” Mehta adds.

Data theft & misuse; ignorance can be fatal The business world is still in the early stages of adopting social networking technologies. But, the future is alive with possibilities. As different collaborative platforms continue to evolve, and new sets of public and private tools emerge, firms will need to establish corporate governance policies and “agile” IT architectures, which not only support dynamic communication, but also promote deeper and richer interactions that make businesses productive and thriving.

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ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION | INSIGHT

MAJOR ENTERPRISE COMMUNICATORS SALESFORCE CHATTER: Chatter is a real-time cloud based collaboration tool for enterprises that enables employees to share the status of important projects and deals instantly

“THE USE OF COLLABORATION TOOLS CAN HELP ORGANISATIONS TO CIRCULATE THE INFORMATION OF ONGOING PROCESS AND PROJECTS WITH COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY,” —Jacob Livingstone, Manager (IT), BEC

“THE TIME HAS COME TO ADOPT SMART COMMUNICATION PRACTICES THAT CAN HELP ORGANISATION S TO ACHIEVE RESULTS FASTER,” —Karthik Padmanabhan, Country Manager-Lotus Software, IBM India

YAMMER : Founded in December 2007, Yammer is a Twitter like tool for improving workplace communication MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT: It’s a software platform developed by Microsoft for collaboration and web publishing combined under a single server. It has capabilities for developing web sites, portals, intranets, CMS and BI tools IBM’S LOTUS: Lotus is a collaboration solution from IBM that provides rich chat (IM, audio, video), online meetings, and group collaboration. CISCO’S ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION PLATFORM (ECP): It enables teams and knowledge workers to quickly and securely create, share, and scale content and expertise. Companies can invite their customers to participate and collaborate and work better.

Since any collaborative tool has a human intervention side to it, the scourge of data theft and data misuse will always remain the main concern— and the main deterrent towards its use for several enterprises. “Often, IT managers are left with the option of adopting a mechanism of close monitoring. And, reviewing the purpose for which the data was brought to use in the first place,” explains Minhaz Zia, National Sales Manager, Unified Communications of Cisco India and SAARC. While this is a double-edged sword, putting in advanced measures of training, guidelines and control, is a prudent way to keeping negative impacts at bay. Therefore, executive staffs, who take such initiatives, should be informed of the problems and be involved in the security, rather than be allowed to offload responsibility to the security team. This will encourage a culture of security that is both collaborative and structured, and is also ingrained throughout the organisation’s processes. There is a combination of things an enterprise has to employ to address the security challenges.

“As IT managers will employ technical means to prevent, or detect, such occurrences, corporate policies should be formulated in a manner which act as a deterrent,” says Ashwani Tikoo, CIO, CSC in India Most enterprises are going in for background checks and track records of the prospective employees to unearth past records. While marketing, PR, and sales are prominent when it comes to a global usage of collaboration tools, other core functional areas of the enterprise are increasingly experimenting with these tools, with positive results. HR, CRM, supply-relationship management, product development and innovation or even service delivery are all parts of the value chain that can derive advantages from social networking tools.

Confronting challenges Nevertheless, as organisations look at the future of social media, they must confront challenges such as lack of governance and IT involvement, which may impact the successful integration of these new platforms and technologies.

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INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE WIRELESS

IT’S

ALL

ABOUT

WORK Wireless communication is reaching a point at which enterprise IT managers can depend up on it for fast, reliable communications—both inside and outside the office BY WAY N E R AS H

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PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTOS .CO M

ENTERPRISE WIRELESS | INSIGHT

Wireless networking in an enterprise is all about getting work done. And work may not always mean e-mail or messaging, or those other nice features on your iPhone or Android device. Instead, work reflects the nature of an enterprise: Whether it’s Sandburg’s hog butchers, tool makers, stackers of wheat, or railroad or freight handlers, it’s about the work that companies and their employees do. When you see wireless in the enterprise, it’s as likely to be on a gritty loading dock in the back of a receiving facility or bolted to the side of a forklift, as it is to be in a brightlylit office upstairs. That’s why the big news in wireless and mobile computing isn’t that there are iPhone apps for some things. The really important news is that wireless communication is reaching a point at which enterprise IT managers can depend up on it for fast, reliable communications—both in and out of a building. Because of this, 802.11n and 3G or 4G wireless are a lot more important, than the ability to download television shows to a smartphone. What matters to enterprise IT managers is that a wireless installation works to facilitate the objectives of the business. This may mean that the warehouse crew can get pick orders delivered wirelessly, or that the shipping department can coordinate the loading of trucks. But, it may also mean that the sales staff has access to the latest information on product inventory and pricing, or that the field service force has access to reference information. Enterprises that plan from the beginning for a wireless environment—or adapt their enterprise to a wireless infrastructure—stand to reap the benefits of being truly flexible and mobile. Companies that let wireless just happen

to them, because they don’t have an identifiable wireless plan, will ultimately pay a price in reduced flexibility, higher costs and limited competitiveness.

A corporate strategy But adapting wireless to an enterprise takes more than simply giving the company’s managers cell phones. It means approaching wireless as a corporate strategy—the way that Hearst Publishing did when it built its new Manhattan headquarters. Hearst was building a new office, not a factory floor wireless environment, but the company moved to a model that would allow ubiquitous WiFi and cell phone coverage throughout the production environment that matters most to the company: its editorial staff. Joe Melfi, D-Link’s associate director of business solutions marketing, said the critical technology for enterprise wireless is WiFi. “When it [802.11n] was ratified, it was a big deal and companies would spend money on it,” Melfi said. “11n is giving better coverage per access point. You get faster throughput and faster traffic, and it won’t kill your network.” A key feature of 802.11n that makes it ideal for the enterprise, according to Melfi, is its MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technology. “The technology is more noise-tolerant,” he explained, “And success in keeping a connection is better. You have dual-band technology, so if you have a lot of noise, you can switch to the other band. You can fall back to lower bit rates and rebroadcast.” Melfi said that MIMO technology is the real key to WiFi’s sudden growth in the enterprise. “Now everything is going 11n,” he said. “Bar-code readers and inventory systems are all going 11n. When

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INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE WIRELESS

The new wireless Wireless communications have been around in business for a long time, but serious enterprise-use wireless—whether WiFi or cellular-based wireless data connections—was always at the margins. Now, that’s beginning to change. The ratification of 802.11n and the beginning of high-speed cellular-based data connections are finally giving businesses The ability of 11n WiFi the open door they need to add wireless to enables workers to be the core of the enterprise. mobile within a building and have reliable, fast There are several reaconnections. sons for this:

The ratification of 802.11n means that enterprises can be certain that their investment in infrastructure is both safe and useful.

4G communications are starting to appear, giving enterprise users some hope that reliable, fast communications will also exist outside the building.

Companies are beginning to find applications and products that are designed strictly for business, rather than being repurposed consumer electronics.

Ultimately, for enterprises to invest in a wireless infrastructure and devices, they need to be confident that the real needs of the business will be met, and that their technology investment will be around long enough to pay for itself. With the high-speed, highly reliable wireless that’s just emerging, they have a reason to feel confident—W.R.

drivers arrive on loading docks they just punch their driver number into a wireless device, and cargo starts arriving.” There are applications in the enterprise for this emerging capability, but Harpreet Chadha, senior director of product management for Extreme Networks, is already seeing a few that stand out. “I’m surprised about the amount of video coming to the enterprise—collaboration, distance learning, broadcasts from the CEO,” Chadha said. “You need to have more bandwidth for the connections you care about now.” Chadha added that the new reliability and improved bandwidth found in today’s wireless environment are lending themselves to applications that have been confined to a wired network environment. “You

expect that the dashboard on your database will work over a wireless connection,” he pointed out. Wireless technology is also cropping up in other areas now that more bandwidth and reliability are available. “Companies are using WiFi and RFID for inventory and warehousing,” Chadha said, noting that while both technologies have been around for some time in the warehouse, faster and more reliable communications are making them the norm rather than the exception. He also noted that some new applications, such as the ability to locate people, are making an appearance. Chadha expects to see more growth as wired and wireless networks become more integrated. Right now, he said, security and management are still

“USERS HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MANAGE DATA VOLUME,” —Craig Mathias, Principal Analyst, Farpoint Group

separate on those networks, but he expects to see an integrated approach in the future. “When this gets tied together, you can do it all at the access switch,” he said. “Then I can think of moving my critical applications to my wireless users, as well as my wired users.”

Robust, flexible technology While wireless networking has been around for years, it was the formal ratification of the 802.11n standard that made enterprise users take notice. The new standard supported technology that was both robust and flexible. In addition, it allowed portability, which, in turn, meant that enterprise-grade portable devices became feasible. Meanwhile, the continuing growth of 3G and 4G wireless meant that the enterprisegrade connection could exist outside the office. “The objective is to make sure that people in the field have access to the same information and capability that people in the office do,” said Craig Mathias, principal analyst at the Farpoint Group advisory service. “There used to be a saying that people in the field don’t want the same things as people in the office, but that’s not true. This is the first time we’ve been able to rep-

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INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE WIRELESS licate office IT functions and put them in the field.” Unfortunately, some wireless carriers are complicating the adoption of enterprise wireless networking. AT&T, for example, has stopped offering unlimited data plans due to the demand for bandwidth by the Apple iPad and iPhone. Mathias said this is a problem for corporate users. “Users have no idea how to manage data volume,” Mathias said. “It’s unfair to charge people for the volume of data because people don’t know how much data they’re going to get.” He added that the ultimate direction for enterprise wireless is WiFi—and 4G when it becomes available. “There’s no substitute for capacity and coverage,” Mathias pointed out. “It will involve WiFi playing a strategic role in high density environments. Eventually, it will be an all-IP network. When we move to LTE [Long Term Evolution] and WiMax, we have the potential to move all traffic into the IP domain. The carrier will be able to divide up that traffic dynamically.” This type of flexible coverage was the rationale for the development of Cisco’s Cius tablet, capable of handling true enterprise applications. According to Barry O’Sullivan, Cisco’s senior vice-president for the Voice Technology Group, the Cius is a videocentric device designed for 11n and 3G environments. “The primary users will be businesspeople who are mobile, inside buildings, or between buildings,” he said. O’Sullivan said Cisco designed the Cius to support 4G LTE when it becomes available. He said that he thinks the device will be particularly useful for financial services and public sector applications, adding that the device has a rugged case accessory for warehouse and factory environments. “The name of the game is that all businesses have access to the same information,” said Farpoint’s Mathias. “When everybody has access to the same stuff, the only differentiator will be how quickly you can move stuff around to people who make decisions, and how quickly you can make those decisions known. How much is it

With wireless networks supporting more users and newer applications, administrators should rethink their coverage strategies to optimise for the usage patterns.

worth to get a temporal advantage over your competition?” The answer is that it could be worth a lot. Mathias describes a mythical insurance agent to illustrate how a welldesigned enterprise wireless approach can make a difference. “You’re an insurance agent sitting in your client’s office, and your client wants to make changes. You take notes and offer to send the new numbers over.A modern insurance agent, and you’re interacting with an application that figures out the new numbers on the fly. Who’s going to get the business? Nothing irritates customers more than having to wait for an answer.”

Ultimately, that’s the promise of enterprise wireless: not having to make your business wait for something to happen, whether it’s for a new insurance quote, or for a pick list to be delivered to a forklift driver, or for the warehouse crew to show up at the loading dock. In business, time is everything, and gaining that temporal advantage is the reason the enterprise is starting to love wireless. Contributing analyst Wayne Rash is a veteran technology writer and reviewer. © eWeek

Find similar stories online on the website www.itnext.in/Insight

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SURVEY | RESULTS

the

GREENING

INFRASTRUXURE Announcing the winners of IT infrastructure audit conducted by APC in conjunction with IT Next

hat according to you are the best practices for making a data centre room, “Green”? What is your biggest challenge today in the DC/ server room? How do you plan to tackle availability in your DC/ server room? These were some of the questions posed to over 2000 senior IT managers across the length and breadth of India, as part of an IT Infrastructure Audit carried out by APC in conjunction with IT Next. The purpose of the exercise was to assess the preparedness and awareness of the community towards green data centres. The participants in the survey had a chance to win APC data centre solution as a prize (see box).

THE THREE LUCKY WINNERS, WHO HAVE BEEN CHOSEN AFTER STRINGENT MEASURES ARE:

Sr. Manager IT, BNP Paribas

AGM, 3i Infotech

Project Leader, Sodexo Facilities Management Services India

FRASTR T IN UC FI

AUDIT RE TU

FRASTR T IN UC FI

AUDIT RE TU

FRASTR T IN UC FI

WINNER SO

Mahesh Pardesi

WINNER SO

Sumit Dutta

WINNER SO

Anand Saxena

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RESULTS | SURVEY PRIZE

InfraStruXure Central Standard InfraStruXure Central Standard v6.0 scales up to 2025 devices and 125 surveillance cameras. It supports InfraStruXure Capacity, InfraStruXure Operations, InfraStruXure Mobile, InfraStruXure Energy Efficiency, InfraStruXure Change, and InfraStruXure Energy Cost, up to 210 racks.

“ENERGY COSTS, NOW ABOUT 10% OF THE AVERAGE IT BUDGET, COULD RISE TO 50% UNLESS COMPANIES TAKE RADICAL MEASURES”

Includes: 1 Node Surveillance License Key, 10 Racks of InfraStruXure Operations, 25-Node license key, CD with software, Installation guide, Server appliance, User Manual

AP9470 KEY FEATURES Encrypted communications

or normal device statuses.

128 Bit, SSL encrypted communications between client and server, as well as encrypted user IDs and passwords stored on the server to help protect your resources from unwarranted attacks. Custom mapping Custom backgrounds, unique user-assignable icons, and dragand-drop device placement make it easy to identify problem devices at a glance, minimizing downtime, errors, and cost. Integrated data storage InfraStruXure Central ships with internal storage for data and video collection. Additional storage can easily be made available using the built-in Network Attached Storage server support for long-term storage and archiving. Centralised management Simplify management of the physical infrastructure using a centralized repository accessible from anywhere on the network through a powerful and easy-to-use console application. Custom reporting Create, save and schedule userdefined reports for ease of data collection, distribution and analysis. Alarm filters Customise the user interface to display devices in critical, warning

Mass firmware update

Decrease set-up time and complexity of managed devices by simultaneously upgrading firmware for multiple APC devices. Unified console Customisable Windows and Linux client application enables instant access to InfraStruXure Central application from anywhere on the network. Private networking Reduce IP addresses needed on the public network to manage devices, by placing them on an isolated secure network. Surveillance add-on application Enhance visibility of your critical assets with physical threat management to monitor and record all activity in important locations or secured areas. A centralised repository allows the user to review, search and tag surveillance events for future needs. Centralised Alert Repository Access historical alerts from several appliances through one central database. Sort alerts by type, date, appliance, and/or device group. Extendable architecture Available node and application license keys extend the capabilities of the platform allowing it to grow to meet changing business needs.

In a country like India, where there is an acute deficit of power, green data centre makes immense sense not only from an environmental but also from an economic perspective. Data centres are typically power guzzlers, sucking up immense power. As, GB Ravichandra, Director Enterprise Sales, APC, points out: “In a tropical country like India, companies mainly rely on air conditioning to keep servers at the right temperature. The more powerful the machine, the more cool air needed to keep it from overheating. Energy costs, now about 10% of the average IT budget, could rise to 50% unless companies take radical measures, CIOs are well aware of this problem,” he says. “Such surveys play an immense role in spreading the awareness about this issue,” he adds. Vikas Gupta, director, 9.9 Media, also spoke about the survey. “APC is a global leader when it comes to energy efficient solutions. By partnering with them we not only gained insights about the spread of green in the Indian enterprise space but were able to share nuggets of vital information with IT managers,” he stated. With the help of InfraStruXure Central Standard, IT managers will be able to measure and analyse the power consumption pattern, the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is one of the most favoured ones amongst the enterprises. Basically speaking, PUE is the sum of total facility power divided by the IT equipment power, wherein, the ‘facility power’ is the power required to operate the entire data center, including servers, IT equipment, lighting, cooling, air movement, etc. While the ‘IT equipment power’ represents the power required to operate the servers and IT equipment alone.

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CASE STUDY | MPCB

With the integration of its business processes over, MPCB is now ready to enter the next phase of automation BY M A H ES H PAT H A K , A JAY D ES H PA N D E , D I N ES H S O N AWA NE A N D R A J I V D ESA I

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MPCB | CASE STUDY

MAHARASHTRA POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD PROJECT MAP NATURE Interlinking all the 12 offices centrally

CHALLENGES The offices were located in disparate location and also had legacy infrastructure

TEAM

PHOTOG RA PHY: PHOTO S .CO M

AJAY DESHPANDE, IN-CHARGE, EIC

In the life of any organisation, there occurs a singularity—formed when diverse routes meet at a single point. The positioning and intensity of this point is “severe”, and there’s no organisation that can stand without it. Take the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), for instance. It’s a public organisation—one which caters to an external world and to an internal world of office functions. MPCB’s singular point of control can be achieved through e-governance—of all its business processes. E-governance can be its strongest and the most vital technicality—providing a leap into automation. E-governance encompasses the computerisation of all business processes of an office. Each process is related to the other—and, there is none without the other. On its part, MPCB set out for holistic

computerisation. This applied to a very large geographical area, especially because the board’s offices were spread across the length and breadth of a large state of Maharashtra—12 regional offices connected centrally to its headquarters at Sion, Mumbai. And, several sub-regional offices. There were certain challenges that were faced by the organisation—primarily proposed changes in its business processes. E-governnance could lead to a re-engineering, that would affect the process’s owners and employees of the organisation. Thus, before implementation, it was mandatory for the board to address change management, as well. And, it needed to adopt a state-of-the-art technology that could help connect all the state’s centres and facilitate its businesses. As the software to be implemented involved integration of all processes, the project

RAJIV DESAI, MANAGER IT, MPCB

DINESH SONAWANE, ASSIS. SYSTEMS OFFICER, EIC

CURRENT STATUS All offices have been interlinked, a data recovery module is planned next

DIRECT IMPACT As, all different offices of MPCB were interlinjed, it resulted in greater transparency and speedening of the process. All the cases are now listed on a central website, http://mpcb.gov.in

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CASE STUDY | MPCB

ALL LINKED TO HQ The regional offices have been connected and sub regional offices will be considered for networking in the next phase

Amravati Aurangabad

Chandrapur

Navi Mumbai

Pune

HEAD OFFICE

Kolhapur

SION

Thane

Raigad

Nashik

was named Integration Management Information System (IMIS).

IMIS project IMIS consists of integration of all processes formulated into the MPCB businesses, as software modules. These modules have financial implications, as well as, laboratory reports. Integration is concerned not merely with office procedures, but also with laboratories. The IMIS project included development of an enterprise solution for multidisciplinary functions, including consent, laboratory and waste management, cess collection and establishment and accounts. The project’s main feature was the intention to integrate laboratory functions in the regulatory mechanisms and waste management—for effective control of pollution, and improvement in environmental compliance. Thus, in case of the Maharashtra board, the need of the hour was to make implementations effective and efficient—as the entire business-to -business (B2B) scenario was dependent

Nagpur

Kalyan

on it. It was also important that implementation be carried out in a time-bound manner and with smooth transition into e-governance.

Strategic approach The setting up of the IT environment was done to connect locations securely. As regional offices that needed to be

ers and radio connectivity located at suitable venues, which provided a spectral catchment range. The VPN connectivity of each region had a maximum bandwidth of 128kbps that is now being upgraded to 256kbps. The office internet is shared from the proxy server at the headquarters through the same VPN circuit.

Hardware implementation; Creation of data centre At the Maharashtra environmental office, information stored in the MPCB data centre is obtained from varied sources and, concerns facts related to the environment—both animate and inanimate. This repository of information forms the knowledge centre—used for research and development. The main centre housing the servers and database is situated at the head office. This is the Central Network Operations Centre, or C-NOC, for short. As seen in the diagram on the following pafe, there are application and domain servers, databases, mailing system, storage and backup system that comprises the C-NOC. Atop all servers, there is the “Network Gateway Router” that guards all internal networks and connects regional offices. It is here that the internet connection finds way to all regions. Every regional office is

TO HELP CUSTOMERS, A PAYMENT GATEWAY IS ALSO BEING PLANNED, AND IT WILL SOON BE OPERATIONAL connected were located in far-off locations, a cost-effective, long-term solution was effected through an MPLS VPN connectivity, which was secure, scalable and far-reaching. In fact, the same setup was used to provide internet access to all centres. The MPLS VPN was provided by the internet service provider, Tulip. The connectivity was established through tow-

equipped with a local area network (LAN) and a secondary gateway router connecting to the main at the C-NOC. Thus, a full connectivity is achieved between all MPCB regional offices through an MPLS virtual private network, making it appear as a singlepremise network. Regions connect centrally for getting their access to the application. This

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MPCB | CASE STUDY is a web-based architecture, in which users access the database through their browsers. There is also an antivirus server that runs MacAfee antivirus shield, networked to all the computers. The core operating system of the IMIS is MS windows Server 2003 with MS SQL database. The Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) sever runs Oracle databases. All modules of the IMIS are operational from the application server.

Software implementation This was the process that was the ultimate to drive the project. The application consists of various modules that carry the main business of the organisation: n File Tracking System (FTS) n Cess n Consent n Authorisation n L ab o r at o r y In f o r m at i o n Management System (LIMS) n Waste Management n Assets and purchase n Establishment and (Payroll Financial) n Complaints n Legal

Integration of modules Functional modules had to be integrated with laboratory module, LIMS and financial module. The process was far from simple, as the functional modules were developed and customised in-house. Whereas LIMS (from Labvantage) and Financial Accounting System (FAS) from Virmati were off-the-shelf packages. The packages had to be customised in accordance with MPCB’s requirements. Customising and integrating them was a challenge. This process of integration caused many deadlines to be deferred. LIMS, though a part of the IMIS, was an auxiliary software that catered to the laboratory processes. While collecting the results of the samples processed, it also interfaced analytical instruments used for samples. Parameters of the collected sample, by a field officer, were

IMIS INTEGRATION MODULES All thes functional module packages were customised in accordance with the Board’s requirement and integrated on the IMIS FTS

Cess Consent

Authorisation

Waste Management

Estblishment

Stores LIMS Complaints Legal

Enterprise Database

FAS Payroll

fetched into the LIMS database for further processing. The LIMS package had to be considerably customised, considering laboratory needs and technical details. It had a different database running Oracle. And, a separate component, to integrate it with the enterprise database of the IMIS had to be developed. Also, the establishment module consisting human resource processes had been developed, but this could not be complete without relating it to the finance and accounts. Thus, a separate service had to be developed to integrate FAS within IMIS. Both LIMS and FAS ran on separate databases.

The website The integration could only be complete if IMIS was now accessible via the internet from the board’s website (http:// www.mpcb.gov.in), where environmental data could be accessed. With IMIS in place, the website would now be more dynamic. The consent status could be known to the customer after processing the application through the IMIS from the website. The status of complaints could also be ascertained from the web-

LIMS Database

site. Given this interactivity required, the next step was to go for an information security audit. Such an audit is necessary since sensitive data is stored in the database. MPCB is now on the way to conduct such an audit.

Conclusion After the final phase of the office automation was completed. Data was available in a digital form, and could be accessed from anywhere, at any given time. This led to a radical change in the business-to-business functions of the MPCB. Also, the regional offices in Maharashtra were finally connected. Remaining sub-regional offices will be considered for networking in the ensuing phase of the project. To help customers, a payment gateway has been planned, and it will be soon be operational. Also, the consolidation of networks needs a “Network Monitoring System”. A data recovery module is being planned for the next phase.

The authors are associated with the Maharashtra Pollution Board in various IT and administrative roles.

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INTERVIEW | SANDEEP AURORA

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SANDEEP AURORA | INTERVIEW

“WE ARE NOT A SEMICONDUCTOR COMPANY NOW”

PHOTO GRAPHY: S UBHOJI T PAUL

Sandeep Aurora, Director, Sales and Marketing Group – South Asia, Intel, in a freewheeling conversation with Jatinder Singh shares the company’s new technology initiatives and the learning’s it has gained from the Indian market

Intel, which is propagating the advantages of WiMAX for such a long time, has recently closed its WiMAX programme office. What does it mean for India? Are you backing off your support to WiMAX? I would not say so. Let me put it this way. Intel is integrating its WiMAX Programme Office (WPO) into various platforms, product and sales organisations as part of a normal course of business. This organisational transition is a normal process that takes place as new technologies mature and become a standard part of existing computing platforms, as is the case for WiMAX. This does not meant any change in our commitment to

WiMAX. We are excited for the growth ahead when millions of WiMAX clients will make their way into the hands of end users. The fact is that today, everybody has recognised the potential of WiMax. Since, fibre will take 10 more years and perhaps a lot of efforts, this is the only solution to India’s broadband woes. The whole idea is that if you truly want to become a country which cares for its citizens, and adopt computerisation at village level, you need connectivity on the go. And WiMax, undoubtedly, holds an upper hand over rest of the technologies.

Could you share some details on Intel’s upcoming SSDs? We already have and are work-

ing closely to develop SSDs that remove performance bottlenecks associated with traditional hard disk drives to unleash the full performance of our Core and Xeon processor-based systems. By reducing the total infrastructure, cooling and energy costs, the new age SSDs can help businesses lower total cost of ownership for enterprise applications significantly.

The company is also betting big on the Atom series of processors which were launched two years back in India. How big is the demand of such kind of near PC’s? In 2008, the Atom processor was introduced on the low-power, low-cost Intel Architecture (IA) microprocessor, post discus-

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INTERVIEW | SANDEEP AURORA sions over a slower, lower-power, Intel-compatible microprocessor, which helped in enabling the creation of a new class of small, lightweight netbooks. Tens of millions of netbooks have been sold over the two years of the existence of multifaceted Atom microprocessors. The Atom is now finding its way into televisions sets, including the recently announced Google TV and smart phones. Many more applications of Atom processors are in the works. The demand has certainly gained momentum.

You have recently announced a major technology breakthrough that uses light beams to carry data in and around computers. Can you explain how this innovation will change the computers of tomorrow? Yes, Intel has developed a research prototype representing the world’s first silicon-based optical data connection with integrated lasers. The link can move data over longer distances and many times faster than today’s copper technology. Today, computer components are connected to each other using copper cables or traces on circuit boards. Due to the signal degradation that comes with using metals such as copper to transmit data, these cables have a limited maximum length. This limits the design of computers, forcing processors, memory and other components to be placed just inches from each other. This research achievement is another step toward replacing these connections with extremely thin and light optical fibers that can transfer much more data over far longer distances, radically changing the way computers of the future are designed and altering the way the datacenter of tomorrow is architected.

What prompted Intel to make an effort towards creating a new operating system on microchips? That whole thing is more about creating applications. It’s more like an application store. It’s a very exciting community. Nokia is a leader in that segment. So, the partnership makes sense for the obvious reasons. The idea was to go and develop something for the market. The whole idea was to create a platform store to prepare developer chips which is good for business smartphones and normal smartphones. As we go along, the performance keeps going up. The roadmap was always there. The intention was to make the smart phone smarter. Intel is swiftly diversifying its portfolio into varied segments. What, in your opinion, will be the Intel of tomorrow? For most people, Intel’s name

“WE ARE COMMITED TO CHANGING THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING AND ALTERING THE WAY THE DATACENTER OF TOMORROW IS ARCHITECTED”

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

is synonymous with microprocessors powering the vast majority of the world’s personal computers. But, the Intel of today is no longer a pure semiconductor company serving the horizontally structured PC industry. It has become a vertical computing and communications company providing hardware and software solutions to a vast range of industries and individuals around the world. Beyond the traditional PC sectors, we are actively bringing products to market for the home, health, handset, and numerous embedded computing and communications markets and one can expect to see a variety of stuff of that sort in future.

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15MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING EDUCATION WORKPLACE COMPENSATION WORKFORCE TRENDS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

LOWER YOUR BP PAGE 46

IT Strat The scope say it all THIS PAGE Manage IT 10 Email etiquettes PAGE 48 Manage IT Systemic risk poses big threats PAGE 49 Training Calendar Career booster courses PAGE 50

BY ANUR AG C H AT U R V E D I

I LLUSTRATIO N: S URES H KUMAR

ethodologies and techniques for cost estimation and management have evolved over a period of time. And, it will continue to do so. There is no formula or technique when it comes to scoping and managing project budgets. One can use a combination of techniques, or develop some of one’s own, depending on the industry for which the project is being implemented, and the nature of the project. Example; a technology company will like to focus more on R&D and training functions while scoping a budget, whereas a non-technology company will lay emphasis on missioncritical applications, infrastructure development or support services. Budget planning is a typical constraint for any IT project. The plan’s definition will form a baseline, against which potential changes are assessed and deliverables are defined, along with objectives and timelines. Usually, during a project, one of the three factors—timeline, performance and budget—affects and dominates the other two. One should have a fine assessment of the three factors, while scoping the budget.

IT STRAT

THE SCOPE SAY IT ALL A project is successfully managed when it is properly budgeted and stays focused, and has well-defined contours S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

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15-MINUTE MANAGER

HEALTHY LIVING

LOWERING HYPERTENSION

CATEGORY

SYSTOLIC (TOP NUMBER)

DIASTOLIC (BOTTOM NUMBER)

NORMAL

LESS THAN 120

AND

LESS THAN 80

PREHYPERTENSION

120–139

80–89

STAGE 1

140–159

90–99

STAGE 2

160 OR HIGHER

100 OR HIGHER

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

CONTROLLING BLOOD PRESSURE LOWERS THE RISK OF STROKE BY 35 TO 40 PERCENT AND THE RISK OF HEART ATTACK BY 20 TO 25 PERCENT,

Approximately 1 billion people worldwide have high blood pressure, and this number is expected to increase to 1.56 billion people by the year 2025

Hypertension or High blood pressure results when the force of circulating blood against blood vessels is overly increased. The reading consists of two numbers, systolic and diastolic. Systolic pressure is the force with which the heart works to pump blood through arteries. The diastolic figure shows the pressure of blood in the arteries between heartbeats. A blood pressure reading of 120 over 80 is within normal limits. However, if a reading is 140 over 90 or higher, medication will probably be prescribed. Left untreated, high blood pressure can cause stroke, heart attack, kidney failure and other serious ailments. Here are some tips on how to deal with high BP: Reduce weight: Eating a diet low in fat and high in fruit and vegetables acts to lower sodium levels in the body while increasing fiber, potassium and calcium. Fiber in the diet can be increased by adding foods such as dried beans and peas, fruit and oat products. These foods help to decrease cholesterol production and reduce blood pressure. Lower sodium intake: Reducing salt has a significant effect on lowering the blood pressure but not only salty snacks and other obviously salty foods are harmful. Check for hidden sodium that may appear in cheese, desserts, ketchup, etc. Avoid fast foods and smoked meat and fish products, which are high in sodium. . Exercise regularly: Regular exercise stimulates the metabolism to burn more calories. If inactive, start the exercise program slowly with light to moderate walking or light weight training to burn more calories and increase muscle mass.

PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTOS .CO M

CATEGORIES FOR BLOOD PRESSURE LEVELS IN ADULTS (IN MMHG, OR MILLIMETERS OF MERCURY)

PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

With poor scoping, budget management goes out of hands and becomes uncontrollable. Some of the problems that occur while scoping are: Ambiguity in scope: Leading to confusion and unnecessary work Incomplete or unclear data Scope creep: Uncontrolled changes in scope Non-collaborative scope: Scope not validated with stakeholders. Such problems impede the progress of a project, and their implications can be far-reaching, both in terms of cost and time. In fact, “cost overrun”, which is defined as “excess of actual cost over budget”, is a common occurrence in technology due to inaccurate scoping. An industry study shows that 40% of technology budgets are overrun because of underscoping—mainly because of imperfect forecasting, inadequate data and market awareness, and insufficient knowledge about a product lifecycle. Once the project starts, changes are bound to happen. But, reasons behind the changes need to be analysed. One should be flexible in approach and account for those reasons that may have been overlooked by the business management. Efficient managers should be resourceful in their project estimations and implementation. Some factors that affect change are: Changing business needs New legislations and regulations Other projects and initiatives Change in organisational structure Business users cannot identify every requirement and feature required for the final solution and delivery. Even if they could, a business changes over time. Therefore, solution requirements change, too. A user must explicitly clarify potential dangers and cost impact of changes and encourage changes that may lead to organisational benefits (this is what is termed as a “good change”). It is wise to judge “changes” early and, accordingly, align the scope and adjust a budget. However, this brings us to a critical question—how does one incorporate changes in a project that is already underway?

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The answer to this is what the industry calls—scope change management. If the project manager doesn’t invoke scope change management, a project’s success could be in danger.

Scope management Scope change management entails all changes in the scope going through a change management process for better understanding of all stake holders. A fine balance between flexibility and control needs to be struck by a project manager. Many a time, personnel are focused on bigger changes and ignore smaller ones. A large number of smaller changes eat into the budget and time. If a process is troublesome—either valuable changes are lost, or participants ignore rules, leading to uncontrolled scope. If a change management process is too

easy, then changes are applied with insufficient thought given to merits and consequences, leading to cost and time overruns.

Granular scoping As a technology head, I prefer “granular scoping”—an industry concept which means scoping done on an individual initiative. This allows one to manage the budget step-wise, and provides one with greater control and transparency. The ultimate advantage is a greater visibility over execution that proves to be invaluable, as it helps in estimating future initiatives with similar tasks. Scope definition is the first step towards successful planning of budget. After preparing the scope, one must monitor it and ensure it doesn’t drain the budget which needs to tightly coupled with tasks to be performed. Any deviation must be recorded and

addressed. The purpose of defining scope is to describe and gain agreement on a project’s logical boundaries. Scope statements are used to define what is within the boundaries, and what is outside. Identifying a greater number of project aspects leads to better budgeting. Following broad heads can be useful in defining scope: Type of deliverables—in or out of a scope Lifecycle processes such as designing, testing and training Major functionalities—support, reporting and data management Technology managers should, as a thumb rule, keep the corporate vision and mission of an organisation in mind while preparing a technology roadmap. This should ultimately guide the overall budgeting. The author is Head-IT, (Exchange Business), Reliance Capital

MANAGE IT

QUALITY AND INNOVATION CO-EXIST Efficient operations and innovation can go together. A number of profitable firms are using unique approaches to strike a balance BY E L I Z A B E T H K E I M

espite recent contradictory reports, quality processes are not stifling creativity at US corporations. In fact, a number of highly-profitable firms are using unique

approaches to strike a balance between efficiency and innovation, according to a report released by American Society for Quality (ASQ). The report profiles two companies— DuPont and Procter&Gamble (P&G).

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15-MINUTE MANAGER MANAGE IT

10 EMAIL ETIQUETTES In spite of e-mail being the most prevalent form of communication, it is still strange that most people have still not realised how important their email communications are. Here are some simple yet effective tips for using email more efficiently:

If you are sending an e-mail to multiple people, put their e-mail addresses in the BCC field and your own email address in the To: field. No one likes to share their private e-mail address with strangers.

The e-mail subject should be detailed enough to give the recipient an idea about the email content without having to open it. Single words like “Hi” or “Hello” or “Help” are a strict no-no. Think of meaningful but short titles.

Do not attach large attachments in your email since not everyone is on a broadband connection. If you have to send a large file over email, upload it to file sharing services like Yousendit and then pass on the link in the email.

If you have to e-mail more than two documents as attachments, zip them in one file. Doing this would ensure that the recepient won’t miss downloading any file.

4 5

Do not write an e-mail while you are drunk or in a really bad mood. It will reflect on the style of your writing.

Do not request a Read Notification Receipt.

Always reply to e-mails especially the ones specifically addressed to you. The sender is waiting to hear from you.

Keep you e-mail message short and to the point. Sentences like “I hope this email finds you alive and well” look good only in letter correspondence.

Do not hit the Send button without doing a spell check. An e-mail with spelling mistakes or grammatical errors indicate that you have written the message in a non-serious mood and may convey a bad impression. Always read the message before broadcasting it to the world.

PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTO S.C OM

You may want to remove your personal mobile number and office number from your email signature if you are participating in a big mailing list. You never know the kind of people who have subscribed to the list.

These industry innovators have taken steps to integrate creativity-generating functions of R&D and product development with regular process management structures and practices. DuPont uses a variety of Six Sigma methods, as well as StageGate, a carefully-designed business development process that encourages consistency and speed. The company’s goal is to reduce waste in the design, development and commercialisation of products. There’s no reason why Six Sigma should hamper innovation—if it’s used properly. Management needs to understand that quality process tools aren’t appropriate for all parts of a job, and it should analyse where these tools can best benefit the bottomline. P&G maintains that a major driver of its innovation efforts includes a mix of quality processes that provide structure. Examples include FutureWorks, an organisation of multidisciplinary teams that look for innovation opportunities outside the existing business units, and Corporate Innovation Fund, which focuses on high-risk, high-reward ideas. “More than any other factor, systems are the way we avoid dependence on ‘Eureka!’ approaches to innovation,” says Robert McDonald, P&G CEO. “We select innovation projects, allocate resources and ultimately bring the best innovations to market with highlydisciplined processes and systems.” Here are some tips for enterprises striving to balance quality processes and innovation: Keep everything in perspective. Quality is broader than Six Sigma, and innovation is broader than breakthrough inventions. Innovation occurs in social systems. Treat it like a team sport involving reallife interactions of multitudes of people. Go outside the boundaries of your organisation. Collaborate with customers, suppliers, business partners and academia for innovation insights. Think of innovation as a process. Don’t think of it as a series of unrelated Eureka moments. Instead, consider innovation as a change process that can

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be managed with change and quality management methods. Establish a widespread culture of innovation. Also, build innovationenhancing capabilities throughout a customer-centered value stream. Challenge the common assumption that innovation is inversely related to structure. Common sense will give you common results that are no different from what everyone else is doing. Promote divergent thinking during ideation and convergent thinking during development.

One of the tools useful for innovation by Six Sigma teams is TILMAG, an acronym for German words that loosely translate to “transformation of ideal solution elements in an association matrix.” Another is the morphological box, used to solve multidimensional, non-quantifiable problems. Both enable users to look at systems or environments to find new ideas. A number of tools and techniques allow teams to look at problems in fresh ways to enable them to find new solutions to problems.

MANAGE IT

SYSTEMIC RISK POSES BIG THREATS Manage risk beyond the comfort zone because the destructive risks live beyond the edges and between silos

ILLUSTRATI ON: ANOOP PC

BY J E F F R E Y B R U C K N E R

These techniques allow teams to leverage solutions found in very different systems. While some people are more creative than others, anyone can learn to use these tools to be more innovative.

The author is a managing partner at Integrated Quality Resources in Boulder, Colo. She works with clients on business results improvement through the integration of methodologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, the Baldrige Award criteria and the ISO 9000 quality systems standards. Keim is a past president and past chair of the board of the American Society for Quality.

o find and manage the most destructive business risks, leaders must build a culture of risk management that is vigilant in its pursuit, innovative and agile in its control response, and disciplined in its execution. Today’s businesses are learning hard lessons about risk: BP Deepwater Horizon, naked credit default swaps, and more than US$63 billion in failed US technology projects, to name a few high-profile cases. Each of these disasters caused billions of dollars in value destruction, yet each happened on the watch of competent risk managers, who did their jobs. Each had compliance systems, regulators and oversight mechanisms expressly designed to mitigate risk. So what went wrong? In a word: systemic. Systemic risk originates in the complex interactions among the components that constitute a system. Either individual components can function flawlessly, while the overall system experiences a massive failure, or the system functions as an impact multiplier, magnifying the impact of a single component failure. Managing systemic risk requires a culture of risk management that extends beyond the individual components to the edges, seams and overall system behaviour. Mature risk cultures are charac-

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15-MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING CALENDAR

Career booster courses for you

terised by a set of essential management practices that ensure that the risk framework of the enterprise functions at a consistently high-level. These include the following:

Identification Risk identificationâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;a process of identifying sources of risk from internal and external directions. Risk identification is an inherently creative process and requires a collaboration of minds and perspectives that represent all constituencies.

Control Programme Customer Based Business Strategies Risk: Modeling and Management

Venue

Dates

IIM Ahmedabad

To be announced

IIM Ahmedabad

Sep 06-10, 2010

Personal Change Management IMI, New Delhi Work Life Balance for Women

Fore School

Sep 14-15, 2010

IIM Calcutta

Sep 14-18, 2010

Improving Negotiation Skills

IMI, New Delhi

Sep 16-18, 2010

Leadership Excellence

IIM Calcutta

Sep 20-22, 2010

IIM Ahmedabad

Sep 20-25, 2010

IIM Calcutta

Sep 27-29, 2010

Team Building and Leadership

Fore School

Sep 20-23, 2010

Team Building and Leadership

Fore School

Sep 30-Oct 1, 2010

Executives Marketing Strategies for Profitable Growth in India

Advanced Data Analysis for Marketing Decisions Forecasting for Effective Business Decisions

Sep 13-14, 2010

Risk control is an analytical process that devises a control system to mitigate identified risk. Control systems range widely and can be designed to respond to a risk event, re-engineer the process to eliminate or transfer a risk, or detect it early, before it can cause damage.

Testing Control systems require compliance to be effective, and testing simulates risk events and the control-system response. Results are fed back into improved and more-effective control systems; they also serve to identify new sources of risk, each of which requires a corresponding control system. As our knowledge economy expands and global interconnections increase, complexity grows exponentially. Business leaders and risk managers must proactively manage complexity by constructing control systems that not only function in complex environments, but also adapt and evolve. The changing business environment also demands a better crisis management framework that should be guided by the leaders of the industry. Our risk systems and culture must evolve as fast as the changes we see around us. The author is the chief knowledge officer of BTM Corporation. BTM innovates new business models and enhances financial performance by converging business and technology with its products and intellectual property. ÂŠ 2010 BTM Corporation | info@btmcorporation.com

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OPINION

TECH TALK PRASHANT MALI Advocate and President, Cyber Law Consulting

The security driven enterprise

yber crime generally refers to criminal activity conducted via the internet. The attacks can include stealing an organisation’s plain data or intellectual property, illegal online bank transfers, creating and distributing viruses or worms on other computers, posting confidential business information on the internet and disrupting a corporate or country’s critical national-international infrastructure. Every corporate, whether it is a bank or IT company, is vulnerable to thousands of cyber attacks that occur daily across all industries, causing information theft, disruption to business operations, loss of brand credibility and serious financial loss. Through actions such as the appointment of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), the rollout of an enterprise security strategy, and investments in technologies capable of addressing sophisticated threats and managing complex security events, companies are able to reduce the financial impact of cyber crime. The most costly cyber crimes are those caused by web attacks, malicious code and malicious insiders, which account for more than 90% of all cyber crime costs per organisation on an annual basis. Cyber attacks can be costly if not resolved quickly. Detection and recovery are the most costly internal activities. On an annualised basis, detection and recovery combined account for 46% of the total internal activity cost, with labour representing the majority of these costs.

“Every corporate, whether it is a bank or IT company, is vulnerable to thousands of cyber attacks” Detection and recovery costs from cyber attacks can be mitigated by continuous employee training, following global best security practices. Now, under Section(85) of Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, India’s cyber law also makes corporate responsible for security leaks. Some cyber crimes faced internally by enterprises are:  Data theft (clients, employees, etc) by employee.  Theft of technology, designs,

formats, processes, source code etc.  Applying email forwarding rules to sensitive accounts.  Data diddling (changing data before it is entered into a system).  Industrial espionage, i.e. spying for competitors by getting employed.  Relaying video footages of sensitive places and technologies.  Implanting trojans.  Allowing corporate computers to act as zombies.  Deleting or destroying live information or backups etc. Even though India has a cyber law of its own, every organisation should be concerned about cyber crime happening and how much it will cost to manage and contain them. You know how the police protects civilians inspite of having various laws and procedures in place - they take help of civilians, groups and informers. So, having a global standard IT security policy is not enough. An ideal CISO should guard IT Infrastructure with a law and enforcement mindset. If we equate Infosec Policy to a law within an organisation, then ‘laws are meant to be broken’ is a general philosophy with people. Policy can be enforced only with physical will of people and CISO. There are standard “best practices” and the IT Act 2008 envisaged “Security Practices” that we should be performing to protect our IT Infrastructure and networks, and any of these could also help against advanced attacks. But the issue always comes down to security versus productivity and functionality. The sad truth is that users almost always end up having more privileges and access than they need, making them an easier target. Far fewer threats would affect your users’ systems if they had to prove the importance of a particular business need before they were allowed to access the web. The author is an advocate and President at Cyber Law Consulting.

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CUBE CHAT | BERJES ERIC SHROFF

THE PRAGMATIC

DREAMER “The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished. Whereas an emptybellied hype leads nowhere, especially in the long-run,” believes Berjes Eric Shroff, Manager-IT, Tata Services BY JATIN D E R S I N G H

C MY SUCESS

MANTRA Work hard, upgrade your skills constantly and reasearch

harles Schulz, an American cartoonist, once pointed out that life was like a 10-speed bicycle. And that most of us don’t learn to use all its gears. However, you can’t say the same about Berjesh Eric Shroff, Manager-IT, Tata Services. He was fortunate enough to pick up the “right gear” at the “right age”. A keen traveller, Shroff dreamt of a career in aeronautical engineering–without realising that his calling lay elsewhere. “Some time in 1984-1985, during a Christmas vacation, NICE computers conducted a course in my school. I was in Class X then. Before the course, I had wished to study aeronautical engineering. However, the lessons changed all that. It was the beginning of my love affair with computers. Programming excited my mind,” he admits.

“When my father was transferred to the UK in 1986, I went on to study computers there. My journey since then, has been interesting to say the least,” he adds. Having started his career with Procter and Gamble (India), where he worked for its IT department, Shroff quickly changed direction and became a computer teacher. Soon, Lady Luck saw him travel to Canada to work as a computer programmer–both at Toronto and Vancouver. But, his parents’ illnesses brought him back to his homeland. “I returned and started working as a freelancer. During one of my assignments with Tata Services, I was offered a permanent job–to set up an IT department for the firm’s Bombay House headquarters,” he recollects. Since he had the experience of setting up an

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W CUBE CHAT

FACT FILE NAME BERJES ERIC SHR O F F CURRENT DESIGN AT I O N MANAGER – INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT ) , TATA SERVICES CURRENT ROLE HEAD OF IT DEPA RT M E N T AND RESPONSIBL E FO R I T SECURIT Y EXPERTISE IT SECURIT Y, NET WORKING, WEB-BASED SOFT WA R E DEVELOPMENT

PHOTO GRAPHY: JI TE N GANDHI

A GOOD IT MANAGER SHOULD NOT SHY AWAY FROM TAKING RESPONSIBILITIES. HE SHOULD BE WILLING TO WORK HARD TO ACHIEVE THE BEST RESULTS IT department previously for Procter & Gamble-Godrej joint venture, Shroff knew that he was the right person for the job. And hence he accepted the challenge. . Hard work, for him, is the only way to accomplishing a dream. He believes that the daily grind gets a person “polished”, whereas “empty-bellied hype” leads nowhere, especially in the long run. “In these times, hype is important, especially if you wish to get noticed. But, I am terrible at it,” he admits, laughing. It is this dash of humour and his critical eye that keeps him calm, even in the most adverse of circumstances. He deeply admires his late maternal grandfather. “He grew up in a poor family in a remote Indian village with seven brothers and sisters.

His hard work and dedication led him to become India’s first actuary.” But Shroff is not all work and no play. He loves to relax with a good book and admires works of authors such as Jack Canfield, Brian Tracy and Rashmi Bansal. “Reading books is like taking a vitamin pill. It instills instant energy and fuels my dream of becoming an entrepreneur one day,” he admits. Unlike others, Shroff has no qualms admitting that he is ambitious—he does dreams of having the title of a CIO one day. “It’s tempting. I would either like to be a CIO, or a VP, or a Director–IT for a reputed organisation. Or, run my own IT security consultancy and training firm,” he asserts.

STRATEGIC IT PL A N N I N G AND ALIGNING IT W I T H BUSINESS NEEDS PROJECT MANAG E M E N T VENDOR MANAGE M E N T WORK EXPERIENC E 1996 – PRESENT MANAGER-INFOR M AT I O N TECHNOLOGY, TATA SERVICES (INDIA ) 1995 – 1996 SOFT WARE DEVELO P M E N T AND IT TRAINING FO R ROYALTECH COMP U T E R S IN TORONTO 1993 – 1995 CONSULTANT MANAGEMENT SYST E M S , PROCTER AND GA M B L E INDIA CERTIFICATIONS CERTIFIED INFO R M AT I O N SYSTEMS AUDITO R ( C I SA ) ITIL V3ISO 27001 IMPLEMENTER ISO 27001 LEAD AU D I TO R

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UPDATE

OFF THE SHELF

A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

Fujitsu intros power servers New eight-rack servers to provide benefits of centralised mission-critical computing

D-Link launches 3.5G router D-Link has announced that it is now shipping the D-Link myPocket 3.5G HSDPA Router (DIR-457), which will allows users to securely connect to mobile broadband networks. The DIR-457 is a mobile, pocket-sized router that offers download speeds of up to 3.6Mbps when using an UMTS/ HSDPA SIM card. According to the company, the slim design of this router, along with its built-in rechargeable battery provides users with portable convenience. It offers immediate 3G network access and sharing via Wi-Fi with up to 16 clients by simply pushing the “On” button at the top of the device.

PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS frequency support: Multiple download speeds: up to 3.6Mbps Availability: All India Warranty: 1 year Price: ` 10,800

PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

Fujitsu has introduced the Primergy KEY FEATURES * Innovative ‘glue-less’ design RX900 S1 x86 eight-socket rack server to * Intel Xeon 7500 processor series provide economical benefits into mission* Inbuilt Intel QuickPath critical computing for the enterprises. *Interconnect technology The server is mainly intended to help * Unprecedented operational enterprises in the financial sector and continuity public sector spaces, and claims to provide the high-levels of reliability for scale-up applications, which were previously dominated by expensive and proprietary RISC/Unix systems. The proliferation of business intelligence, data warehousing applications, plus other demanding high-performance back-end databases, makes reliable scale-up performance crucial for a wide range of business sectors. The product, according to the company, delivers quicker return on investment in an environment where server virtualisation is moving into the mainstream, and the consolidation of resource-hungry or ‘fat’ virtual machines is in vogue. According to the company, the product also combines with Intel’s Interconnect technology, to deliver mission-critical peace-of-mind at an affordable price.

“The myPocket Router was essentially designed for frequent travelers and for users demanding high speed wireless internet connection anywhere, anytime. With so many different services and technologies dependent on the internet, this little device allows users to create a wireless connection regardless of their location,” says Jayesh Kotak, VP-Product Marketing, D-Link India.

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UPDATE

Stellar launches Registry Manager

Molex unveils its new MIIM tool Price starts from ` 1,250

Stellar Information System, a data recovery KEY ADVANTAGES solutions company, has introduced Registry * Supports all Windows edition Manager 2.0 for Smart PC Care option to clean * Comes with Registry Cleaner, registry, junk and internet traces. Junk Cleaner, Internet Cleaner The product, according to the company, * Supports 6 browsers— secures the PC from unwanted space, data, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, cookies, bookmarks, and optimises the system. Opera, AOL, Netscape and It works on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/ MSN. Windows 7. The new version comes with Registry Cleaner, Junk Cleaner, internet Cleaner, among others. Registry Cleaner removes redundant or unwanted items from the Window registry, whereas the Junk Cleaner cleans up junk entries from window registry and the whole system. The internet Cleaner traces option to clear off all cookies, auto fill information, bookmarks, history folders, etc. It supports six browsers—Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, AOL, Netscape and MSN.

Premise Networks division of Molex has released the latest 1.7 version of its advanced physical layer management tool, MIIM. According to the company, the product provides complete management of the channel from network attached devices at endpoints through patches to switch connections. Its capabilities extend across distributed data networks, allowing centralised monitoring and control. MIIM’s capability to detect connectivity changes, in real time, across the data channel, enables visibility into the physical layer infrastructure. MIIM 1.7 includes support for both inter-connect and cross-connect architectures. MIIM 1.7 brings additional features and benefits such as improved graphics, multi-window views of the entire channel, expanded search capabilities, and a powerful reporting system for alarms, logs, work orders and assets.

Simmtronics unveils new desktop PCs Simmtronics Semiconductors has launched a new range of desktop PCs, which is available in two variants: SDC 2711S and SCD 2911S. The desktop PC range comes with 15.6, 18.5 and 20-inch LCD monitor options. The SDC2711S comes with Intel Pentium Dual Core processor, 1 GB of RAM (can be upgraded up to 4GB) and 500 GB SATA HDD. The machine has been equipped with DVD R/W Dual Layer, multimedia keyboard, optical mouse and slim cabinet. While SDC 2711S comes preloaded with Ubuntu, SCD2911S features a Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1 GB RAM and 500 GB SATA HDD. The other notable features of the desktop include multimedia keyboard, optical mouse and a slim cabinet. It is also loaded with Ubuntu.

KEY FEATURES * Intel Pentium Dual Core processor * Varied LCD options * Preloaded with Ubuntu

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MY LOG

AJAY SARTAPE Chief Operating Officer Ibexis

ON : AN OO P PC

The Innovative Universal Chord

My Log.indd 56

3 ESSENTIAL

READS

INSIGHT | CRM

CRM | INSIGHT

G UP INM ’S SUIT R CR

T NEXAVE W

them. They’re aligning CRM efforts to corporate strategies and forgoing technology investments until their road maps are in place. They’re forging partnerships with consulting firms that have structured delivery approaches. They’re being deliberate about incremental deployment, and are keeping the customer top-of-mind every step of the way. Grange Insurance, based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of these forward-thinking companies. “We were lucky that we had an executive team willing to invest in the customer experience,” says Mike Buzek, the vice president of EODB (ease of doing business), “but we knew we couldn’t sit around building vision statements and conducting focus groups. We had to craft solid requirements, identify the key stakeholders and define how we were going to execute. And we could never lose sight of what is best for our agents and policyholders.” Buzek and his team are a reflection of the new best practices in customer management. Here are five habits followed by savvy business owners of customer-focused programs:  Don’t call it “CRM.” The term is fraught with baggage. Customer initiatives are now business-owned

M, it’s of CR wave mistakes new for a from the rn pare rs To pre ant to lea early yea import alls of its and pitf L DYC

HÉ

P H OTO G R A P H Y: I STO C K P H OTO

BY JIL

and branded. Wander the halls of any large company’s sales or marketing organisation and you’ll hear “customer experience management” (CEM) or “voice of the customer” mentioned long before hearing the CRM acronym.  Remember your business model. CRM at a telephone company that wants to understand the calling behaviors within micro-segments to bundle products and services will look very different from CRM at a health care provider that wants to migrate to an end-consumer model, which will look different again from CRM at a retailer with a loyalty card. Understand the boundaries of CRM for both your company and your industry. When in doubt, map out desired outcomes.  Keep social media in perspective. Many customermanagement experts are betting on so-called “social CRM” to resuscitate moribund CRM efforts. But where the customer experience is concerned, your company’s Facebook fan page and Twitter account are merely two additional communications channels. Your brand and your dialog with customers transcend social media. Recently, a manager at a bank confided, “We’re putting all this effort into social media to get closer to our customers. But we still can’t see the

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Prepare for a new wave of CRM that could revolutionise the way customers are engaged Pg 18 CASE STUDY | MPCB

MPCB | CASE STUDY

MAHARASHTRA POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD PROJECT MAP NATURE Interlinking all the 12 offices centrally

CHALLENGES The offices were located in disparate location and also had legacy infrastructure

TEAM

AJAY DESHPANDE, IN-CHARGE, EIC

With the integration of its business processes over, MPCB is now ready to enter the next phase of automation BY MAHESH PATHAK, AJAY DESHPANDE, DINESH SONAWANE

PHOTO GRA PH Y: PH OTO S. CO M

AND RAJIV DESAI

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RAJIV DESAI, MANAGER IT, MPCB

DINESH SONAWANE, ASSIS. SYSTEMS OFFICER, EIC

CURRENT STATUS All offices have been interlinked, a data recovery module is planned next

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Case study on how MPCB interconnected its 12 branch offices centrally Pg 38 15-MINUTE MANAGER With poor scoping, budget management goes out of hands and becomes uncontrollable. Some of the problems that occur while scoping are: Ambiguity in scope: Leading to confusion and unnecessary work Incomplete or unclear data Scope creep: Uncontrolled changes in scope Non-collaborative scope: Scope not validated with stakeholders. Such problems impede the progress of a project, and their implications can be far-reaching, both in terms of cost and time. In fact, “cost overrun”, which is defined as “excess of actual cost over budget”, is a common occurrence in technology due to inaccurate scoping. An industry study shows that 40% of technology budgets are overrun because of underscoping—mainly because of imperfect forecasting, inadequate data and market awareness, and insufficient knowledge about a product lifecycle. Once the project starts, changes are bound to happen. But, reasons behind the changes need to be analysed. One should be flexible in approach and account for those reasons that may have been overlooked by the business management. Efficient managers should be resourceful in their project estimations and implementation. Some factors that affect change are: Changing business needs New legislations and regulations Other projects and initiatives Change in organisational structure Business users cannot identify every requirement and feature required for the final solution and delivery. Even if they could, a business changes over time. Therefore, solution requirements change, too. A user must explicitly clarify potential dangers and cost impact of changes and encourage changes that may lead to organisational benefits (this is what is termed as a “good change”). It is wise to judge “changes” early and, accordingly, align the scope and adjust a budget. However, this brings us to a critical question—how does one incorporate changes in a project that is already underway?

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The answer to this is what the industry calls—scope change management. If the project manager doesn’t invoke scope change management, a project’s success could be in danger.

HEALTHY LIVING

LOWERING HYPERTENSION CATEGORIES FOR BLOOD PRESSURE LEVELS IN ADULTS (IN MMHG, OR MILLIMETERS OF MERCURY) CATEGORY

SYSTOLIC (TOP NUMBER)

NORMAL

LESS THAN 120

PREHYPERTENSION

DIASTOLIC (BOTTOM NUMBER) AND

LESS THAN 80

120–139

80–89

STAGE 1

140–159

90–99

STAGE 2

160 OR HIGHER

100 OR HIGHER

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

CONTROLLING BLOOD PRESSURE LOWERS THE RISK OF STROKE BY 35 TO 40 PERCENT AND THE RISK OF HEART ATTACK BY 20 TO 25 PERCENT,

Approximately 1 billion people worldwide have high blood pressure, and this number is expected to increase to 1.56 billion people by the year 2025

Lower sodium intake: Reducing salt has a signiﬁcant effect on lowering the blood pressure but not only salty snacks and other obviously salty foods are harmful. Check for hidden sodium that may appear in cheese, desserts, ketchup, etc. Avoid fast foods and smoked meat and ﬁsh products, which are high in sodium. . Exercise regularly: Regular exercise stimulates the metabolism to burn more calories. If inactive, start the exercise program slowly with light to moderate walking or light weight training to burn more calories and increase muscle mass.

easy, then changes are applied with insufficient thought given to merits and consequences, leading to cost and time overruns.

MANAGE IT

QUALITY AND INNOVATION CO-EXIST

Reduce weight: Eating a diet low in fat and high in fruit and vegetables acts to lower sodium levels in the body while increasing ﬁber, potassium and calcium. Fiber in the diet can be increased by adding foods such as dried beans and peas, fruit and oat products. These foods help to decrease cholesterol production and reduce blood pressure.

Efficient operations and innovation can go together. A number of profitable firms are using unique approaches to strike a balance BY E L I Z A B E T H K E I M PH OTO GR A PH Y: PH OTO S. CO M

day advancements have made the impossible, possible! If one is to analyse the past decade, he or she will see how technology is now that “universal chord” that ties “similar souls”. The magic word is not only faith (which still plays a part in unifying souls), but a united media and communication technology–that binds people together. Tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube are just some of the variants of that universal chord. No matter where you are, whatever you do, or whichever society that you may represent, the world is your oyster if you have a mouse and a keypad. Imagine this: If India had been struggling for independence today, perhaps Gandhi, too, would have resorted to Facebook or Twitter to attract people to the freedom struggle. Today, faith and technology are two universal bonds that connect people–and act as the cornerstone of the society– enlightening common aspirations and fuelling imagination. We are no longer destined to be rule by powers of “automatic control”. The monopoly of selected few cannot come in the way of driving new initiatives. Modern day technology does not act as a deviance and it does not pulls us away from one another. It simply intensifies our faith in the tradition of communication.

PH OTO GR A PH Y: JAYA N K N A R AYA N A N

As a child, I believed that faith and devotion were the universal chords that connected human beings beyond borders. For me, faith was that “lone warrior” that had the ability to inspire people from different walks of life, with diverse interests and collaborations–which gave a meaning to the world of ours. As a child, teachings of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Gautama Buddha inspired me–I believed that their words helped people to connect over an idea. Similarly, preachings of so-called prophets and gurus, who would encourage irrational patterns of ideas and relate them to God’s will, would irritate me. I believed that they created a discord within the society. Deep within me, I always nursed a desire to help people connect with each other some day. However, I was not sure how such a communication could be forged. Or, if I had the means to make such a miracle happen. One has to understand that the time I am referring to, was the “dark ages” as far communication technology was concerned–it had not progressed enough to help a common man or woman discover a platform where he or she could interact with similar spirits. There were no platforms where they could come and share views. However, times have changed. Modern

IL LU ST RATI

Faith and technology are two universal bonds that connect people

espite recent contradictory reports, quality processes are not stifling creativity at US corporations. In fact, a number of highly-profitable firms are using unique

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A balance must be struck between operations and innovation Pg 47

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8/28/2010 1:19:43 PM