channelworld magazine december 2012 issue

FOCAL POINT: Storage systems are becoming storage computers as vendors push functionality downstream. PAGE 39

CHANNELWORLD.IN

Opinion Another year’s coming to a close. The forecasts for 2013 are being made. How does the next year look for IT? Here’s one forecast for 2013: We in IT will start telling better stories. PAGE 18

Grill Bob Kocis, Sr. Divisional VP, APAC Sales and Distribution, PTC, on value additions, acquisitions and more. PAGE 13

Case StudyDelhi-based Associated Business Computers takes up the ultimate ‘uphill’ project: A datacenter 5,000 feet above sea level. PAGE 34

FeatureHacking has evolved from a one-person crime of opportunity to an open market of sophisticated malware backed by crime syndicates and money launderers. PAGE 36

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n EDITOR’S NOTE

Vijay Ramachandran

Keep the Dots Connected

WHEN HENRY Ford wrote the lines above in My Life and Work in 1922, he was describing what decades later was referred to as a just-in-time inventory strategy. A strategy, which cuts

down waste, aligns production with demand and dramatically improves efficiency and ROI for an organization. And, the bestbit about it is that it works just as well as whether the economy’s booming or in a depression.

Over the years many organizations, typically in the manufacturing sector, have adopted it in some form or the other—from the Piggly Wiggly super-market chain’s restock-ing policy to the iconic Toyota Production Sys-tem that it inspired. And, of course, the acronyms and jargon that have ac-companied it are legion: Stockless production, continuous flow manufac-turing (CFM), world class manufacturing (WCM), lean manufacturing...

The benefits are un-doubtedly high. And, yet, there are issues that can derail the system, particu-larly during a slowdown. The major problem with just-in-time operations is any large change in sup-ply or demand leaves both principal or suppliers and downstream consumers vulnerable.

Among other terms this is referred to as the ‘Bull-

whip Effect’—when dis-torted information within a supply chain causes excessive inventories, lost revenues, messed up production schedules and bad customer service. I wonder how many organi-zations, despite full order books, are groaning under stock pile-ups or missed delivery schedules or cus-tomers that are refusing to pick up orders.

The culprit, quite ob-viously, is the data or information gap within the supply chain which makes a mockery of all forward planning.

When I spoke with In-fosys Co-Founder and Ex-ecutive Co-Chairman, S. ‘Kris’ Gopalakrishnan re-cently, he envisioned orga-nizations that will not only see the slump through but

will also thrive. He added only one caveat: They will need to have in place sys-tems that would give them near real-time information and control.

While not advocating spending on technology for its own sake, Kris said that the priority has to be on increasing business efficiently. Proper informa-tion flow is crucial for this. “In today’s world, where reaction times are so im-portant, creating these ca-pabilities is extremely im-portant. It gives companies confidence, flexibility and can save cost, which will pay for these investments,” he observed.

And, while conventional wisdom suggests that the supply chain is critical only for manufacturing organizations, I believe that services outfits, and especially integrators can really leverage it to stay on top of their game—after all being a solution provider is as much about the consult as it is about putting dis-parate pieces together to build a system.

How then is your or-ganization geared up to maintain information flow? What systems, peo-ple and processes do you have in place to monitor your supply chain? How do you track payments and outstandings? What allows you to then take all of this information and translate it into insight and visible intelligence?

These are key questions that I’d like you to reflect on. By reducing your in-ternal information gaps you’ll be able to be a more reactive outfit; one that will operate on optimal levels of productivity and efficiency.

And, if your responses to the questions above are in the negative or point to manual processes, I’m afraid you’ll need to re-think how you approach your business. IT has to be a critical tool in your kit, and not just one that you deploy for clients alone. Apart from getting your teams more aligned with user needs, think of it as a dry run for a client, that prepares you for the pit-falls and the rewards that lie ahead.

I strongly hold that solu-tion providers ought to be at the cutting edge of IT adoption themselves.

For if you do not have the courage to drink your own champagne, you also shouldn’t have the right to get others drunk on it. nVijay Ramachandran is the Editor-in-Chief of ChannelWorld. Contact him at [email protected]

n IT has to be a critical tool in your kit, and not just one that you deploy for clients alone.

“We buy only enough to fit into the plan of production… if transportation were perfect and an even flow of materials could be assured, it would not be necessary to carry any stock whatsoever.”

— Henry Ford

2 INDIAN CHANNELWORLD DECEMBER 2012

■ NEWS DIGEST07 A Thumbs Down for Windows 8? | An expert on user

interface design has called Windows 8 “disappointing” .

07 Safe for Now | AMD is denying reports that executives have taken steps that could lead to the company’s sale. Sources say, AMD is not focused on an outright sale of the company but could be looking to offload its patent portfolio.

08 Big Growth for CRM and Collaboration | The global software market grew 4.7 percent in the first half of this year with CRM, virtualization and collaboration coming in as the fastest-growing segments, according to IDC. ■ NEWS ANALYSIS

10 The Perfect Confluence | The hybrid cloud model brings together

best of both worlds. And emerging and established markets in APAC are making the most of it.

■ OPINION02 Editorial: Vijay Ramach-andran strongly holds that solution providers ought to be at the cutting edge of IT adoption themselves.

18 Thornton A. May: Another year’s coming to a close. The fore-casts for 2013 are being made. How does the next year look for IT? What will stir our imagination?

InsideINDIAN CHANNELWORLD ■ DECEMBER 2012

FOR BREAKING NEWS, GO TO CHANNELWORLD.IN

■ THE GRILL 13 Bob Kocis, Senior Divisional

Vice President, APAC Sales and

Distribution, PTC, on value additions,

acquisitions and more.

■ FEATURE36 Ignored! Receptiveness of the vendors in the post sales period in assisting the partners with their client issues usually leaves much to be desired. Are vendors really supporting

partners or is it just lip-service?

■ FAST TRACK15 Rajeev Goel, Director, Intec In-fonet, made a transition from PC sales to networking. The move proved to be a masterstroke.

22

13

Cover Photograph by KAPIL SHROFF Cover Design by UNNIKRISHNAN A.V

■ COVER STORY

22 Guts! There’s a growing number of new-age entrepreneurs who are quitting their cushy jobs and launching their partner companies in the face of a slowdown. While no one can question their audaciousness, what everyone wants to know is: What’s the plan? Along the way these start ups are busting market myths and are finding new ways to thrive despite adversity.

■ CASE STUDY

34 Scale of HeightsDelhi-based Associated Business Computers takes on the ultimate ‘uphill’ project: A datacenter 5,000 feet above sea level for the Almora Urban Co-operative Bank.

CHANNELWORLDGeetha Building, 49, 3rd Cross, Mission Road, Bangalore - 560 027, IndiaCHANNELWORLD.IN

Publisher, President & CEO Louis D’MelloAssociate Publishers Rupesh Sreedharan, Sudhir Argula■ EDITORIALEditor-in-Chief Vijay RamachandranExecutive Editors Gunjan Trivedi, T.M. Arun Kumar Associate Editor Yogesh GuptaDeputy Editor Sunil ShahAssistant Editor Online Varsha ChidambaramSpecial Correspondents Radhika Nallayam,Shantheri MallayaPrincipal Correspondents Gopal Kishore, Madana PrathapSenior Correspondents Anup Varier, Sneha JhaCorrespondents Aritra Sarkhel, Debarati Roy, Eric Ernest, Ershad Kaleebullah, Shweta Rao, Shubhra Rishi Chief Copy Editor Shardha SubramanianSenior Copy Editor Shreehari Paliath Copy Editor Vinay KumaarLead Designers Jinan K.V., Suresh Nair, Vikas Kapoor Senior Designer Unnikrishnan A.V.Designers Amrita C. Roy, Sabrina Naresh

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Juniper Networks India Pvt.Ltd. . . . . . IFC, 20 & 21

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Symantec Software Solutions Pvt.Ltd . . . . . . . . . .3

ADVERTISERS’ INDEX

■ FOCAL POINT

39 Storage SupersizedSTORAGE: Storage systems are becoming storage computers as vendors push functionality downstream. Today, the emerging scale-out architecture lets users add many storage systems to an existing infrastructure and scale up not just capacity, but also performance, CPU, memory and networking equally.

41 Finding the Right BalanceSTORAGE: For cash-strapped IT shops looking to get out from under manual storage management chores, storage orchestration software looks like a lifeline: It promises to let users choose from a catalog of predefined storage services and then handle the provisioning details behind the scenes. Storage orchestration software holds promise, but, are enterprise customers stuck with point tools.

FOR BREAKING NEWS, GO TO CHANNELWORLD.IN

InsideINDIAN CHANNELWORLD ■ DECEMBER 2012

19 Paresh Babaria, Co-Founder and Manag-ing Partner, Jupiter Automation, is all set to change the little known IT market in Surat. The closely knit business circles of Surat will help usher in change. ■ ON RECORD 16 K.K. Shetty, Director, India and SAARC, Enterprise and Telecom Networks,

TE Connectivity, talks about the company’s way forward in India. ■ FACE OFF 44 Battle Royale: In a race to the top, who has a complete enterprise cloud and social business strategy?

39

Big Growth for CRM and Collaboration

PAGE 08: IBM Kills the Lotus Brand

PAGE 10: The Perfect Confluence

WHAT’S WITHIN

F I N D M O R E A R T I C L E S AT C H A N N E L W O R L D . I N

News

OPERATING SYSTEMS

A Thumbs Down for Windows 8?

AMD is denying reports that executives have taken steps that could lead to the company’s sale.

Speculation began to spread after Reuters reported that AMD has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co to explore business options, including a potential sale. According to Reuters, which cited unnamed sources, AMD is not focused on an outright sale of the company but could be looking to offload its patent portfolio. However, AMD said it’s not looking to sell. “AMD’s

board and management believe that the strategy the company is currently pursuing to drive long-term growth by leveraging AMD’s highly-differentiated technology assets is the right approach to enhance shareholder value,” the company said in an email. “AMD is not actively pursuing a sale of the company or significant assets at this time.

— By Sharon Gaudin

Safe for NowACQUISITION

workers and strangles their productivity.”

Although the sample sizes of Nielsen’s studies are small, he argues that they provide more insight than larger studies focused on metrics. Even if you don’t agree with that assertion, Nielsen does make some good points about how the design of Win-dows 8 needs improvement.

Nielsen’s main gripe, unsurprisingly, is the dual nature of Windows 8, which combines desktop and touch-friendly environments into a single operating system. Not only is the user interface inconsistent, it also requires

users to remember where to go for which features, and to waste time switching be-tween interfaces. Also, when users are running a Web browser in both interfaces, they can only access a subset of their open Web pages at any given time.

But even the modern-style interface on its own has some major problems in Nielsen’s view. He felt that the inability to open multiple windows of a given application creates a “memory overload” for complex tasks, because users have no way to see all the in-formation they’ve collected.

Nielsen also pointed out a quirk in the Windows 8 set-tings menu: While most of the options are presented as flat, monochrome icons, the option to change PC settings is shown in plain text, so it “looks more like the label for the icon group than a clickable command.”

At the end of the report, Nielsen notes that he’s not a Microsoft hater—he praises the sometimes-maligned Ribbon of Microsoft’s desk-top apps—and hopes for a better Windows 9, noting that the company has a his-tory of correcting its mis-takes. Also, keep in mind that nitpicking user inter-face issues is Nielsen’s job. He’s previously done the same for Apple’s iPad and Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

—By Jared Newman

AN EXPERT on user interface design has called Win-dows 8 “disappoint-

ing” for novices and power users alike.

Jakob Nielsen, principal of the Nielsen Norman Group, studied how a dozen expe-rienced PC users interacted with Windows 8, and the conclusion was not good.

“Windows 8 on mo-bile devices and tablets is akin to Dr. Jekyll: A tortured soul hoping for redemption,”Nielsen wrote. “On a regular PC, Windows 8 is Mr. Hyde: A monster that terrorizes poor office

DECEMBER 2012 INDIAN CHANNELWORLD 7

-

VMware announced that it has signed on RCV Innovations’ ThinkCloud as a VMware Authorized Training Center (VATC) in India. ‘ThinkCloud’ is a training and consulting initiative for cloud computing by RCV Innovations, a Hyderabad-based IT company with a focus on healthcare and cloud computing.

Brocade has announced the appointment of Edgar Dias as regional director for India. Based in Bangalore, Dias will deliver on the region’s revenue plan and drive overall growth for the company’s business in India.

Dell India has announced that Ajay Kaul, director and general Manager, will lead the Global Commercial Channel (GCC) business for Dell in India. Kaul’s focus will be to oversee the expansion of Dell’s partner community and its growth in the upcountry markets.

strong growth rates over the last two years,” according to IDC. Enterprise social software’s share of the seg-ment has grown from three percent in 2008 to 11 percent this year. Team collaborative application sales rose 15 per-cent in the first half of 2012, according to the report.

Three of four CRM market subcategories showed double-digit growth so far this year, with contact center ap-plications seeing a single-digit in-

crease, IDC said. Customer service, sales and marketing had a roughly 12 percent growth rate overall.

Some of this growth can be reflected in the performance of the US based Salesforce.com, the industry’s largest pure cloud software vendor, which has products in all four CRM categories and is nearing $3

billion (about 16, 500 crore) in annual revenue.

CRM is also driving new license sales as companies replace aging on-premises systems with cloud-based offerings from Salesforce.com and other vendors.

On the infrastructure side, virtual machine and cloud system software grew 17.8 percent in the first half of this year.

“Virtual machine soft-ware unit shipments still re-main healthy and growing, but have seen some slow-down in mature markets that have high virtualization rates,” IDC analyst Gary Chen said in a statement. “Business models are shift-ing as well, with the hyper-visor drawing less direct revenue and increasingly becoming an embedded feature of operating systems and cloud system software.”

Despite the gains in these software categories, this year is “the beginning of a more conservative growth period with gains in the single digits, down slightly from the growth experi-enced in 2010 and 2011,” IDC said in a statement.

— By Chris Kanaracus

Short TakesTECH MARKET

Big Growth for CRM and Collaboration

THE GLOBAL software market grew 4.7 per-cent in the first half of this year to $167 bil-

lion (about Rs 91 lakh crore), with CRM, virtualization and collaboration coming in as the fastest-growing seg-ments, according to figures released by analyst firm IDC.

Economic difficulties in Western Europe dragged down the market overall, but software sales in the US, Latin America, Russia, China and other areas showed growth, according to IDC.

Applications software was the fastest-growing segment overall, with a 5.1 percent uptick, “largely driven” by collaboration and CRM soft-ware, IDC said.

Within collaboration applications, team collab-orative and enterprise social software “stand out with

IBM is planning to release, on December 14, a public beta of Notes and Domino 9.0 Social Edition that will no longer use the Lotus brand.

IBM has decided to offer a public beta, the first in a long time for Notes and Domino, because of the importance of the release, Ed Brill, director of product line management and in charge of IBM’s Collaboration Solutions, said in a blog post.

This beta also signals the point where Notes and Domino will join IBM’s other software products in sporting only the IBM name, which the company feels is a stronger brand than Lotus, according to Brill.

The Lotus brand became part of IBM when the company acquired Lotus Development Corporation in 1995.

The new release of Notes and Domino was previously known as 8.5.4, but it includes

so many new features that IBM feels it deserves to be called 9.0. There will still be an 8.5.4 maintenance release, with no new features, sometime in 2013, Brill said.

One of the new features allows some Notes applications

to run unmodified in a browser on a Windows PC, once the browser has been equipped with a plug-in. Enterprises don’t have to install the full Notes client for the application to work.

The Notes and Domino Social Edition was first unveiled at Lotusphere 2012 and has been in development for more than a year, according to Brill. The first external beta code was released in April this year on a limited basis.

The plan is to have the new release ready for launch by the first quarter of next year.

— By Mikael Ricknäs

COLLABORATION

SEVERED IBM will no longer use the Lotus brand.

IBM Kills the Lotus Brand

4.7%The growth observed

in the global software market in

the first half of the year.


SOURCE: IDC

Regardless of geogra-phies, improved availability is the top reason quoted by respondents who have cloud plans or have actually them implemented. Flexibil-ity and enhancing disaster recovery capabilities are the close second and third rea-sons respectively. In APAC, however, disaster recovery is the top reason behind cloud projects. Neverthe-less, all these initiatives and figures suggest that year 2013 will be a tipping point for cloud deployment in the Asia Pacific region.

THE CASE FOR HYBRID CLOUDSHybrid cloud, according to the study, is going to be big in Asia. Sixty-five percent of respondents said that they are now using, evaluating, or planning to implement a combination of company-owned and third-party servers. (See box on next page for the perspective of Indian CIOs)

Additionally, 80 percent of APAC IT decision mak-ers expect their enterpris-es to use a mix of in-house and third-party infrastruc-ture in future.

What makes the situation more complicated is that enterprises don’t just look at hybrid clouds as those between private and public clouds. They are also looking at them as solutions that bridge the infrastructure gap between clouds and legacy environments that many of enterprises would not or could not virtualize right away due to technical or resources issues.

So why should enterprises go hybrid? And why will hybrid clouds be a buzz in Asia Pacific?

The answers to these questions lie in the real-

THE ASIA Pacific market has become a pressure cooker. A jolt in the region-

al economy is straining current IT infrastructures. Increasing workloads and incessant demands any time and from anywhere are seeing many tradition-al infrastructures creaking under pressure.

A decentralized, scalable IT infrastructure is the obvious answer. But getting the expertise, resources and investment to deploy and manage such an infrastructure within the four walls of a corporate is not only expensive but also time and labor intensive. Besides, ripping out old infrastructures in today’s cost-conscious environment is a huge gamble for many IT decision makers.

TIME TO GO HYBRIDInstead, many in Asia

Pacific are taking a keen interest in hybrid clouds, according to a recent survey commissioned by NTT Communications and conducted by IDG Research Services. Entitled Global Market Pulse: Cloud Computing Infrastructure Study, the study examines the opinions of 300 IT decision makers evenly distributed across the US, EMEA (UK) and APAC (Hong Kong and Singapore).

Cloud computing is gaining momentum and APAC is the region to watch in the next 12 months, according to survey results that indicate 31 percent of APAC IT decision makers plan to implement clouds in the next 12 months; 26 percent look to pilot-test cloud projects; and 28 percent have implemented cloud in one or more locations.

The Perfect Confluence

The hybrid cloud model brings together best of both worlds. And emerging and established markets in APAC are making the most of it.By Taylor Man

n NEWS ANALYSIS


world advantages of hy-brid cloud infrastructure, with the top two being customization and flex-ibility it allows.

Many Asia Pacific decision makers see the flexibility offered by hybrid clouds—as compared to restrictions brought by third-party vendors—as a huge advantage when it comes to service provision. Enterprises’ biggest fear is often related to: Customization and flexibility (51 percent); security (47 percent); availability of in-house IT infrastructure (43 percent); and necessary skill set/training (39 percent). Hybrid clouds offer an ideal solution that addresses all these concerns.

SPOTLIGHT ON NETWORK VIRTUALIZATION A clogged pipeline will be a major roadblock for firms that rely on net-works to access their services and data. Survey respondents are concerned about capacity limitations

(75 percent) and possible downtime when changing network configurations (73 percent). These are also key critical success factors when it comes to evaluat-ing, planning or imple-menting cloud services.

All these factors are driving strong interest in network virtualization. Benefits such as availability, redundancy, quick recovery from hardware failures, and the ability to re-allocate unused bandwidth for better utilization are wanted by the APAC IT decision maker community. In fact, the region’s top IT decision makers said that they have a strong interest in cloud computing that includes a virtualized network service for improved performance (68 percent) and reliability (64 percent).

TRENDS THAT MATTERAPAC’s fascination for hybrid clouds could not have come at a better time.

With strong GDP growth, and trends such as mobility and IT consumerization

shaping purchasing behavior and productivity, many enterprises are experiencing growing pains. Traditional IT infrastructures are ill-prepared to meet on-demand requirements and respond rapidly to changing business needs.

Fully aware that they can’t manage everything by themselves, many en-terprises look to bank on the expertise and services of third-party vendors. At the same time, they look to implement highly flex-ible IT strategies that are also cost-efficient.

Hybrid clouds, especially those that come with a virtualized network service, can help APAC enterprises gain control, scale to dynamic requirements, and deliver highly customizable solutions to meet on-demand expectations. According to survey results, most IT decision makers in the region are already taking a hard look at all these.High satisfaction level is also pushing interest to new heights. According

to the survey, APAC IT decision makers report high levels of satisfaction with the effectiveness brought by their cloud investments. Flexibility and improved scalability are results of their cloud projects, these respondents pointed out.

This offers an ideal opportunity for global cloud service providers that have their own datacenters and offer virtualized network services as well as a strong value proposition for enterprises who want to alleviate their growing pains, capture market opportunities quickly and demand a highly secure and controlled infrastructure. As key partners, they also offer expertise and experience to shape new IT strategies to meet new demands from customers, stakeholders, and regulators.

As deployment and pro-ponents multiply in the APAC region, hybrid clouds are well poised to become the regional enterprises’ secret for success.

Private Cloud

Hybrid Cloud Public Cloud

48%

38% 14% Will implement in one year

Upgrading/Refining

Will implement in six months

Currently Implementing

25%

13%

Not Interested in hybrid cloud

41%

14%7%

Most Indian CIOs who are planning—or already using the cloud—say they prefer private clouds.

That said, 59 percent of Indian CIOs are already using a hybrid cloud—or plan to—in six months or a year.

HOW INDIAN CIOs VIEW THE CLOUD

SOURCE: CIO RESEARCH

n NEWS ANALYSIS


PTC has jumped into the Service Lifecycle Management (SLM) bandwagon (referring to acquisitions such as Servigistics) a bit late as compared to competitors such BMC Software who have been talking about SLM and also making acquisitions for a decade now. So, PTC has a long way to go before making major gains. Your thoughts. I don’t think so. In February, we launched a strategy around five key segments. The first one, MCAD, which is our traditional business, is the largest segment, and is growing at five to six percent a year. PLM is second largest (15 percent), growing at 30 percent a year. Then we looked

n THE GRILL

Sr. Divisional VP, APAC Sales and Distribution, PTC, on value additions, acquisitions and more.

Bob Kocis,

at ALM, with MKS Integrity being one of the leading technologies in the world. This is growing at 10 to 15 percent a year. Then SCM, the fourth area, for which we acquired 4CS. This is an emerging segment. And the last one, iSLM, is a $180 million (about Rs 991 crore) business for PTC and is also growing at 15 to 20 percent a year. The addressable market size over the next two years is $3 billion (about Rs 16,500 crore). We would like to reassess our leadership position with these acquisitions. With Servigistics, we looked at technical documentation and mortgage claims. Maybe a few

DossierName: Robert (Bob) Kocis

Designation: Senior Divisional Vice President, APAC Sales and Distribution

Company: PTC

Present Role: In this role, Kocis is responsible for all PTC sales and distribution in the Asia Pacific region. He works from PTC’s Asia Pacific headquarters in Shanghai.In May of 2003 he took charge of the PTC Channel Advantage Program as the Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channel Sales.

Career Graph: Kocis joined PTC in 1998 and has since held a variety of positions of increasing responsibility within the sales organization.Prior to PTC, Kocis was a sales manager for Nalco Chemical Company in Naperville, IL.

n THE GRILL | BOB KOCIS

years ago, we were not there, but now, with rounded solutions, we are in a position where we can compete with an IBM or an Oracle. It looks like we are going slowly, but we are getting there, and we will see faster growth.

It is felt that PTC should start rationalizing its multiple acquisitions and its expanded product portfolio, which now include the assets from acquired companies. There are overlapping, capabilities and business process

workflow scenarios, which can put customers in a tight spot. What’s your perspective on this? Our CTO has a clear vision on where our product strategy should move towards, which is sharply built around six focus verticals. We are making acquisitions which are strategic in terms of technology. There might be an overlap, but that can be handled and integrated. While it’s early days to comment about Servigistics, we know for a fact that we have a done a pretty good job with all our acquisitions. With MKS Integrity, for example, we have a well integrated- virtual platform. We give the customer an option to buy Integrity as a standalone or an integrated platform. That is the strategy we follow.

Coming to PTC Integrity, the company is quite vocal about its collaboration with BMC BSM. How far will collaborations work for you in the long run? Is this your way of establishing open standards for customers and partners? On the PLM side, we don’t believe customers can get value without world class partners. These partnerships are critical to our deliverables. We would definitely have an overlap with competitors. It is inevitable because of what customers might buy at different points in time. Interoperability is the way forward.

PLM-on-demand would have been a nice option for the SMBs. Why isn’t it a big focus as yet for PTC? Hosted PLM is a brilliant deployment option. On-demand is a good option where no IT infrastructure exists. But it comes with problems—infrastructure, in terms of Internet bandwidth and accessibility. You have to conform to a standard form of PLM, which is fine, but it comes with its own set of issues.

PTC has spoken about offshoring its services component to partners. Being a product company, how does this approach work for partners? The services story is actually working very well. This year, we went through a rebranding: From being a product development company to being a product and service company. This approach will help transform the landscape and provide opportunities. SMB partners, who start out small, grow with us and create

value for enterprise customers. We have a Services Advantage Program (launched about 18 months ago) that will support the services partners.

CIO discussions indicate that mobility is the next big trend and that they are keen to invest in solutions surrounding it. How does your PLM strategy fit into these new demands? PLM was not considered strategic five years back. But we now see CIOs asking us important questions about ALM and SLM. As far as mobility is concerned, we are not trying to be ahead of it. It is still a deployment option. Our mobility strategy will involve what customers want in core areas, and building technology around that.

You have recently moved to China and have assumed charge of APAC sales and distribution, after a successful stint with worldwide channels. What kind of global competencies do you bring into your current role in APAC? I had a unique role earlier with worldwide channels, but I also had the responsibility of emerging markets, such as Russia, India and Brazil. So, I do have an idea and flavor of working in fast-developing countries. I do think that many of the competencies that work in the more established markets work very well here also, though we change things a bit, depending on the local geography. I have four country managers reporting to me now. I allow them to run things differently depending on local conditions.

India is your second largest market in APAC. With PLM being niche, do you foresee the Indian market overtaking China? In the short term, I would say no. In China, we are number one in PLM and also in aerospace, defense and electronics. Like we did with China a few years ago, we are making astute investments to take PLM to the next level in India by bringing in new people to spearhead operations. We have the right story, and hope the message gets across. However, I wouldn’t be able to speculate on how many years it would take for India to overtake China.

— Shantheri Mallaya

We are making astute

investments to take PLM to the next level in India by bringing in new people to spearhead operations. We have the right story, and hope the message gets across.


ACCLAIMED AMERICAN author and journalist Gail Sheehy said, “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow,

we aren’t really living.” Rajeev Goel, director, Intec Infonet

has imbibed this thought process and applied it to his organization. In the two decades since its inception, Intec Infonet has managed to survive and thrive despite the changing dynam-ics of the IT industry, by investing in robust solutions, and thereby avoiding depleting margins.

THE TRANSITION This systems integrator started its journey with PC sales and mainte-nance. The realization that the possi-bility of a value addition was minimal prompted a change in approach. Goel

n FAST TRACK

Intec Infonet

decide to focus on networking. “It was a challenging transition to make, from PC business to networking,” he says. “It was tough to build experi-ence and credentials in networking. Until that happened, many customers were not ready to trust us.”

But, sheer focus and hard work helped the SI scale-up its business in the networking domain. “Intec has been able to create mindshare and goodwill in the industry by design-ing an internal process bent towards maintaining quality and high ethical standards in all our dealings which includes employees, principals, dis-tributors and competitors,” says Goel.

Numerous implementations have assisted in adding layers to Intec’s growth curve, and has led to a major knowledge enhancement. The network upgradation at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, funded by the World Bank’s Technical Education Quality Improve-ment Programme (TEQIP) in partner-ship with Nortel, was one such memo-rable project. “This project helped us build a favourable reputation. It was one of the first implementations in India and South-East Asia where VoIP-on-Wireless was successfully commis-sioned and is still running,” says Goel.

With a continued focussed on net-working, and the education vertical, the SI has managed to work success-fully with multiple OEM’s. A diversi-fied product and solutions portfolio has enhanced its reach. “Multi-vendor partnerships have helped us position ourselves according to the USP of each vendor,” says Goel.

In the next couple of years, the company is looking to add new skill sets in datacenter technologies which include SAN application delivery and optimization. n

—Aritra Sarkhel

Founding: 1991

Headquarters: New Delhi

Branches: Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, Singapore

Revenue for 2009-10: Rs. 64.64 Crore



No of employees: 120

Key technologies: Converged network (data, voice and multime-dia), network security, wireless networking, surveillance security

Key Principals: Avaya, Juniper, Extreme Networks, Ruckus Wire-less, Radware, Molex, EMC, Dell

Snapshot

Rajeev Goel, Director, Intec Infonet, made a transition from PC sales to networking. The move worked.

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38%Switching

and Routing

22%Network Security

18%Wireless

8%IP Telephony

/UC5%

Application Delivery and Optimization

7%Video

Surveillance

2%Servers and

Storage


Director, India and SAARC,

Enterprise and Telecom

Networks, TE Connectivity,

talks about the company’s way

forward in India. By Radhika Nallayam

TE Connectivity has different product lines for enterprise, telecom and wireless. Are these different markets? SHETTY: In a way, yes they are. But in some particu-lar market segments, the products converge. For example, in a huge campus network project, you will see multiple technologies converging. While we offer separate solutions for enter-prise, telecom and wireless segments, we can also con-verge the three, if required, to offer a consolidated solution. In large airports and infrastructure projects for instance, we see this convergence happening. We also have our intelligent networking solutions that go into such projects.

From a channel perspective, this can be quite challenging as it calls

for multi-level experience…SHETTY: On the channel front, this is quite chal-lenging. But our strategy is to recommend the right specialists to customers who require multiple tech-nologies to be integrated. So there are multiple SIs involved in such projects. Besides, our tier-1 SIs are already capable of offering such turnkey solutions by converging all the three product lines.

But, otherwise, is your business model for each market segment different? SHETTY: For the enterprise market, we follow a three- tier distribution model. Apart from three national distributors—Ingram Mi-cro, Redington and Com-puIT— we also have tier-2 distributors/regional dis-tributors. This is because we thought we needed to bring in a lot of flexibility in terms of credits and service levels, especially for small resellers. Re-gional distributors focus on resellers and smaller markets, while national distributors focus more on tier-1 and tier- 2 SIs.

For our telecom seg-ment, we have tier-1 SIs like Ericsson, who offer solutions to telecom ser-vice providers. The chan-nel in some cases overlap, but otherwise, we have different channels for different markets.

Post the acquisition of ADC Telecom, have you integrated the product lines and the channel? SHETTY: ADC has its own customer preferences globally, as well as in India. So we have main-tained both the brands separately. We have even kept sales separate for

K.K. Shetty, ON RECORD n

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these two brands. We do not mix them. The chan-nel is separate too. We are encouraging traditional ADC partners to focus more on ADC products. We have a channel man-ager and channel enable-ment team focusing on the ADC brand.

We felt that if we merge the channel, it might lead to a lot of competition and confusion. At times, a partner will propose two brands to the same customer. We believe that the brand is an emotional entity, both for customers and the channel. A lot of partners prefer to be as-sociated with a particular brand that they have been selling for years. At the same time, we have made

changes on the distribu-tion side. We consolidated all the distribution, and brought all the ADC prod-ucts under TE’s national distributors. We have a very brand specific ap-proach down to the reseller ecosystem.

What was the idea behind changing the company’s name from Tyco to TE Connectivity? Customers always saw you as Tyco. SHETTY: When we were Tyco Electronics, people, especially customers who didn’t know much about us, thought that we are an electronics company. The Board of Directors felt that we need to truly represent what we are doing. There were other units under the Tyco brand, which were

into completely different markets. That’s the reason why we decided to rename the company to TE (which is Tyco Electronics) Connectivity. However, we have kept most of the brands unchanged as of now. But moving forward, we are going to position TE as the brand to our customers.

How do you look at players like Schneider Electric who, post-acquisitions, have a large portfolio of products under one roof? SHETTY: We believe that we have always been clear leaders in our focused markets. Our acquisition strategy is to go for com-panies that have comple-mentary products. ADC’s

acquisition for instance, brought in matching products in the enterprise market, and also helped us add some very interesting products for markets like telecom and wireless. The acquisition also helped us to be better positioned in certain geographical areas where ADC was tradition-ally strong. But I think the market is moving from products to solutions to services. So we need to talk to customers about services, work with part-ners to come up with solu-tions, and then fit in the right products.

We have a gradual ap-proach towards acquisi-tion, integration, training and streamlining. But I have seen that in most acquisitions, the result

or the reaction is either overly positive or very negative. It’s difficult to find that balance. We are not for aggressive acquisi-tions. It should be in line with our areas of compe-tency. TE has no plans to get into areas where we have no expertise.

At the same time, you have newer entrants like 3M into this market, who are very aggressive about customer acquisitions. How are you planning to tackle them? SHETTY: We have seen all types of competitors in the last 15 year. But the fact remains that we still have 80 percent market share. We believe that our strategy, talent, and execution are our differen-

tiators. We definitely have better end- customer sup-port, channel enablement and distribution systems, which is key for a mar-ket like this. We conduct regular events and other initiatives to maintain our position in the market. We just have to be careful not to be complacent. So our focus is on leveraging our strengths. Government hasn’t been a focus area for you here. But they are one of the largest buyers of connectivity solutions. Aren’t you missing out on a huge opportunity? SHETTY: We were not focusing on the govern-ment sector till the end of 2010 when we spotted a clear opportunity. In 2011,

we witnessed more than 30 percent growth in our government-sector busi-ness. We have contractual agreements with NIXI and NIC. We have done projects for multiple state datacenters and APDRPs. We have also been quite active with some of the leading government edu-cational institutions.

It’s an ocean, but we don’t want to be seen everywhere. There are low-end and high-end customers, and the low-end segment is a very price-sensitive market. We don’t, as a matter of policy, work with custom-ers who are extremely price-sensitive. Govern-ment is clearly going to remain a focus for us, but

the idea is not to grab a huge market share. We are addressing this market through our tier-1 and a few select tier-2 partners. Again, we focus more on turnkey projects.

Going forward, what will be the growth drivers for TE’s business in India? SHETTY: We will bring in a regional focus. We see an increased con-vergence among our enterprise and telecom technologies, and are ex-pecting wireless technol-ogies to join the fold. Fi-ber to the Home (FTTH) will be another growth area. Besides this, we expect hosted and enter-prise datacenters to pro-pel a lot of demand for our solutions. n

K.K. SHETTY | ON RECORD n

There are low-end and high-end customers in the government sector. The low-end segment is very price-sensitive. We don’t, as a matter

of policy, work with customers who are extremely price-sensitive.”


n OPINION

A Year for Stories

HERE’S MY No. 1 forecast for 2013: We will start telling better stories. In the new year, the IT career guillotine will sever the necks of those less facile in the narrative arts. The technology industry in general and IT leaders in particular

desperately need to tell more compelling, actionable and understandable stories about the future. In a word, we need to become better forecasters. 2013 will be the year technologists rediscover storytelling. The person with the best narrative about the future wins.

We will craft scenarios of what the fu-ture might look like. We will start to dream again, to envision worlds that take full advantage of the technology wonders avail-able to us. And lest we be accused of being lotus-eating, silicon-worshipping Utopians, we will also give voice and visibility to things that we don’t want to happen (e.g., data breaches and outages). We will articu-late the costs and prophylactic preparations required to make sure that to-be-avoided scenarios are in fact avoided.

A respected Harvard Business School professor, lecturing a group of healthcare innovators, recently opined, “The only thing I know when someone brings me a business plan . . . is that it is wrong.” This statement embodies an industry-wide mis-understanding of the process of forecast-ing and the role of forecasters. The focus and measure of a forecast and a forecaster should not be accuracy alone; behavior change must also be taken into account. Accurate forecasts that fail to get some-thing valuable started or something stupid stopped are just so much noise.

It was said that when Cicero spoke, audiences wept. But when Caesar spoke, men marched. 2013 will be the year of forecasts that get IT marching.Forecast No. 2: IT is going to get its en-trepreneurial freak on. In other words, IT

needs to use technology to create value. The stories CEOs and boards of directors want to hear are how IT grew the top line (or, in the not-for-profit sector, how IT achieved or expanded the mission). IT executives will be increasingly evaluated on their ability to generate revenue and create second-horizon businesses.

In 2013, boards will be watching wheth-er in-place IT is capable of doing some-thing with technology that differentiates and creates value.Forecast No. 3: Vendor gibberish will be outed. The power of storytelling will mani-fest itself on the vendor side of the equation as well. IT decision-makers on the buying side will start to score the narratives of their strategic partners. Many a CIO has emerged frustrated and confused from “technology road map briefings” with vendors. Much of the slideware being humped around meeting rooms today borders on gibberish. Historically, this dissatisfaction with poor vendor messaging has remained internal to the enterprise. This will change in 2013.Forecast No. 4: IT leaders will gossip. News flash for the vendor community: CIOs talk. They talk a lot and with an expanded array of people about future IT investments. High-performance CIOs will involve university faculty, thought leaders and other members of the value ecosystem to evaluate partner “pitches.” It has never been easier or more important to get a sec-ond opinion on major technology invest-ments and partnerships.

In the IT space, there has been a short-age of words that stir the imagination. Let’s hope 2013 changes that. n

Another year’s coming to a close. The forecasts for 2013 are being made. How does the next year look for IT?

Thornton A. May is author of The New Know: Innovation Powered by Analytics and executive director of the IT Leadership Academy at Florida State College in Jacksonville. You can contact him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter (@ deanitla).

THORNTON A. MAY


SURAT IS considered to be one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. What adds to the city’s newfound sparkle is its much sought

after jewelry and diamond sector. But when it comes to IT, customers still seem to prefer the traditional ways, or at least, that is what Paresh Babaria, co-founder and managing partner of Jupiter Automation believes. “Surat is a very relationship-based market, unlike tier-1 cities. Enquires won’t come to you easily, unless you develop a database of customers and build a good rapport with them.” This mar-ket mindset, however, has turned out to be a boon for a player like Jupiter, which been around since 1998.

Jupiter’s systems integration busi-ness has been witnessing double-

n FAST TRACK

Jupiter Automation

digit growth over the years. Babaria ensured this growth by focusing on basic infrastructure solutions for traditional industries situated in and

around Surat. “Dairy, diamond, tex-tile, government and corporate sec-tors have been our growth drivers. We have a stronghold in energy, and oil and gas industries as well. The requirements of these customers are quite basic in nature, but fortunately have been growing consistently,” says Babaria.

Jupiter’s rate contract with various government departments ensures continuous business with them. The SI has also been part of many digital classroom projects carried out by some of the leading educational insti-tutions in Surat.

The future looks radiant for Jupiter.The dairy sector is expected to of-fer lot more business according to Babaria. “A lot of dairy cooperatives are now planning to reach out to rural areas by setting up their operations in remote villages. This would mean that there are more opportunities in the datacenter infrastructure space for us. We already have some of the leading dairies like Sumul, Vasudhara and Banas as our customers. We are now expecting a three-fold increase,” says Babaria.

The diamond industry’s IT re-quirements are expected to grow as most of these businesses have started using specialized software. Storage solutions for SMBs and cor-porate customers in southern Guja-rat is something Babaria is betting big on to take Jupiter to the next phase of growth. n

—Radhika Nallayam

Founded: 1998

Headquarters: Surat

Key Executives: Paresh Babaria, Bipin Ladumore, Co-Founders

Revenue 2010–11 : Rs 22 crore

Revenue 2011–12: Rs 26 crore

Revenue 2012–13 (projected): Rs 33 crore

Employees: 25

Key Principals: HP, Epson, Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, Acer, Lenovo

Key Technologies: Servers, storage, networking, projectors, computing

Website: www.jupiterautomation.com

Snapshot

Surat isn’t renowned for its IT industry. But Paresh Babaria, Co-Founder, Jupiter Automation, is all set to change that.

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SOURCE: JUPITER AUTOMATION

20%Dairy

5%Textile

10%Diamond

15%Govt

15%Corporate/

SMB

15%Power

15%Gas/Oil

5%Education


HOTLINEHOTLINE

Marketing Concierge, this contains a toolbox of leading-edge marketing campaigns to generate market awareness.

Finally, the reward program is designed to reward partners for identifying new opportunities, showcasing expertise, and closing deals more quickly. There are several key elements including a global product promotions catalog, discounts and rebates for opportunity registration program, and for qualified Juniper partners, a holistic performance incentive.

The program represents an unparalleled focus on mutual opportunity and is proof of our continuing commitment to our partners’ success.

How many Channel Partners does Juniper Networks currently have and how does it engage with them?This year, we have completed a channel tour of six cities, namely Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, and Hyderabad, and plan to cover cities like Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Chandigarh, Kochi, Colombo, and Dhaka to further our channel outreach.

At present, we have around 500 registered VARs and our plan is to have not more than 50 Juniper ‘high touch’ partners in collaboration with whom we will work, invest, and grow our businesses with the guiding principal of extending our relationship further.

How critical are channel partners to the success of Juniper’s Indian operations?Juniper Networks earns all its revenue in India and South Asia through partners and we are therefore committed to making each and every partnership a success. In that sense, 2012 has been a very exciting year for us.

Successful partnering remains a key element of our growth strategy at Juniper Networks. In that light, we have significantly revamped our Partner Advantage Program.

What’s the Partner Advantage Program all about?Juniper Partner Advantage program is all about scaling with precision, investing with impact, and recognizing achievement.

The program aims to deliver on its promise to differentiate high-performing partners and create more compelling value for all of Juniper Networks’ partners. In addition to simplicity, it contains three main components: Reach, Accelerate, and Reward. Each designed to help partners grow, communicate with greater impact, and scale their businesses more effectively.

How different is it from its previous avatar?The new program comprises a revamped channel initiative like opportunity registration, a learning academy, a joint marketing concierge, a Juniper champion program, MDF, and incentives. We have also overhauled our channel team from the ground up,

VIEW FROM THE TOP

Energizing Juniper’s Partner ProgramJuniper’s revamped Partner Advantage Program will reward high-performing partners and help others fi nd their sales mojo.

with a focused view on strengthening our channel base across the South Asian region.

Under the program, Juniper will enable a partner to engage with customers at a deeper level. The program provides an on-ramp to the New Network Platform Architecture, with an expanding array of Juniper Learning Academy resources. Training and accreditation will help partners develop and hone their sales and technical skills to differentiate themselves in this increasingly competitive market.

The second component Accelerate will allow partners to engage with a marketing engine that helps partners drive effi cient co-marketing with Juniper Networks.Delivered through the Juniper

The program represents an unparalleled focus on mutual opportunity and is proof of our continuing commitment to our partners’ success.

JITENDRA GUPTADirector Channels & Alliances, India & SAARC, Juniper

CUSTOM SOLUTIONS GROUP

PARTNER PROGRAM

Juniper’s Marketing ConciergeThe Juniper Marketing Con-cierge is designed to help Juni-per’s partners gain a competitive edge by leveraging innovative new technology and proven best practices. With Juni-per Marketing Concierge, partners can customize and create marketing campaign assets to pro-mote Juniper-related services and solutions.

The concierge service is essentially an online marketing platform that

able Juniper partners within the reseller partner community, for distributors, and the strategic partner community.

The platform has an intuitive user interface and features functionalities such as social media integration and dynamic content search.

Juniper is developing more designs and layouts for cus-tomizable marketing tactics that will provide even more options in the future.

allows Juniper partners to eas-ily customize and create pro-fessionally-crafted, partner-led demand generation campaigns

and events. Partners can customize content, choose from an existing selection of campaign assets, and execute campaigns. They can also completely create

their own cam-paigns.

Juniper Mar-keting Concierge is avail-

The portal allows partners to create their own marketing assets.

EVENTS

Juniper’s Events Blitz Juniper held an event series called Simply Connected Part-ner Tech Day and Partnering in six cities including Pune, Hyder-abad, Kolkata, Bangalore, Dhaka and Colombo, between August and October. The aim of the event was to drive awareness and edu-cate Juniper’s tier II partners.

The event agenda contained technology-focused sessions around the Simply Connected Architecture with a live demo by senior technology consultants from Juniper. Partner pre-sales and sales experts participated in the event. Over 250 partners

closed room sessions with a C-level audience including owners, heads of sales, CEOs, and VPs to share it’s roadmap and strengthen its relationship across India and SAARC. The short-format evening events were held in nine cities includ-ing Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Dhaka, and Colombo, from August to October. Part-ners learnt about new network opportunities with Juniper, and the Partner Advantage Program which enables them to closely associate with Juniper as certi-fi ed/specialized partners. The event series had about 200 C-level partners from over 120 partner organizations.

participated from about 100 partner organizations. The event has helped Juniper’s partners learn how to use it’s leading-edge technology to help drive the business results their cus-tomers are looking for including the need to increase revenue, decrease costs, and increase customer satisfaction.

Juniper also held another series of partner CXO round-tables, allowing Juniper to have

PRODUCT SHOWCASE

Juniper recently entered a technology partnership with Riverbed Technology in wide area network (WAN) optimization, application delivery and mobility.

With this partnership channel partners can:

Take advantage of the growing WLAN market by expanding their WLAN practice with Juniper

Build differentiation with the Simply Connected portfolio of wireless, switching and security products

Penetrate their EX and SRX installed base with Juniper WLAN

Cross-sell Juniper WLAN with new EX sales

Upgrade their end-users to 802.11n

Help customer’s transition to the MAG Series, allowing them to support mobile devices, BYOD, cloud services and more

Offer customers more fl exibility through the MAG Series’ dual personality SSL VPN and UAC capabilities, as well as application acceleration in higher-end models

Re-engage with customers who purchased SA2000, SA4000 or SA6000 appliances three or more years ago, and open the door to selling additional Juniper products

With Juniper Simply Connected WLAN, channel partners can provide their customers with an affordable, high-performance, easy to manage and highly reliable WLAN and LAN network.

With Migrate to MAG, partners can offer their customers a solution that enables fast and secure access to corporate networks and resources, as well as cloud applications, for telecommuters, mobile workers, branch offi ce employees, headquarter-based employees, contractors, guests, partners and others—while minimizing costs.

WLAN AND MAG

Authorized Distributor

jmc.juniper.net For more details, visit:

new technology and proven With Juni-

per Marketing Concierge, partners can customize and create marketing campaign assets to pro-mote Juniper-related services and solutions.

The concierge service is essentially an online marketing platform that

and events.customize contentchoose from an existing selection of campaign assets, and execute campaigns. They can also completely create

their own cam-paign

Juniper Mar-keting Concierge is avail-

n COVER STORY

DIWAKAR KHATRIAge: 40

Present Role: Founder

& CEO, Ingenius

Technologies

Previous Role: COO,

Micro Clinic India

Experience in the IT Industry: 18 years

There’s a growing number of new-age entrepreneurs launching their partner companies in the face of a slowdown. But it’s going to take a lot more than sheer audacity to ensure their success. By Yogesh Gupta

SLOWDEFYING THE

DOWN

THREE MONTHS ago, when Diwakar Khatri, founder and CEO of Ingenius Technologies, made a sales pitch to an IT/ITeS organization, he remembers

the incredulity with which its CIO asked him, “How old is your company that you think you can execute such a complex project?”

Without missing a beat Khatri said: “My company is as old as my experience in this industry; that’s two decades.” His confident re-ply, says Khatri, landed him the deal.

It’s hard to blame the CIO for being astound-ed by Khatri’s audacity; at that time Ingenius Technologies was barely four months old.

Khatri isn’t the only SI entrepreneur out there. He is part of a growing band of start-up channel players who are defying the slowdown odds their more established peers are facing, and opening their own businesses.

That’s a trend that hasn’t escaped Vijay Sethi, VP & CIO, Hero MotoCorp, who says he’s noticed more system integrators—and even CIOs—launching their own systems inte-grator companies.

Ashok Cherian, CIO, J.K. Cement, also agrees. “There is an increasing movement of executives from larger SI companies or OEMs who want to set up IT shops to leverage their knowledge, connections, and networks.”

What’s special about Khatri is the amount of success he has had. As of December 1, 2012—within just six months of operations—Ingenius Technologies had already clocked revenues (direct and indirect business) worth Rs 23 crore. And it plans to make Rs 58 crore in rev-enues by March 2013.

Gutsy entrepreneurs like Khatri are faced with a tough market. As IT budgets are being squeezed—according to CIO research (CIO is a sister publication of ChannelWorld) in 2012 IT budgets grew only slightly faster than infla-tion—more CIOs are forced to rent, go cloud, postpone investments, and turn to internal staffers to fulfill the IT needs of their organiza-tions. Much of this comes at the expense of a channel partner or system integrator. And even those CIOs who do have the budgets to spend with an SI are less likely, in today’s economic climate, to risk it on a Johnny-come-lately.

But in true entrepreneur spirit, start-ups like Ingenius Technologies are finding their way successfully around these challenges by intelligently picking out sweet spots and us-ing their industry experience, domain exper-tise—and their small size—to get ahead of competitors.


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J.K. Cement’s Cherian, for instance, says that with smaller SIs, it’s easier to find better value and a greater comfort level.

That’s probably why sur-prisingly large companies are willing engage with start-up SIs. Sethi from Hero MotoCorp, for example, says he is currently working with as many as four new players. According to him, these “20

to 40-man” organizations are nimble as they have to prove a point and establish their credibility.

“We start a new partner with small projects to evalu-ate the strength of their so-lution offerings and their willingness to walk the extra mile. Once they prove their competence, we engage with them on bigger projects,” says Sethi.

Another case in point is C.V.G. Prasad, CIO at ING Vysya Bank, who says that he “works with new and smaller systems integrators/solution providers mainly for niche technologies or emerg-ing technologies. These are mainly for focused initia-tives that require specialized skills or solutions,” he says.

That said, Prasad adds that for large projects that are do-main intensive, ING Vysya Bank prefers working with larger and more established systems integrators and solu-tion providers.

That’s not something Sethi entirely agrees with. “CIOs and IT managers often have to invest time and energy with [bigger SIs] to make solutions and


INGENIUS TECHNOLOGIES

Founded: July 2012

Headquarters: Mumbai

Branches (Service Support): Bangalore, Delhi, Chennai, Indore, Mohali, Cochin, Kolkota, Cuttack, Pune

Employees: 25

Vendor Alliances: Cisco, HP, IBM, Juniper, Lenovo, VMware

Key Technologies: Thin Client, Virtualization, Personal Computing, Enterprise Applications

Expected Revenues (FY 12-13): Rs 18 crore


recommendations more ‘practical’. However, the so-called ‘new age integra-tors’ relate more easily to this side (the CIO side) of the table,” he says.

The advent of more new players is also having a ripple effect on the SI com-munity at large. From a competitive perspective, when larger SIs see smaller partners engage large orga-

nizations, they tend to pull up their socks, says Sethi.

“Bigger systems integra-tors have to reinvent the wheel to be more flexible and revamp their USPs to catch up with these new players,” agrees Cherian at J.K. Cement.

To find out more about what it takes to be an SI en-trepreneur, ChannelWorld caught up with Khatri from Ingenius Technologies’.

Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur in this com-petitive market?I’ve always been an entre-preneur at heart. I set up and ran the operations of Micro Clinic’s western re-gion for eight years, which was like being an entrepre-neur. Also, after having been associated with a partner company for 11 years, it was a tad difficult to work for another company. The only path forward was to launch my own venture.

There were people in the industry who had apprehen-sions but we were deter-mined to follow our beliefs. By mid-August, we were operational across Delhi,

Bangalore, Indore, Chennai, Mohali, and Cochin. Cus-tomers supported us, thanks to the rapport I’ve shared with them from the past.

Was money an important factor in your decision to quit your job and launch your own company?Money is one of the criteria to grow in life but not the most important one. Mon-

ey is incidental, something I believed in even during the time I spent at my pre-vious company.

As an entrepreneur, the prime objective is working with like-minded people to script success and in the course of that make money. If you do a good job, you will get more customers and hence more profitability. That’s my philosophy.

The decade-plus years you’ve put in must have come handy when you made the transition.I still value my time with my previous company because I learnt the intricacies of the business and operational de-tails. I respect the trust that Micro Clinic’s stakeholders had in me. To be very hon-est, transformations occur in business relationships and one has to chase a sepa-rate career path. Today, I am at ease runing my own balance sheet as I am solely responsible for my company’s success—and its failure.

What was it like approaching customers from your previous company?

One needs to be highly innovative to make money in this market. The trick, for a channel partner, is to find a

way to structure a deal so that it benefits the customer, the principal—and himself.”


WHY INDIA INC LOVES START-UP SIsIf you thought that large enterprises automatically shut their doors on start ups, think again.

“The leadership teams of newer players give much more attention to each customer as they work on fewer projects than large SIs. They might also have fewer people, but the quality of technical people is extremely high. There is no protocol concern as even their CEO is quite accessible.”VIJAY SETHI, VP & CIO, HERO MOTOCORP

“Start ups have their own methodology and business models as they are more nimble and flexible, and they are also entrepreneurial. They bring newer ideas to integrate solutions and offer RoI-centric models, like Opex, to outdo big SIs and benefit enterprise customers.”ASHOK CHERIAN, CIO, J.K. CEMENT

“New entrepreneurs have great innovations especially with niche technology. We have no qualms laying our bets on them even if we are their first enterprise customer. They might have good solutions for specific projects which are needed at our end.”C.V.G. PRASAD, CIO, ING VYSYA BANK

When I launched the com-pany, those customers had trust in me and my previous commitments. For custom-ers, the bottom line is deliv-erables because they have a business to run. That said they do not change partners overnight. We did approach old customers and they of-fered us a chance through very small orders. Gradu-ally, they offered us few big orders.

We are also approaching new customers who initially give us small orders, typically sub-Rs 10 lakh, to gauge our services and support.

It’s important to remem-ber that the industry doesn’t give you a second chance and hence we have to strate-gically develop customers—new or existing ones.

How supportive were vendor companies when you wanted to sign on as a channel partner?Vendors rely on an execu-tive’s track record. Among other OEMs, HP has been at the forefront in believ-ing in us. We consciously add value to our association and that’s how the principal company values us.

That said, some vendors want numbers first which can be a deterrent. We build such relationships in baby steps through small orders.

What are the major challenges you encountered as a start up? Financial power. Without credit support from a dis-tributor, a partner runs two balance sheets in this capital intensive market. At the same time some distributors

have believed in us as we delivered good business to them. Remember, distribu-tors who have supported startups in the past have become big themselves.

Attrition is another prob-lem. I want my employees to grow as their efforts will catapult my company to new heights. Every em-ployee here is a stakeholder across the hierarchy and that motivates them to walk the extra mile. Stake infuses loyalty, accountability and belonging in an employee. We want to build respon-sibility centers—not blame centers—in our company.

How do you ensure margins, which has always been the top priority for channel partners? Margins are a challenge ev-erywhere. There is no dearth

of partners who will work for as low as 1 percent mar-gin. We do not move away from such deals, because today, CIOs too face con-strained by IT budgets, but try to find workarounds with more business models. For example, we engaged with a customer with a 2 percent margin at the start, but we suggested an Opex model later, which doubled our margins on that account.

Acquiring a customer is more important; money-making opportunities will emerge through add-on projects. One needs to be highly innovative to make money in this market. The trick, for a channel partner, is to find a way to structure a deal so that it benefits the customer, the principal—and himself.”


n COVER STORY

What are some of the things a start-up like you should know or watch out for to ensure the cash registers keep ringing?The IT business works on customer referrals. If we execute five projects well, we get two new custom-ers—on an average. We are also projecting the company on social websites. We plan to form forums of new en-trepreneurs, including non-IT ones, for cross-referrals where we share only the riches—not the expenses.

Also, collection of pay-ments from customers is our major strength; it is credit that drives the mar-ket. Winning an order is relatively easy but collect-ing payment on time re-mains the biggest asset for a partner organization.

Also, vendors are quite upbeat about working with the fresh blood that comes with start ups because al-though companies like us are not big, we possess more innovative business models. More than 80 percent of our business comes through opex models (mainly in association with HP). I ex-ecuted this strategy at Mi-cro Clinic earlier, and I am putting old wisdom to use in this chapter of my career.

Let’s talk money. What are Ingenius Technologies’ profits like?We have 18-plus custom-ers across diverse verticals including IT/ITeS, manu-facturing and media and entertainment. Our indirect business, Rs 15 crore, from distributors/principals has added substantial profitabil-ity to the overall pie.

By March 2013, we will register around Rs 50 crore in revenues (including Rs 18 crore of direct business) and we will double our present employee strength

to 55. We will always stay focused on value business rather than volume.

We will soon add more support locations including Hyderabad. We plan to open a Singapore office (for logis-tic support) by April 2013. We are also supporting a cus-tomer in Philippines through the distributor route.

Is Ingenius Technologies investing in emerging tech-nologies like virtualization and the cloud?Virtualization from the server side, and VDI from the client side have been our success stories as we continue to win big deals. As a professional partner of VMware, we conduct VDI consultancy by highlighting factors like money savings and RoI to our customers. Ingenius is focusing on the cloud in alliance with HP. The server solutions on a cloud model do reduce hard-ware turnover, but storage-related opportunities like upgrades allow for good

revenues in terms of profit-ability and scalability.

Two years from now, what will Ingenius Technologies be rec-ognized as: A sales, technical, or services company?We want to be a known as a ‘valued service partner’ to enterprises. The first phase will be sales centric so that we can generate immediate revenues for the long-term and also invest in services-centric models. We will register Rs 1 crore of ser-vices business this fiscal. This 10 percent figure (of total revenues) will double in the next few years.

Starting with a pure services model is tough for new entrepreneurs as the profits need to be re-invested in newer models and the guesstimate period is longer. You might die before taking off. I need adequate fuel before this rocket takes off; the abil-ity to sustain is the biggest factor for the initial two years of a start up. n

The advent of more new players

is also having a ripple effect on

the SI community at large. From a competitive

perspective, when larger SIs see

smaller partners engage large organizations,

they tend to pull up their socks

“The IT business works on customer referrals. If we execute five projects well, we get two new customers—on an average.”DIWAKAR KHATRI, FOUNDER & CEO, INGENIUS TECHNOLOGIES


n COVER STORY

Integre Softsol does not aspire to be acknowledged as a run-of-the-mill solution provider. And its unusual course looks promising.

AFTER A successful career spanning three decades at se-nior positions with

leading IT companies like NIIT and Wipro, when most people his age would have been contemplating retire-ment, 59-year old SK Basu decided to do something dif-ferent. He decided to take an entrepreneurial route and set up Integre Softsol.

And this experienced M Tech wasn’t setting up a regular systems integration business, but pursuing a distinctive business model through vendor alliances specializing in niche soft-ware solutions for select ver-ticals (mainly government, defence and PSUs).

THE RICH EXPERIENCEArmed with a different strategy, Basu quietly started building partnerships with vendors that trusted him and his vision. “We want to emerge as a preferred partner for customers in gov-ernment, defence, and secu-rity verticals in engineering simulation, GIS and Business Analytics,” says SK Basu, CEO, Integre Softsol.

Simulation software com-pany ANSYS, which was expanding across the gov-ernment segment in India, was just one of his first ports of call. With years of experi-ence managing the govern-ment business (including

defence & security), Integre became the apposite choice for ANSYS.

The experience of de-veloping product business like Oracle, Microsoft, and Sybase at NIIT also helped Integre towards a tie up with SAS and Intergraph.

“By virtue of experience, I had the confidence to create a good company,” says Basu. “Fortunately, we interacted with the right OEMs who were identifying competent partners. I believe it was the right time to launch Integre,” says Basu.

Today, Integre is an ex-clusive partner for selling and supporting ANSYS in the government and public sector organizations in In-dia. Besides, Integre has a partnership with Intergraph Security, Government & In-frastructure (SG&I) to pro-vide geospatially powered solutions to the public safety and security, defense and intelligence, government, transportation, utilities, and communications industries. “This is again a niche tech-nology,” says Basu.

DIFFERENT STRATEGY, LESS COMPETITION Basu explained the reason behind company’s niche route. “You don’t need much investment to start opera-tions in niche technologies. For a routine SI setting shop, the resources in terms of

manpower and brand iden-tity take its toll. Also the business risks associated are lower in our sort of com-pany,” says Basu.

Specialized products take more time to sell as the busi-ness is more skewed towards specific customers. “With the unique solutions in our portfolio, we have built a healthy customer funnel for various products,” he says.

“From my previous roles at different companies, I knew close to 40 percent of the customers I have met af-ter forming Integre,” he adds.

Basu says that he has less competition from other channel partners. Integre is an exclusive partner for gov-ernment sector for Ansys. “For SAS and Intergraph, we operate only in select verticals or select accounts. Hence for next 6 months or so, I do not see much compe-tition,” he says.

“With vendor alliances like Microsoft and IBM; this minimal fighting is not pos-sible as they operate on vol-ume sales. This model I have created fits me well,” he says.

EQUATION WITH VENDORS ANSYS, Intergraph and SAS are upbeat about the momentum of Integre in the marketplace, says Basu adding, “Vendor companies evaluate the credibility of the promoter of a start up company. Their connect

AdvantageNiche Business


INTEGRE SOFTSOL

Founded: July 2012

Headquarters: Delhi

Branches: Bangalore

Employees: 9

Vendor Alliances: ANSYS,

Intergraph, SAS

Key Technologies: Engineering Simulation,

Business Analytics, GIS



“The advantage vendors get is the higher hunger and tremendous initiative of a start-up to achieve results. Vendors look for that aggressiveness in all partners.” S.K. BASU, CEO, INTEGRE SOFTSOL

over the years in the mar-ketplace is a major plus.”

Basu says “The advantage a vendor gets is the higher hunger and tremendous initiative of a start-up to achieve results. The vendor looks for that aggressive-ness in all partners.”

OEMs work with partners with specific domain knowledge who can be their reliable ‘brand ambassadors’ in the market. However the disadvantage for start ups is that OEMs sometimes tend to lose focus and offer less support to new companies.

THE PROFITABLE OUTLOOKIntegre plans to engage with over 150 customers and have about 25 employees in next two years. It expects rev-enues of about Rs 5-8 crore by that time. “We will have limited invoice but the mar-gins are higher than pure top lines. This is also a more hassle free business model,” he says.

Besides product sales, in-stallation and training will ensure service revenues. The company expects to garner about a third of its revenues from services. “Once we have a substantial

customer base with a lon-ger association and better trust, we will push services more. After the first year of operations, we will have a separate focus on services,” informs Basu.

With major chunk of rev-enues expected from gov-ernment, will the sector’s slower sales cycle induce cash flow issue for Integre? Basu replies, “For the first two quarters, business will start rolling up and then cash flow will get stream-lined. Government business is nevertheless less risky than corporate,” he says.

Next year, Integre will focus on big data, mobil-ity applications and cloud. However the company will remain a 100 percent soft-ware company. “We will not venture into hardware, which is a low-margin mass market,” says Basu. n

S.K BASU

Age: 59

Current Role: Director

& CEO, Integre Softsol

Previous Role: Vice

President , NIIT

Technologies

Experience in IT industry: 30 years

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n COVER STORY

Backed by a decade of industry experience in networking, Sarfaraz Dhanji of WTech India Solutions, is exploring newer opportunities in the domain and beyond.

ONCE YOU get to the top of a vendor company, you can either stay there

for rest of your career or you jump to another vendor, where your profile would be repetitive. Or launch your own venture,” says Sarfaraz Dhanji, former country manager India & SAARC for SMC Networks. The 40-year old chose the latter option and pursued his ambition to become an entrepreneur.

Dhanji launched his own partner organization, WTech India Solutions, in July this year, after work-ing as SMC’s regional sales manager in the Middle East for seven years, and its India country manager from 2008 to 2012.

“The new venture will give me additional exposure to the corporate industry. With my previous role, I was restricted predomi-nantly to networking only,” says Dhanji, who carried his entire team from SMC with him into the new venture.

HIGH ON WI-FIWTech tied up with Maksat and Ezzi Networks to en-hance its value proposition for Wi-Fi installations. “The objective is to design and further monetize seamless Wi-Fi solutions for corpo-rates,” says Dhanji.

Aligning with ISPs, WTech and its team are engaged in creating Wi-Fi hotspots across college and univer-sity campuses, shopping malls, cafes, shopping gate-ways, and corporate houses. “Most offices give access to a visitor using a user name and password on their wireless network,” he says. “This is a risky proposition.” WTech has adopted a more secure route.

“A password is sent on a visitor’s mobile phone. We will maintain a server at the client or ISP’s end through our customized software,” he says. The customer will receive periodic reports about Internet use and user demographics from the company. In any untoward incident, the mobile details of the miscreant will be available on the system.

WTech executes point-to-point and point-to-multi-point solutions for offices and their branch offices. “Though leased lines are an option, the civil work and the associated permis-sions from authorities lead to delays. Wi-Fi has a much faster time-to-market and is cheaper,” he says.

The device by Maksat, an outdoor access point, deliv-ers good range and extreme throughput. Its hardware and enclosure installed in

corporate buildings do not interfere with other giga-hertz topology in the vicin-ity, says Dhanji.

WIN, WIN, WIN Dhanji expects over 50 percent revenues from networking and most of it will emerge from Wi-Fi installations and footprint expansions.

How will customers, ISPs, and WTech benefit from this business model? Dhanji explains. “ISP is a crowded space as customers change service providers for cheaper Internet packages. However data Internet will still be a cheaper option than fast-growing mobile Internet.”

“WTech is delivering a total value proposition solu-tion for customers to attach to a single ISP for a longer period. For an ISP, as Inter-net usage increases, the cli-ent will subscribe for more bandwidth,” he says.

Apart from Wi-Fi installa-tions and server set ups, the company excels in configur-ing firmware across routers and switches of various vendor companies. This is the most crucial aspect for wireless according to Dhanji. WTech also offers the server (for Wi-Fi installation) to the customer on an Opex model.

Ezzi Network’s cloud tech-nology will power the mon-

Networkingfor Success


WTECH INDIA SOLUTIONS

Founded: July 2011

Headquarters: Mumbai

Employees: 11

Vendor Alliances: Cisco, Edge-Core, Ezzi Networks, IBM, Lenovo, Maksat, WatchGuard

Key Technologies: Customized Wi-Fi Solutions, Enterprise Networking, Power Conditioning, Personal Computing


etization, seamless roaming, and meshing of WTech’s Wi-Fi Footprint, says Dhanji.

OVERCOMING HURDLESBesides wireless, network-ing services also include network management (LAN and WAN setup and sup-port) through wired enter-prise switching solutions. “We still need to gain the confidence of enterprises and vendor companies. It’s not happening as smoothly as of now but it will ease out in couple of quarters,” says Dhanji.

“With more clarity on sales leads with vendors, we will prove ourselves as a compe-tent partner. The distributors too will eventually give more credit timelines with more business,” he says.

The small number of challenges does not impede WTech’s intent to position itself as a one-stop IT pro-vider (desktop to datacenter) for enterprises.

WTech is targeting SMEs across auto, pharma, media, and banking to name a few. “We will address large en-terprises later as we scale

up operations and swell our customer reference base,” says Dhanji.

THE DREAM Business works more on customer relationships than just deal size, says Dhanji. “Competition will have price advantage at times. However, many customers realize our eagerness to do business and hence we would quote the best price,” he says.

Services revenues (from AMC and FMS) will help build customer confidence and fatten the bottom line

for a start-up like WTech. Besides keeping customers happy through dedicated service support, “we keep our employees happy first as they drive the business for you,” he says.

In the next two years, WTech plans to open branches across Delhi, Chennai, and other major cities and expects employee strength to rise to 25 by March 2014. “I yearn for WTech to be a public listed company one day, which is the dream of any entrepre-neur,” says Dhanji. n

“We still need to gain the confidence of enterprises and vendor companies. It’s not happening as smoothly as of now but it will ease out in couple of quarters.” SARFARAZ DHANJI, DIRECTOR, WTECH INDIA SOLUTIONS

Age: 40

Present Role: Director,

WTech India Solutions

Previous Role: Country Manager

India & SAARC, SMC

Networks

Experience in IT industry: 19 Years

SARFARAZ DHANJI

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n COVER STORY

3in Solutions derives a major chunk of its revenues from the services business. This ensures healthy bottom lines and longer-lasting customer loyalty.

ARUN SG, employed with Frontier Busi-ness Systems for 15 years, took a call to

launch his own company, 3in Solutions, in Decem-ber 2010. “With the rich industry know-how behind me, I clearly understood the business intricacies of partner organizations. I also realized that, apart from large systems integra-tors, there is a huge gap across regional channel partners,” says Arun SG, Director, 3in Solutions.

There was a colossal op-portunity brewing for Arun to position his newly-formed company between a small-time reseller and big-time SI. And he took the plunge.

TIMING IS EVERYTHING It was the right time for Arun to start 3in Solutions in March 2011. Frontier had aggressively started focus-ing on services over the last three to four years. “The experience of that business model has helped me today. If I had set up my IT shop earlier, then I would have been just another reseller, and not a services-oriented systems integrator!” he says.

The numbers back up his claim. “In the first year of operations, close to 50 percent of our revenues were services oriented. This

fiscal, though hardware volumes have increased, we will still end with at least half of our yearly revenues from services,” he says.

Part of the reason is that his company focuses on implementations and ser-vices. Hardware service includes implementation which is one-time (VMware or Citrix) and takes 20 to 25 days. His engineers travel for the implementation across cities where 3in Solu-tions do not have a branch office. “In the implementa-tion business, outsourcing does not help as it does not give any margins.”

Arun believes that apart from large players like Wipro and Avnet, none of the smaller partners can deliver solution-based of-ferings and services with technical expertise and full-fledged support. “This has made us a leading SI in the marketplace in a short span of time,” he says.

CREATING THE BRAND Any start-up partner compa-ny needs to gain access with enterprise customers. “Cus-tomers have their loyalties with existing channel part-ners. However, enterprises do need complete solutions including server, storage, networking, and UPS, hence we engaged with various

vendors to emerge as single point source,” he says.

However he clarifies, “We were clear not to position ourselves as a reseller or just another box pusher; but as a solution provider capable of offering simplified solutions to enterprises.”

A big advantage, says Arun is that many vendors know of his reputation as someone capable of carrying their solutions as a brand ambassador to customers.

It also helps that 3in Solu-tions isn’t weighed down by many of the protocols larger players need to put in place. “This limited directory translates into fast decisions and probably winning more deals. We are not as process driven as big companies, which allows us to be flex-ible with customer needs,” he says.

TEETHING ISSUES During the company’s first few months, many enter-prises worked with 3in So-lutions. Others, he recalls, pigeonholed his company as a start up, making it tough for him to convince them to give 3in Solutions opportu-nities. “One opportunity is enough for us to hold that account for ever,” he says.

Another challenge is that established systems integra-tors have adequate financial

Profitingfrom Services


3IN SOLUTIONS

Founded: March 2011

Headquarters: Bangalore

Employees: 10

Vendor Alliances: Cisco,

Citrix, D-link, Dell, IBM,

Lenovo

Key Technologies: End

User Computing (VDI,

Mobility Solutions),Storage

Consolidation, Virtualization,

UC and Collaboration

Revenues (FY 11-12): Rs 7 crore

Expected Revenues (FY 12 - 13): Rs 18 crore

power behind them. “They can easily execute deals around worth Rs 3-4 crore. Most customers do not look at us for such high-value deals though we have good credit limits in the indus-try,” he says.

Big deals never come to start-up companies as most of these orders are stitched up by vendors and big-ger partner organizations. There is also lack of focus from principals as they en-gage more with big partner organizations, says Arun.

PULLING THE PLUGThere is more emphasis at 3in to target large enterpris-es. From April, the company will start a branch at Chen-nai. There is also a plan for service outlet in Mumbai as it has a lot of implementa-tions in Mumbai and Pune, says Arun.

Well-versed with the hierarchy of vendors, Arun often calls them personally for any issues including fixing customer problems instantly. “The decade-plus years I put in the industry has educated me in terms of which is the right button to press in case of an emergen-cy. This ensures customer stickiness,” he says.

Bigger partners might have financial strength to win orders but the ‘business

relationship’ with vendors helps us to a large extent, he says.

“It’s my dream to start op-erations in Singapore from a

logistics perspective and oth-er service segment,” he says.

The company name ‘3in Solutions’ is derived from three ‘ins’: Innovative, intel-

ligent and integrated solu-tions. And that’s precisely what enterprises want in their modern IT infrastruc-ture, says Arun. n


“We were clear not to position ourselves as a reseller or just another box pusher; but as a solution provider capable of offering simplified solutions to enterprises.” ARUN SG, DIRECTOR, 3IN SOLUTIONS

ARUN SG

Age: 39

Current Role: Director,

3in Solutions

Previous Role: General

Manager-National,

Frontier Business

Systems

Experience in IT industry: 17 years

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Associated Business Computers, displayed perseverance and skill sets to successfully execute an ‘uphill’ project for a Co-operative bank. By Yogesh Gupta

WHEN SUJEET Narula, Man-aging Director, Associ-ated Business Computers (ABC), sold a printer and

a desktop worth a lakh rupees to the Almora Urban Co-operative Bank (AUCB) way back in 2000, little did he realize that this was the beginning of a long relationship. After all ABC is a firm based in Delhi, a city famous for its unruly traffic and aggressive atti-tude of its inhabitants. While AUCB is headquartered in Almora, a calm town nestled in the Himalayas at a height

SCALE OFHEIGHTS

Sujeet Narula, MD, Associated Business Computers

of more than 5000 feet above sea level and surrounded by thick forests.

However, things started changing in 2008, when AUCB decided to over-haul its IT infrastructure. This was necessitated by the increased competi-tion that the bank was facing and its realization that it had to upgrade its IT infrastructure to compete effectively in the market.

“Most of the nationalized and private banks in our area had imple-mented a core banking solution (CBS) and to compete with them we decided

to go for CBS,” explains P.C. Tiwari, CEO, AUCB.

Since ABC was servicing the re-quirements of AUCB ever since the first sale of printers and desktops, Na-rula naturally got a call. But, he wasn’t the only one in the race. A vendor com-pany and a tier 1 systems integrator were also in the fray to bag the project. After all the project was worth about Rs 8 crore.

ABC faced competition from the cloud proposition of other vendors. However, after about twelve months


P h o t o g r a p h b y S R I V A T S A S H A N D I LY A

Key Parties: Almora Urban Cooperative Bank, Associated Business Computers

Location: Almora, Uttarakhand

Project Cost: Approx. Rs 8 crore

Implementation time: 12 months

Main vendors: HP, APC, InfrasoftTech

Key People involved: P.C. Tiwari, CEO and Dhiraj Pathak, Head-IT, Almora Urban Co-operative Bank; Sujeet Narula, MD, Associated Business Computers

Key Technologies: Architecture and design of the datacenter (blade servers, storage, networking, software), power conditioning, data consolidation & Back up

Post implementation RoI: Standardization of processes, better productivity, enhanced custome service, competitive advantage, increased business

Snapshot

HEIGHTSThere were also some issues with

the principal company, HP, as per Na-rula, with the timely delivery of mate-rial at the datacenter and the branches to contend with.

Half way through the project; Ut-tarakhand experienced a big landslide in August 2010. It further delayed the project by few weeks but luckily no damage was incurred on the datacen-ter, says Narula.

“We handled all the intricacies ranging from civil works to instal-lation of entire hardware at DC/DR sites. The engineers worked day in day out,” says Narula.

REACHING THE TOPThere was immense anxiety for the first 12 months after the requirement was floated, and later a year while im-plementing the project, admits Narula.

“We are reaping the rewards of implementing a CBS including stan-dardization of processes, better cus-tomer service leading to retention and increased customer traffic,” says Tiwari adding, “There has been an increased in business volumes with better asset liability management and risk management.”

Today, AUCB has 38 branches as twelve new ones were added in past 18 months. The connectivity of these branches to the datacenter and CBS is an incremental business for ABC. We undertook a similar project in Dehra-dun after this one though the site is at a much lower height, explains Narula.

Narula conducted few dozen trips (each of 300 km) from Delhi to Al-mora to personally supervise the project. And his visits seem to have paid off handsomely.

of negotiations, ABC finally received the order in April 2010. “The solutions by ABC completely suited our existing problems and hence the board decided to engage with them for the datacenter project,” says Tiwari.

Considering aspects like scalability, security and the bank’s own vision of its IT infrastructure, an in-house datacenter (DC) and disaster recovery (DR) solution was zeroed in on. “With our own datacenter, we are in complete control of all software and hardware, and are able to achieve the demands of a high-functioning organization at all times,” says Dhiraj Pathak, Head IT, Almora Urban Co-operative Bank.

CLIMBING A MOUNTAIN“After several rounds of meetings and considering the geographical condi-tions, we decided to have our own datacenter at out headquarters in Al-mora, Uttarakhand.” informs Tiwari.

A datacenter at Almora seemed quite a daunting task. Additionally, most of the 26 bank branches were in remote and hilly areas of the state of Uttarakhand. According to Narula, several issues like difficulty in logistics and unavailability of manpower were posing a major concern.

ABC prepared the blue print to build a primary DC site at Almora and a sec-ondary DR site at Haldwani district. Apart from operational challenges like delay in delivery and change in requirement, the real hindrance was the geographical location. Accessibil-ity and further ensuring delivery of IT equipment across different branches seemed a tough task.

At this point, the branch office of ABC at Haldwani came in useful, says Narula. ABC formed a core team of five people—three in Delhi and two in Haldwani—across different roles for this mammoth project.

ABC tied up with a local transport company in Haldwani to streamline logistics of the hardware equipment to the datacenter. The DC was to be built on the second floor of the building. “Even the car halts 100 meters away. We employed local coolies to lift the equipment from the trucks to the main building. At times, pulleys were used to transport the equipment to the sec-ond floor,” recalls Narula.

CASE STUDY

“After several rounds of meetings and

considering the geographical conditions, we decided to have own datacenter at our HQ in Almora, Uttarakhand.” P.C. Tiwari, CEO, Almora Urban Co-operative Bank

In addition, Sify and Tulip were unable to commit to last mile connectivity as some branches of bank were near Nepal border. The connectivity is-sues were finally resolved after a few months as BSNL provided the main leased lines and a back-up of ISDN.

MORE ROADBLOCKSThe project extended a bit longer and we had to stretch our bank limits at times, though we regularly received small installments from customers, ex-plains Narula. “But we knew the worth of this investment,” he adds.


YEARS AGO the typical hacking scenario involved a lone attacker and maybe some buddies working late

at night, pumped up on Mountain Dew, looking for public-facing IP addresses. When they found one, they enumerated the advertising services (Web server, SQL server, and so on), broke in using a multitude of vulnerabilities, then explored the compromised company to their heart’s content. Often their intent was exploratory. If they did something illegal, it was typically a spur-of-the-moment crime of opportunity.

MY, HOW TIMES HAVE CHANGED.When describing a typical hack-ing scenario, these days you must begin well before the hack or even the hacker, with the organization behind the attack. Today, hacking is all crime, all the time, complete with bidding markets for malware, crime syndicates, botnets for hire, and cy-ber warfare gone amok.

Here are the nine biggest threats facing today’s IT security pros.

Hacking’s gone from a one-person crime of opportunity to an open market run by crime syndicates and money launderers. By Roger A. Grimes

Cyber Crime SyndicatesAlthough the lone criminal mastermind still exists, these days most malicious hacking attacks are the result of

organized groups, many of which are professional. Traditional organized crime groups that used to run drugs, gambling, and extortion have thrown their hats into the online money grab ring. Competition is fierce, led not by mafiosos but several very large groups of professional criminals aimed specifically at cyber crime.

Many of the most successful or-ganized cyber crime syndicates are businesses that lead large affiliate conglomerate groups, much in the vein of legal distributed marketing hierar-chies. In fact, today’s cyber criminal probably has more in common with an Avon or Amway rep than either wants to admit.

Small groups, with a few members, still hack, but more and more, IT security pros are up against large corporations dedicated to rogue behavior. Think full-time employees, HR departments, project management

teams, and team leaders. And it’s all criminal, no more funny messages printed to the screen or other teenage antics. Most operate in the open, and some—like the Russian Business Network—even have their own Wikipedia entries. Kind of makes you wish for yesteryear, doesn’t it?

Specialization and division of labor are at the heart of these organizations. A single mastermind, or an inner circle, will run the collective. Sergeants and subdivisions will specialize in different areas, with an arm dedicated to creating malware, another dedicated to marketing, another that sets up and maintains the distribution channel, and yet another in charge of creating botnets and renting them to other evildoers.

It’s little wonder why popular IT se-curity practices just don’t work against today’s malware, given that cyber crime has evolved into a multi-level, service-oriented industry with the blatant goal of fleecing companies and people out of their money and intellec-tual property.

Small-time Cons—and the Money Mules and Launders That Prop and Support ThemNot all cyber criminal

organizations are syndicates or corporations. Some are simply entrepreneurial in nature, small

THREATSSECURITYBIGGESTIT’S

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businesses after one thing: Money.These malicious mom-and-pop operations may steal identities and passwords, or they may cause nefarious redirection to get it. In the end, they want money. They initiate fraudulent credit card or banking transactions and convert their ill-gotten gains into local currency using money mules, electronic cash distribution, e-banking, or some other sort of money laundering.

It’s not hard to find money launders. There are dozens to hundreds of enti-ties competing to be the one that gets to take a large percentage cut of the illegally procured loot. In fact, you’d be surprised at the competitive and public nature of all the other people begging to do support business with Internet criminals. They advertise “no ques-tions asked,” “bulletproof” hosting in countries far from the reaches of legal subpoenas, and they offer public bulle-tin boards, software specials, 24/7 tele-phone support, bidding forums, satis-fied customer references, anti-malware avoidance skills, and all the servicing that helps others to be better online criminals. Many of these groups make tens of millions of dollars each year.

Many of these groups and the per-sons behind them have been identi-fied (and arrested) over the past few years. Their social media profiles show happy people with big houses, expen-sive cars, and content families taking foreign vacations. If they’re the slight-est bit guilty from stealing money from others, it doesn’t show.

Imagine the neighborhood bar-beques where they tell neighbors and friends that they run an “Internet mar-keting business”—all the while social engineering their way to millions to the consternation of IT security pros who have done just about everything you can to protect users from themselves.

HacktivistsWhereas exploit bragging was not uncommon in the early days, today’s cyber criminal seeks to fly under

the radar—with the exception of the growing legions of hacktivists.

These days IT security pros have to contend with an increasing number of loose confederations of individuals

dedicated to political activism, like the infamous Anonymous group. Politi-cally motivated hackers have existed since hacking was first born. The big change is that more and more of it is being done in the open, and society is readily acknowledging it as an ac-cepted form of political activism.

Political hacking groups often com-municate, either anonymously or not, in open forums announcing their tar-gets and hacking tools ahead of time. They gather more members, take their grievances to the media to drum up public support, and act astonished if they get arrested for their illegal deeds. Their intent is to embarrass and bring negative media attention to the victim as much as possible, whether that in-cludes hacking customer information, committing DDoS (distributed denial of service) attacks, or simply causing the victim company additional strife.

More often than not, political hack-tivism is intent on causing monetary pain to its victim in an attempt to change the victim’s behavior in some way. Individuals can be collateral damage in this fight, and regardless of whether one believes in the hack-tivist’s political cause, the intent and methodology remain criminal.

IP Theft and Corporate EspionageWhile the likelihood of dealing with hacktivists may be low, most IT se-

curity pros have to contend with the large group of malicious hackers that exist only to steal intellectual property from companies or to perform straight-up corporate espionage.

The method of operations here is to break into a company’s IT assets, dump all the passwords, and over time, steal gigabytes of confidential infor-mation: Patents, new product ideas, military secrets, financial information, business plans, and so on. Their intent is to find valuable information to pass along to their customers for financial gain, and their goal is to stay hidden inside the compromised company’s network for as long as possible.

To reap their rewards, they eaves-drop on important e-mails, raid da-tabases, and gain access to so much information that many have begun to

develop their own malicious search engines and query tools to separate the fodder from the more interesting intellectual property.

This sort of attacker is known as an APT (advanced persistent threat) or DHA (determined human adversary). There are few large companies that have not been successfully compro-mised by these campaigns.

Malware MercenariesNo matter what the intent or group behind the cyber crime, someone has to make the malware. In the

past, a single programmer would make malware for his or her own use, or per-haps to sell. Today, there are teams and companies dedicated solely to writ-ing malware. They turn out malware intended to bypass specific security defenses, attack specific customers, and accomplish specific objectives. And they’re sold on the open market in bidding forums.

Often the malware is multi-phased and componentized. A smaller stub program is tasked with the initial exploitation of the victim’s computer, and once securely placed to ensure it lives through a reboot, it contacts a “mothership” Web server for further instructions. Often the initial stub program sends out DNS queries look-ing for the mothership, itself often a compromised computer temporarily acting as a mothership. These DNS queries are sent to DNS servers that are just as likely to be innocently infected victim computers. The DNS servers move from computer to com-puter, just as the mothership Web servers do.

Once contacted, the DNS and mothership server often redirect the initiating stub client to other DNS and mothership servers. In this way, the stub client is directed over and over (often more than a dozen times) to newly exploited comput-ers, until eventually the stub pro-gram receives its final instructions and the more permanent malicious program is installed.

All in all, the setup used by today’s malware writers makes it very dif-ficult for IT security pros to defend against their wares.

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Botnets as a ServiceBotnets aren’t just for their creators anymore. Having more than likely bought the malware

program that creates the bot, today’s owners will either use the botnet for themselves or rent it to others by the hour or another metric.

The methodology is familiar. Each version of the malware program attempts to exploit thousands to tens of thousands of computers in an effort to create a single botnet that will operate as one entity at the creator’s bidding. Each bot in the botnet eventually connects back to its command and control server(s) to get its latest instructions. Botnets have been found with hundreds of thousands of infected computers.

But now that there are so many active botnets (literally tens of millions of infected computers each day), botnet rentals are fairly cheap, meaning all the more problems for IT security pros.

Malware fighters will often attempt to take down the command and con-trol servers and/or take over their control so that they can instruct the connecting bots to disinfect their host computers and die.

All-in-one MalwareToday’s sophisticated mal-ware programs often offer all-in-one, soup-to-nuts functionality. They will

not only infect the end-user but also break into websites and modify them to help infect more victims. These all-in-one malware programs often come with management consoles so that their owners and creators can keep track of what the botnet is doing, who they are infecting, and which ones are most successful.

Most malicious programs are Trojan horses. Computer viruses and worms have long since ceased to be the most popular types of malware. In most cas-es, the end-user is tricked into running a Trojan horse that’s advertised as a necessary anti-virus scan, disk defrag-mentation tool, or some other seem-ingly essential or innocuous utility. The user’s normal defenses are fooled because most of the time the Web

page offering the rogue executable is a trusted site they’ve visited many times. The bad guys simply compromised the site, using a host of tricks, and inserted a few lines of JavaScript that redirect the user’s browsers to the Trojan horse program.

The Increasingly Compromised WebAt the most basic level, a website is simply a computer, just like a

regular end-user workstation; in turn, Webmasters are end-users like everyone else. It’s not surprising to find the legitimate Web is being increasingly littered with malicious JavaScript redirection links.

But it’s not entirely a matter of Webmasters’ computers being exploited that’s leading to the rise in Web server compromises. More often, the attacker finds a weakness or vulnerability in a website that allows them to bypass admin authentication and write malicious scripts.

Common website vulnerabilities include poor passwords, cross-site scripting vulnerabilities, SQL injection, vulnerable software, and insecure permissions. The Open Web Application Security Project Top 10 list is the authority on how most Web servers get compromised.

Many times it isn’t the Web server or its application software but some link or advertisement that gets hacked. It’s fairly common for banner ads, which are often placed and rotated by general advertising agencies, to end up in-fected. Heck, many times the malware guys simply buy ad space on popular Web servers.

Because many of the evildoers pres-ent themselves as businessmen from legitimate corporations, complete with corporate headquarters, business cards, and expense accounts, it’s not always so easy to separate the legiti-mate ad sources from the bad guys, who often begin advertising a legiti-mate product only to switch out the link in the ad to a rogue product after the ad campaign is under way. One of the more interesting exploits involved hackers compromising a cartoon syn-dicate so that every newspaper repub-lishing the affected cartoons ended up

pushing malware. You can’t even trust a cartoon anymore.

Another problem with hacked web-sites is that the computers hosting one site can often host multiple sites, sometimes numbering in the hundreds or thousands. One hacked website can quickly lead to thousands more.

No matter how the site was hacked, the innocent user, who might have visited this particular website for years without a problem, one day gets prompted to install an unexpected pro-gram. Although they’re surprised, the fact that the prompt is coming from a website they know and trust is enough to get them to run the program. After that, it’s game over. The end-user’s computer (or mobile device) is yet an-other cog in someone’s big botnet.

Cyber WarfareNation-state cyber warfare programs are in a class to themselves and aren’t something most IT secu-rity pros come up against

in their daily routines. These covert operations create complex, profes-sional cyber warfare programs intent on monitoring adversaries or taking out an adversary’s functionality, but as Stuxnet and Duqu show, the fallout of these methods can have consequences for more than just the intended targets.

CRIME AND NO PUNISHMENTSome victims never recover from exploitation. Their credit record is for-ever scarred by a hacker’s fraudulent transaction, the malware uses the vic-tim’s address book list to forward itself to friends and family members, victims of IP theft spend tens of millions of dollars in repair and prevention.

The worst part is that almost none of those who use the above malicious attacks are successfully prosecuted. The criminals on the Internet are liv-ing large because the Internet isn’t good at producing court-actionable evidence. It’s anonymous by default, and tracks are lost and covered up in milliseconds. Right now we live in the “wild, wild West” days of the Internet. As it matures, the criminal safe havens will dry up. Until then, IT security pros have their work cut out for them. n

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DURING VMWORLD in San Francisco, five-year-old stor-age vendor Scale

Computing launched a new storage appliance that eliminates the entire I/O storage network that resides between servers

Storage systems are becoming storage computers as vendors push functionality downstream. By Stacy Collett

and storage. Instead, the appliance uses powerful processors that are capable of hosting multiple virtual machines in the same stor-age box. The appliance requires no virtualization software and no external storage, which could cut

EVERYTHING ABOUT STORAGE

FocalPoint

storage costs by as much as 75 percent for small and midsize businesses with limited resources and storage expertise.

Some industry watch-ers call it a breakthrough. Others call it an expected progression in storage ar-chitecture. But all agree that the evolution of stor-age from basic systems to high-powered storage com-puters is a trend that’s tak-ing hold at organizations of all sizes.

“They’re the first one I’ve seen that’s done something like that,” says Dick Csaplar, an analyst at Boston-based Aberdeen Group, referring to Scale Computing’s “collapsed”

Worldwide, organizations hold about 2.2 zettabytes of data and spend about $1.1 trillion (about Rs 52 lakh crore) to secure and provide access to it, according to Symantec.

Those sky-high numbers about the amount of data and what’s spent to hold it were based on the results of a survey of 4,056 information technology professionals at organizations in 38 coun-tries for Symantec’s State of Information survey. The survey found on average $38 million (about Rs 201 crore) is being spent annu-ally by larger enterprises, and $332,000 (about Rs 1.8 crore) by SMBs, to store and secure their business data. In all, 30 percent said they suffer from “information sprawl” as data is held outside the organization as well as inside it.

Sean Regan, senior director of product marketing, Symantec, notes that SMBs spend slightly more on a per-employee basis an-nually on information storage, security and management—$3,670 (about Rs 2 lakh) per employee—compared with the $3,297 (about Rs 1.8 lakh) per employee that enterprises spend each year. Economies of scale are often what account for that, he said.

Information is so important to all organizations, according to the survey, the 4,506 IT professionals said they believe it repre-sents 49 percent of an organization’s “total value.”

But though business data is of critical worth, the IT profes-sionals acknowledged the struggles they had in managing it.

Today, about 75 percent of business data is stored in-house and about 25 percent in the cloud, according to the survey. And in many cases, companies also appear to be have “barely utilized their storage,” Regan says, making use of only 31 percent of what they’ve already bought. This low storage utilization rate of “31 percent inside the firewall and even lower (18 percent) outside,” according to the survey, is somewhat surprising, Regan said. — By Ellen Messmer

DATA STORAGE COSTS BIG MONEY

architecture, which combines servers, storage and virtualization in one appliance. “It seems fairly straightforward. It’s one of those ‘Why didn’t it happen earlier?’ types of questions.”

In fact, many veteran and startup storage ven-dors have been plotting moves into high-powered storage computers for some time, as more functions are being driven down into storage systems.

One of the key reasons why it’s possible to move computing power down into storage is the emer-gence of scale-out archi-tectures, which can bring a lot more CPU, memory and networking to the storage

Storage Supersized


level. Traditional storage ar-chitectures, with their fixed amounts of CPU, memory and networking, weren’t designed to host applications natively on storage systems. Today, the emerging scale-out architecture lets users add many storage systems to an existing infrastructure and scale up not just capac-ity, but also performance, CPU, memory and network-ing equally.

Advances in processing power have also prompted the move to storage comput-ing. With 16-core proces-sors, for instance, systems have “incredible amounts of computing power. Utiliz-ing some of that power for things other than straight application processing is coming,” Csaplar says.

Server virtualization has also pushed traditional stor-age systems to the tipping point, with sometimes 20 to 30 servers virtualized onto one server. “So now storage administrators are faced with a tremendous load coming into one storage sys-tem,” says Hu Yoshida, CTO at Hitachi Data Systems. “That has increased the de-mand for I/O processing.”

STAKING THEIR POSITIONSStorage giant EMC is work-ing on next-generation scale-out capabilities at the storage level, but the vendor doesn’t have a new product to announce yet. “It’s certainly an area of interest,” says Sam Grocott, vice president of marketing. “From an industry stand-point, I think everybody is looking at that. We have CPU cycles and cores and a lot more memory that is available for not just storage tasks today, but now for application use cases as well.”

Hitachi Data Systems has been steadily moving toward powerful storage computing since 2000, Yoshida says. Today, its Virtual Storage Platform can move data to high-performance storage when an application needs it and move it to lower-class storage when performance is no longer required.

“It’s not just a storage computer—it’s a hybrid mul-tiprocessor,” Yoshida says. “We also do that in our high-performance NAS product.”

The next step will be “unification,” he adds. “In our midrange product, we’ve added an optic file system [so] users can do file as well as block processing. Our file system is built around an ob-ject architecture, so I can do a query against the metadata and find things quickly. This is how we combine hardware and CPUs running software to speed up the process.” Hit-achi included that file system in its Unified Storage System in April.

“We’re going to see more hybrids from Hitachi,” says

Andrew Reichman, an ana-lyst at Forrester Research. “They’ve got the tools, but they’re slow to market. They take their time but build something that is very well engineered.”

Nearly a dozen startups have entered the market, Reichman says. Nutanix, for instance, has rolled out a server/storage hybrid designed to be scaled out, highly automated and easy to use. Nimble Storage of-fers a next-generation hy-brid combination of disk/solid-state drive. Tegile Systems, MorphLabs, Tin-tri, Pivot3 and Astute Net-works also offer one-stop storage computing boxes.

INTRICATE CHALLENGESHigh-performance storage computing requires certain kind of expertise in servers, storage and applica-tions. Many vendors will have to forge partnerships to be successful.

“Those three pieces are key to [making] this a scalable model,” Grocott

says. “The storage [vendors are] going to have to have strong partnerships with the application players, be-cause they need to become aware that [applications] live on storage and are not going through traditional networks. But also you create that scalable infra-structure via hypervisors to house these multiple ap-plications within the stor-age infrastructure.”

He does acknowledge that creating scalable in-frastructure via hypervi-sors could add a layer of complexity and expense.

“It’s a constant trade-off” when it comes to choosing among high performance, easy scalability and lower costs, Grocott says. “I think that’s the piece that needs to evolve the most —making sure the applica-tion [vendors] are aware of this new storage environ-ment and we partner to-gether to figure out what’s the right model, both from an integration and eco-nomic standpoint.”

Right now, storage com-puting appliances are being marketed to midsize compa-nies. “It’s simplification for the midsize enterprises who are just getting hammered with all the complexity of the big guys and no resourc-es to deal with it,” Csaplar says. But large enterprises will likely benefit most from the highly optimized archi-tecture to deliver a hand-ful of applications that are virtualized on storage, and they’ll be willing to pay ex-tra for better performance, Grocott adds.

“You will see different models in the market, but to find that ultimate solu-tion, and we’ll need a lot of swings and misses before somebody hits the ball out of the park,” Csaplar says.

FOCAL POINT | STORAGE

More companies than ever before are blending cloud and on-premises storage, says Dick Csaplar, an analyst at Aberdeen Group. On-premises systems are “fast, immediate, close by,” he notes, adding that they have “very little latency because you’re not dealing with a WAN—just a LAN.”

But as the data ages—and in some cases, before it’s even archived—“you can relocate it in the cloud and take advantage of the low cost of cloud storage, but still have direct access to the data” even if there’s a delayed response, says Csaplar. Red Hat did this with its hybrid cloud storage architecture after acquiring Gluster, an open-source storage software company, in October 2011. Swedish vendor CompuVerde has a similar offering.

“They all have different variations on the theme of what [storage] is on-premises versus what’s in the cloud,” Csaplar adds. “But this link of making your storage continuous across both the cloud and on-premises is a trend I think we’re going to see a lot more of as well.”

— By Stacy Collett

STORAGE HYBRIDS


Storage orchestration software holds promise. But, are enterprise customers stuck with point tools. By Robert L. Scheier

Finding the Right Balance

FOR CASH-STRAPPED IT shops looking to get out from un-der manual storage

management chores, storage orchestration software looks like a lifeline: It promises to let users choose from a catalog of predefined storage services and then handle the provisioning details behind the scenes.

It’s a worthy vision, and one vendors are moving toward. However, there’s currently no “single pane of glass” product that can auto-matically provision, resize, back up and recover storage across multiple public and private clouds, across sys-tems from different vendors and for virtual machines running hypervisors from

multiple vendors. Most or-chestration tools support only a single product line, are optimized for certain functions or don’t support the public, multi-tenant ob-ject-based storage services that provide the lowest cost and most flexibility.

It’s even more rare to find orchestration tools that can manage both virtual ma-chines and storage. Creating true global orchestration is an expensive, complex task usually tackled only by the largest enterprises or service providers that can spread the investment across multiple customers.

Today, storage manage-ment is “very fragmented, and things don’t necessari-ly work well together,” says

Forrester Research storage analyst Andrew Reichman. “For the most part, [tools] are quite expensive, com-plex to use and have mixed results with [other vendors’] products.... The automation level of storage lags that of servers,” especially when comparing storage manage-ment systems with server virtualization platforms such as VMware. With stor-age, “there is still a lot of manual, mundane work be-ing done,” says Reichman.

Despite some acceptance of standards for defining common storage and server functions, vendors are un-derstandably reluctant to use them to make it easier for customers to move data from their products to those of their competitors. Some are also too busy integrating technologies they have ac-quired to focus on interoper-ability with their competitors.

Many of today’s or-chestration platforms are more like service catalogs that offer various service levels for different applica-tions and use application programming interfaces (API) to storage and server management tools to de-liver the services. HCL Technologies’ MyCloud, for example, is “not like a man-agement tool, but more like an aggregation platform [that] can integrate with the native management tools” from infrastructure providers such as VMware or Amazon, or existing management vendors such as BMC or CA, says Kalyan Kumar, associate vice president and head of cloud at HCL. Customers can request compute and storage services through it, but they must log in to each platform’s management console to perform more sophisticated operations,

such as archiving data, he says.

In the absence of univer-sal orchestration, custom-ers are using tools that support their hardware and software to solve problems in areas such as application availability, disaster recov-ery and quality of service. These products fall into several broad categories.

STORAGE ‘HYPERVISORS’A growing number of ven-dors are offering “storage hypervisors” that virtual-ize the storage and, in some cases, their associated file servers to create scalable, flexible pools of storage. This virtualization layer often runs on standard x86 servers and is optimized for specific functions, storage protocols or ap-plications. One example is DataCore Software’s SAN-symphony-V, which links to VMware’s vCenter to automatically discover VM-ware servers running in a customer’s environment. A systems administrator can then associate a given class of storage with various servers, and SANsymphony automatically provisions it.

Hosting and integration services firm Amnet Tech-nology Solutions has been using SANsymphony for close to three years, and senior technologist Rich Conway says the product has provided “absolutely phenomenal” redundancy. “The entire storage infra-structure was essentially mirrored, where both sides are active/active, and if any component of either side fails for any reason, our entire grid stays up and our customers don’t even no-tice,” he says. SANsympho-ny has also enabled Amnet to eliminate planned down-


FOCAL POINT | STORAGE

time for routine mainte-nance such as firmware upgrades, says Conway.

IBM plans to release IBM SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center, an appli-ance-based virtualization layer that will provide ser-vices such as backup, load balancing and snapshots across applications and provision the right storage for each class of service, says Steve Wojtowecz, vice president of Tivoli storage software develop-ment at IBM.

Combining IBM’s SAN Volume Controller storage virtualization platform with its Tivoli Storage Produc-tivity Center management software and the Tivoli Stor-age FlashCopy Manager, the SmartCloud Virtual Storage Center will provide consis-tent performance on multiple vendors’ storage arrays in datacenters within 300 ki-lometers of each other, says Wojtowecz. But it doesn’t currently support block stor-age, he adds.

Zadara Storage runs its storage virtualization layer on commodity servers in its own colocated cloud facilities, turning direct-attached disk drives into virtual SAN arrays. Noam Shendar, vice president of business development, says this gives those drives the performance, reliabil-ity and security of more expensive SANs, and pro-vides capabilities such as clustering using familiar SAN management tools.

Other vendors use a glob-al file system to separate the details of where and how VMs or data are stored from the higher-level man-agement objectives, such as meeting the terms of vari-ous SLAs.

Among the vendors com-ing the closest to offering

combined server/storage management with this ap-proach is Tintri, whose “VM-aware” storage appli-ances are designed to replace traditional storage units such as volumes, LUNs and files with virtual disks. Tintri’s VMstore file system moni-tors and controls I/O perfor-mance for each virtual disk, communicating with the VMware vCenter to detect which virtual machines are active and how they are us-ing storage. It then automati-cally chooses the best com-bination of storage for each virtual machine, including fast but expensive solid-state drives and slower but less costly disks.

Meanwhile, open-source vendor Red Hat claims that its Red Hat Storage Server, based on its GlusterFS file system, provides better scal-ability than rivals because it doesn’t rely on a meta-data server, more effectively distributes data and uses parallelism to maximize per-formance. Nutanix combines storage and server manage-

ment, along with its own storage and performance management software, in a physical package that includes three to four x86 server nodes. Cisco takes a similar approach to com-bining computing, storage and networking with its Flex-Pod products.

BRIDGING DIFFERENCESOne approach to cross-cloud storage management uses gateways that mask the differences among the APIs used by various cloud storage providers. Twin-Strata’s physical or virtual CloudArray (bundled with SANsymphony), for ex-ample, makes storage from any of 13 cloud providers appear as iSCSI devices to customers and applications. This allows connectivity and the use of a common management platform for functions such as disaster recovery and replication, says CEO Nicos Vekiarides.

Benefits plan administra-tor RxStrategies uses the TwinStrata gateway for

cloud-based backup of its virtual machines and data. “On the outside, it looks like a SAN, which is old technology, but on the other side, it was actually part of the cloud, which enables us to transparently push our backup to Amazon or Rack-space,” says senior developer Rick DeBay. In the future, he says he would like to be able to store data on more than one public cloud and easily move compute workloads to Amazon’s EC2 public cloud and Amazon’s S3 storage platform.

Other orchestration of-ferings are, however, lim-ited to certain products or certain parts of the cloud.

CA Server Automation and CA Automation Suite for Clouds integrates with NetApp’s OnCommand stor-age management software to provision NetApp storage for various classes of servers.

Caringo’s CloudScaler virtualization layer provides automated, policy-based management—but only of storage, not virtual machines. Like many other orchestration platforms, it doesn’t currently support the block-based stor-age used in low-cost, multiten-ant public storage clouds such as Amazon S3, but Caringo is working to offer that in the future.

Storage Automator, a storage service catalog and policy engine from iWave, currently supports only selected EMC and NetApp arrays, although broader support is due this year.

While it’s the leader in server virtualization, VMware is working to differentiate it-self from competitors such as Microsoft and its Hyper-V of-fering by “pushing to include more orchestration,” says Reichman. With VMware vSphere 5.0, for example, it in-troduced storage profiles that

When choosing a storage orchestration tool, Greg Schulz, senior adviser at the Server and StorageIO Group, recommends asking the following questions:

l Does it enable the setup and scheduling of snapshots, replication, backup and other functions that ensure data availability?

l How does the platform coordinate with other technologies, such as dynamic path management, that provide load management as application loads change?

l How will the platform’s performance and price be affected as your company adds more servers, storage and networks?

l Will it be easy to install the vendor’s system and integrate it into your company’s environment?

l How well does the vendor’s platform integrate with your existing service catalog?

l Can the platform recognize and comply with your policies on security, regulatory compliance and quality of service?

- By Robert L. Scheier

ASK YOURSELF


JANUARY 1, 2009 CHANNELWORLD 43

let users map the capabilities of a storage system to a stor-age profile, helping to ensure each virtual machine uses the appropriate data store.

This summer, VMware acquired DynamicOps, whose architecture will allow vSphere and infra-structure administrators to model infrastructure services. This will enable the policy, governance and self-service management capabilities in vSphere to be extended to other hypervisors, hardware and clouds, according to a blog post by Ramin Sayar, VMware’s vice president and general manager for cloud in-frastructure and management.

FUNCTION- SPECIFIC OFFERINGSMany vendors’ offerings are focused on areas such as data protection and disaster recovery, which were the most common needs cited by VMware users in a July 2012 survey conducted by the Wikibon technology analysis website.

Actifio, for example, tack-les backup, disaster recovery and business continuity with its Protection and Availabil-ity Storage (PAS) appliance, which virtualizes both stor-age and storage functions such as copy, store, move and restore. But the PAS ap-pliance supports only fibre channel-attached storage, such as SANs, and only disaster and recovery, not the dynamic reprovisioning required to maintain the performance of produc-tion applications.

Even if this creates a stand-alone silo of tools and data for backup and re-covery, that’s an improve-ment over the multiple silos (and multiple copies of data) many companies use for anything from testing to disaster recovery or data

analytics, says Andrew Gilman, senior director of global marketing at Actifio. He also says Actifio’s glob-ally deduplicated object-based file system reduces costs by storing and mov-ing only changes to data.

VirtualSharp Software says its ReliableDR “goes into the different layers of virtualization inside the cloud” and uses the APIs provided by storage ven-dors to create runbooks (defined sets of operations) to execute and verify disas-ter recovery and failover. However, it does this only for applications running on VMware hypervisors, and only for applications, not

for the data they use.Also, the tool supports

only clouds running within corporate datacenters, be-cause, says CEO Carlos Es-capa, “the market is so huge behind the firewall and the protection mechanisms are lacking.” He adds that the fact that ReliableDR is capable of running multiple disaster recovery tests per day more than makes up for its lack of broader man-agement capabilities.

Symantec’s Virtual Busi-ness Services doesn’t handle VM management or even storage provisioning such as zoning SANs or creating LUNs, says senior direc-tor of product management Douglas Fallstrom. It instead allows customers to define dependencies among the tiers of an application stack (including VMs and their associated storage) to better understand how the stack responds to the failure of

one component. This helps ensure that the terms of SLAs for the storage tier are set properly and that perfor-mance can be measured.

Continuity Software’s re-cently announced Availabil-ity Cloud/Guard aims to im-prove reliability by detecting problems such as situations where “clustered servers can’t see new storage” be-cause of a failure to map the new storage device to all the appropriate servers. That’s a problem an administrator often wouldn’t be aware of until the server “tries to use the storage [and] fails,” says CTO Doron Pinhas. Cloud/Guard helps find such prob-lems by comparing a custom-

er’s deployment with 6,000 deployment scenarios from the vendor’s customers to “observe your effort to build the environment... and gently steer [the customer] in the right direction,” he says.

Neverfail says its software provides “application-aware” disaster recovery and high availability for applications in hybrid public/private clouds. It does this, says CTO Paddy Falls, by intercept-ing file system updates from applications and storing a copy of the application on other servers on-premises or in the cloud. It allows the high-availability or disaster recovery server to run on a different platform than the production server, he says, and to mix physical and virtual servers or different hypervisors. The software doesn’t, however, support object-based storage services.

Some tools focus on spe-cific applications. Sanbolic

recently announced the first public cloud support for Sanbolic AppCluster, a module within its Melio data management software that provides failover/mi-gration, load balancing and quality-of-service support for Microsoft SQL Server.

As more routine storage functions are automated, and as businesses focus more on service levels rather than on the mundane tasks required to achieve them, the task of storage administration will move “from a pure storage administrator to maybe a DBA or maybe a policy administrator,” Reichman predicts. “Instead of storage administrators doing only

storage, expect to see more application administrators managing the infrastructure, [with] some of what was the server and storage team mov-ing into those application or workload teams.”

However, says Shahin Pirooz, CTO at hosted ser-vices provider CenterBeam, “you still need a core team of people to configure the or-chestration” and build the in-frastructure for higher-level administrators to manage.

Customer demands will eventually force vendors to provide more complete orchestration. Until then, CIOs who are evaluating storage management tools should find out which spe-cific storage and hypervi-sor platforms the vendors support, determine which functions or applications they focus on and, above all, assess the total cost of ownership and ease of use of their offerings.

Customer demands will eventually force vendors to provide more complete orchestration. Until then, enterprises will have to deal with the fragmented character of the market.


TODAY, A worldwide social revolution is taking place, partly in plain sight, but even more in places most people don’t see. More than 4.5 billion peo-

ple, of all ages, have more than 150 million conversa-tions every day on popular services like Facebook—but there is also a less visible “Internet of Things” that’s projected to involve 25 billion devices by 2020. People will interact with machines, in ways that will trans-form our lives.

Every business must address this social opportunity—and challenge. While Fortune 100 companies experience explosive growth with the number of Facebook fans, their website traffic declines. A 2012 McKinsey Global Institute study reports that 70 percent of companies have adopted social technology, and estimates that these tech-nologies may unlock $1.3 trillion (about Rs 56 lakh crore) in business value.

Salesforce.com helps companies use social and mobile technologies, enabled by scalable and secure cloud services to connect with customers, partners, and products in new ways. Just as Salesforce.com transformed how companies sell and service their customers, the company is now revo-lutionizing marketing in this social era.

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud is the first compre-hensive social marketing suite. It enables companies to integrate social listening, content, engagement, advertis-ing and measurement. As the leader in enterprise cloud computing, Salesforce.com is empowering customers to create a social front office that transforms the way they sell, service, market, collaborate, work, and innovate—in the socially connected enterprise.

ORACLE’S CLOUD strategy is focused on transform-ing customer and employee experiences by de-livering a complete and functionally rich suite of

SaaS applications, built on a complete and functionally rich suite of PaaS applications, enriched with rich data services and crowd sourced social insight. All these ca-pabilities work together seamlessly on a common infra-structure based on industry standards.

Our cloud applications portfolio not only address customer experience management and sales or market-ing, it also includes numerous mission-critical business functions like human capital management, talent man-agement, financial management, procurement, project management and governance, risk and compliance. Oracle Social Relationship Management helps orga-nizations use social data and applications to increase customer engagement, make better business decisions, and strengthen relationships.

These applications are built on industry standards—Java standards-based middleware on a service-oriented architecture—which simplifies integration. All these applications feature enterprise strength business intelli-gence and have integrated mobile applications.

Our cloud portfolio has expanded with the development of Fusion applications and strategic acquisitions of RightNow, Vitrue, Collective Intellect, Taleo and more—all leaders in their respective solution areas. With Oracle Cloud, customers—large or midsized, get enterprise-grade services based on best-in-class applications and the industry’s best database and middleware managed by experts with over a decade of cloud delivery experience.

In a race to the top, who has a complete enterprise cloud and social business strategy?

Battle RoyaleSIDHARTH MALIK,

AVP India, Salesforce.comATUL TULI,

Director Cloud Applications, Oracle Asia Pacific

n FACE OFF

Oracle Vs. Salesforce.com

— As told to Shantheri Mallaya


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channelworld magazine december 2012 issue

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