IT NEXT_February 2011 by Manan Mushtaq

IT NEXT

FEBRUARY 2011 / ` 75 VOLUME 02 / ISSUE 01

REVIEW: RHEL 6 handles virtual workloads seamlessly

INSIGHT: Dell Streak updated with Android 2.2

34 BOSS TALK

INTERVIEW: Didier Jaubert on cloud offerings from OBS

Honesty pays dividends Pg 04

BIZ GROWTH IGNITES IT VOLUME 02 | ISSUE 01

BIZ GROWTH IGNITES IT

8 Trends that will drive enterprise investments Pg 14

EDITORIAL

Why not a CEO? In January 2010 we launched IT Next with a

to take on the mantle of a CIO. Even while we received

“The Next Generation CIO needs to be ready to don the role of the Next CEO as well.”

accolades from the community, there were many who felt that

S H A S H WAT D C

cover story titled, “Are you the Next CIO?”

The premise was simple. Provide insights and advice that could help IT managers prepare

that we had set the bar too low. Why CIO, not a CEO? It was a view that intrigued us—and led to considerable introspection. Before we come to that let’s examine why is it hard to be a CEO? To answer this question, we need to look at what a CEO does. As the captain of an enterprise a CEO is responsible for all functions, be it finance, administration, production or marketing. Even if he is not a decision-maker in everything, he needs to be privy to all significant decisions that are made in the organisation. Since the buck stops at his desk, the CEO needs to know all that happens—inside and outside the organisation. Who else in the organisation has this around visibility? The CIO, but of course. He is the only C-Suite besides the CEO, whose job is to keep a tab on everyone’s job. This is one reason why CEOs are coming to increasingly rely on the views and insights from the CIO, especially when big decisions have to be made. Little wonder then, CIOs are best suited to assume the CEO role and there are scores of examples of the same. In fact, as a result of the changing business environment, CIOs are becoming less of technocrats and more business oriented, who talk and breathe spreadsheets. This trend is expected to increase as CIOs transition from a support and advisory function to manage greater operational responsibilities. If expectations from a CIO are changing, then those in line to assume this responsibility need to be prepared. They need to be able to talk business— and handle technology. That is one reason why this issue of the magazine features important business trends that are likely to shape the future. The Next Generation CIO needs to be ready to don the role of the Next CEO as well. And at IT Next we are committed to help and support you through this journey— through print, online and face-to-face interactions.

Blogs To Watch! Emotionally Intelligent Signage: http://www.danpink.com/ Execupundit http://www.execupundit.com/ Three Star Leadership Blog http://blog.threestarleadership. com/ Leading Answers http://leadinganswers.typepad. com/leading_answers Your views and opinion matter to us. Send your feedback on stories and the magazine at editor@ itnext..in or SMS us at 567678 (type ITNEXT<space>your feedback)

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FEBRUARY 2011

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BOSS TALK

BIZ GROWTH IGNITES IT

04 I always teach my col-

leagues to be honest | Sudhir Arya, Senior Vice President Corporate (IT), Amtek Group

INTERVIEW

8 Trends that will drive enterprise investments

Page

INSIGHTS

22 Dell Streak This 5-inch tablet has been updated with Android 2.2.

24 Information Management Sophisticated pan-enterprise search is a smart approach for effective information management and compliance

COVE R DES IGN: ANI L T

26 The Managed Services Route

Be vigilant and careful while dealing with your MSP

30 Socializing in the Enterprise Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the best way to use collaboration tools?

34 We are in negotiation

with a top IT partner for the French and international markets for collaborative applications | Didier Jaubert, VP-Global Services, Orange Business Services

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2/2/2011 8:11:26 PM

RHEL 6 HANDLES VIRTUAL WORKLOADS

ITNEXT.IN

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

The latest Linux-based OS offers a strong foundation for hosting virtual workloads, complete with distinctive capabilities

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

Page

DESIGN

Head–Information Security, Arcon–Risk Control

15-MINUTE MANAGER 41 Cyber Law and Order | A

thorough knowledge of cyber laws is essential for IT managers responsible for safeguarding enterprise assets

preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

CUBE CHAT 48 Karma and Creativity|

“Doing innovative things and being the best in everything keeps me motivated” - Jatinder Aggarwal, Project Manager, HCL

Editorial _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 01 Industry update_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 08 Tech indulge _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 58

Here are suggestions to help make certain that your next outsourcing project is succesful

Open debate _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 59 My log _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 60

46 Training Calender | Career

Corrigendum

booster courses for you

In the January 2011 issue, it was wrongfully mentioned that Dr. Muthumaran B has been the alumnus of IIT-Kanpur and IIM-Calcutta. The misrepresentation is deeply regretted.

OFF THE SHELF

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VP Sales & Marketing: Naveen Chand Singh (09971794688) Brand Manager: Siddhant Raizada (09990388390) National Manager-Events & Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) National Manager -Print , Online & Events: Sachin Mhashilkar (09920348755) South: B N Raghavendra (09845381683)) North: Deepak Sharma (09811791110) West: Hafeez Shaikh (09833103611) Assistant Brand Manager: Swati Sharma Ad co-ordination/Scheduling: Kishan Singh

REGULARS

45 7 Steps to Outsourcing |

50 Trendnet Launches Mobile 3G Router | A sneak

SALES & MARKETING

ADVERTISER INDEX Netmagic IFC Airtel 2,3&29 Digilink 05 Red Hat 08,09 IBM (Insert) 24 PTC 59 Sigmabyte IBC Tata communications BC This index is provided as an additional service.The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.

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

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Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Private Ltd. Published and printed on their behalf by Vikas Gupta. Published at A-262 Defence Colony, New Delhi-110024, India. Printed at Silver Point Press Pvt Ltd, D-107, TTC Industrial Area, Shirvane, Nerul, Navi Mumbai 400706. Editor: Vikas Gupta

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OPINION 13 Privileged Information | by Dhananjay Rokde, Practice

Sr Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Binesh Sreedharan Associate Art Director: Anil VK Sr Visualiser: PC Anoop Sr Designers: Prasanth TR, Anil T, Joffy Jose & Anoop Verma Designers: Sristi Maurya & Charu Dwivedi Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

2/2/2011 8:11:31 PM

BOSS TALK | SUDHIR ARYA

PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

Honesty Pays

oday, as I approach the final stages of my professional career, I continue to be inspired by my father’s teachings. He is a freedom fighter and in life has always done more for others, expecting very little for himself. He has an unshakeable belief that honesty is the best policy. This appear to be totally unrealistic in today’s era. I am not naturally honest myself, but oftentimes I am by chance. I sincerely try to be honest to myself first and then to others as well. Though, I often face criticism for being so straightforward in my approach, it remains my mantra of life. So, one of the things that often cause me pain are the false claims people make in their resumes— about their achievements, beliefs, etc. Many aspiring candidates, in their quest to grab higher designations and salaries, write about accomplishments they actually never achieved. Having sieved through hundreds of such resumes, over a long period of time, I easily can evaluate where someone really stands. And the moment I question the achievements mentioned in the resume, many are unable to justify their claims. It even goes beyond aspiring for jobs; Someone I know took credit for things he never did and received an award based on that, which turned out to be a turning point in his career. I know this for a fact because he took credit for work done by me and my team. A bigger shock came when the editor of the magazine instituting the award never responded when I countered the claims and the award. Some dossiers that I received for evaluation for Next 100 awards are yet another example. One applicant falsified facts and sadly, I had no choice but to reject his nomination. Then, there is the case of a former member of my team (at a previ-

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

“When dealing with vendors, straighttalking is what earns respect rather than spinning the wheels”

SUGGESTED READ

The book tells you how to mobilise people and accelerate execution speed to implement strategic decisions. WRITER: JOCELYN R. DAVIS, HENRY M. FRECHETTE AND EDWIN H. BOSWELL PUBLISHER: HARVARD BUSINESS PRESS PRICE: INR 995

ous workplace) who had resigned but he used his old visiting cards for a whole year to claim he still worked there. On two occasions, he met interviewers known to me, who called me to verify his credentials; to my utter surprise I found that he had also claimed credit for a project that was started after he had resigned. I always teach my colleagues to be honest when writing their resumes, and while dealing with vendors. One can have momentary glories but they don’t last. You can get temporary satisfaction or advantage by fooling others, but not respect. Using impressive language in a resume is good but leave out the false achievements. Similarly, when dealing with vendors, straight-talking is what earns respect. And finally remember, as Walter Anderson said, “Our lives improve only when we take chances—and the first and most difficult risk we can take is to be honest with ourselves.” So enjoy your career with pride and your head held high, with a proven and factual track record. Wish you all the best! Sudhir Arya is Senior Vice President Corporate (IT), Amtek Group

OPINION

MONEY WISE GIRI GIRIDHAR Chief Financial Officer , Spandana

Justify IT or Business of IT

PHOTO GRAPHY: JI TE N GANDHI

joined ITC after passing out of IIM–Ahmedabad in 1987. This was when PCs were still 386 machines with Lotus 123, and expensive to boot. I will always remember J Narayan, one of the most progressive directors at ITC, who in 1987 ordered that every ITC manager should have a PC at his desk. We have clearly come a long way since, into the era of Web 2.0 and cloud computing. To borrow from football parlance — does IT keep score or does it score goals? In today’s IT-enabled world, the IT function scoring goals all the time. However, the questions around the right IT strategy and appropriate investments continue to be fundamental to most of the companies. Given that most of you will be in the middle of the budget process, this may be a good time to talk about positioning and approach of IT spends in your oraganisation. What I believe is central to the problem is a lack of alignment on what the IT strategy should be like. For most of us, understanding the business strategy and dovetailing IT strategy as a key enabler proves to be extremely critical, once we decide on a project. According to me there are two broad buckets of IT strategy — those that impact the operating model and those that define business strategy. The operating model is the relatively easier part, even though 90 per cent of organisations struggle to get it right. Its impact is seen through enhanced efficiencies and lower costs. For example: A simple payroll outsourcing process does away with internal payroll

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“ In strategy, where innovation is required, metrics are harder to measure. What is required is a balancing interactions with both inside and outside world” teams, brings in best practices and lowers costs through an outsourcer. Cloud computing, with all its newness, is an example of making the operating model more efficient. The business strategy part is the difficult one. Getting closer to the consumer — what his changing needs are, the feedback, and the interactions,

are changing every day. And hence, customer feedback forms have given way to data mining social networks on social platforms like Twitter and Facebook to understand what they want to say and do. The role of IT in being the innovator within the organisation to help the business stay close to the consumer is a whole new ball game. In this space, the IT manager is not someone at HQ designing a system, but is required to work in the trenches, and be a part of the buzz, so that innovative solutions emerge. Getting closer to suppliers is another challenge — where EDI is getting transformed. The challenges of measuring the cost-benefits of IT can be quite different In the operating model, improvement and productivity-driven IT, the key to selling good IT budgets, is to have great metrics and less chunky investments. The more variable and milestone-driven, the better. In business strategy, where innovation is required, this is harder to measure. The role entails managing information (being the organisation’s Google) and managing interactions with the outside world (customers for instance). For a retail company, it’s about getting the consumer to spend more at its stores. Data mining customer spends to tailor-make offerings to customers is an example. These applications usually sit on top of the underlying transactional systems in enterprises and therefore are relatively less expensive. These innovations also help maximise revenues — hence IT managers need to work with business managers to help quantify the additional revenues that these innovations bring in. In a growing complex world, it is extremely imperative to recognise that your IT guy is a business partner, rather than just an employee. I am quite sure that with this mindset, selling an IT budget to even the most hard-nosed CFO shouldn’t be a problem!

TECH TALK OPINION

DHANANJAY ROKDE Practice Head–Information Security, Arcon–Risk Control

ture to make sure that such actions of snooping or privilege abuse are logged and audited.

Privileged Information

PHOTO GRAPHY: JI TE N GANDHI

t is no secret now that among all threat vectors acting on an organisation, the insider threat is the most potent. The Ernst & Young 2009 Global Information Security Survey identified that authorised users and employees pose the greatest security threat to an organisation. The 2010 SAPS crime statistics also show that a total of 84,842 white-collar crime cases were reported between April and March 2009/10, marking a 56 per cent increase from 2006. It has been proven time and again that a harmless change or mistake can have colossal repercussions. Most access provided to users in any organisation is role-based. However, most organisations often forget to consider crucial factors like data classification and data ownerships. And consequently, a network administrator gets complete access to the network segment that s/he is responsible for. It is the same case when it comes to system and database administrators. Some of the questions that need to be asked here are: Why should administrators have access to areas in the infrastructure beyond what is needed? For example, in the case of a bank, a database administrator should be able to initiate backups and execute the corresponding scripts to get the task done. Why should they be able to snoop on the users’ database and their cell phone

Why will the existing auditing features in the infrastructure components fail to capture this information? The existing auditing procedures can be manipulated or even stopped with the right privileges. What this needs is an additional (privileged identity management) layer over the infrastructure in question, which requires authentication and maintains its own authorisation. Hence all administrative users will need to authenticate themselves into this layer using ‘named ID’s’ and not their administrative or super user credentials. So, what do we do with the administrative or super user credentials? Since the users are required to login into this layer, the privileged identity management infrastructure will change the administrative and super user credentials to a random password which will not be revealed. The passwords will need to be stored in a vault that is hardened, using an acceptable encryption mechanism.

“A Privileged Identity Management system is an additional layer that imposes authentication and maintains its own authorisation .” numbers? The problem lies with the privileges that the administrator has been given to execute routine tasks. Can we simply take away these privileges? The simple answer is no. However; what we need is a watchdog in the infrastruc-

What are the advantages of an effective privileged identity management framework? An effective privilaged identity management helps in numerous ways to an organisation. Some of the advantages of the system are: 1. By implementing this total accountability for insiders can be established 2. It has an automatic ability to audit suspicious activities 3.It has the ability to respond to these activities 4.It helps prevent next crime in your organisation So how much access is too much? While the answer can be debated, the use of privileged identity management systems can make it easy.

The author is an expert in managing Security Operations, Managed Security Services, Remote Infrastructure Support Services & Identity Management

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ILLUSTRATI ON : ANIL T

COVER STORY | TECH TRENDS

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TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY

BIZ

GROWTH

IGNITING BY S H AS H WAT D C

8 trends that will drive enterprise investments

lvin Toffler, in his book Future Shock, argues that the society is undergoing an enormous structural change; changing from an industrial society to a “super-industrial society”. This will overwhelm people, accelerated rate of technological and social change, leaving them disconnected and suffering from “shattering stress and disorientation” — a state of future shock With the rapid pace of change, where technology and customer preferences change in few quarters rather than years, future shocked is a grim reality faced by everyone, from an unsuspecting individual to an ill-equipped enterprise. One instance of disruptive change is the decline of General Motors. Untill a few years ago it was the largest producer of cars not only in the US, but also across the globe. But after 101 years in existence, the company filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy on June 1, 2009. The chief reason why GM folded, in spite of being a world leader for so many years, is because of it was unable to cope with change, or innovate.

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COVER STORY | TECH TRENDS Innovation is disruptive The oxford Dictionary defines the verb “innovates” as make changes in something established, especially by introducing new methods, ideas, or products. Innovation differs from invention it is more about adaptation and not creation. For instance, Apple did not create MP3, nor a music player. Neither did it invent touch technology. Yet, it was the first one to put it all together and create the iPhone, which in a matter of years became the hottest selling product from its stable. Thus, innovation is very disruptive and can be a game-changer very quickly. At times, change can be a big smack across the face; take the case of Kodak. Founded as Eastman Kodak in 1892, the photo and imaging company literally defined the whole industry singlehandedly. For man decades, film print and cameras from Kodak were the only ones that were sold in the market. But, the advent of affordable high imaging digicams in the early-90s nullified the need for film rolls, getting it developed, etc. It’s possible that because it had heavy investments in allied industries, Kodak shied away from digital cameras. The result? In a matter of a few years, film-roll cameras were history, as people across the globe grabbed digicams off the shelves. Kodak that had been at the top of the game, found its market disappearing from under its feet and business turned into a negative of a different kind. By the time it jumped on to the bandwagon, the game had already

“With technology underpinning all functions of a firm, IT heads are no more outsiders to the decision making process, but active participants” changed and Kodak would no longer set the agenda for the photography business, but simply followed them. History is littered with a myriad examples of companies that have withered away simply because they would not cope up with change. And this does not hold true not only for developed countries; but also at home. have instances of Hindustan Motors (of the hitherto ubiquitous Ambassador cars), or MTNL and Indian Airlines. Think of any segment and you’ll find companies that have lagged behind, because of their inability to change.

Tech the driver But what has all this got to do with technology or IT? A lot, if you pay attention. With technology underpinning all the functions of a company, IT can play a sterling role in ensuring the relevance of the company in a new world order. Not only does technology help mitigate the impact wrought by changing times and scenarios, it can also be used as a

CASE STUDY 1 / GATI

CUT TO FIT

Stitching the systems at home ensures a right fit and instills pride While size can be a big advantage for any company, it also has its drawbacks. Agility is usually the biggest victim of size, the thumb rule being that the larger you are the lesser nimble you will be. It’s not as if this rule is cast in stone, though. The success of Gati, a national logistics player seems to prove this point. The company has offices at over 400 locations in India

strategic tool to stay ahead of the pack, when the chips are down. Nevertheless, a lot depends upon how wisely you collaborate the efforts. Gati is a an illustration of how to use technology to stay relevant. A logistics company that started operations in 1989, it’s still a force to reckon with, even with all the upheavals and new entrants, solely because it embraced technology, thereby bringing down costs and increasing productivity (read the case study). The State Bank of India (SBI) is another example of the same. Towards the end of the 90s, when it started feeling the heat of competition, the bank decided to port all its systems to a corebanking solution. After much back and forth, the bank finally settled for TCS’. Because of the core banking solution, SBI can now handle about 35 million transactions a day as compared to just 10 million earlier. In fact, it is estimated that there has been as much as a 60 per cent growth in customer accounts, post 2003, when the core banking technology was implemented. Both these examples, demonstrate how firms can remain relevant even in challenging times by adoption of technology. The key is to figure out the operations and then invest accordingly. So, for instance when Gati discovered that there was no relevant solution available, it went ahead and developed it. But that was not the case with SBI, it has not only customised and used offthe-shelf solutions but also outsourced

and connects nearly 600 districts in the country through its vast fleet of vehicles, Yet manages to remain on its toes. Gati, which started as a cargo management company in 1989, has grown into a logistics supplier that caters to many verticals. Back in 2000, overheads were increasing disproportionately and efficiency had slackened considerably. Given its spread of operations, it was a evident that use of technology could effectively redress such issues. But no sooner had the company agreed on the need to ‘computerise’ the infrastructure that they faced a major road-block, a solution that suited their needs. After evaluating of several available solutions, the company concluded that there wasn’t a single ‘off the shelf’ solution that

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TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY much of its mundane stuff to thirdparty vendors, thereby bringing down costs and improving efficiency. And it all boils down to how IT is used and deployed for the same. And it is critical that a detailed study is conducted, and the IT function dovetails the business function. The IT department can no longer function in a silo and needs to act as a strategic partner. This is increasingly reflected in the way the CIO viewed in the corporate hierarchy. He is no more an outsider to the decision-making process, but an active participant.

Reimagining IT Gartner recently published a report, based on a survey of over 2,000 CIOs across the globe, outlining the agenda for the coming year. One of the prime recommendations of the report is reimagining IT. The report observes that, “As enterprises concentrate on growth, they remain vigilant about costs and operational efficiencies. Growth requires IT to raise its strategic importance to the business rather than focus on delivery of generic business plans. Combined with continued tight IT budgets, these factors call for CIOs to engage in ‘creative destruction’— taking what they have now and reimagining it to build IT’s future.” This process requires the IT function to view IT as a strategic catalyst and begin leading from that perspective. They have known for years that they need to deliver business results.

“Growth requires IT to raise its strategic importance to the business rather than focus on delivery of generic business plans”

And yet, operational concerns, budget constraints and business expectations have limited their ability to act. This need not be the case any longer. Lighter-weight technologies have changed resource requirements, letting IT meet the increased demand for innovation and offer solutions that support growth. The message is simple, one needs to revamp the belief that IT is an enabler and understand that it is a key component in any firm’s tryst with destiny. The key is to think of IT like a CEO, as a business case. Thus, when a decision needs to be made to add new infrastructure, consider technologies like the Cloud with an open mind and then weigh the recommendations, based on the gains made in terms of monetary savings and the losses in terms of security threats. Any decisions that are to be made need to be examined from the business perspective rather than just a functionality. IT Managers

could cater to its business needs. The processes in logistics companies differ from company to company. There is no bestpractice template that can be used. After a thorough study, Gati discovered that customising available solutions would take as much effort as building one and costlier to boot. Ravi Kumar, CIO of Gati got cracking, and together with the internal team, created a solution that completely mapped the needs and requirements of Gati. Dubbed as Gati Enterprise Management

“At Gati, IT investment is not a cost but an instrument for controlling costs,” GS RAVI KUMAR, CIO, GATI.

should see the tools of Information and Technology as a driving force to change the needs of business for change, innovation and growth.

The Business Connection To help you prepare for the future, IT NEXT presents eight key business trends that will have significant impact in the days to come. Ranging from ubiquitous mobile telephony to better workforce management the work-force, each of these business trends are analysed, based on the kind of impact they will have on the enterprise. Subsequently, these challenges are then analysed from a technological perspective, as to how they can be handled from an IT point of view. These trends, selected by numerous experts, are meant to provide a vision to the IT manager on how to prepare for the future. In addition to these trends there are 3 case studies presented herein that detail how different companies, like Gati, MMFSL, and Makemytrip have not only used technology as enabler but also as a key business driver. These case studies range from across the spectrum, from how a Gati used technology to bring down costs to how MMFSL uses IT to reach out to the rural audience. Toffler has one bit of daring advice to offer all managers — technology feeds on itself. It’s technology that makes more technology possible. Thus, don’t fret and fume over an issue, business or otherwise, be assured, if there is a problem, technology has the answers.

System (GEMS), the solution is Web-enabled and links all the offices on the same platform. It took two years and a half to design, develop and roll out GEMS. The company also achieved many other benefits from the computerisation drive; for instance, the productivity of employees went up substantially. At the same time, agility was enhanced. Finally, the development of the GEMS solution inhouse not only saved costs in terms of licensing and consulting fees but has also instilled a sense of pride. “Developing the software internally has given us complete control on the way we scale or tweak it to match our requirements,” says Ravi Kumar. “This would not have been necessarily possible with an external solution,” he adds.

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COVER STORY | TECH TRENDS

CASE STUDY 2 / MMFSL

OUT IN THE FIELDS Spreading operations in rural India while ensuring integrity of transactions

Reaching out to the ‘bottom of a pyramid’ is a fanciful phrase often heard at seminars and conferences, but when it actually comes to putting it in practice many companies balk at the prospect. The dichotomy is all the more conspicuous in India, where even though

more than 70% of the population lives in the villages, there are just a handful of companies that service the needs of this section. Fortunately or unfortunately, Suresh Shanmugham, had joined a company that was indeed keen to deal with this ‘pyramidical bottom’.

TECH TREND #1/ MOBILITY

TECH TREND #2/ GLOBALIZATION

Mobile Telephony Makes Waves

The World is a Village

ccording to several estimates, there are close to 700 million cell phone users in India, and the number continues to grow. The fact that in the past 15 odd years, telephony has grown with such leap and bounds. Indians, be it the slick city-goer using a BlackBerry or the poor fisherman in Kochi checking out the rates on his ‘sasta’ Chinese handset, have really taken on to the cell. Little wonder, many enterprises are keen to exploit the platform for their benefit, not only as a tool for their workforce but also as a mechanism for survival and growth. Today, a number of sales force automation tools are available in the market that help companies take their enterprise solutions on the cell phone. There are various solutions on offer from Checkpoint, Cisco, IBM, RIM, Salesforce, etc., that can aid the transition. These days, most of the enterprise solutions come with in-built mobility features, which can be easily used. For instance, ERP solutions from both SAP and Oracle have such functionality. The explosion of mobility is also an opportunity for many companies to reach out to their customers, through the use of innovative means. Thus, having a WAPenabled site is now a must, as well as having a mobile-payment gateway. Depending on the service offered, companies can even look to having their custom apps for the smart phones like iPhones and Android.

“In a growing era of social media, enterprises need to put in place processes that should solve customer issues faster”

For decades, Mahindra & Mahindra has been making and selling millions of tractors across the length and breadth of India. When the corporate entity decided to venture out in setting up a financial organisation, its goal was closely aligned with the needs of these very farmers. And so was born Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services. The aim of the company was simple and straight forward: provide loans to farmers and other rural individuals at affordable and easy rates. Shanmugham was given the

uch like a magician’s wand, globalisation is a phenomenon that makes everyone equal, well almost. For instance, the average ‘Anna’ who makes and sells yummy dosas on a cart in the neighbourhood, is not only competing with other such ‘Annas’ but also with behemoth companies that hail from places like Illinois and Louisville in the US, namely, McDonalds and KFC, respectively. But globalisation is a two-way street. With a systematic and proper usage of technology, a company can now find newer markets and customers in different geographies. One of the popular way is by having a website. But even if you don’t have one, there is no reason why your company product can’t be present on third party shopping sites, like eBay or Amazon. Many companies are able to test the water for their products in different geographies through such mechanism. Like the ‘Anna’, one needs to gear up for the challenges of having well-entrenched global players in the same space. One of the things to notice here is that, almost all of these global behemoths use technology and IT extensively in their operations; this not only reduces cost but also helps them turn things around quickly. For instance, McDonalds has various operations, from procuring raw material to taking customer orders Hence, the only way to compete with MNCs is through automation, be on the lookout for solutions and services that help you automate.

“Solutions and services that help organisations automate will be high on demand ”

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TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY

“With the effective use of IT, we were able to quickly ramp up our operations in rural hinterland in years, what could have otherwise taken decades,” SURESH SHANMUGHAM, HEAD-BUSINESS IT SOLUTIONS, MAHINDRA & MAHINDRA FINANCIAL SERVICES.

mandate to make this possible. Keeping in mind the needs and requirements, MFConnect came into being. Customer agents use this easyto-operate handheld device as they go from village to village collecting data or installments. Besides being easy to operate, the device effectively perrforms

the three main functions of MMFSL, namely, receipt generation, customer commitment recording and capturing data pertaining to customer visits. Since the device had been custom built on an open source platform, it is very cheap. Over the years, 3000 such devices have been distributed. The results have been

good, gauged from the fact that MMFSL is the largest NBFC (non-banking financial company) in rural India with over 450 branches spread across the country. Through these handhelds, MMFSL has been able to reach out to customers in far-flung areas, which otherwise would have been tough. The company has already set its eyes on the next goal: its second generation of handhelds, which are currently being rolled out, will collect biometric data, as well as video recording.

TECH TREND #3/ RURAL EXPANSION

TECH TREND #4/ GREEN PRACTICES

India Lives in the Villages

Growing awareness of climate change

any decades ago, Mahatma Gandhi remarked that India lives in the villages. Even today, this is true. According to certain estimates, close to 70% of our population resides in villages. As many marketing gurus have proclaimed, the next big thing in India will come from the villages. For instance, it is this part of India only, which taught marketing lesson “small is big” to many global companies. Yet, there are many challenges faced by the enterprise when it comes to tapping this source of revenue. For instance, when Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services Ltd, decided to reach out to its customer in the rural hinterland, it was faced with an issue of how to reach out to them. The biggest challenge, technologically speaking, is simplicity. Conversing in a different language can be a big issue. Thus whatever solution that is designed for the rural markets needs be simple and easy to manage. The other big factor that needs to be borne in mind is the power or energy issue. Electricity is still very erratically supplied in rural areas, if at all it is. Thus, you need to design your system and architecture keeping these issues in mind. For instance, when Bank of India had opened its branches in rural India, it had to opt for renewable power sources like solar energy to be to run its branches. So, while going rural might sound daunting, it can also have sweet rewards.

“In 2011, businesses will focus on targeted messaging to the web visitors and secure high rankings for key search terms”

id you notice that the winters this year were colder or that the previous summers were much hotter? If the answer is yes, well then you are now one of the many people who are worried about how climate change will impact them. Thanks to the doomsday movies from Hollywood and the dour prognosis of the various expert panels, the climate change paranoia is fairly pervasive. The trend is evidenced by how companies like Infosys, TCS and Wipro are now not only talking about their sustainable practices but also highlighting them. Green in the years ahead will be a differentiator and companies are perceived to be having ‘unsustainable’ practices will have few takers. Not only that, adopting green practices can be of tremendous economic value, since, most of them are concerned with reducing the consumption of power. For instance, companies that deploy video-conferencing solutions thereby reducing intra-office travel are said to be going green. Thus, any activity that reduces energy consumption is green. We are witnessing a surge of cost efficent technologies that ranges from generators to laptops and even cellphones. The way to go green is not that hard. The first step is to measure the consumption of power precisely and then working out a detailed and elaborate plan on how to reduce the consumption. .

“IT Managers should sensitise the management on the economic benefits of green computing”

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COVER STORY | TECH TRENDS

CASE STUDY 3 / MAKEMYTRIP

USING THE ONLINE MEDIUM The first Online Travel Agency in India that has revolutionised travel and tourism

Not many could have imagined the original Internet boom and the subsegment crash. The Bust, as many call it, made online business seems like

a misnomer. And the messiahs of brick and mortar were rubbing their hands in glee, with an “I knew it would not work”. The faith in online was its nadir at the

TECH TREND #5/ CUSTOMER CARE

TECH TREND #6/ PEOPLE MANAGEMENT

Customers Demand More

Managing Attrition, Attracting Talent

ill some years back, if you advertised and operated a help line number, you would be considered customer-friendly. But then the world’s changed a lot since then. In fast evolving hyper-connected world that we live in now, a customer who needs a problem resolution, not going to call your helpline number for the same, in all probability would be tweeting about the issue or putting it up on Facebook. Enterprises now need to be on alert at all times, trying to resolve customer issues on the fly. They need to put in systems and processes in place that will enable them solve such issues before they balloon into big problems. Take the case of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill, Within a few weeks of the disaster, a Facebook group called “Boycott BP” sprung up, urging a worldwide boycott of all BP brands and services. It drew more than 836,000 fans. Meanwhile on Twitter, an anonymously managed account – BP Public Relations (@BPGlobalPR) – that made glib comments, purportedly on BP’s behalf, had 185.000 followers. And if you thought, such kinds of issues happened overseas only, think again. To guard against such a scenario, a policy needs to be in place, and a senior person needs to be given charge of managing the community. Also, provide a direct link to the customers, through phones or emails, whereby they have the problems redressed..

“Market study and demographic analysis will hold the key to derive the best possible selling price”

turn of the century in 2000. Around the same time, Deep Kalra, Rajesh Magow, and other friends decided to venture out from their cushy jobs, and start up a new venture. After much deliberation they figured that travel and tourism would be their calling and Internet their platform. Makemytrip.com was born. In its earlier avatar, Makemytrip catered to the US India travel sector, providing options to the many NRIs that keep flitting between the India and the US. Within a few years Makemytrip

n many ways, HR managers prefer recession over growth. The reason is fairly simple. In times of recession, when the company is looking at shedding extra weight, HR managers’ just need to focus on a few individuals that are crucial and let the others leave. In times of constant growth, they need to be on the toes all the times trying to fill positions. But if this was tricky, coping with growth after a lull can be all the more challenging, as companies that were so far retrenching need to start recruiting. This is where technology comes in. Between, managing attrition and recruiting new talent, the former is much tougher and more critical. Every employee that leaves an organization takes with him or her valuable IP. Also, he or she poses the biggest threat to the organization in terms of data security and integrity. To forestall such dangers, robust IT systems need to be put in place that provides accessibility to the users based on their roles and requirements. A a good Intranet often helps in ensure that all the IP is not lost with an exiting employee. Another way to manage attrition can be to set up an email id and encourage employees to share their problems anonymously, this can go a long way in resolving small issues. To be able to manage the employees better it is imperative that a good HRM solution is implemented and good policies are not only formulated but even shared with the employees.

“Talent scarcity will force organisations to explore services from contractors, remote workers and part time workers”

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TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY

“More IT investments should go into building strategic solutions that can drive business growth,” RAJESH MAGOW, CO-FOUNDER AND CFO, MAKEMYTRIP INDIA.

became popular. A few years later, in 2005, when the low cost airlines arrived in Indian skies, Makemytrip, decided it was time for the Indian traveler to make use of its offering and the local version of the site was launched. Needless to say, it is technology that is powering the solutions from Makemytrip. The company has invested heavily in the latest hardware, be it datacenters or

contact center solutions. The company also uses renowned international IT platforms like Amadeus (a global travel distribution system) for stacking fares of different airlines. All these have made it possible for the Makemytrip customer to view all the options. The company is also uses BI solutions to keep a track of its customers and their likings.

In fact, Makemytrip isstepping up the technology blueprint. According to reports, the company plans to spend $2-$3 million on technology upgrades in the next 18 months. It has already spent close to Rs 700,000 on technology, including hardware, software and website development. Recent technology enhancements to the platform have enabled customisation of flight plus hotel and bus plus hotel packages and instant ticketing.

TECH TREND #7/PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY

TECH TREND #8/ONLINE EXPLOSION

Reducing costs, Making gains

Everyone is connected

hile many may assume that recessionary tendencies are a thing of the past, the lessons learned from it are certainly not. Cost cutting that became a norm during the lull in the economy still continues to be a dominant force as companies need not want to repeat the mistakes made before the downturn. But then, even while reducing costs most firms are now changing gears to move into a growth trajectory, thereby need to scale up their operations and put the systems in place. Both these factors, offer an unique challenge for the IT manager, namely, prepare for growth while cut costs. This dichotomy offers a unique possibility for the IT manager to not follow a brow-beaten path and test new ideas. For instance, many companies were quick to evaluate their functions and then ship non-core work to third-party vendors. Thus, we saw companies going in for remote infrastructure management or even moving their IT operations lock, stock and barrel to a vendor. Like everything, outsourcing has its two sides. Thus outsourcing needs to be a well-thought out decision. Many companies can now shift opt to a pay -per- use model over the Internet and access services and software that is critical for the company. Hence, cloud is perfectly suited for an organization that is looking to grow, while wanting to keep the costs low.

“ Enterprises are swiftly evaluating cloud models, to grow, while maintaining the costs under control

ccording to Internet World Stats, an online research firm that tracks net users across the world, there are 81 million Internet users in India. This represents a penetration of just 7% of the population, but makes ber India, the 4th largest country in terms of net users and Internet users. And the numbers are bound to grow rapidly. One of the biggest factors that is driving Internet usage in the past few years is social networking. For instance, Indians comprise the second largest chunk in the Orkut universe after Brazil. Indians have also adopted to Facebook in a major way. With such trends on the rise, and the number of youngsters increasing demographically, online and Internet is the place to be, even for the enterprise. To be able to make gains from the Web, a strategic and comprehensive policy needs to put in place regarding how the platform will be used. Based on the objective or a set of objectives, appropriate actions need to be taken. Another important factor to bear in mind while formulating the new media communication strategy is that much of the online explosion is coming through mobiles. The future could very much be dictated by the tastes and likes of the mobile web user. Thus, sites and pages need to be designed keeping in mind the requirements of the mobile.

“Use of web as a medium to promote services will gain continue to gain traction among all sectors”

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

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INSIGHT | REVIEW

DELL STREAK WITH ANDROID 2.2

Dell’s Streak 5-inch tablet has been updated with Android 2.2, offering a more refined experience to users BY NICHOLAS KOLAKOWSKI

ell intends its 5-inch Streak to be the first of many tablets rolling out over the next several quarters. In a September 2010 presentation at Oracle OpenWorld, CEO Michael Dell offered a sneak peek at a 7-inch tablet, while indicating the market segment was in a state of constant change and evolution. That makes the Streak, already something of an artifact. In a market as hot as tablets, any model’s relevancy will drop precipitously as months go on—and the Streak’s already been on store shelves since early August 2010. However, Dell is replacing the Streak’s Android 1.6 OS with an Android 2.2 (Froyo) update. Although the Streak is intended as a hybrid between a tablet PC and smartphone, with the ability to make phone-calls, the company neglected to include a SIM card in the model sent for review to us. That limited testing to the Streak’s capabilities as a tablet, using WiFi.

Hardware At 7.7 ounces, the Streak certainly feels hefty in comparison to 4.5 ounces for some Android smartphones. Weighed against the 3G-enabled Apple iPad at 1.6

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REVIEW | INSIGHT

I MAGING : S HI JIL NARAYANAN

pounds, of course, the Streak feels light. However, with a 5-inch multi-touch screen, the first impression is more “This is a phone by Dell” as opposed to “This is a tablet.” The mechanical buttons along the upper frame of the device (Camera, Power, Volume) felt small and sharp and metallic. In the first few hours with the device, I found myself repeatedly hitting the Power button when I meant to use the Camera, and vice-versa. On the Streak’s front, the Back/Menu/Home buttons seemed nicely responsive to touch. The screen is Gorilla Glass, and the Streak survived 3-foot and 5-foot drops onto a hardwood floor with no visible cracking, chipping or performance damage. As always, dropping your expensive mobile device is not recommended. The touch-screen is responsive, with nary a need to jam a thumb into an icon in order to activate it. That being said, after months of staring at Samsung’s Super AMOLED screens for both the Samsung Galaxy S smartphone line and the Galaxy Tab, as well as Apple’s high-resolution Retina Display, the Streak’s screen came off as somewhat dim. One of the Streak’s prime advantages seems to be battery life. Over two days of moderate use on WiFi networks—which included Web browsing, video, email, navigating, instant messaging, and picture taking—the device merely sipped power. Those who find themselves aggravated over plugging in their mobile devices by afternoon could find this a pleasant surprise. But the full picture of the Streak’s battery life, alas, can’t be offered thanks to the inability to test in 3G.

The Streak’s 5.0-megapixel camera is pretty standard-issue for Android devices. In low-light conditions, the flash seemed short-range and weak. The Streak’s size makes it slightly cumbersome as a camera, and the device often needed to be stabilized in both hands or against a flat surface in order to take a non-blurry shot. The camcorder was the bright spot here, shooting in 720p. The Streak also offers a front-facing VGA camera. Unlike Apple’s iOS, with its comparatively easy access to the company’s FaceTime video-conferencing application, Android users will likely need to wait until third-party developers start exploiting the hardware for their own video apps; at the moment, there’s a decided lack of ways to use the front- and rear-facing cameras in combination.

Software Dell seems to have trod lightly when it came to skinning Android 2.2. When you startup the device, you’re presented with a default set of home screens, accessible by swiping: Home, Contacts, Email, Social, and Music. From the home screens, users can use the icons along the bottom to access the phone, browser, or applications screens. With its 1GHz Snapdragon processor, applications sped along with nary a stutter. The Streak also supports Adobe Flash 10.1, which remains a competitive differentiator for non-Apple tablets. Those who operate a Dell ecosystem will likely appreciate the ability to sync their multimedia and contacts with their PCs, while those with Google accounts will have the

THE POSITIVES:

THE NEGATIVES:

Replaces streak’s Android 1.6 OS with an Android 2.2

The first impression is more “This is a phone by Dell” as opposed to “This is a tablet.”

The Back/Menu/Home buttons seemed nicely responsive to touch Virtual keyboard includes Swype, for whose who want it. The keys seemed responsive and right-sized Front-facing VGA camera

Early reviews of the Streak complained about user-interface bugs At 7.7 ounces, it feels hefty in comparison to 4.5 ounces for some Android smartphones

FEATURES: PRICE: Rs. 34,550 BATTERY LIFE: 2 days (Moderate Use)

Gorilla Glass Screen 5.0-megapixel camera ompact, 6-inch wide x 3.1-inch C high x .4-inch thin dimensions 1GHz Snapdragon processor Expandable 32GB Memory Supports Adobe Flash 10.1

usual Android-enabled access to Gmail and messaging. Early reviews of the Streak complained about user-interface bugs. During a week’s worth of testing, few of those quirks made themselves known, although the testing device froze for a few minutes on two occasions (with no running apps). Both times, it returned to life after a liberal and repeated smacking of all mechanical buttons. For enterprise users, the default Streak offers Quickoffice, calendar, integrated GPS leveraging Google Maps for on-theroad navigation. Syncing Exchange with the Streak is an exercise in hair-tearing aggravation, not entirely unexpected given Android devices’ inconsistent record in that area. The Streak’s virtual keyboard was another positive experience. It includes Swype, for whose who want it. The keys seemed responsive and right-sized.

Conclusion If you’re in the market for an Android smartphone, the Streak’s 5-inch screen and weighty form-factor might prove a bit too cumbersome for your needs. If you want a tablet, that same 5-inch screen may prove a bit too small in comparison to the Apple iPad or host of 7-inch tablets now hitting the market. That being said, a subset of the techbuying population will probably appreciate a smaller tablet, capable of being carried in one hand, which can also make phone calls. For those users, the Streak offers a solid, and fairly standard-issue, Android 2.2 experience.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

INSIGHT | INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

HOW TO MEET UNIQUE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

With a pan enterprise search infrastructure in place, a company can access all its systems to quickly uncover vital information pertinent to a special project

AND COMPLIANCE CHALLENGES BY CAROL F I N E AGA N

ILLUSTRATI ON: PHOTO S.C OM

sophisticated panenterprise search solution is a smart approach for effective information management and compliance, especially in highlyregulated industries that have little room for error. With a pan-enterprise search infrastructure in place, a company can access all its systems to quickly uncover vital information pertinent to a specific project. Carol Fineagan shares how the right pan-enterprise search solution has fulfilled her companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unique knowledge management and compliance requirements.

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INFORMATION MANAGEMENT | INSIGHT that data about disposal projects must be maintained indefinitely. While we keep thorough records, the baby boomers have over 40 years of nuclear science knowledge, and they have created specialized indexes in existing systems that we don’t want to lose. We needed a solution that worked on employee desktops to allow our newer recruits located around the globe to essentially harvest the knowledge in people’s heads. Plus, we needed to make sure we didn’t lose critical intelligence as employees retire. There are a range of solutions that have attempted to deliver on the promise of enterprise-wide search. We looked at the major vendors and selected a solution from Autonomy for the unique way it could find the meaning within, and the inter-relationships between and among, disparate pieces

SOPHISTICATED PAN-ENTERPRISE SEARCH IS A SMART APPROACH FOR EFFECTIVE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT AND COMPLIANCE, ESPECIALLY IN INDUSTRIES THAT ARE HIGHLY REGULATED WITH LITTLE ROOM FOR ERROR. of content, regardless of the data type or location within the enterprise. With our new solution, in only 30 days, we were able to put into place a pan-enterprise search infrastructure that could access all systems to uncover specific information, including older documents and file types. With the new system and in reaction to a regulatory inquiry, we can now quickly search

ENTERPRISE SEARCH BENEFITS LOWER CALL CENTER COSTS

With enterprise search implemented on your external web site, customers are able to find answers to technical or sales questions easily, so they don’t need to call. And when they do call, you spend less on call center costs when when your representatives are able to find information quickly.

HIGHER PRODUCTIVITY

An enterprise search solution can reduce the time your employees spend looking for information by 15 to 30 percent*

BETTER COMMUNICATION

With the rise of telecommuting and outsourcing, you may have workers in different time zones and on different continents. When your London office needs an answer, and it’s 3:00 am in NY, calling the manager in NY may not be the best option. Wouldn’t it be better if that answer was available through internal search?

REGULATORY COMPLIANCE

Reduce the cost and the time invested in complying with government or industry regulations.

WEB BASED REVENUE

Whether you profit by selling information, ads or bungee cords, enterprise search can help.

PROVEN ROI

A recent IDC study showed that “an enterprise with 1,000 knowledge workers wastes $48,000 per week ($2.5 million per year) due to an inability to locate and retrieve information.”* $2.5 million is a lot to pay for lousy search. (Finding Information, Susan Feldman and Chris Sherman, April 2003, IDC #29127)

all enterprise information across all offices and systems to find information pertinent to a specific project. For example, if the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is looking into a shipment, we can produce the required information by searching for project information saved in an e-mail, on a desktop, or in an accounting, transportation, records management or processing system. By selecting the right partner for information management and compliance, we have enabled legal, regulators, engineers and anyone else in the company to access enterprise information in a meaningful way—without needing to learn proprietary systems or taxonomies. The solution we chose also ensures that the right people have access to the right information because it honors the security infrastructure we have in place. For example, if legal can’t find something, it’s either a rights issue or the data does not exist. Sophisticated pan-enterprise search is a smart approach for effective information management and compliance, especially in industries that are highly regulated with little room for error. Intelligent search speeds knowledge transfer of culture and people to newer employees, creating a brain trust of talent for competitive advantage. Moreover, we can now match engineers with one another so they can leverage best practices and expertise for the betterment of the projects on which they work. Carol Fineagan is Senior VP and CIO of EnergySolutions, Inc. She has served for eight years as CIO for Duratek in Maryland,

Source: TNR Global Search Solutions

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

INSIGHT | MANAGED SERVICES

THE MANAGED SERVICES ROUTE

Managed services hold significant potential for enterprises to save costs and reduce complexity of managing IT systems. BY I T N EX T B U R E AU

etter management with less investment, is what every business looks for. Managed services is one such tool, that can help business achieve this goal. Managed services, refers to outsourcing the management of networks, systems, storage, applications or the entire IT infrastructure to a service provider. As aptly put by S Krishnan, Technical Director, Kaybee InfoTech, â&#x20AC;&#x153;A key benefit of managed services is that CIOs have someone to share the responsibility of the IT infrastructure. It is an extremely viable option for them.â&#x20AC;?

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MANAGED SERVICES | INSIGHT

ILLUSTRATI ON: PC ANO OP

Outsourcing has come a long way in the past few years. Managed network services are becoming more common as well. “The scope is great for this line of business and more and more people are entering this field,” says Viren Reshamwala, CEO, Millennium Business. Slowdown has made businesses more conscious about their IT spending thus accelerating the growth of managed services. “Companies are now more cognizant about the way they spend on their IT infrastructure. The management of such an environment is quite expensive. This model makes business sense for start-ups with limited funds. If these start-ups have an option to spare the investment cost for particular technology needs, it will readily adopt managed services”, adds Reshamwala. These services also make a lot of sense for enterprises that lack the funding to create a high-end technological set-up. At times such businesses also lack the technical know-how to handle such complex environments. Also, if a company requires an IT set-up in another state or city where it does not have any kind of support, these services are a boon to them. These companies can now make use of managed services on a project-based time frame. For example, if a company in Delhi needs to set-up a temporary base in Mumbai, then having a managed service provider take care of its infrastructure is a better and a more economic option. Small and medium-sized businesses often find that growing their business, using new technology, raising employee productivity, and improving responsiveness to customers all at the same time can be challenging. MSPs help solve these business challenges with a comprehensive managed services portfolio tailored for the small and medium-sized business.

Road blocks For every line of business to grow and gain acceptance, it has to go through many trials. So, what are the challenges facing the growth of this industry? We interviewed a few system integrators

PYRAMID RESEARCH

ON MANAGED SERVICES Executives were willing to spend a large portion of their IT budgets — between 10% and 20% — on network-centric managed services The majority of enterprises — almost 60% — already use a managed service and have been doing so for between one and four years. Europe has the highest adoption of managed services — driven in large part by the challenges of managing and maintaining business across multiple borders Emerging markets, such as those in Africa and Latin America, are preparing for managed services -- especially as broadband network access becomes more established. Multinational corporations and large enterprises have the greatest uptake in network-centric managed services, with SMEs now also looking for proven solutions that lower their costs. IT managers are applying a significant portion of their budget to managed services. The types of managed services that MSPs are providing are growing at a phenomenal rate. They manage everything from unified communications (UC) applications, to network security, to network connectivity and telepresence video collaboration services. Growth is expected to continue throughout the U.S. and Europe — especially in Eastern European countries, over the next 18 months. Latin America and Asia will provide continued expansion of these managed services.

and they unanimously agreed that changing the mindset of the customer and to convince him of the channel partner’s capability is a bottleneck. Second is the low availability of talent in the industry. “The in-depth knowledge of the technologies involved is extremely important for the people handling managed services. They should have the technical know-how and should be able to take decisions on their own. “To get people who will be skilled enough to take care of such complex environments are hard to find,” says Reshamwala. “Although most companies are aware of managed services, many are do not know of the full potential and cost-savings such services can provide

enterprises,” said Girish Trivedi, Co-Founder, Shape Foundation. Managed services model is a new entrant in the market. Customers are a little skeptical about it. The mind-set of the business community to keep everything within the range where they themselves can monitor everything is yet to change. Especially with something that is so important for their business and an area that comprises major investments. Krishnan says, “Awareness about managed services is extremely low in the industry. People are still unaware about the facets of such services. Therefore they have a problem accepting it as a trustworthy solution to their IT management problems. Selling a new concept has always been an issue. This one is no different”.

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INSIGHT | MANAGED SERVICES Agrees Jayesh Mehta, CEO, Future Businesstech, “People talk a lot about managed services. However, the fact that their knowledge about the service is extremely low, keeps them from stepping forward and applying it to their business”.

The brighter side However, as we all know, there are two sides of a coin. If there are inhibitors, then there are drivers of growth as well. According to Joslyn Faust, SME market analyst at Gartner, IT departments at smaller companies are stretched thin, and as the infrastructure and applications become more complex, companies are finding it difficult to effectively manage them. She notes that this lack of expertise in the staff means there may only be one person responsible for a critical piece of infrastructure such as networking, requiring that individual to be always on call in case of emergency. Such virtual house arrest can quickly lead to job burnout should a more complex

QUESTIONS TO ASK

What would happen if my service provider goes bankrupt? Can I still access my data? What is the economic condition of my managed service providers? Will my service provider be engaged in a merger or separation soon? What are the consequences of that in regard to the integration and separation of IT systems?

environment create an onerous burden of after-hours calls. Businesses in this situation find outsourcing advantageous merely to gain access to all-hours support. Topping the list of the many plus points is the fact that managed services helps a company to reduce the total cost of ownership and increase the

MANAGED SERVICES

CHECKLIST

While dealing with your Managed Service Provider (MSP) be vigilant and careful about these points or else be ready to get friendly with sharks. atch for co-mingled user information: There needs to be a very clear W understanding of what infrastructure is shared, what technical resources are shared, and what processes (and technology) are in place to ensure that data does not get co-mingled across clients at the end of your MSP’s information infrastructure. D oes your MSP know you well: Teams handling data offsite/offshore should have good understanding of the criticality of the data/system to the userbusiness. They should also be aware of the security/privacy policies of the organisation they are supporting. re you communicating your expectations assertively: Communication of A expectations is a crucial step. As a user of a fully managed hosting provider, you must transmit all security requirements to the potential hosting provider before committing to their service. Keep the relationship going: As there are disgruntled employees that pose serious internal risks, there are MSPs - who with your IT environment in their hands - can cause as much or even severe harm. Is your MSP explicit: The vendor needs to make clear to the client what all is needed

productivity as well. It helps customers to concentrate on their core business activity, taking the burden of the additional responsibility of managing the entire IT system, off their shoulders. “In today’s time the clocks in the office do not run only from nine to five. People work around the clock and therefore the systems need to be up and running every hour of the day. With managed services, higher availability of IT becomes much more feasible and cheaper, which helps with the 24/7 work culture demanded these days. The level of automation is also quite high,” says Rajesh Aggarwal, IT Manager, Jindal Pipes. Vikram Sharma, Vice President, Cisco says, “The emergence of new data technologies, the convergence of voice, video, and data, and the explosion of e-business across many industries, have resulted in corporate networks dramatically changing and becoming increasingly complex”. This trend has led to a complex spectrum of managed services offerings with managed network services (MNS) forming the foundation. “Businesses keep growing and so does the IT infrastructure. The management of the same takes a lot of time and money. With the help of managed services, a company can now direct those resources to better their core competencies,” adds Mehta.. Managed services also provide the operators with new revenue streams. “Managed services can also help service providers in customer retention, since customers are not likely to change operators managing their entire IT infrastructure”, adds Bedi of Tulip Technologies. However if the system is ready to break down at a moment’s notice, then the service provider will have to shoulder the responsibility of it. Nevertheless, as the customers though good in numbers are not abundant, the enterprises do not really have a choice of choosing the kind of environment they would like to handle. The choice is limited and all that can be done is to tell the customer to improve their infrastructure before the responsibility is taken on. .

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INSIGHT | COLLABORATION

SOCIALIZING IN THE ENTERPRISE Social media tools that mimic Twitter and Facebook promise to bring team collaboration to corporate users. Getting users and applications connected can mean the difference between leading and being left behind in an increasingly social world.

BY C A M E R O N ST U R D E VA N T

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

BY CAME R O N ST U R D E VA N T

COLLABORATION | INSIGHT

tatus update services, sometimes called microblogging, took off in 2010. A Pew Research Center study released revealed that 8 percent of American adults who use the Internet also use Twitter. Using social media tools in the enterprise pits open sharing against corporate controls. It also opens questions about how best to connect people and applications in an activity stream that is immediately relevant, secure and collaborative. IT vendors, including Salesforce. com, Socialtext, Socialcast, Yammer and a host of others, have taken notice of the social media explosion by releasing a new wave of social media tools for the enterprise. The big bang that is the birth of social media platforms includes the initial formation of specifications and integration tools that seek to ease interconnection problems, while maintaining the fast-flowing nature of social media interactions. It’s fair to say that business users aren’t looking for another place to search for the information necessary to do their job. And IT managers in larger enterprises may encounter multiple social media platforms inside a single organization. What’s the best way to use social collaboration tools with partners? Is there a better way to integrate social media and back-end systems? The answer today is that a tangle of integration tools and a dearth of standards mean that IT managers must pay careful attention to a wide range of integration tools to curtail client creep. To this end, there are some emerging efforts that are worth watching.

I LLUSTRATIO N : PHOTOS .CO M

Connecting social systems Jonathan Green, vice president of information technologies at Den-Mat, a dental-care products company, implemented Chatter as part of a broader Salesforce.com rollout. “We chose to implement Chatter to support our new direct-to-consumer product Snap-On Smile and to collaborate quickly with our vendors, partners and ultimately customers,” he said.

Major Enterprise Communicators: Lotus is a collaboration solution from IBM that provides rich chat (IM, audio, video), online meetings, and group collaborations

Cisco’s ECP

IBM’s Lotus

Enterprise Collaboration Platform 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.

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.

mer Yam

Microsoft Sharepoint

Founded in Dec 2007, Yammer is a Twitter like tool for improving workplace communication

Chatter is a real time cloud based collaboration tool for enterprises that enables employees to share the status of important projects and deals instantly.

Green implemented Salesforce to replace an aging CRM management application running on its IBM AS400. The Salesforce installation was also integrated with a manufacturing component that is still run on premise. Chatter is used to facilitate communication between sales and accounting. Green indicated that Chatter adoption has been successful enough that he may migrate off an existing intranet and use Chatter to support internal collaboration. To connect social media systems to your key applications, vendors such as Cast Iron and a host of others use custom-coded templates and REST (Representational State Transfer) APIs. The good news is that social media tools are no strangers to the integration process. On the consumer side, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social platforms can share posts and status updates across platforms. The not-so-good news is that specific integration tools that are built to

Salesforce Chatter

support specific platforms are the norm today. For example, there is a specific Salesforce.com integration that links Salesforce’s Chatter social collaboration tool with Facebook and Twitter. And Socialtext provides SocialPoint to interoperate with Microsoft’s SharePoint intranet software. IT managers have choices when it comes to “socializing” the non-human elements of a social media platform. Unlike classic enterprise process integration, in which data is taken from one application and given to another, social integration takes specific types of events and places them into an activity stream that will be read by a person. One example of this is the integration provided by Cast Iron, which uses templates to capture noteworthy events from a back-end system (such as an SAP inventory management system) and releases the data (such as a ship date) into an activity stream that a salesperson will read—all in near real time. This bypasses the batch-process reporting process that

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INSIGHT | COLLABORATION traditionally would have been used to present this information.

ENTERPRISE SPENDING IN SOCIAL NETWORKING (IN US $MILLION)

People who need people

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Two standards are emerging to manage the tension between widespread participation and the need for corporate data control. To be clear, these specifications are still piping hot from the forge. One specification is ActivityStreams, an effort to enrich data feeds between social platforms by standardizing the format used to exchange information. In the consumer world, this means making it easier for platforms such as Foursquare to exchange status, comments, bookmarks and news with other sites such as Identi.ca. The specification has been unevenly adopted among enterprise social media tools, but it’s useful as an indication of the work needed to ease information sharing between platforms. OStatus, is another open specification for distributing status updates between different social networks. The goal is to enable disparate social media hubs to route status updates between users in near real time. As is typical of the social media space, both of these specifications are at version 1.0. Further, some of the security protocols that enable social systems to talk with one another and the back-end systems are also fresh from the oven, including OAuth (tinyurl. com/26y9lh8). Thus, IT managers who lean heavily on standards when making technology decisions could get left behind when it comes to implementing social media projects.

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

Securing the socialites As the consumerization of enterprise social collaboration pushes forward, the commercial-grade social platforms distinguish themselves from consumer platforms by wrapping security policies that protect corporate secrets around the activity stream. For IT managers, this means that some of the most basic infrastructure— including the directories that hold authoritative data about employees and contractors—must be in order for a social collaboration project to succeed.

THE COMMERCIAL-GRADE SOCIAL PLATFORMS DISTINGUISH THEMSELVES FROM CONSUMER PLATFORMS BY WRAPPING SECURITY POLICIES THAT PROTECT CORPORATE SECRETS AROUND THE ACTIVITY STREAM 32

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Almost as important is directory information, which is essential for populating user profile data. In a nod to the importance of easing employee adoption through simple profile creation, Salesforce.com’s Chatter recently gained the ability to pull in a user’s Facebook profile information. After ensuring that the IT basics are up to snuff, IT managers who are considering a social media integration project must consider the security technology used by each of the platforms. According to Sean Whiteley, senior vice president of product marketing at Salesforce.com, the Chatter platform explicitly prohibits OpenID as a user authentication method at this time, although he thinks the standard is a good one for consumer and “prosumer” applications. Conversely, Matt Wilkinson, the vice president of products at Socialcast, said that OpenID is used by Reach, Socialcast’s flagship microblogging tool. Related to the authentication methods used to govern who and what has access to the activity stream is the question of single sign-on. IT managers should take care to ensure that any social media platform they consider has support for the single sign-on solution already used in the organization. One of the best ways to prevent a social media platform from being orphaned is to ensure that users can easily access the activity stream without being burdened with another set of credentials.

INTERVIEW | DIDIER JAUBERT

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DIDIER JAUBERT | INTERVIEW

“STITCHING A COMPREHENSIVE CLOUD” He prefers the term ‘IT Operator’ and says Orange Business Services is not just a company providing cloud-based services. Didier Jaubert, VP-Global Services, in a conversation with Shashwat DC says what sets Orange apart from the crowd is that it is a cloud aggregator and an end-to-end cloud service provider.

You have announced a host of ‘as a service’ offerings like UC, backup, etc. What are the USPs, and how will enterprises benefit from them? Some of our solutions are packaged and based on a shared infrastructure to better address SMEs, while others can be highly customised and fully use dedicated infrastructure to suit large enterprises. But, for all our cloud computing solutions, we aim to provide two major benefits: performance and security. The USPs common to our entire cloud computing portfolio that enable us to provide these benefits are: n Our extensive private network coverage worldwide allows customers to access cloud computing services via their intranet from the highest number of locations; n Our ability to provide secure solutions and end-to-end performance SLAs when we provide both the private network and the cloud computing services;

Our strong and efficient operations. We have strong management processes and expertise, including the management of security solutions, and data centres worldwide. Our customers can be sure of dealing with a single point of contact, available 24x7, who will provide a consistent level of support globally. We also have years of expertise and the highest certifications testifying that our people, data centres and processes abide by the strictest standards. The France Telecom-Orange group is a serious and stable company that will partner its customers for the long-term.

One innovation from Orange Business Services is the Business VPN Galerie. How does it actually work? How do you intend to get other service providers on board? Each application supplier is connected via a dedicated line to Orange, which then distributes the applications on demand, mak-

ing it a seamless part of the customer’s VPN. With Galerie, cloud services providers can deliver their applications in a cloud mode to achieve an outstanding customer experience. This provide them the capability to focus on their core business, while Orange manages the connection complexity in totality. As a hub, Business VPN Galerie also provides a simpler and more cost-effective solution to deliver cloud services than dedicated lines. In a nutshell, Galerie allows cloud providers to deliver better customer experience to the customer base. Given our market share in the French business market, and among international large accounts, we are confident we’ll convince them. We are in negotiation with a top IT partner for the French and international markets for collaborative applications (email, doc sharing), business applications (CRM, finance, HR) and productivity applications.

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INTERVIEW | DIDIER JAUBERT Can you describe your partnership with Microsoft and the service offering for unified communication? How does it solve the collaboration issues faced by companies? For more than 15 years, Orange Business Services (OBS) and Microsoft have offered messaging and collaboration solutions to global enterprises. I would like to point one specific point that, by combining Orange consulting, integration and managed services with products from Microsoft, we implement messaging, unified communications and cloud solutions that enable better collaboration, security, operational efficiency and productivity through a single global point of contact. Together with Microsoft, we are committed to developing and delivering the next generation of unified communications and collaboration tools, accelerating the way companies conduct business. Orange Business Services continues to enhance its unified communications and collaboration services based on the latest versions of Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint and Lync 2010, as well as Microsoft Online Services (now known as Office 365). Microsoft recognises Orange Business Services as a leader in providing enterpriseready unified communications solutions based on global network reach, flexible hosting capabilities and a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status. Our unified communications solution helps businesses work smarter across locations and time zones. An employee can seamlessly collaborate with another person on a project or sale, even if the two users are in separate locations. The user can quickly locate the right person based on skill or location through their UC client. Subsequently, through pres-

ence, determine the person’s availability and the best way to reach them. Then, the user could engage in an instant messaging (IM) session, saving time and voice calling costs. The IM session can be escalated to a voice call or even a conference with a third person—all within seconds. This solves the major collaboration issues facing companies—finding the right person at the right time to avoid human delay in business processes. By using this solution, an enterprise will find productivity increasing, improvement in business processes and saving on costs.

One of the hardest tasks for an IT manager is to convince

“WE ARE CURRENTLY INVESTING IN BUILDING UP AN INTEGRATED SALES ENGINE THAT IS TARGETTED TO REACH OUT ACROSS DIFFERET VERTICALS AND POSITIONS” the boss about the ROI from moving to the cloud. Do you provide any tools to help them? We have a well-practiced methodology for determining likely cloud ROI, but our experience has taught us several things: n Except for very simple situations, which there are very few, all clients are different. The exist-

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DIDIER JAUBERT | INTERVIEW We have a significant focus, investment, and footprint in India. OBS currently employs over 2,000 people in India, across various functions. We are also uniquely positioned in the Indian enterprise marketplace: the ability to provide transport, access and connectivity solutions to Indian and global MNCs; as well as fulfil their needs in the areas of systems integration, unified communication solutions, and remote infrastructure management services. We are currently investing in building an integrated sales engine that is targeted to reach different verticals. We are also strengthening our partnerships with OEMs, telco operators, and SI companies to effectively address joint GTM activities.

ing IT portfolio and cost base tends to be unique. So, the solution will also be unique in terms of applications, users, geography, timing, etc. n Not everything can be ‘clouded’ yet either—it’s an extra tool but unlikely to be the sole basis for a future IT solution. Therefore the ROI case for any individual customer is also likely to be unique and require considerable effort to define. This is why we have defined several useful consulting modules: the Cloud-Ready Assessment and the Cloud Business Model and SLA.

Considering your small footprint in India, how do you plan to reach enterprises with your offerings?

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

Enterprises are still concerned about where their data is stored. How do you address that? Sensitivity over data centre location stems from three main considerations: n Data placement, as you correctly point out. Country, regional (e.g. EU) and sector regulatory and data privacy requirements vary widely; n Application performance— some applications are very latency sensitive; n Cultural—organisations will often have strong preferences anyway, whether there are strong regulatory requirements or not. First, our cloud strategy will be based on a small number of hubs, where we will invest in cloud platforms and infrastructure for scale. In the Asia-Pacific region, the first of these is likely to be Singapore, as we already have a regional operation there, and it is geographically positioned for the maximum coverage of markets. However, we often have to fulfil

specific requirements, for which that hub will not be adequate. Our approach is to work with partners offering data centre accommodation. We can bring new facilities on stream rapidly by leveraging our existing relationships. All our data centres are managed through three global support centres, using our management network infrastructure. So, it is easy to add another facility. Where local physical activities are required, we can use either the services of the partner or our field operations team. Also, we can use our portfolio of business acceleration capabilities to deliver applications with minimum latency, using monitoring and analysis, compression and caching to the network edge, to minimise the situations in which local data centre capacity is needed for technical reasons.

There are many companies offering cloud-based services. What distinguishes you from the rest? We have tried to find a concise way of describing our value, and we favour the expression ‘IT Operator’. Our differentiation can be summarised in two points: cloud aggregator and end-toend cloud service provider. Not everything can be ‘clouded’ yet either—it’s an extra tool but unlikely to be the sole basis for a future IT solution. Therefore the ROI case for any individual customer is also likely to be unique and require considerable effort to define. Our ambition is to make it easy for customers to access the IT resources they need, by providing a one-stop-shop to a range to our services and those from selected partners. By taking an integrated approach, we can deliver business applications and IT infrastructure-as-a-service with an end-to-end service level agreement consulting.

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INSIGHT | REVIEW

RHEL 6 HANDLES PHYSICAL AND VIRTUAL WORKLOADS The latest Linux-based OS from Red Hat offers a strong foundation for hosting virtual workloads, complete with distinctive capabilities such as security features rooted in SE Linux. BY JAS O N B R O O KS

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REVIEW | INSIGHT

ILLUSTRATI ON: PHOTO S.C OM

ed Hat Enterprise Linux 6, the latest version of Red Hat’s flagship Linux-based operating system, began shipping December 2010, boasting a bevy of core improvements around scalability, resource management and virtualization. What’s more, the system ships with a slate of updated opensource software components that stand to make life easier for developers and system administrators who wish to take advantage of recent features without leaving Red Hat’s support and certification umbrella to do so. Red Hat Enterprise Linux has long been a trusty go-to operating system option for most server roles, if not in its official Red Hat branded form, then in one of its respun incarnations, such as the fee-free CentOS or the Oracle rebrand Unbreakable Linux. Based on my tests of RHEL 6, I expect this new release to continue in that tradition—the new release performed as solidly as ever, and benefits from a support term that’s been lengthened from seven to 10 years. At sites that rely on Xen for virtualization, or that wish to host .NET applications from Linux, Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server will offer a better fit, as Red Hat has transitioned completely away from Xen support in RHEL 6 and has consistently turned a cold shoulder to Mono, the open-source implementation of Microsoft’s .NET. Mono is, however, available through the volunteer-based Extra Packages for Enterprise Linux project that rebuilds certain software packages from Fedora for use (albeit unsupported) with RHEL. Also, while RHEL offers a strong foundation for hosting virtual workloads, complete with distinctive capabilities such as security features rooted in SELinux, it doesn’t, on its own, offer as well-integrated a virtualization management experience as do purposebuilt virtualization products such as VMware’s vSphere. However, I’ve yet to try Red Hat’s separate virtualization management product, which has remained uncharacteristically proprietary in its licensing pending the completion of an effort to port the

KEY FEATURES highly optimized application A platform for large-scale, centrally managed enterprise deployments. nhanced efficiency with the E latest generation of highly scalable hardware systems. Industry-leading virtualization performance, flexibility and security for both host and guest environments. xtensive support for features E designed to minimize ecological impact and carbon footprint of IT systems. platform suitable for longA term, stable deployment while able to incorporate new technologies for physical, virtual and cloud deployments.

application to Java from C+. While aimed primarily at server roles, RHEL 6 can also perform well as a desktop operating system, as it ships with recent versions of all of the usual suspects of the Linux desktop, anchored by Version 3.2 of the OpenOffice.org productivity suite and Version 3.6 of Mozilla’s Firefox Web browser. RHEL

“RED HAT HAS TRANSITIONED COMPLETELY AWAY FROM XEN SUPPORT IN RHEL 6 AND HAS CONSISTENTLY TURNED A COLD SHOULDER TO MONO, THE OPEN-SOURCE IMPLEMENTATION OF MICROSOFT’S .NET.”

includes fewer software packages than do some of its less buttoned-down Linux relations, but the EPEL repository I mentioned can fill some of these gaps in a desktop setting. Red Hat has shifted its pricing around a bit for RHEL 6, most notably by increasing the starting cost of a supported edition of the product from $349 per year to $799 per year. Red Hat still offers a $349 edition of the product, but that edition is now “self-supported”. The Production Support SLA page on Red Hat’s Website still lists the “basic” support tier alongside the standard and premium tiers, but Red Hat doesn’t offer any RHEL SKUs with basic support, nor is basic support available on its own. RHEL 6 is sold by annual subscription, on a per socket pair basis. An x86-64 server with two physical sockets running RHEL 6 will cost $799 annually with standard support, and $1,299 with premium support, each with an allowance for one virtualized RHEL guest instance. Red Hat also sells editions with allowances for four guests, and for unlimited guests. Red Hat charges separately for “Add-on Functionality” such as high availability, load balancing and scalable file system support. The Power architecture and IBM System z editions of RHEL 6 are priced separately. I tested the 64-bit version of RHEL 6 on a dual-core AMD tower server with 4GB of RAM, which I used as a virtualization host, and on a handful of guests running on that machine. I also tested RHEL 6 on a Lenovo ThinkPad, which I used as a desktop system. In all cases, RHEL 6 was easy to install—on my server machine, I was able to choose a “virtualization host” option from one of the installer screens, which took care of installing everything I needed for the headless host role I had in mind for that machine. I’ve looked for a similar option in my recent tests of RHEL’s freely available sibling, Fedora, and haven’t found it. From my test client system, I used RHEL’s virt-manager tool to connect to my host machine over an ssh tunnel and begin installing some guests instances.

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INSIGHT | REVIEW For storage, I stuck to the local disks on my test server—I could use RHEL’s regular storage tools to hook up to some shared storage, but the process for this is far from the point and click matter it is with VMware’s tools. Fortunately, RHEL 6 benefits from excellent documentation. I hit my first snag after I’d installed a RHEL guest on my virtualization host and set about registering with Red Hat Network to pull down additional software and updates. I didn’t have enough unused RHN entitlements to give my guest its own entitlement, and RHN, apparently, wasn’t recognizing my guest as a guest. After more searching than should have been necessary, I found that I had to install a pair of “rhn-virtualization” packages on my host to make the RHN link work. I’d like to see these included among the packages installed through the virtualization host install option. These are the sorts of entitlementrelated annoyances that make the freely available CentOS such a great option for testing out (if you’re able to self-support, deploying) Red Hat technologies. I outfitted my guest instance as a Mediawiki server, tapping the newly updated PHP 5.3, MySQL 5.1 and Apache 2.2. The current version of Mediawiki will run under the PHP 5.1 version that ships with RHEL 5 but recommends Version 5.2 of higher. My guest server performed as expected, so I turned toward testing some of RHEL’s resource management options, starting with the product’s new support for Control Groups (cgroups), a means of grouping particular processes together and applying resource limits to them.

RHEL 6 benefits from excellent documentation

The KSM service in RHEL 6 is switched off by default, with a separate tuning service running to activate KSM if needed

I created a control group to contain the libvirt daemon that manages virtual instances on RHEL 6 to ensure that virtual instances never consumed more than 3.5GB of the RAM on my host machine to guard against making my host inaccessible by committing too much RAM for my guests. To make things work, I cloned my guest instance

“WHILE RHEL OFFERS A STRONG FOUNDATION FOR HOSTING VIRTUAL WORKLOADS, IT DOESN’T, ON ITS OWN, OFFER AS WELL-INTEGRATED A VIRTUALIZATION MANAGEMENT EXPERIENCE AS DO PURPOSE-BUILT VIRTUALIZATION PRODUCTS SUCH AS VMWARE’S VSPHERE” 40

several times, committing a good 2GB beyond the amount of RAM available on my server, and what I found that the guests stuck to their overall physical memory allotment, rather than turning to swap space for their overall needs above that amount. This arrangement also gave me a good opportunity to check out the RHEL 6 implementation of Linux’s Kernel Samepage Merging, a sort of deduplication for memory. The KSM service in RHEL 6 is switched off by default, with a separate tuning service running to activate KSM if needed. My guest cloning activity triggered KSM, and I watched as the tally of memory pages shared among my guests grew. In future tests, I’ll be interested to see how KSM performs with a greater diversity of guest instance types.

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15MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING EDUCATION WORKPLACE COMPENSATION WORKFORCE TRENDS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

COPING WITH BACK PAIN PAGE 42

Leadership Cyberlaw & order THIS PAGE Healthy Habits Exercises in the office PAGE 42 Strategy Seven steps for outsourcing PAGE 45 Training Calendar Career booster courses PAGE 46

BY BERJES ERIC SHROFF

IL LUSTRATIO N: PHOTO S .CO M

T laws are often ignored by the best of IT managers. It does not matter whether you are heading IT for a large or small corporate house: in this day and age, an IT manager can ignore this area only at his or her peril. IT has evolved over time, and along with that there has been an increase in risks, threats and associated crimes. In such a scenario, while IT managers need not be lawyers, they must be aware of the multidisciplinary approach that cyber law has adopted over time. Let us consider some common e-crimes that can be committed by employees (including IT personnel) and outsiders involving your organisation and how you could possibly tackle and deal with such instances. In SMEs, the IT manager is generally the custodian of data. In such organisations, the IT manager also has access, direct or indirect, to most of the organisationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s confidential data, whether financials, marketing plans, business strategies, etc. As part of their daily routine, it is not unusual for IT managers in such organisations to devote more time to helping users and business heads with their daily IT-related problems. But, sadly, with all this routine work, security is generally put on the backburner and, as a result, an employeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s handling of the

LEADERSHIP

CYBER LAW AND ORDER A thorough knowledge of cyber laws is essential for IT managers responsible for safeguarding enterprise assets F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER

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HEALTHY HABITS

EXERCISES IN THE OFFICE

FACTS Women, aged 35 to 50, spend a lot of time on social networking sites, finds a poll conducted by a UK-based firm Deep Pain. 78 per cent are in agony because they spend too long sitting at a desk or on the Net. Nearly one in five, endures backache every day, reports The Daily Express.

Suffering from back-ache, stiff neck or sore shoulders. Here are some stretching and warm up exercises you can do at the office that hardly take much time but help you stay fit: Upper Body Stretches: Sit firmly on the edge of your chair, gripping its back. Straighten your arms, and then, keeping your back straight, let your upper body pull you forward to stretch your shoulders, upper back and chest. Repeat a few times. Shoulders and Back Stretch: Sit erect with your hands clasped behind your head. Now, gently pull your elbows as far back as you can, then hold them firmly in position. Repeat a few times. Leg Stretches: Sit and grip the seat of your chair and raise one leg while you flex your foot. Slowly move the leg outward and then back toward the center and down. As you stretch, straighten your shoulders and relax your neck and hands. Hold each stretch for 15 seconds to a minute then repeat with the other leg. Raise the number of repetitions as you progress. Spinal Stretches: Sit on your chair with your spine erect and both feet flat on the floor. Pretend there is a cord attached to the crown of your head gently tugging you up. Direct your gaze in front of your nose then bring your hand to your chin. Now gently press your chin in to your neck. Do 4 or more sets.

Austrian researchers found that the group listening to relaxing music reported 40 percent less pain than those given the silent treatment.

Ear to shoulder exercises: Sit on your chair with your spine erect and both feet flat on the floor. Now, inhale deeply. As you exhale, slowly roll your left ear towards your left shoulder.

PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTOS .CO M

IT systems may lead to a breach of some IT law. Above all, in such organisations, the IT manager’s PC/laptop is usually never audited. He is often deemed omnipotent. To make matters worse, some SMEs rely totally on IT support through a vendor, and the vendor’s engineer is based on the premises to administer the network and assist the users. It appears that his role requires him to have full access to all the company’s data. In such an instance, IT managers have the potential to damage or steal data. But do they always get away with it? As IT personnel we may perhaps not realise the ‘value’ of the data, or be unaware of the ‘laws’ related to deleting, gaining unlawful access or stealing data, nonetheless, damage and theft of company data for personal gains can definitely land us behind bars. The latest well-known case is that of Edwin Vega Jr., an IT manager with the Consuegra Law Firm in Tampa–Florida, who deleted files from a computer that belonged to the human resources manager. Edwin Vega Jr. was sentenced to 18 months in prison for this act. An IT Manager of another law firm was recently caught using the confidential information of the law firm’s clients, who were mainly major corporations, for insider trading. While these are examples of actions taken by the US courts, one should not mistakenly think, that India is far behind. Nowadays, multinationals, larger Indian conglomerates and even SMEs are taking action against employees and IT managers who damage, steal or unlawfully gain access to data. My recent visits to the Cyber Cells in Mumbai and Pune were eye-openers—a number of small companies have lodged complaints against their employees and even IT personnel, for actions similar to the ones cited above. In most case, in order to protect the reputation of the company, these complaints are not made public by the organisations. In my opinion, these organisations should do the opposite as this would have a two-fold effect. Firstly, the employees (non-IT personnel) and IT

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“Wikileaks would force organisations to act better. Now they know that their own employees will expose them if there is corruption” — Mikko H Hypponen, Chief Research Officer, F-Secure

“Mobile growth has opened new avenues for attacks, especially on new networked platforms with personal data attached.” — Jose Nazario, Sr. Manager, Security Research, Arbor Networks

TO AID THE PROSECUTION PROCESS, THE IT MANAGERS SHOULD CAREFULLY RETAIN SECURITY AND AUDIT LOGS AND ANY OTHER EVIDENCE. personnel would become aware that one cannot get away by committing acts of theft, damage and unlawful access to data. Secondly, the external stakeholders of an organisation, be it customers, business partners or shareholders, would realise and appreciate the fact that the organisation is serious and taking action against erring employees. From an IT personnel

perspective, earlier such acts would be simply considered unethical and the matter might have been overlooked. But not anymore. The law is catching up and culprits are being booked. To aid the prosecution process, the IT manager should carefully retain security and audit logs and any other evidence. The executive management of an organisation, irrespective of the

TOP EXPLOITS OF THIS ERA Top exploits representing different eras of cybercrime: 1) “I LOVE YOU” Worm’s False Affection: Estimated damage $15 billion This infamous worm cost companies and government agencies $15 billion to shut down their computers and remove the infection. 2) MyDoom’s Mass Infection: Estimated damage $38 billion This fast-moving worm first struck in 2004. Due to all the spam it sent, it slowed down global Internet access by 10% and reduced access to some websites by 50%, causing billions in dollars of lost productivity and online sales. 3) Conficker’s Stealthy Destruction: Estimated damage $9.1 billion This 2007 worm infected millions of computers and was designed to download and install malware from sites controlled by the virus writers.

size of the organisation, should ensure that the IT manager is maintaining and retaining the logs as required. If the executive management fails to evince interest in this area, the doors may be wide open for IT personnel to commit such transgressions. Turning our attention to the threats posed by outsiders, how can the IT manager help his/her organisation book people who damage the reputation of the organisation through electronic means, be it through hacking, spreading defaming or false messages or through other electronic means such as SMS (text messages) using mobile phones. Phishing emails, received in the name of banks and other websites have become commonplace: these try to con people into revealing usernames, passwords and personal and credit card information. What about the numerous emails regarding false job offers? Sadly,

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15-MINUTE MANAGER FASTER & STRONGER

5 BUSINESS APPS FOR THE IPAD

GOTOMEETING: The best of things in life are free. So is the application that can keep you virtually at work even if you are absent physically. With GoToMeeting all you need do is TAP to attend online meetings. Also, through the application you can view slide presentations, design mockups, spreadsheets, reports – whatever meeting presenters choose to share on-screen. Get started for free.

DRAGON DICTATION: We all have used umpteen voice recognition applications for Windows PCs. There’s one for the iPad as well, powered by Dragon Naturally Speaking. It allows you to easily speak and instantly dictate small text or lengthy email messages.

DESKTOP CONNECT: A desktop viewer that allows you to view and control Windows, Mac OSX and Linux computers as if you were sitting in front of them, or observe others as if you were watching over their shoulder. Get started at Rs 675.

KEYNOTE: While this presentation application for the Mac needs to be redesigned to suit the iPad’s requirements. The application has retained its basic feature to help you build an appealing presentation, complete with animated charts and transitions. One could use Apple-designed themes, custom graphic styles, and animations and effects to add glitter to the presentations. The application is also PowerPoint compatible. Get started at Rs. 450.

‑— Compiled by Anoop Chugh

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very few organisations are taking any action against such violators. Most are turning a Nelson’s eye to such acts. The Cyber Cells set up in India are there to help in this regard. However, before approaching them, it is advisable that IT managers do some groundwork and investigation on their own. For example, in the case of emails luring the public with job offers that do not exist, the IT manager should first try and trace the origin of the email. Of course, one needs to be able to analyse the header of the emails to do this. This would speed up matters and make it easier to take the case to the Cyber Cell. Approaching legal representatives, be they internal or external lawyers, and seeking their help to take such issues to the Cyber Cell would definitely be advantageous and beneficial. The IT Act 2000 depends on the IPC (Indian Penal Code) and this is where a lawyer or legal representative will add value in convincing the Cyber Cell to take action. Of course, in such instances, the IT manager must think on his feet and ensure that the recipient of any defaming or false emails does not delete the original email. This would be disastrous, as invaluable evidence would be destroyed. An IT manager must also be aware of the laws and cases cited under the IT Act 2000, including Cyber Squatting of domain names, intellectual property, copyright law, trademark law, data protection and privacy laws, among other things. Although most would be tackled by the legal representatives of the company, the IT manager can add value with his knowledge of such issues. So where does the buck stop for the IT manager? It would be worthwhile to either take up a course on cyber laws or to educate yourself by reading books on cyber laws and the IT Act 2000. This will definitely add value both to the manager and the organisation. The author is the head of IT for Tata Services and is responsible for IT security of the head office of the group.

15-MINUTE MANAGER

STRATEGY

7 STEPS TO OUTSOURCING Suggestions to help make certain that your next outsourcing project will be successful. BY DAV I D ST R O M

IL LUSTRATIO N: PHOTO S .CO M

utsourcing isn’t new, but, by now, many IT shops have accumulated enough experience to use this service more effectively. According to Houstonbased consultancy TPI, even though the overall outsourcing market is down 13 percent from last year, growth remains strong for U.S.-based contracts. Certainly, the cost-saving motivation is still significant: The cost for programmers and support services overseas can be less than half of what their domestic equivalents can be.

Nevertheless, to achieve those savings, you have to know how to work with the outsourcing vendor. We spoke with several managers who have used outsourcers to build and augment their systems, and we came away with seven suggestions to help ensure that your next outsourcing contact—and contract—will be successful. 1. Make sure there is a strong cultural fit between your two organizations. This involves both the country of origin of the outsourcer and your own corporate culture. “The Dutch are very direct

at telling you when you have done something wrong, but in India, that can backfire and shut things down immediately” says Scott McDonald, the CTO of FCI USA, a manufacturing company with French headquarters that has used a number of outsourcers all over the world. “The French like to have a lot more interaction than we do, and in Asia they like more structure and to understand the various components of a process. We hired an external consulting firm to help us understand the differences among the various cultures and how we operate.” Google calls this culture fit “Googleyness,” offering “an environment that inspires original thinking, encourages people to take the initiative, is guided by data and user experience, has a flat management hierarchy, and is willing to take risks and be innovative,” says Patrick Chanezon, a Google developer relations manager in charge of outsourcing initiatives, who has worked with Globant in Argentina. “We interviewed Globant as if they were going to be hired by Google internally,” says Chanezon. “We tried

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING CALENDAR

Career booster courses for you!

PROGRAMME

VENUE

DATES

Managing IT Projects

IIM Ahmedabad

07-11 Feb’ 11

Enhancing Managerial

Fore School of

Effectiveness

Management

Operations Strategy

IIM Kozhikode

10-11 Feb’11

XLRI Jamshedpur

14-15 Feb’11

IIM Ahmedabad

14-17 Feb’ 11

IIM Ahmedabad

21 - 25 Feb’11

Strategic Thinking Enhancing Sales Force Performance Advanced Analytics for Management Entrepreneurial Skills Personal Growth through Self Exploration Effective Communication for Managers Strategic IT Outsourcing

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

Fore School of Management

09-11 Feb’ 11

21-23 Feb’ 11

IIM Lucknow

14-18 Feb’11

IIM Indore

07 - 11March’ 11

IIM Ahmedabad

14-17March’11

to understand not just if they had the right knowledge level, but also how they worked—such as their use of agile programming methodologies and if they knew how to do appropriate software testing. We wanted an outsourcer that works on open-source projects in their daily practice.” 2. Top-to-top commitment. Seniorlevel management at both organizations should meet regularly and understand what success means in each other’s terms. “We have a joint innovation council with the CTO of Xerox and our management,” says Kim Kehling, the director of global business services for Procter & Gamble (P&G), who manages an outsourcing relationship with Xerox. “We meet quarterly to review our business needs and look each other in the face. We review our key projects and any outstanding operational issues together.” Just because your top execs meet, don’t expect them to be mind readers. “Don’t expect that your outsourcer has intimate business knowledge about your own operations,” says FCI USA’s McDonald. Spell it out in terms they can understand. 3. One plan, one goal. Make sure that your outsourcer has the same measurements for success that you do. And make these assessments honestly and with full disclosure. Be open with the outsourcer if the arrangement isn’t working out, and figure out what is needed to fix things. “The quality of the software code that our outsourcer produces depends greatly on the quality of the specs and requirements that we supply to them,” says McDonald. “We began by being much too casual about the requirements, and we suffered as a result. If you don’t have clear specs, you aren’t going to get good code.” 4. Putting the right work with the right partners. “When we first started outsourcing, we thought we’d have one partner for everything we outsourced, but we learned that wasn’t a recipe for success,” says P&G’s Kehling. “Now we find a best-in-class provider for a particular project—facilities is different from

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“Outsourcing is like keeping a part of your organisation in another body, and a mismatch could lead to failure” — S ilango, Sr. Manager, Aditya Birla Group

print management and so forth—and hire our outsourcer accordingly.” Part of this effort involves rightsizing your outsourcing needs, which means making adjustments when it’s time to add or subtract resources as your business grows or contracts. “We wanted a more flexible solution than Oracle on Demand offered us,” says Larry Campbell, vice president of information management and technology for Development Alternatives Inc., DAI has used Navisite for its outsourced hosted Oracle applications and Virtustream for outsourced data center businesscontinuity purposes. The company picked Navisite and initially cut its costs in half. Part of rightsizing is understanding what your actual needs are—whether you are outsourcing your infrastructure or your technical skills. “Some managers find it difficult to delegate anything to somebody down the hall, let alone in another state or overseas,” says Campbell. “These probably aren’t the right people to manage projects, especially projects that use outsourced offshore technical resources. “Outsourcing a custom application development project, for example, can be challenging. You need clear instructions throughout, and you must have developers with more than just the ability to code. “We have found that DBAs [database administrators] and consultants who support our Oracle EBS [E-Business

Suite] applications have worked very well when outsourced overseas. I believe it’s the result of the defined set of tasks required to support those systems and technologies. When we need creativity and flexibility, that’s when we run into problems.” 5. Allow your outsourcer to fail

BENEFIT MEASUREMENT FRAMEWORK

Enhancement of cash flows Enhancement of shareholder value Acceleration Reduction of cash flows of risk

Short term Reduction in costs (e.g. through factor arbitrage) Acceleration of outsourcing scope, functions and geography Long term Increase in speed of innovation (e.g. number of new products per year) Reduction in time-to-market (e.g. new product development/enhancement cycle time) Reduction in time-to-volume (e.g. project cycle time for increasing capacity within and across markets) eduction in hurdle rate or opportunity R cost of capital demanded by shareholders gained through: - Increased focus on strategic activities leading to sustainable competitive advantage - Shifting of risks of a function from the service provider when the function is outsourced Source: Ernst & Young

often and quickly. Part of this process involves putting in place checkpoints that are frequent enough to evaluate progress, and ensuring that the outsourcing team is on the right track. “Make sure you can learn from your failures, too,” says Google’s Chanezon. “When we were building the test for our Checkout API with Globant, they could have done a very lengthy design process of a few months. Instead, we had daily discussions, and it took them just a week to put together a basic prototype of the testing framework that we could build every day. When P&G hired Xerox to manage its enterprise printers, Xerox was in the process of building its Enterprise Print Services management tool so that any employee could print a document to any printer across the enterprise. “Xerox assumed that all our printers had to be on the same physical network, but we pushed them to make their tool work across multiple networks,” says Kehling. Since implementing this tool, P&G has printed 8 million fewer pages and cut costs by 21 percent by replacing desktop printers with more efficient workgroup printers. DAI also has frequent checkpoints with its outsourcer, Navisite. “My team does weekly status meetings with them to make sure that the right things are happening, and there are daily e-mails and phone calls,” says Campbell. 6. Find the win-win. “We have to make the entire pie bigger, but not at the expense of my outsourcing partner,” says P&G’s Kehling” 7. Is the A-team in place? Do you have your best people managing the outsourcer, and do they have the outsourcer’s best team working on your project? “Four years ago, we had some issues with our outsourcer,” says FCI USA’s McDonald. “They were losing about a third of the team supporting us each year. “We couldn’t attract and keep the talent. We kept 10 or so from the beginning, but the rest of the organization was turning over rapidly. We couldn’t develop them quickly enough, and, by the time we finally did, they would leave and go elsewhere.”

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

CUBE CHAT | JATINDER AGGARWAL

KARMA AND CREATIVITY “The thought of doing something new, innovative and the best in everything is what keeps me motivated,” says Jatinder Aggarwal, Project Manager at HCL Technologies BY JATIN D E R S I N G H

A MY SUCESS

MANTRA Measure your success in every aspect of life, including social respect, professional growth, friends and family

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

staunch believer in both God and the power of good karma, Jatinder Aggarwal, Project Manager at HCL Technologies lays emphasis on making quick decisions, even in crises situations. To him, time is one of the most precious elements of life, and ensuring delivery on schedule, a priority. In a complex world, where chasing goals is often treated as a primary obligation, Aggarwal sees no substantial value in achieving a high without the blessings of friends and family. “Success should be measured in every aspect of life, including social respect, professional growth, friends and family. There is no excitement in holding a trophy if you are standing alone, with no family or friends in your side to celebrate that magical moment of success,” he asserts.

It was his passion for work and good people management skills that led this Next100 winner to where he is at today. Nevertheless, the journey so far, has not been without its challenges. “I have always come across challenges in every assignment I have done. But building an online interface for Citibank’s Trade Finance System with an OLECA System using the MQ Series in 2002-03 is the one I will always remember,” he says. Since no one in the team of 100+ associates had ever worked on the MQ Series before, and the organisation did not have the budget, to train the IT team, it was quite a big challenge to understand the technology without any help. “I read nearly five books on it, and implemented it end-to-end, starting from the requirements to making the implementation successful,” Aggarwal recalls.

FACT FILE NAME: JATINDER AG GA R WA L CURRENT D ES I G N AT I O N : PROJECT M A N AG E R , H C L TECHNOLO G I ES CURRENT R O L E : SERVICE D E L I V E RY MANAGER EXPERTIS E : MANAGIN G M U LT I P L E PROJECTS , S E T T I N G U P DELIVERY P R O C ES S ES , FAVORITE B O O K : NOT AN AV I D R E A D E R , BUT LIKES ‘ R I C H DA D POOR DAD ’ A N D C H E TA N BHAGAT’S B O O KS

PHOTO GRAPHY: D. R. LO HIA

“EVERY TIME I ACHIEVE ONE TARGET, I DEFINE ANOTHER TARGET FOR MYSELF AND KEEP RAISING THE BAR” Among the new technologies around, cloud computing excites him. “It’s a combination of many technologies that have evolved recently. I feel over a period of time the way we use software and hardware is going to change dramatically. And concepts like HaaS and SaaS will be more popular in the future, especially for SMEs,” he predicts. But it’s not just work that keeps him busy for hours, he also devotes an equal amount of quality time to family get-togethers and partying with friends on weekends. Going forward, this creative Project Manager intends to become an entrepreneur one day. He draws inspiration from the likes of Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Hard work, for him, is the only way to accomplishing a dream. He believes that the daily grind gets a person polished.

The thought of doing something new, innovative and the best in everything keeps him motivated. “Every time I achieve one target I define another goal for myself and keep raising the bar,” he states. According to him, understanding various IT delivery models, having a clear business roadmap and excellent people management skills are the key ingredients for a successful IT Manager. However, he doesn’t place much importance on fancy designations, or even being labelled as a CIO. “After a while, nobody actually cares whether you are the skipper or the wicketkeeper, it’s your performance on the field that counts. I am quite happy to have a no designation but more responsibilities, new challenges, and a free hand to drive the business as a mentor,” he says with candour.

FAVORITE Q U OT ES : ‘FIGHT TIL L YO U D I E ’, ‘BELIEVE I N T H E B EST ’ AND ‘LIVE L I F E K I N G SIZE’ WORK EXP E R I E N C E DEC 2010 – N OW: PROJECT M A N AG E R , H C L TECHNOLO G I ES 2006 – 200 9 PROJECT M A N AG E R , SAT YAM CO M P U T E R SERVICES LT D 2004 – 200 6 CONSULTA N T, I B M INDIA 2000 – 2004 ANALYST, CITICORP OVERSEAS SOFTWARE LTD ACHIEVEM E N TS RECEIVED N EX T 1 0 0 AWARD IN 2 0 1 0 RECEIVED M A N Y AWARDS IN CITIGROU P WAS PART O F H I P OT (HIGHLY P OT E N T I A L ) EMPLOYEES L I ST I N POL ARIS ( C O S L ) I N 2 0 0 4

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

OFF THE SHELF

A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

Trendnet Launches Mobile 3G Router Wireless encryption feature helps protect user data

Kingston launches memory cards STORAGE | Kingston Digital, the Flash memory affiliate of Kingston Technology Company, has announced the release of SDHC UHS-I memory cards in the India market. These cards have a speed of 60 MBPS

According to the company, Kingston’s UltimateXX memory cards are ideal for the high data users. For instance, with the help of these cards, photographers can easily capture sequential shots that were once a challenge due to the speed limitations of memory. The UltimateXX also makes it easy to capture HD video.

WIRELESS | Trendnet has launched its

KEY FEATURES

150Mbps Mobile Wireless N Router – TEW* Wi-Fi Protected Setup 655BR3G, which connects to the internet * Anywhere connectivity to the either using a traditional hard wired conInternet nection or by cutting the cables and connect* 2.5 hour lithium ion battery ing with a compatible wireless mobile USB * Compatible with USB dongles dongle from a 3G Internet service provider * Easy in operation such as Tata, Reliance, AirTel, etc. Designed for portability, the router has a rechargeable and replaceable 2.5 hour lithium ion battery. Compatible with USB dongles from every mobile provider, this router connects to the internet anywhere there is a 3G mobile connection. The user can simply plug the 3G USB adapter into the router to share a single internet connection. Its wireless encryption features enable protection of user data. Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) integrates other WPS supported clients at the touch of a button. An on/off switch on the back of the devices saves battery life. For long trips, the user can power the router with Trendnet’s Car Adapter, model TA-CC.

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

The performance of SDHC UHS-I memory card is optimized when paired with a UHS-I device, although the card is backwards compatible with Class 4, 6 and 10 equipment. “Kingston is pleased to be one of the first manufacturers to offer SDHC UHS-I memory cards to our customers,” said Nathan Su, Flash Memory Sales Director, APAC Region, Kingston. “Being a member of the SD Association enhances our ability to bring new technology to market,” he added.

PRODUCT FEATURES Capturing sequential shots is easier. Kingston’s UltimateXX line meets the SD Association standards for the UHS-I speed class with speeds up to 60MB/sec. read and 35MB/sec. write. The product line will offer capacities of 8GB, 16GB and 32GB.

UPDATE

Dell Launches Inspiron M101z Laptop

Simmtronics, VIA Unveil Budget PC

LAPTOP | Dell has

announced the Inspiron M101z laptop, which as per the company, is the ideal on-the-go, easy-to-use laptop PC for today’s mobile population. The new laptop can fit easily in a handbag or backpack, according to Dell. The Inspiron M101z laptop is built around a hinge-forward design FEATURES that moves the display closer and keeps the body Powered by AMD Athlon II rigid to help enhance strength and durability. Neo Mobile processors It features a full-width keyboard that simplifies Achieves up to 6 hours and typing and navigation. 36 minutes of operation It is powered by AMD Athlon II Neo Mobile processors and integrated ATi graphics and achieves up to 6 hours and 36 minutes of operation with its standard 6-cell rechargeable battery. According to Mahesh Bhalla, General Manager, Consumer & SMB, Dell India, “The ultraportable Inspiron M101z is an affordable, on-the-go companion with complete functionality and can be easily customized to handle individual needs from simple e-mailing and Web surfing to HD video playback and editing or watching a favorite TV programme.” The Inspiron M101z is available for a price of Rs 20,900

Acer Uncovers New Notebook NOTEBOOK | Acer has announced the launch of a new notebook, eMD725, under its eMachines series. As the latest offering for consumers, the new notebook is priced at Rs. 18,499. The eMD725 is populated by the latest Intel Pentium Processor T4500, supporting 45 nm technology, with 1 GB DDR3 RAM, which can further be upgraded to 4 GB DDR3 Memory. The 14” HD screen comes with 1366x 768 pixel resolution and a storage capacity of 320 GB hard disk along with 8X DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive. Additional features include integrated webcam for chatting and multi in one card reader.”

HARDWARE| VIA Technologies and Simmtronics Semiconductors have launched green computing products, including the subRs10,000 SIMM PC and a wide range of power-efficient VIA pc-1 mainboards. In addition to India, Simmtronics will also distribute the products through its channel partners in a total of 15 other countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Dubai, UAE, Turkey, Iraq, Algeria, and Ghana. Simmtronics is offering a selection of energy-efficient green motherboards featuring a choice of VIA C7 and VIA Nano processors. The company also plans to introduce the forthcoming VIA VX900E green motherboard in the first quarter of this year

KEY ADVANTAGES * Intel Pentium processor T4500, supporting 45nm tech * Storage capacity of 320 GB * 8X DVD double layer drive * Integrated webcam * Integrated multi- in- one card reader

The company claims that e-machines are one of the most economically priced computing device s available in the in the market presently. S. Rajendran, Chief Marketing Officer, Acer India, comments ,“Through this series, we aim to bridge the gap between the mainstream and the budget category in the value PC segment.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

OPEN DEBATE

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

Do networking sites like LinkedIn help?

RITIK GOEL, BUSINESS CONSULTANT, RELIANCE COMMUNICATIONS LinkedIn acted as a catalyst to expedite my thought process for exploring opportunities otherwise unknown to me. Updating one’s profile on Linkedin can facilitate sharing thoughts and information with likeminded individuals, subsequently enhancing professional knowledge which otherwise one would experience only through working in an organization. On the downside, a majority of professionals use updated LinkedIn profiles only as a medium for job search, but this attitude defeats the overall purpose of the concept.

VISHAL BISHT, CEO, MARKSMAN TECHNOLOGIES In today’s global environment, where we are adding skills, knowlege and certifications on a continuous basis, it’s extremely important to showcase core skills, things one has learned and expertise which has been gained over a period of time. That not only facilitates exploring new career avenues, but it also helps others know your true potential. Nevertheless, despite all the advantages, one must learn to use these networking sites wisely. For instance, lying about your achievements, with the intention of attracting headhunters, could actually bring you more harm than any good.

SHANTANU SINGH CHAUHAN, TECHNOLOGY EXPERT, DIRECTOR, NEW INITIATIVES AT VALUEFIRST MESSAGING It depends a lot upon the way you intend to position yourself in the market. These networking sites definitely help talented professionals to relate and network with professionals they already know. Moreover, it also allows them to understand the market patterns in a better way. However, one needs to make a conscious effort while crafting a profile of himself or herself. In the digital age, you never know what will work and what will not!.

Final call How hidden fractures still threaten the world economy TITLE: FAULT LINES AUTHOR: RAGHURAM G RAJAN PUBLISHER:HARPER COLLINS PRICE: RS 499

Fault Lines is another forewarning by the economist and author – Raghuram G Rajan on financial skeletons still hidden in our wardrobes. The author fears that the causes that had led to the financial crisis of 2007 might have not been fully addressed; hence the financial turmoil may reappear as our tendency to take risk clubbed with our unabashed greed could get the better of our prudence. It might be a momentary financial relief but what’s the guarantee that it’s not the proverbial calm before yet another storm, this time much larger in its magnitude. There weren’t many takers to his warning note prophesying a financial crisis in the making in early 2007. This time around, ignore him at your own peril. Through the book Rajan has tried to address certain unanswered questions such as – why are poorer developing countries like China financing the unsustainable consumption of rich countries like the US? Why did Federal Reserve keep rates so low for so long? Or more importantly why did financial firms make loans to people who had no income? IT NEXT VERDICT

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

At times the writing would seem highly pessimistic. But in today’s times, one has to be distrustful of the sudden recovery. STAR VALUE:

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

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1/28/2011 9:03:32 PM

THE BIG

BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

WHO’S DRIVING IT? EXPERT PANEL

MAHESH F. PARDESI, PROJECT MANAGER, SODEXO INDIA

THE SITUATION...

CUT IT FROM HERE

Manoj Dixit was studying a fresh set of MIS requirements when Vinod Bhatkar, VP–Sales and Marketing, called him in for a discussion. Bhatkar had recently been brought into this role at Samtail, the mega retail company, and entrusted with formulating its growth and expansion strategy. Manoj is one of the three IT managers at Samtail. “I need more support from IT. I cannot build a high-growth strategy for the company with the traditional MIS reports. These don’t provide the customer information that my business managers and I need,” said a slightly irritated Bhatkar. Going through new MIS requirements, Manoj saw where Bhatkar was coming from. “The kind of information you want will need a Business Intelligence and Analytics (BI/BA) solution. It can’t be produced out of the existing ERP system,” he said. Your responses count. Log on to www.itnext.in/bigQ to submit your replies. The best entry will be published in the next print edition

SUDISH BAL AN, BUSINESS DIRECTOR, TONIC MEDIA

AJAY SARTAPE, COO, IBEXIS

“I’ve read about these solutions in a business magazine. I can arrange a special budget allocation for it from my strategy budget. But when can we have this up and running?” asked Bhatkar. Manoj could sense that while Bhatkar was keen on a solution, he wasn’t aware of the deployment challenges. “A BI solution is not just about the budget, the processes and databases. It is about ownership from the business managers,” he tried to explain. “I can ask my managers to provide you with the support, but it is an IT solution and so has to be driven by you... and I guess a month’s time would be adequate for its completion,” said Bhatkar concluding the discussion. Manoj wanted to say that for a BI solution to be successful, it had to be driven by the business manager and supported by the IT manager, and not vice versa. But, somehow he felt it would be a futile discussion; Bhatkar seemed to have unrealistic expectations of a BI rollout and had the mindset that anything to do with IT, had to be done by IT.

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | IT NEXT

THE BIG Q

THE BIG QUESTIONS... CAN MANOJ ACHIEVE A BALANCE BETWEEN THE TIMEFRAME REQUIRED

TO PUT IN A BI SOLUTION AND PROVIDE THE INFORMATION NEEDED FOR STRATEGY PLANNING? HOW CAN HE MEET KEY INFORMATION NEEDS WHILE THE BI ROLLOUT IS COMPLETED?

MORE IMPORTANTLY, CAN HE DELIVER A SUCCESSFUL BI IMPLEMENTATION, GIVEN THE ATTITUDE OF A BUSINESS HEAD?

HERE ARE THE ANSWERS... ‘A COORDINATED EFFORT’ FIRST ANSWER

MAHESH F. PARDESI Project Manager– Global Information Systems & Technology, Sodexo India On-site Service Solutions About me: A sports enthusiast, he is also the winner of the IT Next and APC Datacenter contest.

Since Manoj is left with no options but to take the responsibility of deploying the BI solution, he must do his spadework properly. He must analyse the existing ERP thoroughly and simultaneously commence the work of implementing the BI tools by gathering the prerequisites, evaluating the different BI/BA tools available, and assessing the infrastructure changes needed in the current setup for implementing the BI solution. He must form the BI selection committee and include members from the business and IT teams. He must identify the target users and determine the usage scenarios, as well as prepare a proof of concept. He must also arrange for vendors to conduct demos of BI. As regards meeting the current needs of his company’s sales and marketing department, it’s possible that the current systems are underutilised. A proper evalution of the same may show that there are areas where the current ERP system can come to his rescue. He can seek help from the existing ERP vendor/consultant to create and develop new MIS reports to crunch more out of the ERP system. But as ERP comes with a predefined set of report formats which are generally quite rigid, this solution could be an impracticable and an expensive one. He could suggest to his VP that the best solution would be to wait until the implementation of the BI/BA tool which can yield benefits such as: Accurate sensing of customers’ needs and requirements JIT (Just in Time) responsiveness to customers’ needs and demands Ability to adopt any market changes or shifts, including economic recessions Streamlined business processes which results in a cost-effective business operation Accurate business and sales forecasting

SECOND ANSWER The implementation of BI would be successful only if driven by business and supported by IT. That much is quite clear. BI implementations should be driven and sponsored by an executive who has bottom-line responsibility, has a broad picture of the enterprise objectives, strategy and goals, and knows how to translate the company’s mission into key performance indicators that will support the business intelligence strategy mission. Manoj has to convince Bhatkar that a successful BI implementation requires a coordinated effort across the dimensions of people, processes, technology and, of course, that the data and success of BI would rely on a joint effort between the business managers and IT.

IT NEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

THE BIG Q

‘NOT A SOLUTION BUT A PROCESS’ FIRST ANSWER Manoj needs to have a detailed discussion with his VP on what BI is and what it does. From the current scenario, it seems that he has little or no idea of the benefits that accrue from BI. What must be impressed upon Bhatkar is that BI is not a solution but a process. While it is implemented by the tech team, it is driven by all. The output of the BI, that is, the report and prognosis are completely dependent on the data that is fed into the system. A lot depends on the quality of data and all stake holders concerned need to be aware of this upfront. This needs to be impressed upon Bhatkar and the earlier it is done, the better it will be. On the other hand, Manoj need not wait till the full suite of BI is implemented but should look at ways and means of catering to the information requirements of the organisation. It is possible that the capabilities of the current systems have not been fully explored, and Manoj would do well to conduct a thorough assessment to ascertain this. Many organisations fall in this category. As such, there are scores of free analytical tools available that can help him in this regard. For instance, if he is looking at online analytics, then Google Analytics can be a good tool. Similarly, there are many other tools which Manoj can use for the same.

SUDISH BALAN Business Director, Tonic Media About me: Is a new media professional, currently advising brands on achieving their marketing objectives using interactive media.

SECOND ANSWER To be honest, even if he attempts a full-bodied implementation of BI, he is setting himself up for failure, if the prevailing mindset does not change. As stated earlier, BI is not an IT solution or software that needs to be ported on a server and is ready to start when you press ‘go’. The criticality of BI tools cannot be overstated. It is not just a tool for diagnosis but also used for future projections. Hence, it is very important that all the people on board, and this includes people from the business side as well as IT. They should be crystal clear on what is possible, and what can be achieved.

ARE SOFTW

Spending Forecast Gartner Says Indian ICT Spending To Grow 10.3 Percent in 2011

4000 3500

Spending ($M)

3000 2500

2,421

2,768

3124

3,521

3,960

1500 1000

2,112

2000

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

500 0

Year

SOURCE: GARTNER (NOVEMBER 2010)

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | IT NEXT

THE BIG Q

‘UNDERSTAND THE WHAT AND WHY’ FIRST ANSWER It looks like Samtail already has sufficient systems in place, like ERP and CRM. Manoj should delve deeper into what reports his VP requires, and see how he can enable them. Most of the enterprise-suite applications have reporting features, which can be tweaked and customised, based on the requirements of the user. Thus, Manoj needs to first completely understand the ‘what’ and ‘why’ of Bhatkar’s request and work on them. Also, these days, many BI solutions are available on a go, pay-per-use model that can be instantly up and running. Though, they don’t provide the complete features of a full-blown suite, they are pretty decent. Thus, based on the need analysis, Manoj can even look at the solutions that can be implemented in a jiffy.

AJAY SARTAPE COO, Ibexis About me: Experienced in content creation for gaming and web and has interest in all aspects of game development.

SECOND ANSWER There are two aspects to this. While there is no debating that the premise, ‘IT is to be done by IT’ is fundamentally flawed, one needs to appreciate Bhatkar’s candid admission of his ignorance. Besides that, he’s even ready to completely trust and fund Manoj on the implementation. This is a great opportunity for Manoj to prove his mettle. So, while the risk of failure is high, a success will establish Manoj’s leadership potential. Nonetheless, he needs to have a detailed discussion with his VP and explain that for the success of BI, everyone needs to pitch in. It is not a one-man Rambo sort of a thing. If the message is communicated properly, even the VP will agree and the work can be jointly undertaken.

NOTES NOTES

MORE RESOURCES

IT NEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

The Datawarehouse Institute: http://www.tdwi.org

UPDATE SONY WALKMAN NWZ-A845

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ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

MY LOG

ANOOP CHUGH Assistant Editor The CFO India Magazine

For the road less-taken! Five automobile technologies that have boosted safety OT I L L U S T R AT I O N : P H

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

3 ESSENTIAL

READS

CUBE CHAT | JATINDER AGGARWAL

FAC T F I L E NAME: JATINDER AGGARWAL

KARMA AND CREATIVITY

CURRENT DESIGNATION: PROJECT MANAGER, HCL TECHNOLOGIES CURRENT ROLE: SERVICE DELIVERY MANAGER EXPERTISE: MANAGING MULTIPLE PROJECTS, SETTING UP DELIVERY PROCESSES, FAVORITE BOOK: NOT AN AVID READER, BUT LIKES ‘RICH DAD POOR DAD’ AND CHETAN BHAGAT’S BOOKS

“The thought of doing something new, innovative and the best in everything is what keeps me motivated,” says Jatinder Aggarwal, Project Manager at HCL Technologies

“EVERY TIME I ACHIEVE ONE TARGET, I DEFINE ANOTHER TARGET FOR MYSELF AND KEEP RAISING THE BAR”

A MY SUCESS

MANTRA Measure your success in every aspect of life, including social respect, professional growth, friends and family

PHOTOGRAPHY: D. R. LOHIA

BY JATINDER SINGH

Among the new technologies around, cloud computing excites him. “It’s a combination of many technologies that have evolved recently. I feel over a period of time the way we use software and hardware is going to change dramatically. And concepts like HaaS and SaaS will be more popular in the future, especially for SMEs,” he predicts. But it’s not just work that keeps him busy for hours, he also devotes an equal amount of quality time to family get-togethers and partying with friends on weekends. Going forward, this creative Project Manager intends to become an entrepreneur one day. He draws inspiration from the likes of Mukesh Ambani, Sunil Mittal, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Hard work, for him, is the only way to accomplishing a dream. He believes that the daily grind gets a person polished.

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

FAVORITE QUOTES: ‘FIGHT TILL YOU DIE’, ‘BELIEVE IN THE BEST’ AND ‘LIVE LIFE KING SIZE’ WORK EXPERIENCE DEC 2010 – NOW: PROJECT MANAGER, HCL TECHNOLOGIES 2006 – 2009 PROJECT MANAGER, SAT YAM COMPUTER SERVICES LTD 2004 – 2006 CONSULTANT, IBM INDIA 2000 – 2004 ANALYST, CITICORP OVERSEAS SOFTWARE LTD ACHIEVEMENTS RECEIVED NEXT100 AWARD IN 2010 RECEIVED MANY AWARDS IN CITIGROUP WAS PART OF HIPOT (HIGHLY POTENTIAL) EMPLOYEES LIST IN POL ARIS (COSL) IN 2004

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

Meet Jatinder Aggarwal, Project Manager , HCL Tech, this month, in Cube Chat Pg 48 15-MINUTE MANAGER FASTER & STRONGER

5 BUSINESS APPS FOR THE IPAD

With the iPad gaining popularity in the enterprise, here are 5 must-have business applications for the iPad. BOX.NET: This application helps break down all traditional barriers between 1 you and the elusive content. You need not worry whether you are at work or not, behind a ﬁrewall or not, what OS are you on, one can access content anywhere, anytime as needed. The application helps you leverage the best of CCM (Cloud content management) whether you have the right desktop applications to view documents, spreadsheets, images and other types of content. GOTOMEETING: The best of things in life are free. So is the application 2 that can keep you virtually at work even if you are absent physically. With GoToMeeting all you need do is TAP to attend online meetings. Also, through the application you can view slide presentations, design mockups, spreadsheets, reports – whatever meeting presenters choose to share on-screen. Get started for free. DRAGON DICTATION: We all have used umpteen voice recognition ap3 plications for Windows PCs. There’s one for the iPad as well, powered by Dragon Naturally Speaking. It allows you to easily speak and instantly dictate small text or lengthy email messages. DESKTOP CONNECT: A desktop viewer that allows you to view and control 4 Windows, Mac OSX and Linux computers as if you were sitting in front of them, or observe others as if you were watching over their shoulder. Get started at Rs 675. KEYNOTE: While this presentation application for the Mac needs to be 5 redesigned to suit the iPad’s requirements. The application has retained its basic feature to help you build an appealing presentation, complete with animated charts and transitions. One could use Apple-designed themes, custom graphic styles, and animations and effects to add glitter to the presentations. The application is also PowerPoint compatible. Get started at Rs. 450. -— Compiled by Anoop Chugh

STRATEGY

7 STEPS TO OUTSOURCING Suggestions to help make certain that your next outsourcing project will be successful. BY DAV I D ST R O M

O ILLUSTR ATION: PH OTOS.COM

up to 30 km per hour, this laser-based technology can sense if a vehicle 6m to 8m ahead is standing still, or moving slower. If City Safety senses an impending collision, the brakes are pre-charged to act faster on your response. Time for driver to retire! Found in the Volvo XC60. d) Anti-skid systems: This one isn’t for the drag-racers. Anti-skid would take the adventure out of your driving. At the core of the system, sensors register the car’s direction and roll rate. The system compares this with steering wheel movements as well as the actual rotation of the car’s wheels. If you love barbaric style of driving, avoid cars with tags like EPS, traction control or DSTC. Found in Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and BMW with different names. e) Pre-safe system: Depending on the driving situation and vehicle equipment, the system can initiate measures for passenger protection when it detects dangers. These include reversible belt tensioning and automatic closing of side windows or the optional tilting sunroof. The all-important information is provided by the sensors in various systems such as brake assist, which can register critical driving situations like under steering, over steering or emergency braking. Found in Mercedes-Benz GL-Class. Long live safety technology, long live travellers!

Make sure you take right steps to make your outsourcing project successful Pg 45

INSIGHT | INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

HOW TO MEET UNIQUE INFORMATION MANAGEMENT

With a pan enterprise search infrastructure in place, a company can access all its systems to quickly uncover vital information pertinent to a special project

AND COMPLIANCE CHALLENGES BY C A R O L F I N E AGA N

ILLUST RAT ION: PH OTOS .COM

After years of being fastened to cushioned-seats with a safety-jacket underneath inside a flying aluminium structure I had lost all hopes for road transport, Now, that the golden quadrilateral (GQ) & NSEW corridor up and running, highway is hell again topping the charts in India. In the last five years I have burnt rubber on every inch of 5846 kms of the GQ and luckily, survived to tell the tale. But I must admit that, I owe my luck to five technologies that automobiles have bestowed on us roadies! a) Run-flat: Developed by BMW, this technology has made punctured tyres a thing of the past. No more changing tyres by the side of a road. It makes the spare tyre obsolete, reduces weight and frees up boot space. Found in all BMW four-wheelers. b) Night Vision: Sometimes, a day trip means driving well past sun down. That’s where Night Vision fixed in Beemers can help drivers get past poor lighting. Intelligent algorithms look specifically for pedestrians, who are highlighted in yellow on the LCD screen, Found in BMW 7 Series, X5 and Z4. Disclaimer: It doesn't detect the spirits. c) City Safety: This technology developed by Volvo has made the driver almost redundant. Imagine a car that applies brakes on its own, since you were busy texting, or sleeping. At speeds

OS.

sophisticated panenterprise search solution is a smart approach for effective information management and compliance, especially in highlyregulated industries that have little room for error. With a pan-enterprise search infrastructure in place, a company can access all its systems to quickly uncover vital information pertinent to a specific project. Carol Fineagan shares how the right pan-enterprise search solution has fulfilled her company’s unique knowledge management and compliance requirements.

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

EnergySolutions is recognized as a leader in nuclear waste processing. In the short time of two years, we made nine acquisitions. Like many companies that have gone through acquisitions, we faced the challenge of managing information from all of the acquired companies. Without the right tools, the cost and effort involved in organizing and extracting business value from this huge volume of information would have been prohibitive. We set out to identify an enterprise search solution that could cull data from the various document management systems (DMSes) we inherited through our acquisitions. We needed a solution that was able to index and understand the information without having to move it from its native systems. Our mission was to find the best solution for our users to increase their ability to share and collaborate on information. At the same time, the solution needed to provide an information infrastructure for the enterprise that would allow us to adhere to our regulatory compliance mandates. Like many enterprises, we have critical information stored in hundreds of legacy systems, company e-mails, and documents exchanged between international departments across global entities. To compound the challenge, with nuclear materials there is a need for cradle-to-grave responsibility of all project information. This includes continuous monitoring, methods of disposal and location of burial, encompassing many lifetimes of information that must be managed. Our DMSes housed some of the company’s most crucial intellectual property, including nuclear project materials and correspondence, engineering papers, drawings and safety documents. To effectively manage this information, we needed a solution that could scale rapidly without limit, maintain the native formatting, leverage existing indexing systems and offer protection from unauthorized access. Due to the high volume, age and disparate file formats and data types, consolidating everything into a single

Three layers, working in concert required to achieve the vision of a successful ‘air traffic control system’ for information security:

A Controls Enforcement Layer which is the point of security detection enforcement across the infrastructure. In an ideal environment, many controls are embedded directly into IT infrastructure such as operating systems and networks, providing ubiquitous coverage without deploying and managing hundreds of point tools.

A Controls Management Layer where organizations can provision and monitor security controls. Establishing this layer offers the opportunity to consolidate numerous security consoles.

A Security Management Layer where policies are defined that govern the organization and information infrastructure based on compliance requirements, best practices and the nature of risk. This is also the layer where events and alerts from controls across the infrastructure come together and are correlated to assess compliance and remediate as necessary. This visibility layer is about bringing together what were once isolated technologies, inputs and feeds, into a single platform or framework, the same as an air traffic control system. Source: By Art Coviello, President, RSA and Tom Heiser, Chief Operations Officer for RSA, The Security Division of EMC.

DMS was not an option, as we needed an audit trail and the original metadata for compliance. The company has to support a myriad of global regulatory compliance initiatives that apply to management of nuclear waste, including specific compliance mandates as defined by the Department of Energy. Since our initial public offering (IPO) in November 2007, we now also have to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

TRADITIONAL WASN’T THE RIGHT OPTION When we began to look at various options to address our information management and compliance challenges, we quickly realized that traditional solutions—such as adding more storage or consolidating documents into another Records Management or Enterprise Content Management system—was not the right answer. With the increasing cost of media management, power and cooling, and datacenter space, simply procuring more storage media would be far too costly. Additionally, we could not quantify investing time and money moving data from one document system to another. There is intrinsic value in maintaining the original indexes and metatags. Having the ability to connect to multiple content repositories was a key selection criterion for us. With employees located around the world, we recognized that it would be impossible to expect that everyone would categorize data the same. For example, the company’s users in the U.K. (Queen’s English) and the United States (Colonial English) might label or search for the same document with entirely different keywords. With so much data, we couldn’t rely on individuals to decipher these nuances. We needed a tool that was smart enough to understand what the person meant by “concept” and apply it to a broader base to bring back accurate results, and that includes finding both information and experts across the company—whether for legal, compliance or knowledgesharing purposes. Our industry has some unique information retention requirements in

2 4 B ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

How to tackle the challenges of Information Management ? Pg 24

Cloud tops Priority List for IT Leaders TECH TRENDS | IT budget projections for 2011 are globally flat, with

a weighted average budget increase of 1 percent. While IT heads do not report IT budgets returning to their 2008 (pre-recession) levels, the number of those experiencing budget increases in 2011 outnumbered those reporting a cut by almost three-to-one. According to a recent survey conducted by Gartner, IT heads

RPRISYE ENTE IT SECUR

Cloud computing, virtualisation and mobile technologies will be the top three technology priorities

IT Managers vote for Best Antivirus Solution (NUMBERS IN %)

26%

Over 18% IT heads felt that no single solution is able to provide full proof security

Symantec

Others

20%

McAfee

13% Trend Micro

31 18%

Kaspersky

SOURCE: IT NEXT RESEARCH

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

TRENDS DEALS PRODUCTS SERVICES PEOPLE

expect to adopt new cloud services much faster than originally expected. Currently, 3 percent of IT heads have the majority of IT running in the cloud or on SaaS technologies, but over the next four years IT heads expect this number to increase to 43 percent. The top three business priorities, according to the survey, are increasing enterprise growth; attracting and retaining new customers; and reducing enterprise costs. Also among the top ten business priorities are: improving business processes; implementing and updating business applications; improving technical infrastructure; improving enterprise efficiency; improving operations; and improving business continuity, risk and securit. In a further positive development revealed in the survey, technology leaders may be able to reallocate IT budget savings, rather than simply returning them to the organisation in 2011. The ability to fund infrastructure changes and new projects by reallocating resources within that budget will gain momentum. The introduction of Internet service-based technologies as changing that equation and releasing between 35 to 50 percent of infrastructure and operational resources for innovation and growth. This is creating a new success cycle, by creating and realising new sources of value, in addition to cost-effective IT operations.

I LLUSTRATIO N: S RISTI MAURYA, PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTO S.C OM

UPDATE I N D U S T R Y

FROM WIRED TO WIRELESS

FOR SERIOUS GAMERS

ZOOM YOUR IDEAS

Logitech has introduced the Logitech Wireless Combo MK260, a mouse and keyboard for enterprise workers. It is available in India for a recommended retail price of Rs 1,495.

Cooler Master has launched its new mid-tower gaming chassis, the HAF 912 Advanced, which is targeted at gamers. The HAF 912 Advanced is priced at an MRP of Rs 7,300 and carries one year warranty.

BenQ has launched the MX880UST ultra short throw projector for the businesses. As per the company, the new projector is ideal for small environments with big picture needs. It is priced at Rs. 92,000.

Intel Launches 2nd Generation Core Processor TECH TRENDS | Intel has

launched the much awaited second generation Intel Core processor family. Powered by new features and services, it claims to deliver an entirely new visual experience with processor graphics built in. According to company, more than 500 desktop and laptop PCs are expected from all major OEMs worldwide throughout the next year. In India, systems are likely to be available from OEMs like HCL, Wipro, MSI, HP, Lenovo, Toshiba and Dell amongst others as well as from local channel partners. Amongst the new features, the company has added Quick

Includes features such as Quick Sync Video, HD Graphics and Wireless Display 2.0

Sync Video, wireless display (WiDi), which can add 1080p HD and content protection for those wishing to beam premium HD content from their laptop screen to their TV. “The processors represent the

AROUND THE WORLD

biggest advance in computing performance and capabilities over any other previous generation,” said R. Sivakumar, Managing Director, Sales & Marketing Group, Intel South Asia. “These new features are bound to appeal to your senses” adds Sivakumar. New processor graphics technology will focus on the areas where most people are computing today: highdefinition (HD) video, photos, mainstream gaming, multitasking and online socializing and multimedia. Enhanced visual technologies like HD graphics are built into every 2nd Generation Intel Core processor. For consumers, this means improved PC experience, with better power management, efficiency and battery life.

QUICK BYTE

Facebook Closing on March 15th? IT security firm, Sophos, warns that more than 1 m Facebook users are believed to have fallen for a hoax claiming that the popular website will close its doors on March 15th. A bogus news story, published by the “Weekly World News” said that Mark Zuckerberg had told reports that “managing [Facebook] has ruined my life. I need to put an end to all the madness.” In a panic, users have spread the story far and wide across internet. Facebook later, debunked the hoax via its Twitter account.

MARK SELBY, NOKIA’S VICE PRESIDENT OF INDUSTRY COLLABORATIONS

“NOKIA IS KEEN TO UNDERSTAND THE IMPLICATIONS FOR THE PRIVACY OF CONSUMERS, AS WELL AS REGULATIONS AND POLICIES CONCERNING COMMERCIAL SERVICES,”

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

HTC Brings Mozart to India with auto focus and Xenon flash that’s capable of 720p HD video Windows Phone 7 device to officially recording, a 1GHz Snapdragon land in India is another HTC phone, processor, 576MB of RAM and 512MB the HTC 7 Mozart. Priced at Rs. 26,490 of ROM, GPS and A-GPS support, (MOP), the Mozart is cheaper than stereo FM with RDS, 8GB of internal its punctual WP7 sibling, the HTC storage, and a large 1300 mAh HD7, by about Rs. 3,500 - presumably battery that provides up to 6 hours because of the smaller screen size. and 40 minutes of 2G talk time, and The HTC 7 Mozart comes packing high-fidelity audio with SRS and Dolby 5 hours and 30 minutes of 3G talk Mobile sound enhancement, remaining time. It weighs in at a nice and hefty 130 grams. true to its namesake musical genius. All in all, the phone sure seems like The phone also features Microsoft it would be able to stand up to the best Zune integration, so that users can in the market today, but the strangely synch media on their HTC 7 Mozart enough, it does not support storage with their PC. expansion with microSD Unlike the HD7, which card. While Microsoft launched in partnership with The windows 7 device will be seems to have some strange Airtel, another carrier has available for ideas about how microSD made its WP7 intentions plain expansion should work on – Tata DoCoMo. Subscribers of Windows Phone 7, the lack the operator will get exclusive of a card slot on a device data plans for the device. that has just 8GB of internal Other specs of the phone storage is a bit…strange. include an 8MP camera

TECH TRENDS | It looks like the second

` 26,490

Enterprise Apps Poised to Take Off in 2011 TECH TRENDS | A new Kelton

Research sponsored by Sybase highlights that this year 90 percent of IT managers surveyed are planning to implement new mobile applications and nearly one in two believe that successfully managing mobile applications will top their priority list. It further adds that nine in ten (90 percent) IT managers reported they will implement new mobile applications this year, Almost a quarter (21 percent) looking to introduce 20 or more applications into their organization. In addition, they anticipate supporting about eight different mobile platforms

90 % IT managers reported they will implement new mobile applications this year

or operating systems by the end of 2011. Among the issues, IT managers report that possible data security issues with mobile applications cause more problems than implementation.

INTERVIEW KEN STEINHARDT, VP, ENTERPRISE BMTS AND CTO, CUSTOMER OPERATIONS, EMC CORPORATION

IT NEXT: What kind of evolution do you see in virtualisation technologies going forward? KEN STEINHARDT: Virtualisation has been there since the mainframe era and the flexibility and the barriers to change today is so different and so much lesser than they were back then. The barriers to change back then were that the applications and databases tended to be unique to individual server platforms , they could never run on anyone else’s load. But today through standardisation, software and the interconnects, the barriers to change are nowhere near what they were back then, so it’s a lot easier to get from one place to another. Do you also see public clouds being completely neutral wherein you can shift your data from one cloud to another? This has become a huge obstacle today. A particular public cloud infrastructure can be very much of a lock in today, which can be a problem. The industry needs some standardisation, from a cloud perspective. Any specific technology EMC has or would really bullish? There are a couple of technologies. First is the concept called Fully Automated Storage Tearing(FAST) which is the ability for the storage system instead of having to be a specific tier. The other is de-duplication. I believe that virtually all environments at source, at target would benefit over the next time especially over the next few years with deduplication. By Varun Aggarwal

ITNEXT | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1

UPDATE

Cyber Attack Toolkits use on Rise: Symantec In 2010, Zeus 2.0 was advertised for up to US $8000

TECH TIDINGS| As attack kits become more accessible and relatively easier to use, they are being utilised much more widely, a report by security, storage and systems management solutions provider major Symantec has said. This has attracted traditional criminals who would otherwise lack the technical expertise into cybercrime, fueling a self-sustaining, profitable, and increasingly organised global economy, the report said. The report includes an overview of these kits as well as attack methods, kit types, notable attacks, and attack kit evolution. It also includes a discussion of attack kit features, traffic generation,

NEWS @

PHOTO GRAPHY:PHOTOS .CO M

BLOG

and attack kit activity. Attack toolkits are software programs that can be used by novices and experts alike to facilitate the launch of widespread attacks on networked computers. These kits enable the attacker to easily launch numerous pre-written threats against computer systems. The study also said that popularity and demand has driven up the cost of attack kits. Organizations and end users should ensure that all software is up-to-date with vendor patches. Asset and patch management solutions may help to ensure systems are compliant and deploy patches to systems that are not up-to-date.

TECH TRENDS

Comviva to Provide platform sol Comviva, the mobile solutions company has entred into a strategic partnership with airtel bangladesh to provide messaging solutions under its Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD), Short Message Service Center (SMSC) and BMG (Bulk Messaging Gateway) portfolio. The company adds that the Framework to launch applications and rapidly evolve services will drastically reduce overall cost around airtel bangladeshâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s operator portal. The solution will also provide airtel bangladesh with a single-window web-based environment to access, create, execute and manage services. It will optimally deliver messages with minimal latency during periods of intense continuous traffic. Rich SMS features such as SMS Upload, SMS Storage, SMS Forward, SMS Copy, Auto Reply, Email notification, SMS Signature and web will facilitate airtel bangladesh to offer unique and innovative services to the Airtel subscribers. It has also deployed its high capacity SMS platform that delivers cross-carrier messaging for enterprise customers, to help airtel generate new revenue stream.

WHY IS STEVE JOBS LEAVING APPLE? AT MY REQUEST, THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS HAS GRANTED ME A MEDICAL LEAVE OF ABSENCE SO I CAN FOCUS ON MY HEALTH Apple CEO Steve Jobs sent the following email to all Apple employees

I will continue as CEO and be involved in major strategic decisions for the company. I have asked Tim Cook to be responsible for all of Appleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s day to day operations. I have great confidence that Tim and the rest of the executive management team will do a terrific job executing the exciting plans we have in place for 2011. F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT