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FOR THE CIOs. BY THE CIOs. M AY 2 0 2 1
RISHIKESH KAMAT VICE PRESIDENT – PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, NTT GLOBAL DATA CENTERS AND CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE, INDIA
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EDITOR’S LETTER There is of course a certain level of discomfort among the IT workers. I know there is a huge surge in the employment but the availability right candidate is a challenge. Projects are on the first forward mode. Therefore, it is highly needed that the OEMs should be extending their cooperation with the ecosystem to bring best offer to the customers to close the deals. IT leaders who used to be hesitant to openly discussing about their emerging tech requirements are now open about it. Veeam Data Protection Report 2021 says 96 per cent of organizations will accelerate cloud usage. At the same time 82% of organizations have an availability gap and 56 per cent of data cannot be recovered. It means after cyber security BCP including DC and DR are the next big thing apart from digital technologies.
BUSINESS TO BOUNCE BACK
Hello Friends.
Dear IT Leaders Whether business India to bounce back is a big question? We all are hopeful about it. Very senior business leaders have predicted it positively but the market situation does not look good. This is a very difficult time due to the second wave of Covid-19 and lockdowns around the country. We can see there is a growing demand of various solutions – especially cyber security and digital technologies. The need in the market appears to be increasing due to unbridled cyber security breaches and criminal activities. At the same time due to the work from home environment the enterprises are making migration of their assets to the cloud and adopting digital applications to engage with their customers and vendors. Gartner Forecasts Worldwide Security and Risk Management Spending to Exceed $150 Billion in 2021. Gartner further predicts that the smallest but fastest growing market segment is cloud security, particularly cloud access security brokers (CASB).
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ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
CONTENTS
FOR THE CIOs. BY THE CIOs.
Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Chief Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra
V O L U M E 0 6 | I S S U E 0 2 | MAY 2021 | W W W . E N T E R P R I S E I T W O R L D . C O M
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Editorial~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 04 News~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06
20
24
22
AI
GUEST TALK
SECURITY
SHRIDAR SUBRAMANIAN
K BHASKHAR
BECKY WATKINS
“Amid the pandemic crisis, RiT Tech’s Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) tools, provide a lifeline for the data centre network”
“8 Ransomware Prevention Strategies for Healthcare Providers”
“Five Essentials to thrive in the new hybrid working environment”
“How Artificial Intelligence and Chat Bots are Enhancing Medical Experiences for Patients”
ASSAF SKOLNIK
STORY
26
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
5
ITWORLD
ROUND UP
Manufacturing Saw a 300% Increase in Attack B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M
Application attacks spike, accounting for 67% of all attacks as remote-access becomes a common vulnerability NTT Ltd’s 2021 Global Threat Intelligence Report (GTIR) reveals Healthcare, manufacturing, and finance industries all saw an increase in attacks (200%, 300%, and 53% respectively), with these top three sectors accounting for a combined total of 62% of all attacks in 2020, up 11% from 2019. It also shows how hackers are shifting their attention from remote working to essential industries. As organizations race to offer more virtual, remote access through the use of client portals, applicationspecific and web-application attacks spiked, account6
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
ing for 67% of all attacks, which has more than doubled in the past two years. Healthcare bore the brunt of these attacks from its shift to telehealth and remote care, with 97% of all hostile activity targeted at the industry being web-application or applicationspecific attacks. The GTIR provides insights from NTT’s Cybersecurity Advisory that applies a maturity score of an industry’s security program, with a higher number indicating a more mature plan of action. Concerningly, healthcare and manufacturing have relatively low maturity scores of only 1.02 and 1.21, respectively. These have decreased from 2019’s baseline of 1.12 and 1.32, while attack rates have significantly risen.
D ATA BRIEFING
Despite the Global Semiconductor Shortage, the PC Market Continues to Surge with Expected Growth of 18.1% in 2021
Source: IDC India Reports
ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
Study Shows Public Sector Is Accelerating Hybrid Cloud Adoption
Nutanix announced the global public sector industry findings of its third annual Enterprise Cloud Index Report, measuring organizations’ plans for adopting private, hybrid and public clouds. The findings point to a concentrated modernization effort throughout the sector over the past few months, with 70 percent of respondents saying COVID-19 has caused IT to be viewed more strategically in their organizations. This COVID-19-spurred push is especially notable, given that the public sector has struggled with IT modernization efforts. While public sector organizations have historically grappled with regulations that deter telework, the pandemic forced them to take necessary steps to securely support a remote workforce. Nearly half (48 percent) of global public sector respondents, said their organizations had no employees working remotely one year ago. However, since the onset of the pandemic, the sector has scaled its number of remote workers, with only 15 percent of respondents reporting employing zero remote workers today. In order to effectively support this growing remote workforce, organizations
CIO
8
have begun strategically evaluating their cloud models – with more than three-fourths (82 percent) of global public sector respondents identifying hybrid cloud as the ideal IT operating model for their organization. Other key findings of this year’s report include: l Modernization is dependent on decommissioning legacy architectures: In 2019, 53 percent of global public sector organizations exclusively ran traditional, non-cloud-enabled datacenters. In 2020, that percentage dropped to 22 percent. Organizations are choosing to invest in private and public clouds instead, which will be integrated into a cohesively managed hybrid environment. Over the next five years, the public sector expects a 20-percentage-point drop in legacy datacenter installations and a substantial 43-point increase in hybrid cloud deployments. l Telework remains top-of-mind: 43 percent of public sector respondents reported a direct increase in their public cloud investments as a direct result of the pandemic – eight points higher than the global average.
Hitachi Vantara Enhances Lumada Portfolio
Hitachi Vantara announced advancements to the Lumada software platform and industry solutions to accelerate the digital transformation of industrial processes. These offerings help deliver real-time, actionable insights that accelerate the ability to predict problem areas, streamline production and maintenance, and create a connected supply chain – resulting in enhanced operational efficiency, minimal revenue disruptions, and product quality improvements. Improving manufacturing operational outcomes involves comprehensive data analysis and integration from thousands of moving parts across remote and industrial environments. Lumada is Hitachi’s digital platform that connects data, assets, and people to fuel industry innovation. It is the software foundation for Lumada Industry Solutions, that extract data-driven insight and drive better operational and business outcomes.
EVENTS
17 JUN 2021
25 JUN 2021
13 JUL 2021
1 PM Eastern Rebooting Customer Retention: Data-Backed Experiences for an Improved Customer Journey
IST 2:00 PM Cloud Partners Event
IST 2:00 PM DC Event
BY: REUTERS
BY: SME CHANNELS
BY: ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
lobal Study: 63% of Digital Leaders in AsiaPacific Expect Long-term Changes to Where and How People Work
S/HE SAID IT
GANESH IYER
BUSINESS LEADER, GOVERNMENT SEGMENT, NUTANIX INDIA
“We have been successful in translating this value to public sector undertakings across various projects and key initiatives, all of which are directed towards improving citizen services.”
Equinix, the world’s digital infrastructure company, today announced the findings of its annual global study of the views of IT decision-makers on the biggest technology trends affecting businesses worldwide and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on digital infrastructure plans. Surveying 2,600 IT decision-makers from diverse enterprises across 26 countries in the Americas, Asia-Pacific and EMEA regions. In Asia-Pacific, the study reveals: • 57% of businesses have rearchitected their IT infrastructure to meet new remote and hybrid working demands, with tech budgets increasing to accelerate digital transformation • 63% of digital leaders believe there will be long-term changes to where and how people work within their organization • More than half (60%) of the companies still intend to expand into new regions, countries or metros, despite the disruption experienced as a result of COVID-19 Digital transformation in the post-
QUICK BYTE ON
pandemic future Digitization and business investment in digital infrastructure have increased as a result of COVID-19. 46% of the digital leaders surveyed in Asia-Pacific said they have accelerated digital transformation plans because of the pandemic, while 44% said their budgets have been increased to satisfy the rapid growth in digital demands. There has also been a major overhaul of IT strategies to meet the challenges emerging from the pandemic. In Asia-Pacific, about two thirds said they have revised their IT strategy as a result of COVID-19, while 64% said they want to invest in technology to be more agile post-COVID. Asked about their biggest priorities for their organization’s digital strategy, 76% of respondents in Asia-Pacific reported digitizing their IT infrastructure was a top priority, with 61% saying they see interconnection as a key facilitator of digital transformation—up 12% on last year’s results.
“Technology and engineering services have the potential to not only enable business benefits but also empower organizations to proactively enhance environmental, social and governance related pursuits.” A M I T C H A D H A , C E O & M A N A G I N G D I R E CTO R , L & T T E C H N O LO G Y S E R V I C E S
SECURITY
Tenable Research Finds Scammers Made Over $10 Million with Fake Cryptocurrency “Satnam Narang, Staff Research Engineer at Tenable, the Cyber Exposure company, found dozens of compromised social media accounts that peddled fake cryptocurrency scams in the lead up to SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Light. Narang estimates that scammers netted over $10 million (USD) between May 7-9. Narang’s analysis revealed that scammers stole over $9.4 million in Dogecoin, $609,000 Bitcoin and at least $423,000 Ethereum.”
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
TTBS highlights imperatives of digitization for manufacturing sector and its emerging growth opportunities
Ness Accelerates Industry Cloud Strategy for Financial Services with the Acquisition of Risk Focus Ness Digital Engineering, a global provider of Digital Transformation solutions and a portfolio company of The Rohatyn Group (TRG), is pleased to announce its acquisition of Risk Focus, a leading consulting and advisory firm specializing in Digital Transformation for Financial Services. “Adding Risk Focus’s core competence in Digital Transformation services to Ness’s core DNA in product engineering strengthens Ness’ position as a full lifecycle digital engineering firm offering digital advisory through scaled engineering services,” said Ranjit Tinaikar, Chief Executive Officer, Ness. “With this acquisition, Ness also continues to execute on its strategy to build strong industry expertise in Financial Services and bolster our competencies in cloud and
EXECUTIVE
data services.” Headquartered in New York, Risk Focus creates measurable business impact with technology expertise, business insight, and a nimble delivery process, including shorter implementation cycles that allow for feedback, adaptability, and quick delivery of results. The company is an Advanced AWS Partner with the Financial Services, Migration and DevOps competencies, as well as Premier Confluent Systems Integrator, making it one of the top 5 AWS partners in the Financial Services industry. “Joining Ness allows Risk Focus to better serve our clients by adding scale-out engineering capabilities to the Risk Focus expertise in Digital Transformation,” said Vassil Avramov, Founder and CEO of Risk Focus.
Tata Tele Business Services (TTBS), India’s leading enabler of connectivity and collaboration solutions for businesses, hosted CXO Round Table Discussion with industry leaders form the manufacturing sector on digital adoption and emerging growth opportunities. The discussion centered around the key technologies disrupting manufacturing sector, overall adoption of the advanced and affordable technologies to build in resilience and scale -up the growth quotient and make these manufacturing entities future ready. CXO talk is an industry platform developed by TTBS wherein SME’s secure technological know -how, learn from industry leaders, gain ideas, and bring the community together for overall growth of the sector. Manufacturing sector in SME segment is not efficient enough to adopt advanced technology on account of lack of awareness, dynamic nature of digital technologies and lack of knowledge of inherent technological capabilities. But at the same time, digitization has become necessary especially post pandemic as the enterprises figure out new ways of manufacturing, building resilience in their supply chains and making their distributed workforce more secure and collaborate in more meaningful ways.
MOVEMENT
Bahwan CyberTek appoints Chetan Desai as COO – Global Operations
Clover Infotech elevates Prashant Parab to CBO and Neelesh Kripalani to CTO
CSS Corp to Appoint Sunil Mittal as its Chief Executive Officer
10 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
Former Trident and Rolta CXO IT Rajesh Garg joins Yotta as EVP and CDO
Anuj Kharbanda to lead Infopercept Consulting in UK
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
BOOK
SHELF
Winning in the Digital Age: Seven Building Blocks of a Successful Digital Transformation
GLOBAL UPDATE
BY
NITIN SETH (AUTHOR)
Splunk Intends to Acquire TruSTAR Extends Security Analytics Leadership With Cloud-Native Intelligence Platform Capabilities Splunk Inc. has signed a definitive agreement to acquire TruSTAR, a San Franciscobased cloud-native security company providing a data-centric intelligence platform. With this acquisition, Splunk will advance its ability to offer the world’s most comprehensive security solutions in the cloud. With TruSTAR, Splunk further expands its existing security capabilities, giving customers the ability to access all their data to cut through complexity, drive highly effective detection and respond to threats faster and in an autonomous fashion. “In today’s data age, integrated and automated intelligence is critical to accelerate detection, streamline response and increase cyber resilience. TruSTAR’s cloud-native solution centralizes threat data from a wide array of sources so it can be seamlessly integrated into Security Analytics and SOAR workflows to provide more autonomous, higher efficacy security operations,” said Sendur Sellakumar, Senior Vice President, Cloud and Chief Product Officer, Splunk. “We’re excited to bring TruSTAR’s
visionary, data-centric platform into our security offerings as Splunk continues to deliver best in class security capabilities for our customers.” TruSTAR’s Intelligence Platform enables customers to operationalize all sources of security intelligence across their ecosystem of teams, tools and partners. With TruSTAR’s capabilities added to the Splunk Data-to-Everything Platform, customers will be able to autonomously and seamlessly enrich their detection and response workflows with normalized intelligence from third party threat intelligence sources as well as from their internal, historical intelligence sources. Ultimately, this will increase the effectiveness of their detections, accelerate automation and reduce the time it takes for customers to detect and remediate issues before they have an impact on the business. TruSTAR customers will also be able to take advantage of community and freemium feeds from several of Splunk’s commercial threat intelligence integration partners including Intel471, Recorded Future and Mandiant.
PRICE
RS. 524.00 (HARDCOVER) About The Book The practical handbook for understanding and winning in the post-COVID digital age and becoming a 21st century leader. For every enterprise and its leaders, the digital age is a roller-coaster ride with more than its fair share of thrills and spills.
Dell EMC PowerProtect Backup Service now Available in India
Dell Technologies introduces Dell PowerProtect Backup service in India and expanded services
for Google Cloud and AWS customers. The Dell EMC PowerProtect Backup Service offers cloud-based data protection designed to deliver SaaS applications including M365 and Salesforce without increasing IT complexity. PowerProtect Backup Service can also protect data on endpoint devices, such as desktops and laptops. In addition to ensuring data is recoverable, the service provides eDiscovery, data security, and compliance capabilities. “The current times have altered the approach of Indian businesses not only towards digital transformation but also towards data protection.
With the rapid adoption of remote work culture and new-age technologies, the external threat environment has also grown exponentially, which has resulted in increased incidents of cyberattacks. Therefore, businesses have realized that in order to maintain their business continuity and to deliver innovative solutions they need to safeguard their data capital and hence deploy better data protection strategies”, said Ripu Bajwa, Director & General Manager, Data Protection Solutions, Dell Technologies, India. “Data protection is not a one-size fits all proposition and Dell Technologies understands that. MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
11
ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
Fortinet Extends FortiEDR Capabilities with Focus on Automation, Integration and Professional Services
Fortinet announced enhancements to the company’s FortiEDR solution, whose customer adoption has been growing exponentially. These include new MITRE ATT&CK tags for system activity, new managed detection and response (MDR) service options and the recently announced extended detection and response (XDR) capability. With the latest additions, organizations of all sizes can now benefit from advanced endpoint protection with automated endpoint detection and response (EDR), including: • Cloud-native Endpoint Security: Helps secure workers’ computers on and off the network, providing visibility into and reduces the endpoint attack surface with a lightweight agent whose operation is transparent to users. • Integrated Endpoint Protection (EPP) with EDR: Not only does this approach prevent attacks pre- and post-execution, but can also detect threats that bypass the prevention layer and quickly respond to minimize business impact.
QNu Labs signs a MoU with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham to further the scope for Quantum Technology in India QNu Labs, a quantum resilience company (World’s fourth and India’s first company to build a deployable “Quantum-Safe Security” product) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Amrita University), for further research, education and development of quantum-based security and computing technologies in India. The MoU will see joint efforts towards advancing the study and exploring potential commercial applications of quantum safe internet technologies. At the outset, around 15 faculties, researchers and post-graduate students from Kollam and Bangalore campuses are set to be benefited by this association which will then expand to include various batches of graduate program students. The MoU will also entail workshops and seminars, training sessions, a quantum security research and development center and electives of quantum security technologies offered as part of the M.Tech curriculum. This collaborative agreement will be focused on notably classical security analysis of QKD (Quantum Key Distribution), analysis of randomness, PQC (Post Quantum Cryptography), research in optics and simulation to broaden the scope of learning and a commitment to foster awareness of the benefits of quantum communication technology for quantum safe internet and telecommunications network security.
LTI Launches Operational Technology Transformation Solution with ServiceNow Larsen & Toubro Infotech (LTI) has launched ServiceNow based Operational Technology Management solution for the manufacturing industry. The solution aims to address the latent demand of the industry to have digital workflows for Operational Transformation (OT) Service Management. The solution leverages LTI’s tech and domain expertise along with digital workflow enabling capabilities of ServiceNow, to deliver a scalable and secure solution for manufacturing operations using the Now Platform. This will help manufacturers embrace the concept of OT Management, in 12 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
addition to IT Service Management (ITSM) practices. The solution also secures critical infrastructure from potential external threats and attacks, by helping ensure the foundational elements of OT cybersecurity. With insights from this solution, manufacturers can derive business benefits such as assured systems availability and rapid resolution of issues through a common service data model for manufacturing operations. Key features of the solution include: • OT Visibility: Enabling digital view of all OT assets along with location, configuration and health.
DIGEST INDIA’S LEADING EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS COLLABORATE WITH IBM ON QUANTUM COMPUTING EDUCATION & RESEARCH IBM will allow over-the-cloud access to its quantum systems for top-tier institutions of India to accelerate advanced training and research in quantum computing. The faculty and students of Indian Institute of Science Education & Research (IISER) – Pune, IISER – Thiruvananthapuram, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Jodhpur, IIT- Kanpur, IIT – Kharagpur, IIT – Madras, Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) Kolkata, Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Delhi, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) Mumbai and the University of Calcutta will be able to access IBM quantum systems, quantum learning resources and, quantum tools over IBM Cloud for education and research purposes. BARRACUDA LAUNCHES CLOUD APPLICATION PROTECTION 2.0 TO DEFEND WEB APPS Barracuda Networks announced significant new capabilities for its Cloud Application Protection platform to deliver an additional level of protection and make it even easier for organizations to secure their applications in a digitally transformed world. These new services and features include client-side protection, the ability to deploy containerized WAF nodes, and an auto-configuration engine. In addition, Cloud Application Protection now leverages machine learning, vulnerability scanning and remediation, and Advanced Threat Protection to provide active threat intelligence for more powerful protection. TATA TECHNOLOGIES AND LOGILITY PARTNER TO PROVIDE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION SOLUTIONS FOR THE GLOBAL SUPPLY CHAIN Tata Technologies has partnered with Logility, Inc., a leader in supply chain innovation, to offer digital supply chain solutions to its customers. In the new normal, enterprises are being challenged to mitigate the effects of supply chain disruptions, such as tackling supplydemand uncertainties, and maintaining continuity in the near term. Agility and resilience of supply chains along with proper demand planning are crucial for better transparency and concurrency for them to win in the marketplace.
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
MANAGEMENT
MANTRA
Failures are a part of life and the way to face them is through perseverance. Narayana Murthy, Co-Founder, Infosys
Veeam Demonstrated the Future of Modern Data Protection at VeeamON 2021
Veeam Software showcased a glimpse into its roadmap through 2021 and how the company will continue provide its customers with the most advanced data protection across all environments – cloud, virtual, SaaS, Kubernetes and physical. At VeeamON 2021, the leading event to
Accelerate Your Data Protection Strategy, Veeam provided a select preview of the future, showcasing innovations around upcoming updates to its single platform to protect and manage ALL workloads. Due in the second half of 2021, Veeam demonstrated key innovations of cloudnative solutions for AWS, Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, Microsoft Office 365 and the first integration of Kasten K10 for Kubernetes into Veeam Platform. “Over the past 18 months, Veeam enjoyed its most prolific product launch period, bringing to market more than 20 new offerings such as Veeam V10 and V11, Veeam Backup for Google Cloud, updates for Veeam Backup for Microsoft Azure, AWS & Microsoft Office 365 and many, many more,” said Danny Allan, CTO & SVP, Product Strategy at Veeam. “We are continually innovating and know customers are looking to protect their data across multi-cloud environments; with Veeam’s single platform we are helping our customers ensure that every piece of data, every workload is safe, secure and easily recoverable no matter where they reside. We are proud of our success, and that we are now #2 in the market, and we know that this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
NxtGen Infinite Datacenter develops India’s first fully integrated Video analytics service
NxtGen has announced the launch of its Video Analytics as-a-service model, introducing Covid19 Surveillance and Team Management bundles, targeted to counter workplace challenges posed by the pandemic. The newly launched offering/ solution is a fully integrated end to end solution, powered by AI/ML, under a single operational fee coupled with advance infrastructure and software understanding from a single company. This solution enables businesses/ organisations to achieve agility and continuity in an environment where reporting at work is imperative/ essential in these time with making minimal or no change to the existing surveillance infrastructure. Furthermore, it will aid workplaces to address the ever-changing ‘back to work’ environment in an effective manner and significantly contribute to make them future ready. NxtGen’s Video Analytics solution offers fully managed and pre integrated digital solutions coupled with ease of deployment, a single operational fee for infrastructure, support and software, reducing the complexity for the customer and quicker deployment of software, making this offering a first of its kind in the market.
Nokia’s GPON Solution to Power AirFiber Networks’ fiber Expansion in Bangalore and Tamil Nadu, India Nokia today announced that AirFiber Networks , an Internet Service Provider (ISP) in Bangalore and Tamil Nadu in South India, will use its broadband solution to launch high speed data services and expand its network to better serve its subscribers. Nokia’s Gigabit Passive Optical Networking (GPON) solution will enable AirFiber Networks to provide high-speed broadband services in Bangalore and underpenetrated areas across the state of Tamil Nadu, aiming to reach over 100,000 subscribers in a year. The deployment will start in April and will be completed over the next few months.
Once deployed, AirFiber Networks’ subscribers will be able to access network for remote working, and other services over broadband connection such as remote education and healthcare . Nokia’s GPON solution includes both network and customer premise equipment. Nokia will also provide Network Management Services to ensure timely and efficient execution of the project. Nokia’s fiber access network will help Airfiber Networks establish a strong foundation to easily upgrade to next-generation PON technologies, which allow service providers to rapidly boost capacity and provide superior speeds.
Sasidev MG, Director, AirFiber Networks, said: “Robust and fast broadband has become our lifeline as learning and businesses have moved online. We are committed to providing resilient and world-class broadband services to our subscribers. Nokia is a global technology leader, and we are confident that its solution and expertise will help us address the growing and evolving needs of our subscribers.”
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
Cloud4C Announces Next Generation Application Modernization Services in Partnership with CloudHedge
StorageCraft Strengthens Backup and Recovery Portfolio with New Releases StorageCraft announced the general availability of the next major releases of ShadowXafe and OneXafe Solo, the company’s flagship data and systems backup and recovery software, and its plug-and-protect backup and recovery appliance. Both solutions now support multi-cloud environments with enhanced security features to give customers improved flexibility, performance, economics, and assuredness from their cloud and hybrid data backup protection and recovery investments. As SMBs increasingly embrace multi-cloud strategies and adopt different cloud providers according to price-performance for specific workloads, a single, centrally managed data protection environment that is easy to manage and simplifies workflow is vital. Simultaneously, the constant threat from cyber-attacks
requires companies to ensure they can recover applications and data quickly if and when disaster strikes. To address these needs, StorageCraft has enhanced ShadowXafe and OneXafe Solo to provide a one-stop data backup and recovery solution that can handle all the complexity of major and multi-cloud environments through a single, seamless management console. Choice, Flexibility, and Scale: ShadowXafe and OneXafe Solo now allow partners and customers of StorageCraft, an Arcserve Company, to leverage multiple cloud storage providers for data backup and replication. Both solutions provide the option to back up and support native replication into third-party clouds, including GCP, AWS, Azure Blob Storage, and Wasabi.
Cloud4C announced its partnership with CloudHedge to deliver next-generation application modernization services to businesses worldwide. The services are aimed at helping application and IT leaders modernize their landscape of legacy applications, hardware components, databases, platforms and ecosystems built through old technologies resulting in creation of business value. With its extensive enterprise experience, Cloud4C will bring its global reach across 25 countries to this partnership, while CloudHedge will deliver its modernization expertise and the ability to work with multiple cloud providers. CloudHedge will complement Cloud4C’s technological expertise in the Application Modernization with automation and tooling specific to the app level modernization for containerization to Kubernetes and Docker containers on the cloud. For WebSphere based applications hosted on AIX to be modernized on x86 based VMs on Cloud, the solution implemented on the cloud by CloudHedge will be monitored and managed by Cloud4C. Speaking on the partnership, Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder and CEO said, “The worldwide application modernization services are expected to cross U$ 24.8 billion by 2025 driven by changing needs of business, advancement in technologies, compelling need to migrate workloads to cloud platforms, improved software functionalities.”
Edtech major LEAD named on GSV Edtech 150 LEAD School, a major K-12 EdTech player, that transforms affordable private schools via its Integrated System, has been named to The GSV EdTech 150, which recognizes the world’s leading, most transformational education technology companies. LEAD School was chosen from among 2,000 venture capital and private equity-backed private companies across several evaluation factors: revenue scale, revenue growth, user reach, geographic diversification, and margins profile. The ASU+GSV Summit estimates that these 150 companies together reach approximately 3 billion 14 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
people — close to half of the global population — and generate approximately $20 billion in revenue. LEAD’s unique Integrated System for schools has driven 3X growth in 2020 by helping schools deliver uninterrupted learning whether online, hybrid or in physical classrooms. The company currently caters to over 800k students across 2,000+ schools. Having reached this remarkable milestone, LEAD is well on its way to cater to 25,000 schools in the next five years with its mission of making excellent education accessible and affordable to every child in the country.
LEAD School Co-founder and CEO Sumeet Mehta said, “We are delighted to be recognized in GSV EdTech 150. We are the only school focused EdTech company in this list from India. It re-affirms our belief that unless we transform our schools, education in India cannot be transformed. 260 million students go to schools in India and spend 6 hours every day but learning outcomes remain poor. LEAD offers an Integrated School System that significantly improves the performance of schools and helps students succeed not just in year-end exams, but eventual jobs and careers.
FIREEYE // SECURITY
FIREEYE PRODUCTS BUSINESS SELLS TO SYMPHONY TECHNOLOGY GROUP FOR $1.2 BILLION Continued partnership after closing supports customers with reseller relationship and shared product telemetry and frontline threat intelligence
WILLIAM CHISHOLM, MANAGING PARTNER, STG
FireEye has entered into a definitive agreement to sell the FireEye Products business, including the FireEye name, to a consortium led by Symphony Technology Group (STG) in an all-cash transaction for $1.2 billion, before taxes and transactionrelated expenses. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, subject to customary regulatory approvals and closing conditions, and will separate FireEye’s network, email, endpoint, and cloud security products, along with the related security management and orchestration platform, from Mandiant’s controlsagnostic software and services, enabling both organizations to accelerate growth investments, pursue new go-to-market pathways, and focus
innovation on their respective solutions. The FireEye Products business and Mandiant Solutions will continue to operate as a single entity until the transaction closes, allowing management and STG to develop a successful transition of the FireEye Products business to a standalone entity within the STG portfolio. The Company is committed to building and preserving a strong partnership and at closing will enter into agreements designed to maximize the benefits for joint customers. These agreements include a reseller and market cooperation agreement, a strategic collaboration agreement, and a transition services agreement. Customers and partners can expect to receive the full benefit of these agreements as the companies share technology, telemetry, threat intelligence, and expertise. “We believe this separation will unlock our high-growth Mandiant Solutions business and allow both organizations to better serve customers,” said FireEye Chief Executive Officer Kevin Mandia. “After closing, we will be able to concentrate exclusively on scaling our intelligence and frontline expertise through the Mandiant Advantage platform, while the FireEye Products business will be able to prioritize investment on its cloud-first security product portfolio. STG’s focus on fueling innovative market leaders in software and cybersecurity makes them an ideal partner for FireEye Products. We look forward to our relationship and collaboration on threat intelligence and expertise.” “We are extremely impressed by the FireEye Products business and the mission critical role it plays for its customers,” said William Chisholm, Managing Partner at STG. “We believe that there is enormous untapped opportunity for the business that we are excited to crystallize by leveraging our significant security software sector experience and our market leading carve-out expertise.” Mandiant Solutions has established its position as the market leader in threat intelligence and cybersecurity expertise from the front lines, serving enterprises, governments and law enforcement agencies worldwide. With a mission of making every organization secure from cyber threats, Mandiant is scaling its intelligence and expertise through the open Mandiant Advantage SaaS platform. With Mandiant Advantage, customers of all sizes can access the latest threat intelligence from the front lines, automate alert investigation and prioritization, and validate the effectiveness of security controls products from any vendor. MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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BY SANJAY@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
Q&A // DC
R I S H I K E S H
K A M A T
VICE PRESIDENT – PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, NTT GLOBAL DATA CENTERS AND CLOUD INFRASTRUCTURE, INDIA
“The biggest advantage of outsourcing enterprise security to a reliable MSSP like NTT is the scale of expertise and tech resources available.”
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DC // Q&A
THE COMPETITIVE PRI CING AND CAPABILITIES OF NTT MAKE IT ONE OF THE MOST AFFORDABLE MSSPS IN INDIA What is the sense of market sentiment in this pandemic and second outbreak? The IT industry is currently experiencing a very buoyant market sentiment and there has been a major transformation in the global business and technology approach in the last one and a half years. Location independent working has increased the demand for IT resources especially security services apart from enterprise security skills. Across industries and irrespective of business sizes, the pandemic has skyrocketed the need for quality security products and personnel. Why is cyber security one of the major headaches for customers at this time? Across majority of organizations, work-fromhome or anywhere is the new norm. Apart from the leading corporates especially those in the technology sector, most other companies allow employees to login using their personal devices such as laptops and smartphones etc. This spread of online working and remote access has led to a redundancy in corporate perimeters. Hackers, cybercriminals and ransom seekers are constantly on the lookout for one single lapse or breach to enter a company’s networks making them actively seeking cybersecurity solutions and services. Proactive data and network security measures have become essential not only for the safety of confidential company and consumer related information, but also for an organization’s market reputation. There are various consumption models, on-premise, cloud, managed security, according to you which is best and why? The different models work in accordance with the needs of the industry and organizations and all of them have their own use cases. For instance, in the banking sector, there is a need to store
sensitive customer financial data. In such a case, an on-premise model is more amenable to clients. On the other hand, cloud has become the model of choice for organizations that work across geographies and locations. Irrespective of what an organization deploys, managed security services are the most efficient and effective cybersecurity option for all. In the highly competitive as well as risky business environs of today, managed security services providers (MSSP) like NTT Ltd. in India help in mitigating challenges proactively. We work with a large number of clients across all major industries which has given us a thorough understanding of diverse security risks and strategies to overcome them. Operating in different geographies and industries also makes MSSPs well-versed with compliances and policy changes which can help companies remain compliant with regulations such as PCI DSS (Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard) and others. Holistically, an MSSP can work seamlessly across on-premises, cloud and hybrid infrastructures to deliver a wide range of security services such as intrusion detection, unified threat management, managed SIEM, DR and security assessment etc. Are customers ready to outsource security into others’ hands as part of managing and monitoring as a mandate? The pandemic and resultant work-from-home culture have changed a lot of things drastically. The instances of ransomware attacks, hacking and data theft are increasing. Thus, a large number of CISOs are realizing that their internal security teams and tools might not be adequate to handle all the threats in the new normal. There have been multiple instances where the security gaps in an organization’s infrastructure have been exploited and security systems bypassed. Compared to an MSSP, the internal
security teams are mostly hardpressed in terms of resources, time and understanding of the changing security landscape. In the post COVID-19 era, even the fence sitters who were wary of outsourcing their security are moving towards partnering with a reputed MSSP like NTT. The sooner a company makes the move, the better it is likely to be as MSSPs will provide a proactive, affordable and swift security posture against all threats. What is the market size of managed security services in India and who are the major players? The Indian managed security services market is growing rapidly.With the pandemic making business leaders aware of the need for MSSPs, we are set to witness a rapid growth of the ecosystem in the next few years. NTT Ltd. in India is the leading brand in the Indian MSSP sector and there are several other brands like IBM and Tech Mahindra that are active in the domain. Managed Security Services market is rapidly expanding in India. From 2016 onwards, the market is growing by over 24% year-on-year. With digital switch becoming a necessity in the post-pandemic scenario, the rate of growth for MSSPs is bound to be even higher in the years ahead. Today, hundreds of millions of Indians are making financial transactions online and sensitive sectors such as banking, finance, insurance, manufacturing, healthcare, aviation and ecommerce are facing greater cybersecurity challenges than ever. The MSSPs are rapidly investing heavily into developing technologies and human expertise to help clients across all industries operate securely. We are proud to state that NTT is leading the Indian MSS market which has several other prominent global brands such as IBM Security, Orange Business Services, BT, Tata Communications,Tech Mahindra etc. What is the advantage of managed security services? The biggest advantage of outsourcing enterprise security to a reliable MSSP like NTT is the scale of expertise and tech resources available. For instance, NTT has over 2000 highly qualified security experts with experience across all major industry verticals. An MSSP uses the most advanced technologies, global best practices and compliances to proactively offer a holistic security umbrella to its clients.
To access the complete article log on to: www.enterpriseitworld.com
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
17
GUEST ARTICLE // CENTRE REVOLUTION
BY SANJAY@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
HOW THE PANDEMIC HAS ACCELERATED AUSTRALIA’S CONTACT CENTRE REVOLUTION Across the globe, Covid related lockdown restrictions have forced consumers to abandon the brick-and-mortar experience in favour of digital channels. From grocery shopping to banking, when those physical doors closed, new digital ones opened. Australia is no exception to this – with digital disruption accelerating throughout 2020 and well into 2021. For example, more than 1.3 million households shopped online last year, eclipsing all previous years in terms of digital shopping habits. In fact, data from Australia Post revealed eCommerce locked in three years’ worth of growth in 2021, driving a digital revolution that we were simply not quite ready for. The shift towards digital doesn’t end with retail. Government agencies such as Centrelink, experienced record numbers of Australians seeking help with issues from welfare payments to healthcare queries. The lack of in-person engagement resulted in contact centres receiving unprecedented call volumes, coming from various channels including online chat. This is not surprising given contact centres now operate on the front-line of crisis to offer guidance and support to consumers. At the same time, however, contact centres themselves have been grappling with international lockdowns and challenges such as remote work. These issues triggered widespread contact centre failures, resulting in seemingly endless wait times and disgruntled customers. Enabling remote agents and enhancing customer service via the cloud Before the pandemic, many organisations placed their digital transformation initiatives, such as 18 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
cloud migrations, on a multi-year timeline. However, in the face of the pandemic, these projects had to speed up to ensure people and operations were kept online during a period of chaos. Contact centres were part of this revolution. They recognised a need to become more agile in their operations and more flexible with their technical infrastructures. As a result, the cloud-based contact centre market is growing, promising greater levels of availability, productivity and reliability to businesses while allowing teams to better serve customers. For example, by giving agents access to the tools they need to perform their job anytime, anywhere. This enables customer service teams to continue operating regardless of local lockdown measures or work-from-home mandates.
BUT THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING. What this means for the future of customer service and experiences If cloud-hosted operations promise to provide better workforce flexibility (resulting in increased agent productivity), then customer experience (CX) has the chance to evolve and improve. Let’s not forget, those businesses that can support their customers with a quality CX program have a lot to gain in terms of customer loyalty. With happier contact centre agents, operating remotely, organisations will be able to replicate positive in-store experiences in a digital environment. This, in turn, improves the customer experience which can positively impact everything from customer retention and staff morale to increasing profits.
Contact centres and the future of work The pandemic has highlighted to companies that they no longer need to offshore customer service agents. In fact, we are starting to see more Australian companies onshore (or re-shore) their contact centre agents. The notion being, if agents can work remotely in low-cost locations (such as at home), they can be even more productive than before. Many companies plan to permanently keep their call centre agents working from home and are prioritising security and consistency for remote workers. This is aligned with recent industry research, which has found 61 per cent of Australians believe a hybrid working model is the most productive, and 47 per cent of employers are open to retaining working from home as part of their culture. So, where does this leave us now? There’s no doubt Covid has made customer service teams re-evaluate and pivot their digital transformation initiatives and business operations. Cloud-based contact centre solutions have shown themselves to be part of the revolution. They have quickly demonstrated the value they hold to the industry; enabling teams to remain operational and supportive regardless of the circumstances. But Australia’s contact centre digitalisation journey has only just begun. Who will come out on top? The jury’s still out on that. What we do know is, businesses that are best prepared to provide exceptional CX, anytime, anyplace and any situation, have the most potential.
CENTRE REVOLUTION // GUEST ARTICLE
ALOK KULKARNI CEO & CO-FOUNDER, CYARA
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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GUEST ARTICLE // AIM
BY SANJAY@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
AMID THE PANDEMIC CRISIS, RIT TECH’S AUTOMATED INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT (AIM) TOOLS, PROVIDE A LIFELINE FOR THE DATA CENTRE NETWORK With Government initiatives such as Digital India and the insatiable demand for data, India is experiencing a significant growth when it comes to the demand of Automated Infrastructure Management in data centre and cloud services. Added to this, the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most critical challenges of our time, has increased the reliance on data centres with limited support substantially. Data centres are experiencing difficult challenges – from availability of onsite staff and supply chains to remotely identifying faults ahead of any potential downtime, which has resulted in the need for intelligent technology solutions. One of the answers to these challenges is automation, enabling data centre operators to become autonomous through a tried and tested concept coined as Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM). What is RiT Tech Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM)? RiT Tech’s PatchView+ Automated Infrastructure Management (AIM) system helps to bring real-time visibility, monitoring and control of all network physical-layer components. Patchview+ automatically identifies the points of failure before it has a direct impact on downtime and escalation by automating the work processes and
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eliminating manual errors. A strong provisioning capability of the AIM system helps in provisioning new equipment and enabling full utilization of all IT assets with 3D visualization of data centre cabinets and floors. How does AIM work? Offering as a combination of hardware and software, AIM brings together both interconnect and cross-connect topologies, supporting different architectures of a data centre, including the Leaf and Spine. This innovation helps IT managers to deploy the system for optimal management of ports, space and control in any type of network by keeping up with the future ongoing demands from 10G – 40G – 100G/400G networks. In addition to all of this, the PatchView+ ID Key, an innovative aspect of AIM, also detects attempts at unauthorized connections to the devices such as switches and servers in real–time. The IP Discovery Module creates a visual map of the complete network which is also updated in real-time, from building and floor level, down to cabinet, rack, device, and port. AIM continuously monitors the network, including all physical connections and data centre environment sensors with detailed reports, alerts and notifications according to pre-set rules, providing vital information such as switch utilization, connectiv-
ity, work orders, and more. How AIM is making a difference in Data Centre Management? Many users/customers have a positive view of RiT Tech AIM tools after using them; according to them, it has the flexibility to convert a passive port to a smart port. Any unauthorized patching changes to servers, panels or switches anywhere across data centre are tracked. If someone connects an unauthorized device, we get to know about it immediately. AIM is also making a difference to operators by providing the opportunity to achieve complete automation, identifying everything from routine tasks to optimising daily operations – whether this is automated and predictive provisioning of assets or automating work orders to reduce duplication and waste or human error. As a pioneer and inventor of AIM, RiT Tech offers the best solution in the market with support for the future network. In India, RiT Tech’s AIM system is implemented over one million ports across the largest airport, largest banks, largest Indian MNC, and other Government and Telecommunication sectors. RiT Tech’s AIM concept is now an integral part of ISO/IEC 18598 standards.
AIM // GUEST ARTICLE
ASSAF SKOLNIK CEO, RIT TECH
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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SECURITY // RANSOMWARE
22 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
RANSOMWARE // SECURITY
8 RANSOMWARE PREVENTION STRATEGIES FOR HEALTHCARE PROVIDERS While cybercriminals promised to stop ransomware attacks on healthcare organizations during the pandemic, it never really happened. According to the Ponemon Institute report, healthcare continued to incur the highest average breach costs at $7.13 million in 2020 – a 10% increase from the previous year for the tenth year in a row. As per CyberPeace Foundation, more than 7 million attacks were recorded between October 1 and November 25 on the healthcare sector in India. And the damages here are measured in millions of dollars and increased risks to priceless patient privacy (and your reputation). With cyber-attacks continuing to evolve and increase, healthcare providers need to look at how they can prevent their organization from suffering the damages that result from ransomware. The following are some ransomware prevention strategies that healthcare providers should consider to keep both company and patient data safe. 1. Filter Inbound Emails: There are lots of choices for email filtering solutions that can serve as your first line of defense. Healthcare providers should look for software or filtering services that proactively scan and block spam, virus, and other threats in real-time before they can wreak havoc. Some use artificial intelligence (AI) to keep up with new threats and adapt defenses, while others use a Bayesian filter to detect and block personalized spam emails. It’s also worth choosing a
solution that is easy to manage via a web browser with customizable settings. 2. Keep Firmware Up to Date: Newly discovered vulnerabilities frequently drive software patches. Healthcare organizations need to establish a regular assessment plan to confirm that all their critical applications, databases, and servers run the latest firmware. And immediately patch any that aren’t. 3. Evaluate Security Systems and Firewalls: With more and more remotely connected devices-including IoT devices that present new potential vulnerabilities-healthcare organizations need to ensure that their endpoint security systems and firewalls work as expected. They also need to make sure that these protections are sufficient to keep their data secure, compliant, and available at all times. For organizations with remote workers, it’s more important than ever that these users connect to your network via a secure virtual private network (VPN). Along the same lines, they need to ensure all patient records and patient processing systems are protected by encrypting all their data-both at rest and in transit. 4. Train People: Cybersecurity education should be a core element of an overall data protection strategy. Team members must be trained so they can spot suspicious emails, attachments, or SMS attacks. They need to be educated and tested
SHRIDAR SUBRAMANIAN, CMO, ARCSERVE
on social engineering attacks to understand that they should never click on a link or download an attachment unless they are 100% sure it is from a known sender. And they should have a general understanding of best practices for protecting devices and data. 5. Take Regular Backups: The best way to mitigate the fallout from a ransomware attack is to be prepared. That means backing up data frequently and replicating copies both to an offsite location and the cloud. Organizations will need to establish their recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) and ensure their backup solution can meet them. They should also look for a backup solution that takes regular, immutable snapshots that can’t be deleted or altered, preventing crypto-ransomware encryption. That way, organizations know their backed-up data is always safe, accessible, and recoverable. 6. Count on The Cloud: Cloud storage gives organizations fast access to offsite data and is one of the pillars of a sound backup strategy. Cloud storage can also be less expensive than on-premises storage while adding a layer of protection. And, while even cloud-based data can be infected with ransomware that’s uploaded with a backup, sound backup practices-see #5 above-can overcome just about any attack. 7. Don’t Pay the Ransom: While an attack will cause significant problems, we recommend that organizations never pay a ransom. Cybercriminals often don’t give access even if companies do pay. It’s worth considering getting ransomware insurance to help mitigate the damage. 8. Be Proactive: Though all above strategies are essential for protecting against ransomware, organizations may still fall victim to a successful attack. That’s where planning makes the difference. With the right hardware, software, and best practices in place, they can recover quickly with minimal damage done. We suggest it’s time for every healthcare organization to get a severe security-health check-up that ensures they have a healthy security posture that can withstand even the most sophisticated ransomware attacks.
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 23
STORY // HYBRID WORK
24 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
HYBRID WORK // STORY
K
B H A S K H A R
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT – BIS SEGMENT, CANON INDIA
FIVE ESSENTIALS TO THRIVE IN THE NEW HYBRID WORKING ENVIRONMENT
T BY SANJAY@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
he COVID-19 pandemic has changed everything about the workplace. From going to office5-6 days a week, to working from home every day– we really have come a long way. With ahybrid working environment becoming the new norm, companies and employees are doing everything possible to ensure a smooth synchronisationbetween remote and office workers. As this new working model is here to stay, there are plenty of things to be kept in mind to ensure a seamless setup and disrupted workflow for the enterprises and the employees. Here is a quick guide of the must-do’s and must-haves to ensure that your ‘hybrid workplace’ productivity does not get hindered: Access to Documents One of the key tasks of a hybrid working environment is having access to documents anytime, and from anywhere. In an office, most of the documents are available in hard copy and we have ready access to them. But accessing those same documents while working from home becomes a challenge. Investment in a secure, serverless solution that enables employees to have ready access to documents is imperative for organizations in the new normal of working from home. Version Control through Smart Solutions
Documentation is often the trickiest task. Not only does it require proper recording and maintenance, but there are also multiplestakeholders who review or access them. Amidst constant back and forth through emails,the original copy tends to get lost and occurrence of duplication is high. This can result in inefficiencies and hamper our workflow.To avoid such circumstances, document management system (DMS) is the way to go as it stores everything in a single system/ over the cloud for ease of accessing documents. The only prerequisite- it should allow real-time edits and collaboration. Plus, you want a solution that tracks a document’s entire version history so you can create an audit trailand restore an older version if necessary. Canon’s cloud-based solutions like Therefore Onlinecan help businesses lift their information-management and workflow-automation technology to the cloud and make them accessible to all workers, no matter the location. Another efficient solution isKofax Power PDFoffered by Canon that allows users to create editable PDF forms tocollaborate on one PDF and convert multiple files into a single PDF. Backup your Data and Stay Safe As we continue to navigate through these tough times, we need proper storage solutions to help us organise our data in a more efficient manner. With the immense number of documents being
produced daily that are clogging up our system, and remote IT teams, there is a dire requirement for efficientstorage operations. The storage infrastructure needs to be more flexible, resilient, secure, and cost effective.Cloud-based document management systems are becoming the need of the hour as they involve no investment in infrastructure. Workflow Automation with Ease and Mobility The requirement for workplaces is to adopt quick, reliable, and transformational automation solutions to facilitate ease of hybrid working and increase operational efficiency. E-mailing documents is always an option, but that is tedious, plus it makes searching for documents a nightmare. Hence, a centralized multi-function device is required in offices, which brings advancements that help businesses reduce the steps required to digitise, archive, and retrieve documents in one remarkable line-up. When in office, with Canon’s imageRUNNERDX Series, you can now reduce time-consuming manual work by streamlining document capture and storage workflows with smart automation. The comprehensive line-up shares a consistent, automated scanning experience through Therefore Online cloud-based solutions, enabling seamless collaboration between remote and office workers. With its advanced hardware and innovative software, it safeguards end-to-end workflows andhelps modernise business processes. And while working from home, use a portable and compact personal scanner like Canon’s P-208IIto digitize key documents. Connection is Key This may sound like a basic requirement, but, is a primary factor to ensure smooth and ongoing work.A simple one, but make sure you have a strong broadband connection. There is nothing more frustrating than being on an importantZoom call, that keeps dropping because of a poor Wi-Fi signal. Video call applications adapt to the connection quality, but they do that at the expense of the video quality. The minimum requirement for effective video calls is 8 Mbps download/ 1.5 Mbps upload, so make sure you have enough bandwidth. If you experience temporary connectivity issues while you are working from home, you can turn your smartphone into a Wi-Fi hotspot as a temporary backup.Do not forget to check with your IT team on VPN connections/ requirements.
MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 25
AI // MEDICAL EXPERIENCES
BY SANJAY@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND CHAT BOTS ARE ENHANCING MEDICAL EXPER IENCES FOR PATIENTS When Microsoft announced its recent deal to acquire Nuance Communications it told the world that the healthcare industry is serious about leveraging the latest and greatest technology solutions to advance the industry significantly into the future. For several years now, healthcare has been leveraging more technology – in all facets including patient care, physician charting and documentation, medical technology and procedures, and especially facility amenities. The deal with Nuance is of particular interest because it will enable more physicians to leverage speech recognition technology as doctors seek to increase the speed of patient documentations through dictation rather than traditional note taking. If anything, the recent pandemic has certainly expedited the way healthcare and insurance professionals are leveraging technology to increase patient care and overall efficiencies to improve the all-around customer experience. Technology Today Isn’t Just Assisting Doctors Resolving customer inquiries faster, and helping patients and their families connect with more of 26 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
the important information they need in a speedier manner are just a few areas where technology has already been playing a larger role for the industry. For several years now, patients have been increasingly interacting with technology during their medical experience, either at home or within the walls of the medical facility. This interaction has not always been smooth, and at times it has created more problems and confusion when patients simply can’t get the answers they need to questions they have. Patient resolutions are a critical and necessary part of the healthcare process today, and it’s important that healthcare organizations and insurers are leveraging the right technology to reach resolutions faster, and more accurately. Helping Patients Resolve Issues Quicker As an example of this, today’s patients want customer service representatives to meet their unique needs and provide them with answers that serve as an extension of their medical providers’ offices. When a question needs to be answered, patients want the right assistance at their fingertips.
To meet this need, healthcare providers are leveraging highly sophisticated customer service technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), self-service and new, advanced chatbots to provide a resolution-centered, stress-free solution. With technology adoption at an all-time high, tools that allow self-service customer response techniques are more important than ever – and embraced. Expanding online options can help alleviate healthcare facilities’ high call volumes. Self-service is a rapidly growing customer care pathway that can make a significant impact on workforce load for hospitals, healthcare facilities and insurers. Self-discovery tools such as interactive tutorials, adaptive FAQs, interactive guides, and videos that contain the simple, DIY answers many patients are looking for reduce contact center volumes, reserving agents to address more complex customer inquiries. These tools allow the patient to solve most of their needs themselves, putting the power back into their own hands. A patient can tap into multimedia-support materials for productive learning that mimics the experience of chatting
MEDICAL EXPERIENCES // AI
BECKY WATKINS
SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT
Editor’s Note:
Becky leads account operations for all healthcare support services and serves as the senior point of contact for our healthcare clients. She brings over 30 years’ experience in the BPO industry with 10 years dedicated to healthcare solutioning and outsourcing. She joined ResutsCX in 2017 following leadership roles at Alorica and APAC Customer Services. Becky has earned a reputation for delivering personal and empathetic human connections between her “health advocate” agent teams and her clients’ customers and members. For more information visit www.results-cx.com.
with a live agent. Self-service tools such as interactive tutorials and videos can also aid patients in their customer care journey by visually showing them how to resolve a problem. In a fully AI-enabled customer support environment, not only are patients relying on self-service and FAQ tutorials themselves;
contact center agents can also retrieve AI-curated content from the same source materials, creating a fast and personal experience for the patient versus agents relying on scripts. What’s more, the AI-powered information hub often allows agents to be quicker and more accurate in resolving a customer issue.
Furthermore, in some instances, patients are seamlessly redirected from a chat bot to a live agent on more technical questions where a higher skillset level of expertise is required to field questions. With the AI-powered resolution technology available today, more healthcare and insurance contact centers can empower the delivery of healthcare through technology. It is becoming clearer each and every day that health and insurance organizations that embrace and accelerate their digital, AI investments can improve patient outcomes, reduce costs, scale appropriately, and arrive at quicker customer resolutions. MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 27
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION // EDGE INTERCONNECTION
Ivo A. Ivanov,
BY SANJAY@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
CEO, DE-CIX International
THE DIGITAL TRIANGLE FOR EDGE INTERCO NNECTION 28 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
D
igital is reshaping how business is done. We are at the cusp of a completely new age in global economics, with enterprises, regardless of size and heritage, redefining their activities and their sectors based on digitalization. Organizations are leveraging their digital strength to reshape their own business models and how business is done within and across entire sectors, including automotive/mobility, healthcare, finance, and media. As they become digital, organizations are needing a new interconnection service regime customized for their needs. New and transformative technologies, like IoT, artificial intelligence, and 5G, are accelerating the pace of change in
EDGE INTERCONNECTION // DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
respective ecosystem involved in the specific environment. This is the only way that the interconnection of millions of sensors in the Internet of Things can be managed efficiently. The solution is intelligently managed software-defined edge interconnection. Each of these factors is dependent on the other two, and it is only when they are interconnected that they can drive digital evolution. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
markets around the globe. These disruptive elements will serve as a “digital interconnection triangle” of future innovation, in turn creating still further interconnection needs at the edge. The heart, hand, and brain of future innovation Interconnection at the edge requires a new way of handling data streams, and a new way of interconnecting players within an ecosystem. The key factors that influence edge interconnection (if you will, the heart, the hand, and the brain of future innovation) are: 5G (the heart): 5G enables the management of a lot of different frequencies, and also enables the transmission of multiple data streams. Designed primarily for maintaining data from a huge number of sensors,
5G represents the foundation for the future evolution of the Internet of Things. IoT (the hand): IoT represents function in the digital interconnection triangle. In a 5G-enabled environment, it will be possible to connect an enormous number of devices within a physically limited space. This will open the way to digitalizing more and more currently purely mechanical processes. But managing the enormous number of sensors and data streams that will result in the Internet of Things in the future will not be possible without the support of artificial intelligence. AI (the brain): AI is essential in this mix in order to create the logic management and maintenance of data streams for innovative use cases and the
Unlocking new use cases with edge interconnection Use cases that reflect this digital interconnection triangle will be many and various, but current scenarios include connected cars and autonomous vehicles on the one hand, and Agriculture 4.0 on the other. In both of these use cases, there is the need for widescale deployment of 5G masts, including edge computing capabilities (edge data centers), and the associated fiber connectivity to local data centers and regional cloud solutions. For these use cases, IoT devices and sensors are needed both within the landscape (in the road and in the soil to measure physical conditions) and on the mobile objects (throughout cars – the car itself can be considered as a mobile edge data center – and on autonomous farm machinery or watering/fertilization systems, for example). From this point, the masses of data that are generated by the given use case need to be intelligently sorted into, among other things: data that needs to be processed locally with extremely low latency to enable rapid response times; data that can be sent to the cloud for processing if the response times are less critical; data that needs to be accessed by specific actors (but not others) in the value chain: and data that will be stored long-term versus data that will be discarded. The list goes on… The complexity of this demands intelligent management of the data streams Edge interconnection – the next generation interconnection DE-CIX is working on developing a solution based on consideration of this triangle. Softwaredefined Internet Exchanges may well be one of the solutions not only to serve these needs efficiently and fast, but also to enable fast and cost-efficient expansion of the interconnection industry with less dependency on hardware. SD will also both bring more dynamism and encourage greater productivity. IoT is the edge, AI is in the edge, and 5G serves the edge: The software-defined exchange provides the solution to the forthcoming digitalization challenge – namely, the ability to operate and manage the data streams of the future. MAY 2021 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 29
THE STUFF // PRODUCTS & SERVICES
CIO TOYS
SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC NEW-AGE ECOSTRUXURE 43U C-SERIES MICRO DATA CENTER
B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M
Schneider Electric announced an expansion of the EcoStruxure Micro Data Center C-Series with the new 43U, offering the greatest capacity in the company’s commercial and office line of micro data centers. Featuring intelligent cooling technology for enhanced protection and energy efficiency, the new 43U C-Series is the only solution on the market that automatically switches between three cooling modes depending on the real-time needs of the system. By helping customers deploy IT simply, securely, and reliably in any edge computing or commercial environment, the new solution is our largest, fully equipped model, eliminating the need for a purpose-built IT room, saving up to 48 percent on CapEx in 20 percent less time. In addition, users will save up to 40 percent in field engineering costs and reduce maintenance costs by 7 percent. Conceptualized and designed in India, the EcoStruxture Micro Data Centers will empower organizations to optimize their operations and increase productivity, cost-efficiency and seamless interoperability. Driven by new-age technologies, this innovation will create instrumental benefits for businesses by maximising safety, performance and value through its integrated systems. A complete edge management solution The new 43U C-Series offers a complete edge management solution that can be remotely monitored with EcoStruxure IT Software and Digital Services. Schneider Electric’s portfolio of software and digital services provides the power and flexibility for customers to seamlessly manage critical infrastructure devices on their own, with a partner, or to leverage Schneider Electric’s expert service engineers to manage it on their behalf. The 43U C-Series was designed for IT solution providers, distributors, and alliances as well as IT professionals across vertical segments including banking, financial services, retail, healthcare, 30 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD MAY 2021
government, and education. The 43U C-Series is designed for low-to-medium density applications and environments without 24/7 precision cooling for sensitive IT such as supply rooms, IT closets, and office spaces. Benefits of the new 43U C-Series: n Energy Efficient Cooling Technology: Switches automatically between three cooling modes – active, eco, and emergency – based on real-time needs of the system for enhanced energy efficiency and added protection against static buildup and overheating. n More space: Offers the greatest capacity
within our Commercial (C-Series) EcoStruxure Micro Data Center line – up to 36U useable space. n Suitable for indoor, commercial environments: Withstands the challengesofdust, power fluctuations, moderate temperature changes, and unsecure locations that are not purpose-built for sensitive IT equipment. Available in select countries today The 43U C-Series is currently available in South America, Middle East, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, and Pacific.
Date of Publication: 28 of Every Month Date of Posting: 1 & 2 of Every Month
RNI NO: DEL ENG/ 2017/ 69906 Postal Reg. No.: DL-SW-01 / 4200 / 17-19
PMP
TM
Peak Throughput up to
1.2Gbps