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FOR THE CIOs. BY THE CIOs. JANUARY 2018
TOP TECHNOLOGIES IN CIO PLANS FOR 2018 Cybersecurity
100% 996%
Internet of Things
SUNIL GUPTA,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND PRESIDENT NETMAGIC (AN NTT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY)
78%
Blockchain
74%
Artificial Intelligence Business Analytics
67%
Cloud
60%
Digitization
45%
RPA
44%
Chat Bots
41%
Intelligent Apps
40%
LOOKING AT 2018 FROM THE EYES OF THE INDIAN CIO
Digital Transformations will continue, emerging technologies will be big and cybersecurity is paramount as we take a look at the year gone by and the year ahead for the Indian CIO..p28
LARGER DATACENTERS AND
BETTER SERVICES Netmagic is building on the company’s strengths and the NTT connection to spearhead India’s Datacenter Market,......p16
CTRLS WISHES THE CIOS AND IT VETERANS A VERY HAPPY, HEALTHY, SAFE AND PROSPEROUS NEW YEAR AND GREAT SUCCESS IN ALIGNING IT STRATEGIES WITH BUSINESS GOALS.
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EDITOR’S LETTER
BIG YEAR AHEAD FOR THE INDIAN CIO Firstly, a very Happy New Year to our CIO Community... 2017 was a great
year for Enterprise IT World with the Success of CIO200 and surging readership and contributions to Enterprise IT World by CIOs, CISOs, CTOs and CDOs from India’s biggest organizations across verticals. The CIO community is the driving force behind everything we do at Enterprise IT World. Coming to 2018, as the Indian Enterprise gears up to take the year head on, the January Issue of Enterprise IT World observes and analyzes the year gone by and the year ahead for the Indian CIO. The extensive coverage throws light on the year gone by for Indian IT leaders and the challenges they faced. The story also observes their expectations from their technology vendors and partners as well as explores their technology plans for the coming year. The story features info graphics and statistics based on the results of a special survey conducted by Enterprise IT World which
NEXT MONTH SPECIAL
engaged the CIO200 community to get a better perspective of what the Indian CIOs expect from 2017. The issue also includes a number of Interviews and contributory articles from wellknown IT Vendors and builds on contributions from the CIO community with a number of Tech Talks and CIO articles. With organizations finalizing their budget segregations and marking down important transformations in 2018, a number of CIOs are also looking at experimenting with new technologies, finding new use cases across business areas, operations and processes in their organizations. In light of the tremendous year in store, and anticipating unhindered innovation and digital disruption in businesses, it is fair to say the CIOs are poised to emerge as the flag bearers in this business transformation with a much deserved responsibility of strategizing their organization’s digital future on their shoulders. AI will grow its influence in applications and processes, IoT projects bringing outcomes, and emerging technologies like RPA and Blockchain make inroads with specific use cases. 2018 is going to be a big year for the Indian CIO. In terms of our CIO Community engagement plans for the year, we will be starting with extensive CIO Profiling Initiatives for 2018 from February Issue onwards wherein we will be profiling today’s top CIOs from India’s leading enterprises as well as the new emerging breed of technology leaders. Thus we welcome contributions from our readership community and look forward to great features in the upcoming months. Lastly, we would like to wish the CIOs a great year ahead and all the best for their technology projects in 2018.
S A N J AY M O H A PAT R A S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N F O M E D I A . C O M
COVER STORY
SUPPLEMENT
Top Datacenter Growth Trends in 2018
IT Opportunity in Government Sector
In the upcoming issue, we will take a look at how the Indian Datacenter Market is evolving with Enterprises moving towards the Public Cloud service providers and hyperscalers. The issue will shed light on the current trends and future predictions from the enterprise point of view as well as observing CIO expectations like and the strengths of different DC players in the market.
Digitization initiatives in the govt organizations soared in 2017 with several ministries bringing in CIOs and technology teams. We will analyze what are the requirements of the Govt. CIOs today and how IT will reform the sector in 2018.
PLUS
Interviews and Case Studies
Catch interviews, guest articles and case studies of recent applications from the Industry stakeholders, IT/ITES Vendors and IT leaders and CIOs from the Enterprise IT World CIO Community.
Send in your inputs to sanjay@accentinfomedia.com
JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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CONTENTS VOLUME 02 | ISSUE 11 | JANUARY 2018 | W W W. E N T E R P R I S E I T W O R L D . C O M
Publisher: Sanjib Mohapatra Editor: Sanjay Mohapatra Associate Editor: Chitresh Sehgal Designer: Ajay Arya Assistant Designer: Rahul Arya Web Designer: Vijay Bakshi Technical Writer: Manas Ranjan Lead Visualizer: DPR Choudhary Social Media Manager: Ravish MARKETING Marketing Manager: Kajal Sharma kajal@accentinfomedia.com SALES CONTACTS Delhi 6/102, Kaushalya Park, Hauz Khas New Delhi-110016
SPECIAL FEATURE
Phone: 91-11-41055458 E-mail: info@accentinfomedia.com
28
LOOKING AT 2018 FROM THE EYES OF THE INDIAN CIO
Digital Transformations will continue, emerging technologies will be big and cybersecurity is paramount as we take a look at the year gone by and the year ahead for the Indian CIO.
CIO TOYS / 46
The Personal Cloud Storage Zyxel NAS540
PERSPECTIVE
HPE
20
“Bringing elements of AI to enterprise IT infrastructures”
4
PERSPECTIVE
Dell EMC
MORE INSIDE Editorial~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 03 News~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 06 Digital Diary (WABCO)~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 15
22
“Imperative for CIOs to stay ahead of changing customer expectations”
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
CXO SPECIAL
38
TECH TALK
EDITORIAL OFFICE Delhi: 6/103, (GF) Kaushalya Park, New Delhi-110016, Phone: 91-11-41657670 / 46151993 info@accentinfomedia.com
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Printed at Karan Printers, F-29/2, 1st floor, Okhla Industrial Area, Phase-2, New Delhi 110020, India. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced without the prior written permission from the publisher. Subscription: Rs.200 (12 issues) All payments favouring: Accent Info Media Pvt. Ltd.
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TATA ESSAR INDIA THE TIME TELESERVICES “AJUST TO MOVE AWAY “Crests of Enterprise Digitization for 2018”
FROM ‘MOBILITY”
ITWORLD
ROUND UP
CDOs vital to digital reinvention of Enterprises: Accenture report B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M
A recent global survey of more than 900 executives across 12 industries by Accenture found that 64 percent of the executives fear for their company’s survival if they are unable to deliver on their digital investments. Companies no longer perceive digitization as an end state. Instead it is an ongoing process aimed at two objectives: Greater operating efficiency and New customer experiences. Realizing the potential of digitization, 96 percent of the senior executives surveyed by Accenture globally, say that they are investing in digital to pursue these twin goals. Chief Digital Officer is a critical player in the company’s success in the digital era. The CDO defines the digital reinvention roadmap and helps lead the organization through the journey. Report further 6
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
recommends three steps for CDOs to succeed in digital transformation: Step I: Set a digital-first strategy: Developing a ‘digital strategy and roadmap’ for business, rather than simply infusing digital in strategy of the company. Step II: Set agenda in the C-suite: Understand the priorities of the C-Suite and collaborate with them successfully implementing a digital-first strategy and digital reinvention. Step III: Manage implementation: CDOs should meet six core imperatives, identified through research, to profitably combine digital technologies, deliver new efficiency gains and create enhanced customer experiences.
D ATA BRIEFING
USD 23 Trillion Estimated reach of the global digital transformation market by 2025 Source: Huawei
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
IBM unleashes advanced Server designed for AI Workloads
IBM unveiled its next-gen Power Systems Servers incorporating its newly designed POWER9 processor. Built specifically for compute-intensive AI workloads, the new POWER9 systems are capable of improving the training times of deep learning frameworks by nearly 4x allowing enterprises to build more accurate AI applications, faster. The system was designed to drive demonstrable performance improvements across popular AI frameworks such as Chainer, TensorFlow and Caffe, as well as accelerated databases such as Kinetica. As a result, data scientists can build applications faster, ranging from deep learning insights in
scientific research, real-time fraud detection and credit risk analysis. Viswanath Ramaswamy, Director Systems (India/South Asia) said, “The new Servers with POWER9 processor will be a game-changer for AI and deep learning workloads. It delivers on unprecedented cognitive capabilities and can help Indian enterprises across all verticals to transform and up-scale on their AI and machine learning journey. The new server (AC22) improves training time of deep learning frameworks by 4x (vs x86), in turn delivering 10x faster performance bandwidth acceleration.”
GLOBEL
SAP Concur takes Innovation and Connected Experiences to next level
SAP Concur unveiled the deeper integration of two powerful brands to provide a truly connected, customer-centric experience that scales with businesses of all sizes. The unified brand will enable SAP Concur and their partner ecosystem to leverage and drive innovation and continue to simplify expense, travel and invoice management for greater visibility and control. Together, SAP and SAP Concur will continue to deliver greater scale across all markets through our deep investment in R&D to provide customers with the best solutions; provide powerful solutions that give customers visibility into spending by connecting employees with brands and apps they love and with a connected experience, businesses can manage all of their spends—across expense, travel, and invoice—in the cloud. “Travel and expense management market is rapidly escalating with expectations of business travelers requiring more flexibility and personalization.” Neeraj Dotel, MD, India and SAARC, SAP Concur.
EVENTS
18 – 19 JAN 2018
3 FEBRUARY 7 – 8 FEB 2018 2018 Hyderabad, India 2000 Delegates along with 30 Speakers participate in conference on Hosting, Domain, Blogging and Web technologies.
Toronto, Canada Compare leading strategies to your own work and develop a blueprint for a data plan that truly works for your organization.
12 – 14 FEB 2018
GXP COMPLIANCE TESTING 2018
HOSTING & DOMAIN CONFERENCE (HDCON) 2018
4TH ANNUAL BIG DATA & ANALYTICS SUMMIT CANADA
CONVERGED IT & THE CLOUD CONFERENCE
San Diego, United States This seminar provides attendees with hands-on guidance on the testing of computerized and software systems that impact patient safety, product quality and data integrity.
San Francisco, United States Conf will bring together key leaders in cloud computing and data management to discuss challenges & solutions.
JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
Alibaba Cloud expands India footprint with new Mumbai Datacenter
S/HE SAID IT
AAN CHAUHAN
CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, COGNIZANT
“AI will redefine operations across businesses; as capitalizing on the possibilities of the new machine age, the early adopters would win when compared to those who choose to remain in the comforts of legacy systems.”
“In 2018,
Alibaba Cloud clients can start to sign up for services to be delivered in its new India data centre, which is set to open in January 2018. Located in the city of Mumbai, this new data centre will help meet the surging demand for cloud computing services among the fast-increasing number of Indian small and medium size businesses in the region. India is a key market in Alibaba Cloud’s globalization strategy, and the firm sees tremendous business opportunity given the rapid growth of the Indian economy and the nature of the enterprises looking to expand from the country. Alibaba Cloud’s vision to empower enterprises anywhere in the world to go global is now extended to Indian clients with a comprehensive suite of high-performance cloud products including large-scale
QUICK BYTE ON
8
SECURITY
ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
computing, storage resources, and Big Data processing capabilities. Indian businesses of all sizes can now run their applications on Alibaba Cloud’s powerful, reliable and secure cloud platform. Other data centre service offerings include elastic computing, database, storage and content delivery, networking, analytics and big data, containers, middleware, and security. Simon Hu, Senior Vice President of Alibaba Group and President of Alibaba Cloud said, “We are excited to be officially opening our new Mumbai, India data centre in early 2018, enabling us to work closely with more Indian enterprises. These local enterprises are innovative and operating in growth sectors, and we look forward to empowering them through our cloud computing and data technologies.”
we’ll likely see attackers leverage hybrid network connectivity to infiltrate cloud and OT networks where traditional cybersecurity measures are still being fleshed out.” R O N D AV I D S O N , CTO A N D V I C E P R E S I D E N T , R & D , SKYBOX SECURITY
73% Indian ITDMs confident in their Security Posture Fortinet revealed. 73% of Indian ITDMs at 250+ employee organizations are confident in their cybersecurity posture, despite 84%of organizations being breached in the past two years. 96% believe they are doing better than their peers with regards to cybersecurity.
KICKING OFF 2018 WITH
PRESENTS
7 City
CIO
Dinner Feb-Mar 2018 POWERED BY
Multi-city Corporate Dinner event Over 500 CIOs expected to attend across 7 Cities Network and Socialize with fellow CIOs and Peers FOR INVITATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS: INFO@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM 011-49148449
ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
Infosys, HPE partner to drive Mainframe Modernization for Customers
Huawei releases white paper on digital transformation with All Cloud Network Huawei unveiled a whitepaper on digitalization of telecom operators as well as enterprises using All Cloud Networks. The white paper titled “Digital Transformation with an All Cloud Network” also takes a comprehensive look at India’s digitalization journey and the role of telecom operators in enabling this transformation. With strong policy support from government-backed initiatives like ‘Digital India’ and ‘Smart City’, digital transformation is gaining further momentum and the telecom sector will be the nerve center for the vision of ‘Digital India’, the Huawei commissioned white paper said. Speaking on the occasion, Jay Chen, CEO, Huawei Telecommunications India, said, “Digitization has provided us with a unique opportunity for exponential
EXECUTIVE
growth. In order to unlock the true potential of the digital economy, telecom sector and enterprises must turn to All Cloud on their Digital Transformation journey.” “Building All Cloud networks takes a combined effort between all industry stakeholders. Guided by the spirit of openness and collaboration, Huawei is ready and willing to partner with all members of the industry ecosystem. Backed by our global expertise, we enable carriers and enterprises in building All Cloud networks that puts them on the right path to Digital Transformation,” he added. The paper conveys that global digital transformation market is estimated to reach $23 trillion by 2025 presenting a significant opportunity for both operators as well as enterprises.
MOVEMENT HAL Robotics targets strategic expansion as Navanit Samaiyar joins Board
BIS Research ropes in Manoj Madhusudanan as Innovation and Growth Advisor
Parichay Joshi joins In2IT Technologies as CEO – Enterprise Business Services
Satyanarayana Kasturi joins Ashok Piramal Group as CIO
Krishna Raj Sharma succeeds Sriram S as new CEO of iValue 10 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
Infosys announced a partnership with HPE to offer a joint end-to-end mainframe modernization solution, which will provide global enterprise customers robust hardware and advanced software architecture. Infosys’ Mainframe Modernization Solution powered by HPE’s Mission Critical Computing Systems is aimed at fueling innovation and obtaining cost efficiencies while maintaining security and scale. The joint solution by Infosys and HPE will offer customers an integrated platform that will transform their legacy applications to the latest hardware and software architecture, enable cloud and mobile ready applications, and simultaneously reduce cost and enhance customer experiences. This solution facilitates development of new business models supported by new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Automation, and newer classes of middleware and database architecture which will enable companies to transform seamlessly from mainframe platforms. Paul Hunter, Global Channel Chief, HPE, said, “We have a strong line-up of robust and secure systems helping organizations successfully.”
Ex-Myntra CTO Shamik Sharma joins MoneyTap in Advisory Role
Mirae Asset Capital Markets ropes in Sandesh Govalkar as Head of Technology
Arvind Kumar joins Elior India as CIO and General Manager IT
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
Atos completes acquisition of Siemens Convergence Creators
Atos announces the completion of the acquisition of the Siemens’ subsidiary, Convergence Creators Holding GmbH (CVC), a global multi-industry digital transformation solutions provider. Atos’ intent to acquire CVC was announced on October 2, 2017. CVC delivers softwarebased solutions in the fields of communication networks and enterprise cybersecurity. Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with approximately 100,000 employees in 72 countries and annual revenue of around € 12 billion. European number one in Big Data, Cybersecurity, High Performance Computing and Digital Workplace, the Group provides Cloud services, Infrastructure & Data Management, Business & Platform solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payment industry. With its cutting-edge technologies, digital expertise and industry knowledge, Atos supports the digital transformation of its clients across various business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Energy & Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications and Transportation. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline. Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index. This document contains forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including references, concerning the Group’s expected growth and profitability in the future which may significantly impact the expected performance indicated in the forward-looking statements. These risks and uncertainties are linked to factors out of the control of the Company and not precisely estimated, such as market conditions or competitors behaviors.
Polycom to acquire US-based VoIP innovator Obihai Technology Polycom announced the signing of a merger agreement to acquire Obihai Technology, a San Jose-based innovator in VoIP audio solutions. Obihai Technology develops software and hardware for VoIP endpoints. The strategic addition of their best-in-class software and talented development team allows Polycom to compete more effectively in the global voice market and broadens Polycom’s portfolio to include complementary technologies for the service providers and customers of all sizes. The pending agreement demonstrates Polycom’s focus on expanding the availability of high-quality Polycom desktop phones to a broader range of customers and partners. The planned move also underscores Polycom’s commitment to the global network of service providers for VoIP solutions. “The strategic acquisition of the Obihai team and its software platform allows Polycom to surge forward on our strategy to deliver the best and most humanto-human experience in our audio and video solutions,” said Mary McDowell, Polycom CEO. “Looking ahead to 2018, the addition of Obihai will immediately open new markets and revenue opportunities for Polycom.”
INTERESTING
TWEET
73% of #marketing executives see AI or a technology dependent on #AI as critical to the future of marketing, says @johnkoetsier.
Shows how AI-driven technologies will give enterprises a competitive edge in 2018 Source: https://twitter.com/drharshvardhan
JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
11
ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
Wipro joins Cisco on Smart Lighting Solutions for Modern Workspaces
Shift to software-based revenue models increases enterprise earnings by 11%: Gemalto Surveying 300 business decision makers in device manufacturing firms across five major global markets, Gemalto is embracing software over hardware as its primary business model. The change highlights how crucial software is becoming to device manufacturers, specifically in improving business performance and growing revenue. And, as end-users begin to demand more options and control of their devices and data, entire industries are being forced to change their business models and strategies to cater to their customers. According to Gemalto’s ‘How Software is Powering the Hardware Renaissance’ report, the majority (84%) of organizations in the sector are changing how they oper-
ate. In fact, nearly four in 10 (37%) have already made a full shift to a softwarecentric business model, one that places software at the core of how a company delivers value and generates revenue. The research also found that 94% of respondents have increased their investment in software development in the last five years. Germany is leading the charge. All (100%) of German organizations questioned have boosted their software-based services over this time; with France second (98%) and the US (93%) in third. Substantial benefits Hardware technology companies are already reaping substantial benefits – of those that have changed their models, the average increase in revenue has been 11%.
Wipro Lighting has become a Cisco Digital Building Solutions provider for connected lighting. This collaboration brings together Wipro’s industry leading Smart & Connected Lighting systems and Cisco Digital Building Solutions that link various building services through a single, converged IP network. This will enable Wipro Lighting to simplify convergence of its lighting solutions with building automation systems over IP without compromising lighting efficiency, maintenance, product life and security. A common goal of facilities managers worldwide is to run their buildings with high service levels, while delivering cost savings and environmental benefits through reduced power consumption. At the same time, changing nature of work, workforce demographics requires a workspace that will help employees work more comfortably and effectively. Lighting makes up approximately 40 percent of a building’s electricity bill; this coupled with raising energy consumption by commercial buildings is pushing the demand for smart and connected lighting solutions.
L&TTechintros Smart Manufacturing, Industrial Transformation solutions on Microsoft Azure L&T Tech Services announced worldwide general availability, launch and go-to-market of 3 LTTS flagship solutions that will focus on driving Digital Industrial Transformation on the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The two companies will further consolidate their existing global alliance by set12 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
ting up a joint Digital Industrial Transformation Applied Innovation Centre. Digital Industrial Transformation Applied Innovation Centre will showcase how the Microsoft AI platform, Azure IoT, Microsoft Cognitive Services and Azure Machine Learning power LTTS’ globally proven cutting
edge digital solutions in Smart Manufacturing, Smart Asset Performance Management & Smart Buildings. Proposed Applied Innovation Centre will include live Digital Industrial Use Cases from their Enterprise customers and academia partners, in addition to LTTS and Microsoft.
NEWS BRIEF // IT WORLD
SHELF
BOOK
GLOBAL UPDATE
BP Supercomputer most powerful in the World for commercial research
Digital to the Core: Remastering Leadership for Your Industry, Your Enterprise and Yourself AUTHOR
MARK RASKINO, GRAHAM WALLER
PRICE
1361.66 (HARDCOVER) AVAILABLE AT
AMAZON.IN
About The Book
BP has more than doubled the total computing power of its Center for High-Performance Computing (CHPC) in Houston, making it the most powerful supercomputer in the world for commercial research. Increased computing power, speed and storage reduce the time needed to analyze large amounts of seismic data to support exploration. “Our investment in supercomput-
ing is another example of BP leading the way in digital technologies that deliver improved safety, reliability and efficiency and give us a clear advantage,” Ahmed Hashmi, BP’s head of upstream technology. The Center for High-Performance Computing provides critical support to BP’s upstream business segment, where it serves as hub for research computing.
Drawing on interviews with over 30 top C-level executives in some of the world’s most powerful companies and government organizations, the book delivers practical insights from those on the front lines of major digital upheaval.
Key Features The authors incorporate Gartner’s global survey research and apply deep knowledge and qualitative insights acquired as practitioners, management researchers, and advisors over decades in the industry.
NCDEX selects NetApp to address data backup and storage needs National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX) announced NetApp as the partner of choice for their data backup and storage needs. NCDEX is a nation-level, technology driven, independently run online commodity exchange. “In order to enhance customer
experience, NCDEX has undertaken several initiatives like development of next-generation trading platforms, trading software, technology infrastructure and other in-house applications. The subsequent data growth put pressure on our IT infrastructure.” said AnandIyer, Chief Information Officer at NCDEX.
“In NetApp, we found the right partner who provided a simplified, cost-effective and efficient data management, backup and recovery plan that ensured data restoration and up-to-date information.” In a world run by technology, digital transformation is the top most agenda for NCDEX.
JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
13
ITWORLD // NEWS BRIEF
MANAGEMENT
MANTRA
“In business, what’s dangerous is not to evolve” –JEFF BEZOS, FOUNDER, CHAIRMAN AND CEO, AMAZON.COM
Bhabha Atomic Research Center upgrades Communication Network with Matrix Matrix constructed a robust communication network at Bhabha Atomic Research Center. Due to absence of a communication solution, the scientists of medic cyclotron wing couldn’t connect with each other. Knowing the importance of continuous communications, the research center was looking for a system with two power supply and CPU card units. Being a well-known atomic research center, BARC employees used to receive/attend numerous calls which resulted in call drops due to unavailability of appropri-
ate number of calling channels. Therefore, one of the areas of concern for the research center was to get a solution that allows employees receive or retrieve messages when on the move. The authorities made their purchasing decision after evaluating the product performance on different parameters. The challenges were breaks in Internal Communication, Uninterrupted Communication,Easy Access of Call Management Features, Switch to Latest Communication Technology, Inadequate Channels for Heavy Call Traffic Management].
Capgemini, PTC launch CoE in Mumbai to develop smart connected products
Capgemini and PTC announced the opening of a Center of Excellence (CoE) located at Capgemini’s office in Mumbai. The facility is designed as a working CoE where Capgemini will build and showcase cutting edge industrial solutions to help customers around the world improve the way they design, manufacture, sell, operate, and service smart connected products. These solutions will be built on PTC’s leading ThingWorx industrial innovation platform. Capgemini chose to set-up the CoE with PTC 14 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
to maximize the breadth of the ThingWorx platform and tools, including its complementary portfolio of products that covers Product Lifecycle Management (PLM), Augmented Reality (AR, VR and CAD). As a systems integrator partner with PTC, Capgemini is already leading multiple digital transformation programs and solutions globally on PTC technologies. “This CoE with PTC is a part of our commitment to build solutions for our customers’ needs driven by connected devices. It will also serve as a center that consolidates our global best practices and will showcase the transformations we are enabling with the ThingWorx Industrial Innovation Platform,” said Sanjay Salunkhe, Global Head – Product and Engineering Services, Capgemini.
Pi Datacenters support YI INNOVEX Startup ecosystem with Harbour1 Cloud Platform
Pi has entered into a strategic partnership with YI INNOVEX, an initiative by CII Young Indians (YI) chapter, Bhubaneswar. Registered start-ups under YI INNOVEX can now leverage Harbour1, the enterprise class cloud platform from Pi DATACENTERS, for accelerating their Time to Market. This emphasizes the significance that small businesses hold for the Indian economy. It is also equally important that the technological, political, economic and social eco-systems are built and developed in favour of the young organizations, start-ups as we call them. “We are happy to partner with YI INNOVEX, an initiative by CII Young Indians(Yi) chapter, Bhubaneswar, to provide a robust platform for the young talents to operate and excel in their businesses. Quick provisioning, scalability, & flexibility of our cloud services would enable start-ups to operate in a hassle-free environment, while they work towards transforming their ideas a reality in today’s changing Industry landscape”, said Rohan Chandrahas, National Head Alliance, Pi DATACENTERS. “We are glad to associate with Pi, the next generation data center and cloud major, for the cloud technology needs of our start-up fraternity. We will soon roll out an official announcement with the specifics. We thank the team at Pi and look forward to this collaboration”, said Matrudatta Mishra, Chairman of CII, Yi INNOVEX, Bhubaneswar, Odisha. “At Pi we cognize the above and believe that the future of India lies in the start-ups of today. We thank CII and YI INNOVEX for making us partner of choice for initiative to enable the new age entrepreneurs, in their journey towards Digital India”, said DebmalyaDeyRoy(Deb), Vice President Sales & Marketing, Pi DATACENTERS.
DIGITAL DIARY
MILAN KUMAR
GLOBAL CHIEF INFORMATION OFFICER, WABCO
“Industry 4.0 requires an accurate choice of technology for immaculate implementation, the tried and tested DevOps model and Design Thinking strategies
serve as a perfect tool for the same.”
TECH TALK AT NYSE: DEVOPS, DESIGN THINKING AND INDUSTRY 4.0 The New York Stock Exchange recently welcomed some top Global manufacturing and financial CIOs in order to have a through provoking discussion on emerging technologies and comparison of processes across industries. The tech talk threw some great insights for the manufacturing industry on how to move forward with Industry4.0.
R
ecently, the Infrastructure Heads and CIOs of few companies met to have a fluid exchange of thoughts and ideas about emerging technologies in different industries, with a special focus on the comparison of processes followed between manufacturing organizations like WABCO and financial institutions like the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE). The discussion pondered on topics like Design Thinking, DevOps, and Industry 4.0. There were a number of key and enlightening takeaways from the experience. The manufacturing industry is home to Industry 4.0 – the hottest trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing-related technologies. Core components of this concept comprise of the Internet of Things (IoT), Cyber-physical Systems, Cloud Computing and Cognitive Computing. To ensure stable implementation of Industry 4.0, sound collaboration and high-end system net-
logistics to the customer. For this, the organizational structure needs to change and important cross-functional processes need stable implementation. Of course, all such processes in the entire value creation chain need to be automated. There exist several tried and tested patterns in IT infrastructure where DevOps models have been successfully implemented.
USING THE DEVOPS MODEL FOR IMPLEMENTING INDUSTRY 4.0 OFFERS: Better, crispier collaboration and communication l Higher employee motivation l Increased flexibility and agility l Quantifiable ROI Design Thinking helps in gaining crucial insights and choosing the right strategies for developing innovative products and services. The objective is to achieve perfect synchronization of technology enablers, customer needs and business models, even during extreme, uncertain conditions. l
working are a must. On the other hand, DevOps is a suite of practices meant to automate processes between software development and IT teams to ensure more reliable and stable development, built, testing and release of the software. The DevOps model involves the following aspects: l Absence of Data Silos l Automation Tools l Success Measurement Metrics Communication-based Corporate Culture Design thinking comprises of creative strategies meant to develop an understanding of the consumer who will be using the product or service in question and involves phases like Empathizing, Defining, Ideating, Prototyping and Testing.
HOW DO DEVOPS AND DESIGN THINKING HELP IMPLEMENT INDUSTRY 4.0? Industry 4.0 necessitates networking the entire industrial value product chain – product design,
TO SUM UP Through the extensive discussions and listening to what my fellow CIOs had to say, I was able to gather a better understanding of how manufacturing companies like WABCO should go forward in their implementation of Industry 4.0. Industry 4.0 requires an accurate choice of technology for immaculate implementation. The tried and tested DevOps model and Design Thinking strategies serve as a perfect tool for the same. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
15
COVER STORY
LARGER DATACENTERS AND BETTER
SERVICES
With Managed Services and Public Cloud signaling a paradigm shift in the Datacenter market, Netmagic is building on the company’s strengths, and the NTT connection to spearhead the evolution with a Multi Hybrid Cloud strategy and Public Cloud partnerships to maintain its leadership position in Indian Enterprise segment. BY CHITRESH SEHGAL CSEHGAL@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
T
he Datacenters (DC) in India were comparatively small in size till 2010 and there was no sign of Cloud. Reason being there was no taker of the concept of data and application outsourcing to the third party. There was an inherent fear of data being stolen or lost. However with the rise in internet speed, with falling price of internet, rise in the volume of data along, rise in the real estate cost and better security major, organizations realized that it makes sense to outsource technology to the third party. Additionally, the Government push towards digitization and initiatives like smart cities meant that storage needs to be skyrocketed. Hence, Hyperscale infrastructures started coming in to India and subsequently the Datacenter market exploded. Launched in 2008 with its first Datacenter in Mumbai with 60,000 sq. feet in size, Netmagic found its takers growing gradually. In 2012 something miraculous happened for Netmagic as the company got acquired by the Japanese major NTT. With this, the growth of the company quadrupled. Same year (2012), its second datacenter opened up with exactly the double size of the first one. The next datacenter launch in Mumbai was a staggering 3 lac sq. feet, bigger than the sum total of all earlier datacenters. “And now within two years, we are launching two more datacenters of 3 lac and 2.5 lac sq. feet with 32Mw and 20Mw power respectively. These are scales which we could not have imagined in 2010,” Sunil explains the phenomenal infrastructure growth. The growth is attributed to the demand of the global customers who, Sunil observes, are extremely stringent in terms of uptime
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and security. “Customers today want 100 percent uptime and not 99.99. This means multiple sources of power with multiple backups and a complete automation layer in between.” Another factor has been the drastic change in the way hosting services are now getting consumed. “Other than very large organizations and that too mainly banks taking collocation as a service, ninety percent of the enterprises, which include governments as well, have shifted to managed hosting, public cloud or a combination,” explains Sunil. This has signaled a huge paradigm shift in the datacenter business.
THE USP OF NETMAGIC There are three key elements to Netmagic creating a solid leadership position it the Indian market. Firstly, Netmagic is an infrastructure provider with its own Datacenter buildings. Secondly, they also take care of the system integration part and consulting for the entire value chain. Thirdly, Netmagic’s manpower and resources enables the company to study the customer’s requirements, identify the type of solution needed and then implement. With a workforce made up to 70 percent of engineers and technology personnel, the company makes ensures the value chain of managed services is high. “Our USP lies in the combination of these three capabilities: Infrastructure ownership; complete expertise of designing, building, implementing and managing 24X7; and the right skill set and manpower to deliver everything by a service model.,” opines Sunil.
THE BUSINESS DIFFERENTIATORS AND GO-TO MARKET STRATEGY
COVER STORY
SUNIL GUPTA,
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AND PRESIDENT NETMAGIC (AN NTT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY)
“Our USP lies in Infrastructure ownership; complete expertise of designing, building, implementing and managing 24X7; and the right skill set and manpower to deliver everything by a service model.” JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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COVER STORY
JOURNEY WITH NETMAGIC
Despite having its biggest customers in colocation, 60% of Netmagic’s overall business comes from managed services. This needed a shift of focus and resources towards the managed services business. Sunil explains, “Technology landscape at the Enterprise customer has grown with multiple applications and tools spread across different vendors. To serve the entire market essentially requires the in depth knowledge and technical skill set across all these tools and technologies. We have almost 700 engineers just to deliver managed services to our customers. Large scale critical deployments of some of the largest upcoming banks like the RBL and AU Bank have taken our entire portfolio of managed services.” Another key differentiator is Netmagic’s go-to market strategy, which they call the Hybrid IT Multi Cloud strategy. Under this, after assessing the customer’s current IT environment and his future IT aims and concern areas, their team recommends a comprehensive solution which couples Netmagic’s core services like collocation, managed hosting or cloud in accord with customers application needs across large Public Cloud vendors like AWS, Google, Azure or AliBaba. “We brainstorm with the customer, implement the solution and manage it for them,” explains Sunil. Instead of directly competing with large Public Clouds, Netmagic has taken a different route, endorsing their services in a multi cloud strategy. It is worth noting that some of the major Hyperscalers are Netmagic customers with their Clouds using its Datacenters. “They are our business partners too. We have taken this strategy to the market and our existing customers simply love it,” exclaims Sunil. Another key differentiator for Netmagic has been the Cloud Management Platform (CMP), a joint initiative NTT over two years of R&D. CMP comes as a super orchestration layer of multiple Clouds. “It is basically a cloud broking layer, where through API a customer can connect to AWS, Google, Azure, NTT’s Global Cloud etc. or their private cloud as well,” Sunil explains. The CMP gives the customer a single dashboard 18 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
for all his workloads running across different clouds instead of managing individual workloads separately by going to native interfaces.
FOCUS ON SECURITY Security is a crucial factor with any outsourcing decision. In spite of business cases of reduced cost and higher performance the reason why Public cloud took time was the concern of security and compliance. However according to Sunil, this concern most of the times is just a perceived notion rather than a real concern, “Public Cloud providers like Netmagic have a much stronger security stance than possibly a customer can afford in his own environment. For large cloud operators like us dealing with a scale of million customers, our brand name and business depends on security,” Sunil affirms and elaborates further, “Also, when implementing security on such a large scale, the unit cost becomes much less compared to an organization deploying all the security solutions and captive layers in their environment. Each of Netmagic’s Public Cloud, DC or managed hosting layers has their own set of security services right from basic firewalls to preventive services and also customer-centric security like DDoS layers for e-commerce clients.” Netmagic runs a full-fledged SOC out of Mumbai which delivers security services remotely to all its datacenters.
Sunil entered Netmagic in 2010 when the company had started solidifying its roots as a managed services company. “I found the company very agile and customer – friendly, something which has been in the Netmagic’s DNA and the main reason why it has sustained till date in the face of much larger Telco-based competitors in the Indian Market,” Sunil continues, “At that time, Netmagic had the best resources working with the company for over a decade, so skill set was never a problem. My mandate has been to give stability and scale to the company.” The big change came in 2012, when global IT giants were vying for their share of the Cloud business. That is where NTT came in, looking for proven service providers like in India. Sunil recalls, “They observed us with diligence for a year and found us an attractive proposition as a company with established footprint and proven credentials for making it big in the Indian market.” The NTT acquisition was empowering for Netmagic which now had the capital to push towards expansion, larger Datacenters and further growth. The partnership enabled Netmagic to win managed services accounts from NTT customer’s spread across the globe and hosting contracts with big Public Cloud companies coming into the Indian market. “We have been growing at more than 30% Y-o-Y, which is a tough ask to keep. But thanks NTT’s backing, maintaining that number hasn’t been an issue.”
ADVICE TO CIOS It can be argued that, Cloud is making a number of IT Team tasks redundant in Enterprises. The task of managing a sizable IT infrastructure and all its components used to be a fulltime job requiring a number of IT people. Cloud has taken that aspect out of the equation. It has started the trend of Consumerization in IT. From the organization’s point of view, Infrastructure in a consumption model has a number of positives. As per Sunil, the CIOs role is to form the intelligence layer which can observe and identify the right consumption model. With multiple Cloud vendors and no standardization interoperability of
workloads is the main issue CIOs will face going forward with their Cloud strategies. He explains, “Different clouds have different consumption models and after a point, the number of end users is out of the CIOs control. This can result in IT spending going overboard. CIOs need to keep observing offerings of different Cloud providers and understand which Cloud is good for which workload, and how to bring migrations into place, not only from a technical point of view, but also the commercial point of view.” Moving to the Cloud is a gradual journey for CIOs maintaining business continuity at the same time.
CIO TALK
SOURABH TIWARI
IT HEAD, OVERSEAS INFRASTRUCTURE ALLIANCE (INDIA)
“Strategic information can be maintained at one place while updates to such information can be done by one or more authorized people. Thus Role based
system makes ERP transparent as well as secure.”
BENEFITS OF ERP IN ANY ORGANIZATION Whether a small or large enterprise, there are a number of benefits of ERP implementation to businesses. Implementing ERP on your network improves productivity and work efficiency, while decreasing costs, streamlining processes and providing a more secure transfer of information between employees and departments.
I
mplementing ERP software has a number of benefits for any organization as follows:
MODULAR YET INTEGRATED APPROACH
BETTER INFORMATION MANAGEMENT THROUGH BUSINESS AUTOMATION
By streamlining all the processes into one effective system, ERP provides your business with a shared database that supports multiple functions across your enterprise.
ERP brings a degree of automation to the business by allowing employees across the organization to access shared data and also enables generation of synchronized reports on key business metrics.
IMPROVED WORKFLOW Whether it’s extracting a custom or standard reports or formulating a report for presentation, ERP software makes each employee’s job easier, which leads to increased productivity.
STREAMLINING OF PROCESSES By centralizing this data and streamlining the means of accessing (as well as adding to) data, ERP contributes to greater efficiency within a business model.
SIMPLICITY IN BUSINESS ACCOUNTING Using ERP to integrate and analyze financial data will improve employee productivity and reduce delays considerably.
TRANSPARENCY THROUGHOUT ORGANIZATION Strategic information can be maintained at one place while updates to such information can be done by one or more authorized people. Thus Role based system makes ERP transparent as well as secure.
ELIMINATION OF REDUNDANCIES One of the biggest problems with a non-central-
ized data management system is the continued occurrence of redundant data. It’s a common problem with businesses that have multiple data storage locations and is something which can be rectified with the use of ERP.
MINGLED OPERATIONAL, FINANCIAL AND STRATEGIC INSIGHT With a 360-degree view, whether you’re viewing costing amounts on a sales order, pulling up a customer’s record and seeing their sales interactions and orders/shipments side-by-side, or forecasting sales using historical sales orders and production data, ERP gives you the “big picture”.
BETTER CUSTOMER SATISFACTION ERP helps in maintaining up-to-date information and will also facilitate real-time updating of all data. This will help customer representative access accurate, updated data and deal with your customers efficiently.
HIGH SECURITY WITHOUT ADDED BARRIERS FOR YOUR EMPLOYEES While off the shelf software often gives your staff full access to your sensitive accounting and payroll records, ERP systems allow you to restrict employees’ accounts only to the processes that are relevant to their roles. This means that you can extend access to all your employees, while keeping their permissions locked down so they can only access what they need to do their jobs. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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PERSPECTIVE // HPE
VIKRAM K SENIOR DIRECTOR, DATA CENTER AND HYBRID CLOUD, HPE INDIA
“In current environments, IT departments face a mounting pressure to resolve the most complex and unique challenges plaguing the datacenter which account for 80% of the pain IT is facing today.”
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HPE // PERSPECTIVE
BRINGING ELEMENTS OF AI TO ENTERPRISE INFRASTRUCTURE As applications increasingly drive today’s businesses, enterprises are moving towards self-managing IT models, using predictive analytics, machine learning and AI to fundamentally predict and prevent these problems businesses face in their infrastructure.
In your conversations with CIOs and IT Leaders, where do you think enterprises are facing challenges with their IT infrastructures today? CIOs and IT Leaders care about one thing: They want their applications to be always, and instantly, available. The challenge is, that’s not always the case - we call these slow-downs the “app-data gap.” The cause of app-data gap slow-downs is hard to track down because they come from the overall infrastructure complexity - from the storage to the app, and all of the interactions in between. Using predictive analytics, machine learning and AI to fundamentally predict and prevent these problems businesses face in their infrastructure is exactly what the new recommendation engine and HPE InfoSight technology does. How will Artificial Intelligence transform enterprise IT infrastructures? Bringing elements of AI to enterprise IT infrastructures enables an autonomous datacenter. The autonomous recommendation engine and HPE InfoSight that HPE just announced will transform how IT infrastructure is managed and supported. IT infrastructures will be smarter and more reliable through cloud-based predictive analytics and machine learning that will tells the customer how to avoid problems, improve performance and optimize resources. Where does the main advantage lie with autonomous datacenters? Technology driving an autonomous datacenter simplifies and reduces the guesswork in managing infrastructure and improves application reliability. With technology that pre-emptively advises IT how to avoid issues, improve performance,
and optimize available resources, businesses will continuously benefit from the ability to spend more time on projects that add value to the business rather than on troubleshooting issues Can you give a little insight into the autonomous recommendation engine and Infosight offering? The autonomous recommendation engine has been based on advanced machine learning that leverages almost a decade of data science expertise and rich telemetry from over 10,000 customers. These recommendations go beyond telling a customer when a hardware upgrade is needed, they will now provide customers with insights into how to make things better and avoid issues entirely. Every second, HPE InfoSight analyses millions of sensors across thousands of customers and uses the information to predict and prevent problems across customers’ environments, even those outside of storage. If an issue is uncovered, HPE InfoSight proactively resolves it before the business is impacted. Ensuring optimal uptime, we’ve seen 86% of problems in tested storage environments are automatically resolved before the customer is even aware of the issue. How has been the initial interest in the market around the offering? HPE have developed the industry’s first artificial intelligence recommendation engine taking us all one step closer to the autonomous datacenter and that is truly exciting. Since HPE publically announced HPE Infosight and the rec engine we’ve engaged in a great number of conversations with our customers. It’s drawing attention for so many positive reasons, and especially since the release of third-party research that recently showed that HPE InfoSight lowers storage IT
OpEx by 79%. HPE InfoSight with the new AI recommendation engine will be available in January 2018 and we are excited to take it to market. Why do you think autonomous datacenters are the need of the hour for organizations? As applications increasingly drive today’s businesses customers are moving towards selfmanaging IT models. In current environments IT departments face a mounting pressure to resolve the most complex and unique challenges plaguing the datacenter today – those less occurring issues which account for 80% of the pain IT is facing today. Humans are just not good at solving these problems without laborious support and escalation processes. On the contrary, an autonomous datacenter predicts and prevents problems across the infrastructure providing the IT resources with time back in their day to work on projects that add value to the business. What is your message to current and prospective HPE customers looking into bringing autonomous capabilities into their IT infrastructures? Autonomous capabilities mean you can benefit from predicting and preventing potentially impactful issues in your infrastructure. The crossstack analytics will save your IT department time troubleshooting complex IT environments and get them working more efficiently with systems that are smarter and more reliable for your operations. None of HPE’s competitors have the predictive capabilities of InfoSight or the AI recommendation engine. From January HPE realizes the benefit of InfoSight with our predictive flash portfolio. In the future, we plan to take it across our broader portfolio with the aim of getting our customers to an autonomous infrastructure. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
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PERSPECTIVE // DELL EMC
NILADRI SAHA
GENERAL MANAGER, MODERN INFRASTRUCTURE TEAM, INDIA, DELL EMC
“To successfully manage business transitions in the digital age, CIOs require a deep understanding of business imperatives as well as the ability to enable
business agility and accelerate performance.”
cios need to stay ahead of changing customer expectations It is becoming imperative for the Indian CIO to invest in IT transformation to help accommodate massive growth in structured and unstructured data, maintain the performance and reliability of key business applications, support increasingly complex workflows, thereby driving digital initiatives.
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DELL EMC // PERSPECTIVE
What are the main points that CIOs today look at when making investment in DC modernization? With businesses undergoing digital transformation, it is important for them to stay competitive and ahead of changing customer expectations. Therefore, CIOs must adopt the technology systems and processes that will transform their internal operations, to meet the demands of fast moving businesses. This requires building agile infrastructures. Hence, here are the few things that CIOs need to keep in mind before making a decision to modernize their datacenters: l High costs to operate: As companies expand into new markets, simultaneously they also gain or build datacenters along the way. Each data center operated with its own set of practices and on its own hardware. Managing across these disparate systems and inconsistent processes is not at all cost-effective. l Aging technology: Enterprises have continued to operate using traditional datacenters that weren’t up to modern standards — utilization and virtualization rates were low, automation was non-existent, etc. Over the time, this practice has not only contributed to high operating costs, which will not lead to many inefficiencies, making it nearly impossible for IT to meet the basic demands of the business. l High risk due to lack of redundancy: The organization’s fast growth and lack of standardization have always led to a gap in disaster recovery protection. Many applications — including key business systems — had zero redundancy. Hence, to reduce the redundancies, firms need to quickly modernize their operations as this risk to the business is too great to ignore. l Time lag in modernization: There is a huge time cost which is involved while migrating towards the new-age datacenters. Without the right partner, an organization will easily dedicate twice as much time than it usually will take. l Resource cost avoidance: Alternative to choosing the right partner is running the migration project in-house. This would require bringing in contractors, experts and IT admins, which will involve an exorbitant cost. Hence, conducting the project on its own will not only lead to significant resource requirement but there are greater chances that the project may get extended. l Time to respond back to business (agility): Agility plays an important role for businesses to stay one step ahead of their competition. By embracing All-Flash technology, businesses will be able to transform their IT infrastructure, making it possible for them to respond to business requests and complete projects much quicker than their counterparts.
With DC modernization and cloud services the norm, how is the Enterprise storage market evolving of late? The storage market in India is dynamic in natured. Currently, IDC pegs the growth of India’s external storage market at USD 70.0 million in Q2 2017 with 8.6 percent year on year (YoY). Presently, India is investing heavily in digital projects and emerging technologies. Internet of things (IoT) for example, is gaining immense popularity in Indian ecosystem, forcing businesses to modernize, transform and automate themselves to keep pace with the ongoing disruption. Thus, to stay ahead in this fierce competitive ecosystem, it is becoming imperative for the India companies to invest in IT transformation which will help enterprises accommodate massive growth in structured and unstructured data, maintain the performance and reliability of key business applications, support increasingly complex workflows, thereby driving digital initiatives. Hence, overall, the enterprise storage market is bound to witness an unprecedented growth as India prepares itself for its digital journey. How big is the Enterprise All-flash technology market in India? The adoption of All-Flash technology in India is one of the hottest trends to look forward to in near future. As per IDC, the uptake of All-Flash arrays has witnessed an increased trend in the Q2 2017. External storage market in India is at the brink of witnessing an explosion due to adoption of emerging technologies such as real time business analytics, augmented reality and IoT etc. This will result in huge amounts of structured as well as unstructured data. In India, businesses are not yet equipped to deal with such enormous data as they continue to function on legacy storage solutions/legacy IT infrastructure. Therefore, along with adopting new-age technologies, modernizing IT infrastructure and reducing infrastructure footprint will become the key priorities across organisations. Hence, as blue print of digitization begin to take shape across businesses, All-Flash storage will take its rightful place in the technical infrastructure that will be the underpinning of these massive digital undertakings. Which verticals have been the early adopters of All-flash? The key sectors in Indian economy that are driving the growth for All-Flash storage are
banking & financial services and telecom. Banking & financial service sector have always looked out for new ways to speed transaction processing and enhance the customer experience. Completion of transactions faster, is the key to better revenue outcomes. Hence, banks require a smart storage option like All-Flash, which will build a critical foundational pillar of IT for digital banking and wealth management. Moreover, All-Flash storage solutions have been at the core of the mobility revolution. Due to the power of All-Flash storage, mobile transformation took place i.e. mobile phones transformed into sleek and powerful devices. The database of the digital customer base is ever growing and mobile payments and deposits has led to millions of transactions daily, which results in widespread adoption of All-Flash solutions in the coming years. What are the challenges being faced by CIOs in this regard? What is the right approach? Datacenters are the modern bedrock of digital transformation. They play an essential role for organizations to deal with their day-to-day operations seamlessly, without any disruptions. Keeping the above mentioned hurdles in mind, the right approach to deal with such challenges is to choose the right partner in the digital transformation journey. A right partner not only just brings knowledge and expertise to complete migration but also more importantly, contribute to a transformation that would deliver an optimized datacenter. Dell EMC provides a holistic portfolio of data centre modernization and migration services that help its customers navigate these complex events, providing the required rigor and expertise for a successful outcome. What is your advice to CIOs in the process of planning DC modernization? To address organisational and CEO challenges, CIOs and IT, need to look into new technology capabilities and solutions to optimise, redefine and/or transform current processes and operating models. To successfully manage these business transitions in the new digital age, CIOs require a deep understanding of business imperatives as well as the ability to enable business agility and accelerate business performance. Therefore, data center modernization is very critical in a life of any business. But, choosing the right partner in this journey stands equally critical, as these transformations, if not executed properly can put businesses at risk.
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SPECIALIST CIO
PRIYABRATA SARANGI CIO, EXIDE INDUSTRIES
“As a professional, I have always respected business requirements and priorities which demand delving deep into business processes to create better solutions.
Technology partners have played a key role through my journey by helping me innovate. In fact, CtrlS has helped me align IT with my company’s strategic business goals”
ENABLING IT WITH STRATEGIC BUSINESS GOALS
With two decades of IT experience behind him, veteran CIO Priyabrata Sarangi is spearheading digital transformation with a Big Bang approach and is bullish about his technology plans in 2018, banking on the support of a key technology partner such as CtrlS Datacenters is helping him to transform his IT strategy pro-actively to meet organization’s business objective.
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SPECIALIST CIO
What have been some of the highlights of your journey enabling IT transformations for different organizations? Ironically, my education and initial innings of my career was as a metallurgist at Powemex Steel Division of GKW Limited. So after a year and a half with the organizations, the management realized the need to have a basic ERP in place. With my understanding and involvement in the process of Metallurgy, I designed a COBOL and Foxpro based module for the organization. That is when I understood the capability of IT and decided to make the transition and started my IT journey. As a professional, I have always respected business requirements and priorities which demand delving deep into business processes to create better solutions. In 1995, I converted my first manual process to an automated process, and also built networking capabilities and a small ERP application for inventory management, application management and logistics. My next move was to Star Wire India Limited where I was equally responsible for high speed steel development and IT. I delivered ready capabilities for transformation of their entire supply chain, particularly production planning, material quality management and salary distribution, which enabled visibility, sales growth and better data management. After that, I joined Mahindra Group Company - Mahindra Ugine where my responsibilities included improving the time to costing and technical evaluation across their diverse metallurgical manufacturing which earlier had been both difficult and time consuming manually. I changed these processes with SAP implementation (which was all in bits and modules) delivering evaluation within an hour. My tenure with Mahindra Ugine saw a lot of transformation on the procurement, sales and production side as well. Later, I joined Jindal steel and Power ltd in the year 2003 and the 13 years of journey with Jindal steel and Jindal Info solutions ltd made my IT journey more progressive, strategic and future driven helping me embrace newer and innovative technologies to bring in transformation – it entailed setting up IT center of excellence (CoE) in a remote area like Raigarh, Chhattisgarh, transforming all decentralized operations to a centralize approach by managing all the landscape of India & Oversees from Raigarh. Implementation of SAP, Non SAP, MES, ITS mobility, Analytics with robust IT infrastructure made big IT transformation in entire vertical
and reflected in reduction of turnaround time of operation, logistics, material handling, improve in OTIF, growth in sales, reduction in defect and faster decision making. There were several other major transformations during my time with Jindal including robust and interactive communication platform replacing VC, real time CCTV integration creating visibility from any corner of the world and changing from a conventional approach to a systems based approach enabling big savings in terms of resources. Joined Exide Industries in the year 2016 where I steered the implementation of SAP HANA, Hybris and Successfactor. Tell us about your technology partnership with CtrlS Datacenters? My technology partnership with CtrlS Datacenters started when I joined as the CIO at Exide Industries in 2016. Here, my job was to enable Exide to make the big leap in terms of IT Transformations. Through evaluation of their current business and future demands, I decided that it was time to move from their on-premise systems to the Cloud. In the research phase, I visited a number of Datacenters across the country, ranging from Tier 1 to Tier 4 and decided on CtrlS Datacenters. One of the main reasons why I narrowed down on them was that their infrastructure and services had been evaluated and certified by SAP for their HEC environment. SAP is an organization well known when it comes to their discipline and stringent parameters when it comes to streamlining processes. Then when I visited their Datacenter in Hyderabad, I observed that every system had an emergency fall back system, something which was extremely pleasing for the eyes of a CIO. Also, in my discourses with peers who were their customers, I found CtrlS Datacenters to be a very customer-centric organization and their added value like IT security landscape, where a quarterly audit runs their security environment through White Hat hacking and similar tests and is streamlined with their PMP and ITL platforms. That is when I decided to put not just my SAP but non SAP systems as well on their Datacenters. Now IoT and AI is the emerging technology in most of the organization to speed up organization’s growth. Growing data, communications with different interfaces and expanding security layer have become fundamental challenges. Sustaining all this on the on-premise infrastruc-
ture is impossible because you don’t know how much resource is required, when security breach will happen and whether servers are capable or not. CtrlS is one of the best and reliable platforms to use as Infrastructure as a Service. What are your plans for 2018? What is your expectation from CtrlS as a technology partner for these projects? In 2018, I plan to explore more on IoT, AI and Blockchain to reduce turnaround time, interactive analytics and transform in supply chain management. Currently, CtrlS have the basic platform and strong competency on Cloud. I expect them to help organizations by providing a robust platform for IoT and AI solutions. Their infrastructure and other capabilities like security are future ready. What is needed is the right support and implementation for emerging technologies. I believe such a solution that provides the entire bundle will be very good and helpful for us (CIOs), who will not have to divert their focus to searching for multiple vendors. With your vast experience in the IT Industry, what are your suggestions to fellow CIOs in terms of enabling change through IT in their organizations? Based on my experience, I have learnt that before going towards any technology, you have to understand your business roadmap, be it long term or short term. Only then can you find the right solution or draw the right IT roadmap. Technology is bound to be obsolete – so has to select the right technology with prudence. Secondly, you should observe the technological transformations taking place by observing how the industry is embracing and leveraging technology. Thirdly, I would suggest the CIO Leaders to focus on cost and resource optimization, focus on quick turnaround times, and improve their operations – make them agile to align with the speed and growth of the organization. Next, IT governance and IT security knowledge must be spread across the organization so that people are more aware. A basic approach of IT security is lacking in most of the organizations, for which CIOs must initiate training sessions and this should be a key priority. Lastly, working closely as a technology advisor and strategist with the Board and LoBs (Lines of Business) and evolve technology strategies shall help their respective organizations achieve the desired competitive advantage and growth. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 25
PERSPECTIVE // SAP
NEERAJ ATHALYE HEAD – SAP S/4HANA | GST ADOPTION | SAP LEONARDO, SAP INDIAN SUBCONTINENT
“Enterprises and their IT Leaders are realizing the potential of AI used across business processes, applications, and lineof-business solutions to sustain a competitive advantage.”
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SAP // PERSPECTIVE
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE KEY TO COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE FOR ENTERPRISES With advances in computer processing power, memory, storage, and data tools, AI and machine learning will be integrated into the enterprise-software systems that form the heart of most organizational IT infrastructures.
How has been the adoption of AI among Indian enterprises in 2017? Artificial Intelligence has come a long way; today it is not just for suggesting business ideas but has become a breakthrough technology enabling us to take business decisions cautiously after learning about their pros and cons. In fact, an IDC study indicated that 94%of companies believe machine learning (that also includes AI) is key to competitive advantage. In many cases, such as online shopping, machine learning understands our behavior and intent and is making precise, intelligent recommendations. Successful enterprises have realized the potential of machine learning used across business processes, applications, and line-of-business solutions to sustain a competitive advantage. Which are the major industries that stand to benefit most from AI tools and technologies? Enterprises and their IT Leaders are realizing the potential of AI used across business processes, applications, and line-of-business solutions to sustain a competitive advantage. Almost every industry can benefit from AI, especially manufacturing, logistics, utilities, healthcare and several others. Couple of instances of sectors closer to our home, that can take maximum advantage of AI includeRetail: AI use cases for retail that are already deployed or in deployment in stores across the world. Going forward, innovators within the
industry will continue to mine the countless possibilities for AI that make shopping more fun for customers and streamline many of the business processes that have strained retail resources for decades. The technology and its capabilities are sure to have the same transformative effect that retailers experienced with e-commerce and online shopping. Banking: New banking behaviors like social payments and mobile wallets are on the rise as are the use of tech platforms that are tuned for digital customer engagement. With growing customer demand for personalized digital experiences, more efficient operations, and fast delivery of new product innovations, banks will be able to reimagine their business processes with AI to better serve their customers and prepare for a future where the only certainty is accelerating change. What is your advice to CIOs interested in integrating AI into their business processes and operations? Don’t wait for the perfect time to get started: A common inhibitor is the tendency to try to fix all the problems first. Management wants operations to be flawless before shifting the focus to innovation. Our world is constantly changing, our customers are constantly changing, and the rate of change is constantly accelerating. If you wait to resolve 100% of your problems, then you’ll never get started. Be inspired by the innovators: Companies that realize that the time is now look to create new
business models and see how technology can enable them. They get the process started and adjust as and when business needs change. Be willing to assume some risk: As compelling as the use cases may be, companies in general are afraid to fail. They want to innovate, but to do so with a 90% chance to succeed. They want to see other companies innovate, then follow suit and duplicate their ideas. This hesitancy is understandable. But you need to be willing to take calculated risks to achieve the greatest rewards. History has proven this true time and again. Where do you see the influence of AI in businesses by 2020? AI will become more main stream, undoubtedly. In fact, Gartner forecasts that AI will lead to $200 billion in new revenue and 768,000 new positions in 2018 itself. Thanks to advances in computer processing power, memory, storage, and data tools, AI and machine learning will be integrated into the enterprise-software systems that form the heart of most organizational IT infrastructures. This means that the software, using the mastery that it develops in individual tasks, will be able to contribute increasing levels of performance and productivity to the organization over time, rather than merely offering a one-time boost, as most software packages do today. We can only guess at the level of automation that will result, but the impact on business – and society – will be significant.
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SPECIAL FEATURE // CIO PREDICTION 2018
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CIO PREDICTION 2018 // SPECIAL FEATURE
2018
LOOKING AT FROM THE EYES OF THE
INDIAN CIO
Digital Transformations and Hybrid IT adoption will gather momentum as major projects around IoT, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and Blockchain flag off.... Cybersecurity will be the biggest challenge yet again and is paramount for the Indian CIO in 2018. BY CHITRESH SEHGAL CSEHGAL@ACCENTINFOMEDIA.COM
D
igital Transformations gathered steam and spearheaded all projects across organizations and verticals in 2017 to become the biggest norm in enterprise technology plans. IT Decision makers witnessed increased involvement of the board in technology related decisions and likewise saw their roles evolve from the organization’s technocrats to critical business and growth drivers. IT finally became business and with it changed perceptions of seasoned business leaders and influenced areas and avenues that were yet unchartered in terms of technology enablement. This recent digitization of the Indian enterprise segment coincided and can be partially credited to the ongoing transformation of the country as a whole when Digital Platforms and paperless working environments are being quickly embraced by Governments and PSUs, Smart City initiatives are beginning with deployments and the mobile internet and smart phone revolution that has quite literally redefined the approach of customers, with it forcing transformations in business operations and marketing approaches as well. The internet economy, coupled with the latest technology elixirs like Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence, third platform technologies like SMAC, Cognitive Computing, and Robotics and Automation are being analyzed, understood, experimented and deployed in all kinds of business
processes from back end and marketing operations, to product engineering, R&D and supply chains. Enterprises have been competing and collaborating at the same time towards redefining their businesses in sync with evolving customer demands and perceptions. Customer experience, as an example, is an area which has been totally redefined by technology and the amount of customer data now at leverage to corporations. Governments and organizations are able to improve services and process efficiencies across a number of areas. Several organizations have started hiring spree specifically targeted at increasing their IT skill set and a number of new roles have evolved like the Chief Digital Officer and Risk and Compliance Officer. CIOs and similar designations are no more just looking after the internal and external IT of their organizations, but are coming to the forefront as innovators redefining products and services, thus becoming primary torchbearers for the future success of their organizations. With 2017 already in the history books and 2018 just heating up towards full engine efficiency, the Indian CIO has been a busy man, wearing multiple caps and spearheading projects in different areas of the organizations, at the same time able managing the existing infrastructure and regulating noncritical tasks. Apart from the added work pressure, now these CIOs face an additional pressure from the CEO, CFO and Company Board of Directors who now seek direct answers and advisory from the CIO on how to take the organization forward. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 29
SPECIAL FEATURE // CIO PREDICTION 2018
LOOKING BACK AT 2017 The Indian CIO had a challenging yet exciting 2017. A number of new technologies were played with as organizations started digital transformation journeys focusing on business benefits and specific areas that could be improved with IT. Forming digital strategies was a common highlight for most of the industry. Organization as a whole started talking about technology and exploring use cases on how to leverage digitization for business benefit.. Digital transformation in enterprises touched across different areas like Business Process Automation, Enterprise IT Security Framework, Collaborations, Datacenter, IT Innovations, Cloud Computing, Mobility and consolidation of IT Infrastructure. The CIOs were busy in forming Digital Transformation Strategies & IT Road map and initiated projects on Digital Transformation in different silos. Though challenging, the year was fruitful for Enterprises with a number of novel projects. When talking about cybersecurity, it can be said that 2017 was a havoc year in terms of attacks and created a mass scale operation of revamping security approaches for organizations, something which we will discuss in details further down the story. Enterprises increased focus was towards
VILAS PUJARI,
VCIO, ACG WORLDWIDE
“2017 was challenging, but we managed everything on time. However, one challenge that we still have is connecting all
technologies on one platform and orchestrating them.”
GYAN PRAKASH,
DGM – OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE, HOFINCONS INFOTECH & INDUSTRIAL SERVICES
“One particular challenge that we faced in 2017 was that open source competitive alternatives were not
available for most common utilities.”
ensuring that the right controls are in place to protect data and prevent breaches. Another major technology trend of 2017 was the shift to the hybrid cloud model which will continue and even spread across organizations and verticals as organizations prepare for a digital future by upgrading our infrastructure to a hybrid cloud model.
CHALLENGES TO OVERCOME
SRINIVASARAO MUPPANENI,
GROUP CIO, ANDHRA PRADESH AND TELANGANA STATE AND CENTRAL COOPERATIVE BANKS
“Information Security in Networked Environment and upgrading the IT Infrastructure to meet the ever growing requirements were the biggest challenges in 2017.”
30 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
BIPRADAS BANDYOPADHYAY,
CIO, ZUARI INFRAWORLD
“ERP management and security constraints came around as challenges however we worked on and resolved
the security issues this year itself.”
The change of year doesn’t change much in terms of the role as Digital transformation is an ongoing process. However some key challenges were noted which were more or less similar across the community. Among the major concerns and challenges faced by the Indian CIO in 2017 was cybersecurity, just like everywhere else in the world. CIOs had a hard time keeping the multitude of ransomware attacks and breaches at bay. This grew even more critical with the multiple ongoing projects around digital transformation, which in turn simultaneously opened more doors for such attacks. This was coupled with the dearth of skill set and knowledge, a constant problem at the core of India’s IT Infrastructure. Worth mentioning would be challenges when moving from legacy to software defined architecture and adoption of Hybrid IT model. As data grew leaps and bounds and scalability and agility came around as crucial differentiators, network revamp and storage problems came to
CIO PREDICTION 2018 // SPECIAL FEATURE
EXPECTATIONS FROM TECHNOLOGY VENDORS The 2018 CIO looks at the vendors and expects true technology partners. With transformations forming the guiding lights for businesses, the organizations demand from IT is far bigger than ever. The room for error has reduced and there can be no leverage in the highly insecure and competitive environment today. Moreover, the major part of business productivity and lies on the shoulders of IT Teams which putts far greater pressure on the shoulder of the CIOs. It is indeed
ANIL M SINGH,
MANOJ SAWANT,
HEAD IT, INOX AIR PRODUCTS
CDO, DIMITRY TECHNOLOGIES
“Major challenges were security and technology adaptation but we expect our technology
“2017 challenges were substandard level of understand for manufacturing IT, lack of knowledge in
vendors to provide secure technology with focus on automation in 2018.”
industry 4.0, and the fact that IT team still functioned in old approach for IT lifecycle.”
PRIYA DAR,
CIO, GODFREY PHILLIPS INDIA
ANAND RUHELA,
IT HEAD, KWALITY
“Enterprise Connectivity, cybersecurity & threats like ransomware were some of the key
challenges which came up to counter during the year.”
the forefront. Issues revolved around Data Lakes, Cloud, lack of open source competitive alternatives and a lack of indigenous solutions in the market. In 2017, security came to the forefront as customer focus, engagement, agile applications grew more essential. IT became a topic of board room discussions. With this evolution of IT, consolidation of IT and connecting all technologies, a vital part of digital transformation, came around as a challenge for some enterprises unifying their IT and enabling orchestration on a single platform. With the surge in Data, Data Lake, DR implementation on cloud, Storage, protection of data and network from ransomware attacks were big headaches for CIOs. In the domestic IT landscape, there is a general observed lack IT knowledge in trends such as IoT, industry 4.0 and Cloud. There is also a lack of indigenous solutions which culminates in solutions that are originally developed from the Western perspective and then tweaked for India context. Increased demand for emerging technologies AI, RPA and Data Analytics; buying for hybrid cloud model and threats to business through data loss; coupled with infrastructure changes due to transformation were major issues of 2017. The growth in competition leading to the need for constant innovation and disruption was another big responsibility that fell on the shoulders of the CIO.
“My technology vendors are no longer vendors - they are our partners and so the expectations are not just project delivery - it is on time, error proof, quick, easy to use, scalable and progressive delivery.”
challenging times for CIOs across industries, trying to find their roots in digital transformation. The vendor needs to emerge as a true partner to the CIO in enabling the fullest potential of Digital for the organization. The vendors should understand needs of the CIO and contribute more as a partner helping the CIO find the best solutions rather than only selling their products. The CIO expects the vendor to climb up the value chain and act as true partner in solve business challenges together rather than doing what is told like a traditional vendor. The norm in 2018 for the technology vendors is to be business enablers and work like partners with CIOs. The expectation exceeds just plain project delivery. It is now support for POC’s, rapid, on-time, foolproof, JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
31
SPECIAL FEATURE // CIO PREDICTION 2018
MILAN KUMAR,
AJAY YADAV,
SHAILENDRA CHOUDHARY,
GLOBAL CIO, WABCO
HEAD IT (NORTH), ARSHIYA RAIL INFRASTRUCTURE
VP & HEAD IT, INTERARCH BUILDING PRODUCTS
“My chief expectation from vendors is to provide support for POC’s, run Business Change
“Improving cost and preventing cost overruns are constant challenges when managing IT projects. We want our
“Vendors should help customers in creating strategies, and deliver powerful
management and support us in rapid implementations.”
SUNIL KUMAR,
vendors to maintain fiduciary responsibility.”
SYED KADAM MURSHED,
CTO, MYND SOLUTIONS
HEAD IT, MEDICA HOSPITALS
“Vendors should focus on creating solutions suited to Indian businesses rather than solutions for
“The vendors should understand our needs and contribute to our value chain. They should
the west adapted to fit in Indian context.”
32 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
not just focus on selling their products.”
automation and security tools.”
agile, easy to deploy, scalable and progressive delivery. Vendors need to be more responsive, and understand business requirements, and the vitality of time to market for projects. The CIO expects technology vendors to have a sustained commitment towards delivery of product/solutions and rapid post sales support. The vendor needs to have a solid technical knowledge right down to every contact with the customer. Vendor should not just help the CIO in containing present costs, but also ideate and together finds ways to reduce costs over the period of the relationship, thus positively impacting the organization’s bottom line. IT needs to predict technological changes and identify customer pain points. In today’s business environments, traits like prompt response, reliability, availability, agility and cost effective IT Solutions will go a long way in establishing successful technology partnerships and long term commitment on the customer end. The vendor needs to care about not just its customer, but its customer’s customer. Technology wise, with the emerging set of transformative technologies, the CIO expects the vendors to be consistently innovative and likewise help the CIO in inculcating the same culture in his team. CIOs expect vendors to support expansion of open source with reliable security methods. They need to provide secure, cutting edge technologies with a focus on effective use emerging differentiators like, in improving customer’s processes in customer
CIO PREDICTION 2018 // SPECIAL FEATURE
HARISH SHARMA
NIKHIL KUMAR NIGAM,
SHALABH GARG,
CL, GROUP VP, HEAD – HR, IT & ADMIN, TOYOTA FINANCIAL SERVICES INDIA
ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR – TECHNOLOGIES, AMITY UNIVERSITY
AVP – HEAD OF DC SERVICES, RELIGARE ENTERPRISES
“Vendors should move up the value chain and act as true partner and solve business challenges together
“Vendors need to deliver intelligence in digital transformation with high focus on Security, along with Big
“Vendors need to be more agile, understand business requirements, time to
rather than as a vendor who does what is told.”
Data and AI going hand in hand.”
lifecycle management, Blockchain-enabled supply chain management, RPA and automation tools, implementing trends like Connected Factories, Industry 4.0 and intelligent agents like AI driven empowered for customer support services. The vendors need to better their support for security
and vulnerability scenarios. Good support on the security front is vital for transformation into Digital World. No deployment can take place without high focus on Security. They need to have strong domain knowledge, and create solutions suited to Indian businesses rather than solutions for the
market and be technologically sounder.”
west adapted to fit in Indian context. The vendor needs to move ahead of just being consistent in compliance with contractual obligations and needs to be more creative, more collaborative and strategy oriented.
MAJOR CHALLENGES FACED BY CIOS IN 2017 Cyberattacks and ransomware threats
10
6 Infrastructure challenges
5
IT Change Management
Digital Transformation Related Issues
Application related issues
4
3 3
Emerging/ Immature Technologies
Cloud Computing/ Virtualization issues Storage and DR related
3 Enterprise Connectivity/ Network related issues
3 2 2 2 2 2 Data Management and Analytics
Adaptability Issues
Third-party/ Vendor Management
Lack of IT skill set
JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 33
SPECIAL FEATURE // CIO PREDICTION 2018
FOCUS ON THE CYBERSECURITY ASPECT The CIO community has no doubt about the challenges in store for 2018 with the cybersecurity menace that will surely keep on going and even increase in the coming years. Hackers are evolving faster than security solutions companies and the cyber attacks horizon is increasing. However, the CIO is upbeat about it and expects 2017 to be a lesson well taken. The CIO expects his defense to strengthen with added focus on security with organizations and Service Providers collaborating more, constantly evaluating security. The idea of the CIO is to ensure security is taken seriously. New trends and breaches are expects to emerge and have to be monitored and prevented regularly. With third platform, mobility and cloud, gone are the days of data center and parameter security. With the explosion in the boundaries of enterprise security parameter, prevention effort and systems need to be revamped. For organizational IT, the focus has shifted to cybersecurity
along with Infrastructure Management and deployments. The CIO community looks forward to more rapid and better support by OEMs for security and vulnerability scenarios. Quantifying this focus, the CIO community sees security engulfing a cyber chunk of the 2018 IT budget for organizations with response numbering from around 25% of total IT budget to as much as 50% inclination. This is the result of security being a topic important right to the top most level. Data security will be a major focus for every business and especially with the added focus on managing data with EUDGPR and similar guidelines, no organization can afford an attack in the coming time. Cybersecurity will drive most of the technology and product investments for 2018 as organizations progress towards Digital transformation. The Enterprise mindset needs to change from 'if ' to 'when'. The new norm in security is automation and outsourcing. CIOs expect to be more comfortable automated security and move
DEEPAK KALAMBKAR,
IT HEAD & CISO, MARVEL DATA SERVICES
“We will have a very big focus on cybersecurity as we are going for HIPPA Implementation in
the coming year.”
MEETALI SHARMA,
BOHITESH MISRA,
VP – IT & BI, SIMPA NETWORKS
“New trends do emerge for cyber attacks and have to be monitored and prevented regularly. A quick and better support by OEMs for security and
vulnerability scenarios is expected.”
34 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
HEAD – RISK, COMPLIANCE & INFORMATION SECURITY
“Cybersecurity in 2018 depends on the amount of preventive controls and defense mechanisms
the enterprise has and how they perform a thorough risk assessment of their current security landscape.”
away from legacy practices. CIOs are evaluating outsourced SOC. With a number of organizations now deploying apps on clouds which are managed by top-tier cloud service providers, the CIO now has to work less on security on a daily basis, but expects better support by OEMs with vulnerability scenarios surely expected. On the basis of learning of the past and new innovations in Cyber Security tools, the CIO is optimistic that 2018 will prove to be a better year in terms of damage to businesses. The CIOs are creating more awareness and looking for better solutions. Companies are future proofing data and educating employees about insider threat. The actual cybersecurity scenario in 2018 will depend on the amount and nature of preventive controls and defense mechanisms enterprises will have in place. CIOs know they need to rethink security in 2018 and are already performing thorough risk assessments of their security posture. The CIO community is fully aware of the cyber attack storm on its way and expects to be prepared well in advance to avoid it.
CIO PREDICTION 2018 // SPECIAL FEATURE
TOP TECHNOLOGIES FOR 2018 Digital transformation will continue in full swing across industries. Internet of Things and third platform technologies will take center stage and influence all areas of business from BI in decision making to IIOT, Connected Processes and Industry4.0 transforming production processes. A number of CIOs are already underway with projects around IoT in verticals like manufacturing, healthcare, smart cities, governance, hospitality and transportation. AI and machine learning will enable Intelligent Apps and Intelligent agents transforming customer interactions. The influence of Artificial Intelligence is expected to be so huge that every application and services will incorporate AI at some level, enhancing decision making, innovating business models and creating digital customer experiences. Collaboration is expected to be a norm in. Cybersecurity, quite redundantly is going to be huge and with Data Security getting more critical Governance, Risk and Compliance will come to the fore. Security is a focus for every business in 2017 and technologies relating to encryption, data recovers, coupled with security automation will be big. Automation in security will be a particularly big technology as cloud computing and open
VIVEK DHARIA,
PARVEEN KUMAR SHARMA,
ARVIND KUMAR,
CIO, INSTITUTE OF CHARTERED ACCOUNTANTS OF INDIA
GM – IT, ELIOR INDIA CATERING
“In 2018 we are planning to consolidate infrastructure and applications with centralized monitoring and
“Cyber Security, automation, digitization and governance will be more influencing this year as robotics
management of I.T. infrastructure to be improved upon.”
ARINDAM SINGHA ROY,
becomes an integral part of enterprises.”
ABHIJIT CHATTERJEE,
CIO, KNP SECURITIES
HEAD IT, EAST INDIA GROUP
CIO, C- ZENTRIX
“In 2018 every application and services will incorporate AI at some level which
“Cybersecurity will be a big challenge in 2018 and also a big focus for us with a big part of the
“2018 will witness a steady traction in cloud based communications as its core advantages of simplicity and lower investment involved
will enhance decision making, innovate business models and remake the customer’s digital experience.”
IT Budget going into securing our infrastructure and data.”
will attract larger customer bases to adopt the services.”
JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 35
SPECIAL FEATURE // CIO PREDICTION 2018
MAJOR PROJECTS IN 2017 IOT PROJECTS
INDUSTRY 4.0
CLOUD/ HYBRID IT
APP MIGRATION
DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION
source application development is embraced and security becomes responsibility of a number of cloud service providers. CIOs will be experimenting with a lot of emerging technologies like Cognitive Computing, RPA, Chatbots and Blockchain which are making inroads and finding a number of use cases in industrial processes, financial systems, supply chains and record management to name a few. CIOs are innovators and believe in collaboration as the best way of moving forward. In 2018, companies will move to common IT platforms in order to be more receptive to market changes and make more informed decisions.
LOOKING FORWARD TO A BIG YEAR FOR THE INDIAN CIO 36 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
Arguably, no project in the organization today goes towards initiation without key inputs from the CIO. It will be unfair not to mention how these guardians of the organization’s IT have evolved, welcomed these challenges and taken the opportunity of pulling the reins of their organizations with utmost capability and zeal. The CIO has grown in stature to become a parallel business head with the CEOs, and COOs of organizations, being responsible and crucial to the biggest and most major decisions in boardrooms. Their voice has become crucial and will continue to be heard more are digital transformations engulf organizations. The CIO community has a number of projects planned and in deployment for 2018. Cloud computing and open source culture will drive
collaboration and innovation in enterprises, in response driving growth. Security is going to be in news all year and the harsh reality is that a number of CIOs will bear the brunt of it. However, with 2017 coming up with sufficient warnings to awaken business as a whole, the number of security incidents resulting in major losses to businesses is expected to decrease. From the Indian Enterprise perspective, 2017 has been a great journey in terms of digital transformations, emerging technologies and exploring newer channels which can be enhanced through technology deployment. The CIOs widened their horizons to the future of IT and new ideas surfaced which will witness translation to reality in 2018.
CIO PREDICTION 2018 // SPECIAL FEATURE
TOP TECHNOLOGIES IN CIO PLANS FOR 2018 100%
Cybersecurity 996%
Internet of Things 78%
Blockchain
74%
Artificial Intelligence 67%
Business Analytics Cloud
60%
Digitization
45% 44%
TECHNOLOGY
RPA Chat Bots
41%
Intelligent Apps
40%
Big Data
37% 34%
Machine Learning
29%
Productivity Tools
26%
Mobility
24%
IIoT and Industry 4.0 Open Source Collaboration
18%
Cognitive Computing
16%
AR/ VR
15%
Social
15%
Smart Workflows
14% 13%
Agile Architecture
10%
3D and 4D Printing Technology
9%
Hyperconverged Infrastructure Software Defined Everything (SDx)
Data collected from Survey of 500 Enterprise CIOs and IT Decision Makers from different verticals across India
6%
Wearables, RFID Solutions, Sensors, 5G, Quantum Computing, DevOps
4% 100
0 Percentage of CIOs working around the technologies in 2018
JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 37
CXO SPECIAL
CRESTS OF DIGITIZATION IN 2018
Leader Business leaders in the country are cognizant of the power of technology, making it a boardroom consideration, leading the pack of tech trends is Cloud adoption by SMEs, Enterprise Mobility, and advent of new CXO roles like the Chief Digital Officer 38 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
CXO SPECIAL
VISHAL BHAT
REGIONAL OPERATIONS HEAD FOR NORTH & EAST (SME), TATA TELESERVICES
“2018 onward enterprises will shift investment toward integrating digital capabilities to reach out to diverse customer ecosystems, flexible sourcing, and information security.”
W
ith 2018 finally here, it’s time for organizations to strategize for the latter half of the current fiscal. India will continue to witness a wave of digital business transformation that is generating new prospects for enterprises across every industry. Business leaders in the country are cognizant of the power of technology, making it a boardroom consideration. Every budget has an IT component, every campaign has an IT dimension, and all business decisions have IT at its core. Beyond smartphones and tablets – we have seen the emergence of pay-as-you-use services on the internet, growing use of social media in life and at work as well as the elevation of the science of analytics as the root of all intelligence. Truly social, mobile, cloud and big data / analytics have disrupted every business value chain that has ever been set in place. In this environment, we see four broad trends – which will significantly strengthen in 2018.
ADOPTION OF DIGITAL AND SOCIAL BY ENTERPRISES Over the last couple of years an increasing number of Enterprises have started using social and digital media platforms to engage with their customers. In order to become a seamless part of their lifestyles, a company- large, small or the start-ups must enable customers to interact with it on their terms; anytime, from anywhere, and from any device. Thus, businesses of all sizes are being challenged by new business models where
telecommunications infrastructure to attain business efficiencies. Scaling of digital businesses will make the remainder of this year and 2018 a defining moment for CIOs. As per Gartner, Inc.’s annual global survey of CIOs, the role is transitioning from delivery executive to business executive, from controlling cost and engineering processes, to driving revenue and exploiting data. While world-class IT delivery management is a given, it will take up less and less of the CIO’s time, who will now concentrate on other areas of the business, such as innovation management and talent development. However, they will continue to face the challenge of data science, cyber security, and talent shortage in software development.
ENTERPRISE MOBILITY customers control their own experience—this makes the role of digital and social platforms inevitable.
ADOPTION OF CLOUD BY SMES Growing at 9%, Indian SMEs clearly see their opportunity being here and now. Large scale adoption of cloud services by SMEs across business verticals is allowing these organizations to become more flexible and agile, more in tune with local customer needs, being able to serve customers more effectively. All of this is being enabled by smart business connectivity & collaboration solutions. Cloud Adoption by Indian SMEs has witnessed an increased CAGR of 20% in the last four years and will continue to steadily expand in 2018. Some vital areas where the demand for cloud services by SMEs is high are disaster recovery, remote database management and e-mail hosting.
NEW SKILL-SET REQUIREMENTS Enterprise customers are looking at ways to optimize investments in technology infrastructure and management – while investing into new age applications which are taking the business online and on to social platforms. But for that to succeed, the industry needs people with the skills to enable the company to compete in this new age. The emergence of Chief Digital Officer, CIO, Data Scientist and Chief Security Officer is indicative of the fact that technology solutions such as big data, IoT and mobility are getting bigger and more relevant to businesses, making it imperative for organizations to plan for a robust
Work – today – is something you do, not somewhere you go to. According to a new market report published by Transparency Market Research India’s enterprise mobility market is expected to touch US$ 2.3 Billion by 2017 growing from US$ 1.7 billion in 20154. Enterprise mobility is the future of mobile landscape and in the coming years will be the primary focus of every organization while budgeting their IT investments. Today, Mobility is the priority for around 71% of the enterprises as it is believed to enhance productivity and organizational efficiency by harnessing a global workforce and mobilizing the limited resource of time better as the work happens across time zones simultaneously. With sophisticated mobile device management solutions for asset/workforce tracking, as well as policies like BYOD and telecommuting - work is now an organic part of the employees’ life where they choose their own productivity windows rather than be bound to devote a set period of time each day. Digital disruption is not just a buzzword – it is here to stay, and to bring around radical change in the way companies think and operate. In 2017, we witnessed the transitioning from traditional methods of managing the business to getting cloud-first solutions, accessible over any device anywhere, with real-time analytics of every aspect of the business solidifying and becoming a part of mainstream business. 2018 onward enterprises will shift investment toward integrating digital capabilities to reach out to diverse customer ecosystems, flexible sourcing, and information security. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 39
TECH TALK
JUST THE TIME… TO MOVE AWAY FROM ‘MOBILITY’ With innovations happening in the space at a lightening pace, Mobility, which still is in infancy, is auto-terminating into something called Ubiquitous Computing – Intelligent and Pervasive Mobility and it’s a short distance from mobility in its current avatar to graduate into Ubiquitous Computing. 40 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
TECH TALK
VIKAS GUPTA Head IT, Essar India
“While current mobility patterns are based on menu-driven, GUI-based tools; Ubiquitous Computing holds the promise of understanding natural human interactions
such as presence, movement, or speech.”
W
e are in the most interesting times today, the times of ‘Tsunami Transformation’ & in such evolutionary stage of transformation, it’s sometimes very difficult to pin-point the stage of transformation are we in. If we take a look at the history of Interaction, we realize that every form of human interaction is unique to the actors involved; heterogeneity is what defines us as humans! Let us just visualize how interactions have transformed over times. l Circa 1440 BC~ Moses receives the 10 commandments on two not-so-lightweight Blue Sapphire stone tablets called Tablets of Testimony l Fast forward to early 19th Century when the first typewriter was developed having 2500 parts and l Now visualize developments in mid 50s of previous century when the foundation of the avatar of the current IT was laid. As technology has progressed, these tools have evolved into standalone devices that could support more forms of interaction—hence the emergence of the mobile Smartphone, a small computer that allows us to stay connected and to interact with people and computers in a variety of ways. The locus of innovation has moved to the world of the consumer, from the realm of business technology. The opportunity to use consumer devices and other on-demand services for business purposes has given rise to the consumerization of IT. Welcome to the world of Mobility - Here you are served everything from Snack-on-the-go to formally closing a multi-billion dollar deal, all collaborated invisibly and virtually.
MOBILITY Customers’ expectations of total mobility, ever-faster connectivity, personalized services and perfect instantaneous delivery seem to be growing as quickly as their data usage. At the same time, pace of change is unprecedented – cloud, M2M communications, rapidly evolving world of devices and apps, etc. Expectations and technology are feeding into each other, creating the need for faster innovation and time to market, improved network infrastructure, and so on.
IMPACT For most part, hardware peripherals will probably not see a substantial impact from mobility. The area most impacted by mobility is the network and the impact is both l Constructive —creation of newer network infrastructures—and l Destructive —obsolescence of older technologies. Newer and faster network standards are excellent from point of view of very high throughput using Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO) systems, in the range of over 100 Mbps. When it comes to IT facilities, Mobility will change the way employees operate. Workplaces will actually shrink to the size of a small mobile device while coverage of work itself, will go beyond the confines of physical establishments. Some Examples of Umpteen probabilities cropping up l Richness in communication channels will help product development and marketing, where enterprises can exploit augmented reality applications for product demonstrations, and to address consumer pain points faster and more effectively. l Applications already allow smartphones to scan barcodes. Coupled with this, RFID tags connected to inventory items can be read using
Near Field Communication (NFC) enabled mobile devices and supply chain managers will get real-time information on materials movement in ERPs, crucial in a Just-In-Time (JIT) environment, reducing inventory costs to a bare minimum l Same RFID tags will also help with quality control l Surveillance of plant facilities &/or premises under large uneven topography are being aided by enterprise mobility without the need for expensive wiring. l Sensors on machines in a factory allow technicians to know when maintenance is needed. l With all this happening in Mobility Space at a lightening pace, this Mobility, which still is in infancy, is auto-terminating into something called Ubiquitous Computing – Intelligent and Pervasive Mobility and it’s a short distance from mobility in its current avatar to graduate into Ubiquitous Computing. Whereas Mobility sets you free to connect and use devices while on the move, ubiquitous computing lets the environment connect to you in many unobtrusive ways. Whereas Mobility took computers from desktop and put them in your pocket, Ubiquitous computing sends information seamlessly into your environment, where numerous tiny devices monitor you, connect with you, and even think for you. While current mobility patterns are based on menu-driven, GUI-based tools, Ubiquitous computing holds the promise of understanding natural human interactions such as presence, movement, or speech. And some or I should say many of this is already happening: l When I enter my office, the lights come on automatically & when I leave, they go off. l In the near future, several actions may be triggered as I set out to work l Smart car will suggest an optimal route by assessing traffic along a smart city network l My virtual assistant will receive an alert and my office temperature will adjust to my preference l My desk shows high priority tasks and scheduler will prepare visitor passes for guests l Cafeteria will receive a request for our preferred beverages l Automatically connect to video conference, basis my confirmed invitations l Wall color and lighting in my room will change to match my preferences. And when many smart devices connect, you have an intelligent environment. Welcome to this world of ubiquitous computing! Good Bye Mobility JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD
41
CISO SPEAKS
EVOLVING FACE OF INSIDER THREAT Technology, process and policies have evolved to counter Insiders threats in organizations to a large extent but the new age threats from complacent, ineptitude, ignorant, change averse teams that work in silos and management apathy that builds such environments might still jeopardize them.
42 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
CISO SPEAKS
LALIT CHACKO GM – IT INFRASTRUCTURE & SECURITY OPERATIONS, IBM INDIA
“It’s time the CIOs, CTOs, CISOs take cognizance of the lurking insider threat from a growing workforce which is, complacent, inept, ignorant, averse to
change, working in silos and apathetic to the management”
F
ollowing are a couple of definitions of ‘Insider Threat’ from globally well-known and trusted knowledge sources. (Wikipedia) - ‘An insider threat is a malicious threat to an organization that comes from people within the organization, such as employees, former employees, contractors or business associates, who have inside information concerning the organization’s security practices, data and computer systems” (CERt.org) - “Insiders pose a substantial threat to your organization because they have the knowledge and access to proprietary systems that allow them to bypass security measures through legitimate means. “ Do these definitions cover the entirety of insider threat? Is insider threat limited to insiders with knowledge and access? NOT at all, It’s time that the management particularly the CIOs, CTOs, CISOs take cognizance of the lurking insider threat not because of “who have inside information” or “malicious intent” or “knowledge and access to proprietary systems” but a growing workforce which is, “complacent, inept, ignorant, averse to change , working in silos and apathetic to the management”. Gone are the days when an individual or group of disgruntled, troublesome employees with malicious intent are the only ones who could compromise/destroy the secure framework of an organization leading to financial, legal and brand image losses. Technology, process and policies have evolved to counter these to a large extent provided the new age threats do not jeopardize them.
time frame. The top threats that caused incidents were conventional malware and virus outbreaks (53%), then targeted attacks (36%) and lastly, employee errors/unintentional actions following in third (29%). Human error ranks higher than actors from the supply chain and partners, and sabotage and physical damage by external actors... usa.kaspersky.com)
IGNORANCE Being Updated on Trends in the environment that you operate is a necessity in today’s fast changing digital world. An organization is at risk if its resources are not aware of the market trends on threats and remediation and they not willingly but can unknowingly compromise organizations information assets.
TEAMS WORKING IN SILOS
COMPLACENCY Individuals, both end users and technical resources should be “aware as well as embody” recommended best practices against potential threats. A complacent user, aware but not diligent in applying safety controls at the right time exposes the organization to external threat. Example: The Windows’ Server Message Block (SMB) protocol vulnerability was discovered by Microsoft and on Tuesday, March 14, 2017, they issued security bulletin MS17-010, which detailed the flaw and announced that patches had been released for all Windows versions but still The WannaCry ransomware attack began on Friday, 12 May 2017 exploiting this vulnerability and within a day was reported to have infected more than 230,000 computers in over 150 countries (wikipedia.org)
INEPTITUDE Skill or knowledge enhancement is critical to efficient and successful delivery, more relevant for an Information Technology resource for whom the technology “diversity is increasing and life span is getting reduced” at an alarming rate. A resource who has not enhanced his/her skills is operating at a level much below what the role demands and is vulnerable to create a potential threat to the organization in the long run. Example: In Woburn, MA on June 20, 2017, Kaspersky Lab announced a new “State of Industrial Cybersecurity 2017” survey, which found that over half (54%) of ICS companies interviewed have experienced at least one cyber attack in the last 12 months – with one-in-five (21%) experiencing two incidents in the same
The Information technology teams have diversified into platforms, tools, technologies etc. thereby creating silos of ownership, this often creates lacunae between accountability of one team to another. These ownership issues within and between teams are again a source of insider threat, as the control measures gets dropped and stays hidden in between teams.
AVERSION TO CHANGE Organizations and individuals need to constantly invest in new Technology, people and processes, which are more visionary than market leaders, as today’s market leaders were visionaries of the past. Rather than follow the leader approach the call of the hour is follow the change, this will determine how the organization is prepared against future threats. Any organization or individual, not investing on technology and skill are another source of insider threat
MANAGEMENT APATHY Leadership teams of an organization which tends to ignore the relevance of Information security and are riding on digitization wave with no/less prioritization of information security risks are another set of insider threat at the highest level.
FINALLY To summarize while focus should be there to implement technology and process to prevent willful malicious threat that originates from an insider with knowledge and access, it’s more imperative that individuals and leaderships invest time and effort to mitigate insider threat arising from complacent, ineptitude, ignorant, change averse teams that work in silos and management apathy that builds such environments. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 43
PERSPECTIVE // RIT TECH
BRINGING AUTOMATED INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT PLATFORM TO INDIA MARKET With a new growth strategy focusing more on emerging markets like India, China and Israel, Israeli Connectivity Infrastructure leader RiT Tech is expanding its presence in the domestic market with bolstered technical support, restructured sales channel and plans of establishing R&D in the country by 2019.
ASSAF SKOLNIK
Chief Executive Officer, RiT Tech
“The fact that we offer a complete set of complimentary solutions as part of our XpedITe platform, like cabling, and passive connectivity solutions, enables us to offer more value to the customer.”
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RIT TECH // PERSPECTIVE
Briefly tell us your products and services? RiT focuses on connectivity infrastructure solutions whether it is passive connectivity solutions related to structured cabling, fiber optic and copper, and intelligent – Automated Infrastructure Management solutions, a technology that was invented by RiT back in 1994. Automated infrastructure management takes the physical connectivity link and manages it physically, by dedicated hardware and software. In the following years we developed this technology, and took it to the level of datacenters in large IT environments. We have already launched the fifth generation of this solution, which is the Patchview+ and we are now launching the new platform (XpedITe) for automating infrastructure in IT environments. It is interesting to note that there are standards which were released in 2016 by ISOIC(Eu) and TIA (US) know as AIM – Automated Infrastructure Management standard, where is defined as a system that is interfaced with DCM system to provide real time connectivity data and integration. So actually what RiT invented back in 1994 and was a pioneer of has now become an industry standard. . What is your India presence and market positioning? We have been in the India market since late 1990s through partner representations and in 2006 we established a local presence here. Since then, we have had different structures of local teams for sales and technical support. During these years, we bagged significant projects mainly in the Intelligence discipline area with our technology partners like Belden and Schneider Electric and also independently.In numbers, the Indian business amounts to 10% of our global revenue share but now we have changed our strategy and our focusing more on emerging markets like India, China and Israel. As part of our intentions for the Indian market, we are going to establish a local entity. We are in the process of recruiting and restructuring our team, strengthening our technical support, and product management. Besides restructuring our local team, we are also restructuring our sales channel, main distribution channel, sub distributors and system integrators we work with. On the R&D front, we are working with our technology partners to identify the needs of the Indian market. It will initially be a small team of R&D engineers and we expect to solidify it by early 2019. Apart from Intelligence, what are your main customer verticals? Our main verticals are the BFSI institutions where we have recently bagged an opportunity to provide intelligence to one of the World’s biggest bank across their global operations. Apart from financial, we have a strong footprint in Transportation with a number of Airport and Subway accounts and also in the Healthcare and Government sectors globally as well as
in India. What are your main strengths in terms of value that RiT brings to customer? Our main strengths are strong ownership and solid technological foundation. From the technology point of view, related to DC and IT Infra management and from the perspective of automating infra management solutions and connectivity management, we have much more advanced solutions compared than our competitors in the market in terms of automation, integration, agility and hardware. Also, the fact that we offer a complete set of complimentary solutionsas part of our XpedITe platform, like cabling, and passive connectivity solutions, enables us to offer more value to the customer and helps us stay ahead in the line of competition from that perspective. We provide out of the box functionalities like asset management, automation, IP discovery, and energy and power modules as well. Our actualization of the multi data sources makes these modules more powerful. From technology and intelligence point of view, this is the biggest value that we bring to the customer. What are the major Infrastructure related challenges that you hear in your CIO conversations? The biggest CIO issue in our customer conversations is real time management and recommendation tools which includes physically from the IT systems, DC systems and facility systems. Enterprises have massive data being generated which is not collated and is difficult to monitor or analyze. They need us to provide these services. Another challenge is management operations, which is related to automation. There is a huge gap at the enterprise end and DCIM solutions bridge this gap. In the past, this gap was never covered for mainly because leaders in the industry didn’t come from disciplines like connectivity and IT but more for facility management resulting in difficultlyin developing applications that provide integration with actualization of the data which runs in different environments. How soon can a customer see the results of such a deployment? It depends on how the OEM presents the solution to the customer. The customers want immediate results, and if they are able to define those immediate needs then we can meet them from day one. The platform enable infrastructure automation ‘your way,’ at your pace, without requiring dramatic change to existing systems, it maximizes the options available to IT, Data Center and Facility teams as they plan their infrastructure management and automation strategies. The platform is scalable and CIOs can add a number of features and value during the deployment and even after apart from his immediate needs. JANUARY 2018 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD 45
THE STUFF // PRODUCTS & SERVICES
CIO TOYS HONOR VIEW 10
AI- ENABLED SMARTPHONE HONOR VIEW 10
ZYXEL NAS540
THE PERSONAL CLOUD STORAGE ZYXEL NAS540 The Zyxel NAS device brings 4-Bay Personal Cloud Storage for the ‘Dataholic’ CIO. Powered by FreeScale FS1024 Dual Core 1.2GHz processor with 1GB of DDR2 memory, the ZyXEL NAS provides storage capabilities for local and remote access, and is easy to set up, excellent companion for accessing large data
securely and on the move. Builtwise, the device comes in a sleek black casing with basic set of connection options for a USB 3.0 ports and Ethernet; an SD card slot and a removable front panel that lets you add up to four HDDs. NAS540 has a 120mm smart fan to maintain device temperature. The NAS box
can be directly linked to the router and boasts decent transfer speed. The device also features a series of LEDs to give basic information about the system and individual hard drives. The NAS540 has a one-touch Copy / Sync option through a button placed on the hardware.
Huawei’s smartphone brand Honor’s new flagship device View 10 runs on Huawei’s latest Kirin 970 processor and is developed on neural processing unit (NPU) that delivers AI features designed to accelerate the handset’s performance. Elaborating the Artificial Intelligence features on offer, the device boasts AI-enabled Facial Unlock, AI accelerated fast multilingual translation via the installed Microsoft Translator app, an intelligent photography service, and AI-based battery management. A noteworthy feature of the View 10’s AI delivering NPU is its ability to learn the way you use the device and anticipate what you might need at certain times.
JIBO SOCIAL ROBOT
B Y S A N J AY @ A C C E N T I N FO M E D I A . C O M
SMART COMPANION – JIBO SOCIAL ROBOT Jibo, the Social Robot is a step further from growing number of smart but ‘faceless’, ‘static’ voice assistant speakers in the market. Apart from the few use cases currently being catered to by Smart speakers playing media, weather reports, content search and controlling smart IoT devices, Jibo brings a touch of humanoid emotion to robots for the first time. Jibo is powered by face and voice recogni-
46 ENTERPRISE IT WORLD JANUARY 2018
tion technology, which lets it remember people and build real relationships. With a 3-axis motor system it has the ability to make subtle gestures and even a few dance moves. A single white orb on the screen functions as its interactive human touch with blinks and smiles. It features multiple cameras, sensors and speakers for its cognitive abilities. Apart from basic social skills, it can solve basic math problems and
look up answers. Who knows, it might help with some critical brainstorming too!
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