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Storage
Not Yet Dead
volume 01 | Issue 05
Even with the ‘digital’ odds stacked against it, the gritty
tape manages to hold ground. The big
question is -- How long?
It’s about
change, really
A change is a change is a change, and
while one may call it by any other name, what
does not change is the fact that all changes
have an impact—both, positive and negative— “It’s time to re-define
on organisations and its people. This is more true in an the role of an IT manager
environment where IT is not just changing by the day, but as ‘integration and
also getting intertwined with business and becoming virtually inseparable.
Today, there is a need to change IT infrastructure to include organisational
transformation’
efficiency and effectiveness, enable newer business plans, programmes, or manager”
projects and roll out service improvement initiatives.
Then there are policy and accounting changes like Goods and Service Tax S h u b h e n d u Pa r t h
(GST) and International Financial Regulatory Standards (IFRS) to deal with.
And as if this was not enough, there is also the parallel emergence of the
social media as a tool for many a corporate outreach programme, or for that
matter, even few dirty corporate wars.
The question is: how does one manage a change?
From the service management perspective, it is important to adopt
standardised methods and procedures or the ‘systems approach’ to roll out
the change at all levels, and across departments.
It is also critical to use the ‘team approach’ which is about involving all
stake holders in the change process and providing adequate training to
users. This is important for managing the emotional effects of change on
people and, thereby, handling resistance better.
However, the bigger question is whether ‘change managers’ themselves
have evolved to drive transformation and effectively ‘integrate’ the multitude
Blogs To Watch!
of technology, policy and social aspect.
Managing change: http://www.
If not, it is time to re-define the role of the senior IT manager as an strategies-for-managing-change.
‘integration and transformation’ manager. At the CIO level, such a shift is com/john-kotter.html
Six secrets of change: http://
already underway.
www2.scholastic.com/browse/
Earlier the role of a CIO changed from managing information assets to article.jsp?id=3749561
creating a technology roadmap for the organisation’s growth. Today, a CIO
Your views and opinion matter
is stepping into the role of a Chief (change) Integration Officer. to us. Send your feedback
To quote Charles Darwin: “It is not the strongest species that survive, on stories and the magazine
at shubhendu.parth@9dot9.
nor the most intelligent, but the ones who are most responsive to change.” in or SMS us at 567678 (type
Happy changing! ITNEXT<space>your feedback)
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 1
Content
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http://www.facebook.
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php?gid=195675030582
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For the l atest technology uPDATES Go to itnext.in m ay 2 0 1 0 Volume 01 | Issue 05 ugrp_ovr
tape
plays
The
on!
Page The archaic storage medium
still survives even against the
24 B Eye
Success flows when the implementation team gazes at business
issues and searches for business benefits
28 10 Freewares
A listing of open source tools and freewares to aid the IT manager do
things cheaply
32 Knowing is preventing
A dossier on how to unravel the real persona of an alias in the cyber 05 Build for the Business| 38 “It’s time to switch over
universive and effectively secure your organisation against the threat Technology should be well to 802.11N” | Ruckus Wireless’s
of cybercrime aligned with business to be CEO Selino Lo lists down the vir-
beneficial for the enterprise tue of the new Wi-fi standard.
2 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
itnext.in
MANAGEMENT
Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha
Printer & Publisher: Vikas Gupta
EDITORIAL
Group Editor: R Giridhar
Page Outsourcing for value | Telecom opera-
Editor: Shubhendu Parth
Consulting Editor: Pravin Prashant
42
tors seem to be in a hurry to outsource, not only to cut
Associate Editor: Shashwat DC
costs but also to scale up quick
Sr Correspondent: Jatinder Singh
Office Address
RegulArs
Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Pvt Ltd
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m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 3
boss talk | Surinder Kumar
leadership
F
or most business executives, IT is
confusing and expensive, with ever-
escalating capital expenditures
and operating budgets and poorly
understood RoI.
Does it need to be that way? The answer is no.
In the coming decades, all functional leaders
will need to understand technology to work
cohesively with other business functions. This
is important for ensuring that organisations
maintain their competitive edge, something “IT needs to be seen as an integrating
that can only be driven by IT leaders who
understand business and can communicate
discipline for all other business functions
with functions departments in their language, to operate as a well-run team”
not IT language.
I have been fortunate to have worked in quite Example #2: The Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company
a few CPG companies. While I have seen many had experienced steady growth for over a hundred
CEOs completely frustrated with IT, I have also years. In the year 2000, when Bill Wrigley, Jr. took
seen two companies where IT was highly respected. over as the CEO, the company’s growth rate was in
The differentiator was the IT leadership. Let me low single digits. He decided to get a new team to
illustrate this with examples. revitalise the growth rate. One of those executives
Example #1: I joined Frito Lay in 1982 as a Senior was Donagh Herlihy, who came in as the CIO.
Director of R&D. As an organisation, Frito Lay was Suggestion BOX Herlihy developed a business-focused strategy
run as a hybrid of centralised and decentralised that was simple, clear and easily understood by
functions. Some functions such as R&D and IT other business leaders. Clear statement of business
were centralised while other functions such as case and constant communications with business
sales were decentralised. Charlie Feld, the CIO at leaders led to a strong role for IT in the company. IT
Frito Lay had a clear belief that IT can and should played a significant part in catapulting company’s
help drive business growth. He used a two-pronged sales from one billion dollars to over five billion
approach to achieve this: dollars within seven years.
1. Understand key drivers of business growth It is indeed all about leadership.
and provide an IT technology solution Great IT leaders have excellent technical
2. Ensure that all business and functional Written by former competencies, but they also have good business
leaders at Frito Lay understood what IT could do Frito-Lay CIO, the understanding, communication skills, and
for them and to ensure that they had a reasonable book provides a people relationship capabilities. Effective IT
understanding of the systems and technology. clear road map for leaders focus on providing technology solutions
Feld explained what IT systems could do for IT leaders to help for business.
driving sales and profits in ways that business transform their
people understood. The IT function at Frito Lay businesses The author is President, Arora Innovations and had been asso-
ciated with Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, USA as its Chief Innova-
has been a vital part of the company’s success for Writer: Charlie Feld
tion Officer. His book, Riding the Blue Train, A Leadership Plan
Publisher: Olive Press
the past three decades. Price: INR 1200 for Explosive Growth, has been published in several languages
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 5
4 Edu Tech December 2009
update
Update
I n d u s t r y
trends
deals
products
services
people
on SME nounced a
pay per use
business
provides pre-configured,
customised license,
implementing and hosting
TECH TIDINGS | German software firm SAP is focusing heavily on the delivery based solutions. The company
SME segment to pocket one billion customers by 2015. The company model for is presently focusing on the
currently has over seven lakh SME clients globally, representing the small localisation of its products
more than 77% of its worldwide customer base in 25 countries. & medium according to the core business
The company has also announced its partnership with Wipro enterprises needs.
to offer a subscription-based business delivery model (the SAP “Today SAP has around
Business All-in-One solutions suite) targeted at small- and mid-sized 32-34% of business that comes
companies. The alliance, according to the company, will help it to from SMEs. And even in
challenging times we were
able to maintain the 20% y-o-y
growth from this business.
intern
et 71 million Indians have in some ways used Internet in 2009. Our 70% of new customers
usage The ‘claimed users’ is an important category for understanding future come from below 100-crore
trends in active user base (Numbers in million)
companies” Murguia added.
This surge is 100 Besides having a focus on
primarily due
80 manufacturing companies, SAP
to the growing
is eyeing education sector as a
Photo graph y: photo s.c om
user base in 71
60
the remote next big opportunity to cherish
urban pockets 57
40 46 its SME ambitions in the global
(small metros
market. The company currently
and towns) 20 32
has Mumbai University, ISB and
2006
2007
2009
2008
6 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
Mouse in your pocket Simplifying data centre needs Storage on the move
Inspan Infotech’s Genius Traveler 900 is Extreme Network’s XNV is a data center LACS has introduced an on-the-move
apparently the smallest management solution to deliver dynamic touch media device (TMD). The device
wireless mouse in mar- virtualisation management across the has a wide touch
ket. The wireless mouse network. The solu- screen and stor-
is priced at Rs.1,499 tion also increases age capabilities of
and carries a three-year operational effi- around 8GB and is
warranty. ciency and security. priced at Rs 8,999.
Worldwide IT spending to
grow 5.3% in 2010
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 7
update
Microsoft launches
Visual Studio 2010
TECH TIDINGS | Microsoft
announced the launch of Visual
Studio 2010 along with .NET
framework 4 and Silverlight 4.
According to the company,
the new editor uses Windows
Presentation Foundation and Interview
supports the use of multiple Manisha Kapur
monitors, thereby enabling a Director, Continuous Improvement, In-
dia and EMEA, Convergys Corporation
developer to have one monitor
IT NEXT: What is the significance of
with code, another with the
quality management in today’s cut-
user interface designer, and yet It will simplify reduces the runtime size
throat business environment?
another with database structure. the development by over 80%, making it
.NET Framework 4 adds process and easier for developers to Kapur: Today’s evolved customers are
additional support for industry enable develop- get applications up and looking for not only the quality of the
standards, more language ers to target new running faster. product but also the quality of the pre- and
choice, new support for high- platforms and Silverlight 4 offers post-sales support. For example, recently,
performance middle-tier build high-quality powerful media and we have witnessed new players entering
applications including parallel applications business application the market with unbelievably low prices.
programming and side-by- capabilities that help And many of the customers who had tran-
side installation with .NET deliver compelling sitioned to the new ISPs due to the initial
Framework 3.5. The .NET application experiences price attractiveness are back with their ear-
Framework 4 client profile on or off the Web. lier service providers as the new ISPs were
unable to match the quality of service.
Rolls-Royce’s design and engineering capabilities in the field of design and cal support can help keep clients close to
requirements in Bangalore. Rolls- development. their customer’s wants and needs.
Royce chose to partner with TCS Today, there are over 1,300 Rolls-
To ensure the long term success, IT man-
for their technical and project Royce engines in service in India. The
ager should be clear about the problem
management capabilities, following company’s global market sectors – civil
that he is trying to solve and the goal of
a comprehensive and competitive aerospace, defense aerospace, marine
the improvement effort.
evaluation process. and energy—are all well represented in
Aerospace and defence sectors have the country.
By Jatinder Singh
8 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
update
Huawei,
based EMS PerSay to
develop
The software
helps map re- biometrics
altime energy Huawei has entered into an alli-
consumption ance with PerSay, to offer multi-
within the factor authentication solutions
enterprise to help enterprises in providing
secure and efficient access to their
contact centres. The solutions
are intended to reduce fraud and
increase customer satisfaction.
According to the company,
PerSay’s technology can work with
any contact center platform by
integrating with the IVRS and CTI.
Utilising the Voice Biometrics, Per-
TECH Trends | Masplantiz has control thorough digital inputs and Say provides both text dependent
launched an energy management solu- outputs (DIO), which helps the facility and text independent authentica-
tion to help organisations monitor manager to switch off loads that are tion through its proprietary voice
energy consumption pattern over the not required. biometric engine.
web, and reduce wastages. Accord- The company claims that by “We are very excited on our
ing to the company, the MIMTIS EMS displaying real-time consumption alliance with PerSay. Enterprises
software collects real-time information, users see that take advantage of our solution
energy data, with intervals How does it help the immediate impact of will have the power to provide
enterprise?
as short as one minute and their actions which can their customers with a safe, secure
l Reduces opera-
as large as one month. The tional and mainte- lead to a 7% reduction in and convenient access.” says Louis
data is collected from energy nance costs consumption. Victor Jayaraj, global director -
meters, sensors, devices, l Reduces energy MIMTIS EMS is offered enterprise solutions, Huawei.
automation systems, or other costs by up to 20% as a hosted service for The integration of Huawei’s IP
l Creates new rev-
sources. The software also SMEs wanting to monitor contact center product suite and
enue opportunities
allows acquisition of data l Creates competi- their energy consumption PerSay’s text dependent Vocal-
like temperature, humid- tive advantage over the web. Larger Password and text independent
ity and lighting intensity l Automated customers can purchase FreeSpeech Voice Biometrics prod-
via analogue sensors. The alarms to field staff MIMTIS EMS license for ucts were completed at Huawei’s
via SMS and email
software supports discrete onsite installation. India lab.
News @
blog
Don’t fall for fake Facebook e-mails
McAfee’s warns about the latest scam being perpetrated in the online space | Moira Cronin in McAfee’s
Security Insight Blog<http://siblog.mcafee.com/uncategorized/don%E2%80%99t-fall-for-fake-facebook-emails/>
A new scam has been spreading in the form of an e-Mail from Facebook
alerting you that your password has been reset or needs to be reset. In
McAfee’s second Consumer Threat Alert, Internet users are warned that a
password stealing virus has been appearing in inboxes all over the world and
is targeting the 400 million Facebook users.
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 9
money wise
Opinion Suresh Senapaty
CFO & Corporate EVP (Finance), Wipro
C
Cost-benefit categories cover the one-
ompanies are serious today time IT and business costs involved
about using technology in the decision, the ongoing IT and
for competitive advantage. business costs that will be incurred,
They are learning that IT and the incremental business revenue
is strategic to their busi- generated as a result of the investment.
ness and delivers business value. By Easy-to-quantify measures such as
interlinking IT solutions and business the cost of new hardware or savings
strategy, companies are finding that in resources after a process has been
business benefits are often broader and automated are easy to obtain. Qualitative
deeper than originally anticipated. effects such as market share gains
Broadly speaking, IT investments at are harder to quantify and depend on
an organisation can be put under two uncontrollable factors such as customer
broad categories: adoption rate but can be estimated
n Automation and information led through simple analysis. Other benefits
n Strategic and shared services such as improved competitive position
Automation led investments or increased operational agility are
are used primarily to cut costs or
increase throughput at the same cost.
“Automation led uncertain and difficult to quantify,
but must be estimated using business
Informational investments provide investments help judgments if organisations are to arrive
information for purposes such as
accounting, reporting, compliance,
cut costs whereas at the holistic picture.
With new technologies such as cloud
communication or analysis. strategic investments computing and virtualisation, RoI
Strategic investments are used
to gain competitive advantage by
are used to gain acquires a totally new meaning. IT is thus
set to be even more integral to business.
supporting entry into new markets or competitive edge” Another effect of cloud we are likely to
by helping to develop new products, witness is the fact that businesses will be
services or business processes. A good driving spending decisions as opposed to
example in relation to strategic IT is term IT costs through consolidation. procurement and IT.
the work Wipro is engaged in with Coming to measuring returns on Organisations that integrate their
a large township developer in India, IT investments, it differs based on the IT strategies with their business
where one of the key objectives is to objective of the IT investment. strategies are at an advantage vis-à-vis
monetise IT investments to provide The former is measured using the the competition. But identifying and
technology-based services to residents traditional total cost of ownership investing IT in the right quantum and
in the township, thereby transforming (TCO) metric that is well understood right business areas is only a beginning.
IT from a cost centre to a profit centre. and widely practiced but has a few This needs to be backed up by effective
Shared IT service investments are shortcomings. However, the latter is management capabilities if companies
used by multiple applications such as much more complex and needs a more are to achieve appreciably higher
servers, networks, laptops and customer holistic measure. One such measure returns from IT investments.
databases. Depending on the service, is to compute the total value over the
the objective of such investments is cycle of ownership. This comprises
The author, is a Chartered Accountant and also
to provide a flexible model for future four elements—measurement against heads the legal, business planning, treasury and
business initiatives or to reduce long- expected outcomes, cost/benefit controllership functions at Wipro
10 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
tech talk
Opinion Yogesh Dhingra
COO & Finance Director, Blue Dart Express
smart!
breadth and height.
All these readers merge their
individual data into a common stream
to make one complete data profile of an
A
object. And all this happen while the
great IT investment is consignment is in-motion, travelling
one that wins on the at a speed of 55 meters per minute. The
parameters of speed, system does all these computations in
accuracy, convenience, two seconds flat. In case of an exception,
flexibility, cost and in which it is unable to weigh or gather
return on investment. the dimension, the system sends a reject
Blue Dart Express Limited, South signal and the conveyor automatically
Asia’s leading express air and logistic stops. Only after an override the
company, has invested over Rs one system starts its operation again. Such
billion to continuously upgrade its rejected consignments are rectified and
technology quotient and keep ahead of re-conveyed again through the system.
market trends. The data stream is configured to
Blue Dart’s technology innovations integrate with the Blue Dart’s tracking
have played a key role in its premium system and automatically incorporate
positioning and in bringing global the changes in weights and dimensions
standards to the Indian customers’ of each package. This results in freight
doorstep. Such has been the
ramifications of these offerings that
“The solution is a re-computation and reflects the
corrected amount for the customer.
more than 79% of Blue Dart’s regular benchmark IT project This equipment is an absolutely state-
customers use them actively. Blue Dart
uses GPS technology in its vehicles to
that is versatile and of-the-art tool and possibly the first
installation in India for the logistics
track shipments effectively. It also uses deliver multiple Industry.
mobility solutions for real time visibility
and several other in-house applications
benefits” The investment made by Blue Dart is
unique in many ways. The technology
to provide effective business solutions. saves high cost of manpower for
In one of the recent technological to big parcels, the solution provides a movement of cargo at warehouses. It
initiatives that Blue Dart has complete data profile with dimensions, has enabled capturing the accurate
undertaken, it has implemented a fully weight and identification of most weight of packages, thus accounting for
automated, in-motion data capture objects. transparency and authenticating the
solution for capturing the weight and It is a proven technology over years weight charged to the customer. The
dimension of each consignment at its and ensures reliable dimensioning project has enabled faster realisation of
Bangalore air-side facility. The complete with an accuracy of ±2 mm. The data receivables and immediate returns on
solution is integrated with the conveyor capture software measures most sizes the investment made.
system and is capable of handling and shapes with the highest precision. While adding tremendous value
packages at the rate of 1,800 packages This results in exact data on each item, to Blue Dart’s quality processes, the
an hour, which can be further scaled up guaranteeing a correct foundation for project has helped in saving costs and
to 2,500 packages per hour. material handling procedures. enhancing the bottom-line.
Parcels are automatically gapped The high-speed capacity and fully
when object spacing is not maintained, automatic mode helps in maximising The author is an expert with over 24 years of
thus ensuring accurately dimensioned, throughput. This, coupled with accurate industry experience, the last 18 years at Blue
Dart where he has been driving the overall
weighed and identified packages. read-rates, increases productivity and growth and ensuring excellence in financial,
Handling everything from small items ensures billing accuracy. technological and operational quality
12 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
cover story | Storage
St
or
ag
e th
r
ou
gh
th
eag
e
s
i maging : ani l t
14 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
tape
storage | cover story
plays
The
on!
The storage medium delivers
For American Express (Amex) that occupied
several floors in the WTC 3 and 7 towers, the delib-
erate crashing of the hijacked American Airlines
Flight 11 Boeing 767-223ER was severely debilitat-
ing. The WTC complex housed not only the cor-
1440
2000 BC Printing
Papyrus 1845
Punched Tape
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 15
cover story | Storage
1949
Delay Line 1963
1946 DRAM 1971
Memory
Williams Tube 8” Floppy
1956 1970
1928 1946
Hard Disk Bubble
Magnetic Tape Selectron Tube 1976
Memory
5.25” Floppy
16 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
storage | cover story
1990 1993
1981 1987 MOD (Magneto DLT (Digital
3.5” Floppy DAT (Digital Optical Disc) Linear Tape)
Audio Tape)
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 17
cover story | Storage
1996
CD-RW (Com- 2000 2003
1998 LTO-1 (Linear
pact Disc – Blue-ray
Memory Stick Tape-Open - 1)
Rewritable)
1995 2003
DVD (Digital 1997 2001
1999 SD (Secure xD-Picture
Video Disc) Multimedia card
Microdrive Digital) Card
Card
18 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
storage | cover story
backup requirement. This determines manageable, the tape is evolving as be managed quite effortlessly.
one-time cost of the tape device and well. The biggest indication of this is Arun Gupta, Group CIO, K
recurring cost of tapes, which one in the form of the LTO Consortium Raheja Corp & Shoppers Stop, puts it
needs to use for application backup. If that has members like IBM, HP and succinctly, “Tape and NAS/SAN are
the backup size is more than 2 TB, you Seagate, which directs development and not comparable as different media types
may need to think over usage of various manages licensing and certification of offer different capabilities and thus
tape libraries, which is a more viable media and mechanism manufacturers. are used for different purposes. In the
solution. Interestingly, this doesn’t need The standard form factor of LTO hierarchical storage definition, tape is at
manual intervention,” he states. technology goes by the name Ultrium, the base level, while fast disks could be
and the most recent version was at the top. So based on need, each plays
Bleak future? released in 2010 and can hold 1.5 TB in an important role and offers differing
While the tape is very much alive and a single cartridge. According to many RoI.”
kicking now, what does the future por- reports, LTO has been the best selling The tape is very much going to exist
tend? Will it continue to exist in the “super tape” format and is widely used in the enterprise as long as the need for
days to come, or will newer technolo- with small and large computer systems long-term storage or archival remains.
gies and inventions like Blue Ray and alike, especially for backup. Just as the adage goes, never put all your
Holographic storage finally make it There is also much action on the eggs in one basket, similarly never bet
redundant? software side, with players like NetApp all your data storage on one format. Till
The answer is yes and no. While and Symantec working on newer that is the case, tapes will always find
newer technologies have made technologies like data deduplication on a humidity-free space beyond the NAS
other storage media far easier and tape and virtual tape libraries that can and SAN boxes.
tape vs disc: Tapes might be slow, but last long, very long
Tape Archiving Disc Archiving
Sequential access Random access
Relatively slow Fast
Portable and can be shipped offsite Less Portable, electronically vaulted
In expensive media More expensive
No dedupe Dedupe
Longer shelf life Shorter shelf life
Less power consumption Higher power consumption
2003 2004
LTO-2 (Linear High Definition 2007
–Digital Video LTO-4 (Linear
Tape-Open - 2)
Disc Tape-Open - 4)
2004
Windows Media 2005
High Definition LTO-3 (Linear 2010
Video Tape-Open - 3) LTO-5 (Linear
Tape-Open - 5)
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 19
insight | Accounting
It’s fair-value
compliance
time!
In a year, India will adopt IFRS
accounting standards—
the countdown for IT
readiness has begun
By Jat i n d e r S i n gh
20 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
Accounting | insight
Sundays were never too hectic for financial reporting tools and workability
Reema Seth till the last month. For this of new operating systems compliant for
senior IT manager at one of the leading tin IFRS processes.
manufacturers, the erstwhile lazy week- “The IT implications of conversion
end afternoons have all of a sudden been to IFRS can be extremely challenging
packed with a series of tutorial classes because of the different information
and practical sessions. systems present within an organisation,”
She never thought that the last year’s says Abhishek Asthana, Director, Piron
announcement made by Institute of Operations
Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), to “The problem is further complicated
make International Financial Regulatory by the fact that the country has very
Standards (IFRS) mandatory for Indian limited number of IT professionals with
organisations from FY 2011, will compel thorough understanding of IFRS, and
IT managers like her to deal with alienated the ability to interpret and translate IFRS
terms—asset, liability, equity, revenue requirements into IT changes,” he adds. “At the end of
and expense, at such fundamental level.
Reema was recently given the
According to a recent survey
commissioned by Resources Global
the day, training
additional responsibility of leading Professionals India, only 27% of blue both finance
the change management team set up chip foreign and Indian multinational and non-finance
to evaluate the technical complexities
in transiting from Generally Accepted
corporations said they were prepared for
the conversion to IFRS from the current
staff on changes
Accounting Principles (GAAP) to IFRS. Indian GAAP. of policies,
The context: India has decided to Moreover, nearly 60% reported that procedures,
join the pool of 150 countries that are
determined to embrace IFRS standards in
critical milestones and success factors for
a clean and cost-effective conversion have
contractual
2011. Though the decision for a common either been overlooked or are not properly and legal
accounting language will certainly relieve understood. obligations
enterprises from filing multiple financial
reports and will help them compete
It is critical to note that IFRS, by
no means is just a reporting issue.
will determine
better, the process of transformation For any organisation or IT manager, the overall
will see organisations making massive understanding the significance of the success”
changes in their books and information overall impact the standard will have —Shaleen Khetarpaul,
systems. on the organisation, its philosophy, and Sr Manager, IT, Reliance
Until now, many organisations operational IT systems at both corporate Infrastructure
have had separate procedures for tax, and subsidiary levels is very important.
statutory (US and Canadian GAAP), and “There are lots of disclosure
management reporting. The adoption requirements which are coming in for the
of IFRS gives them the chance to more first time. Some new fields may have to be
closely synchronise these areas. introduced. Getting the data mining right
could be very challenging,” says Sunder
Iyer, Partner, PwC
A structural exercise
The conversion from Indian GAAP to
“For an IT manager, it is going to be
also about change management. Earlier,
Watch out
IFRS requires significant efforts. The they were focusing on a particular set of for...
consequences are far wider than finan- accounting to get information, but now
cial reporting issues and extend to vari- they will have to modify their systems. eople-related issues, espe-
P
ous significant business and regulatory The real challenge with IFRS will be cially upgrading of skills
matters. to ascertain the information that was Impact on company results
These include compliance with debt either never captured or only partially and equity
covenants, structuring of ESOP schemes, captured,” he adds. Debt covenants
training of employees, modification of IT The new accounting standard Management reporting
systems and tax planning, change in new should be seen as an opportunity to Communication with investors
data requirements, charts of accounts, institute effective changes to the internal and other stakeholders
reconfiguration, interface and mapping, operations and decision-making systems Required changes in standard
consolidation of entities, reporting packs, of an organisation. business contracts
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 21
insight | Accounting
The FAQs
What is IFRS?
Previously known as International Accounting Standards (IAS), IFRS is a set of standards and
interpretations adopted by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). It’s a new
accounting system, which is said to be more transparent and have a global acceptance
Why IFRS?
IFRS promises more accurate, qualitative, reliable, relevant, comprehensive and timely financial
information. A key aspect is the ‘fair value accounting’ and will help investors in the long run. Once
companies report their statements in an IFRS format, comparison of performances will be more
“Themajorissue meaningful and objective. Investors will be in a position to compare their investments at a global level.
comeswhenthe Shaleen Khetarpaul, Sr Manager, IT, as will the means by which it is recorded
organisation Reliance Infrastructure agrees, “The and managed.
fails to do challenge is much bigger than what it Therefore, it is critical to evaluate the
an impact appears. Everything from accounting
policies and procedures, financial
potential impact of the IFRS transition
process on your organisation and
analysis,ahead reporting and disclosures to IT systems formulate a realistic IFRS transition
oftheactual and the processes used to accumulate and strategy. IT Next recommends taking a
implementation report financial report information will
be affected.”
close look at some of the best practices
that will help you to control costs, manage
date” “At the end of the day, training both the scope of implementation and create a
—Gaurav Kohli, IT finance and non-finance staff on changes smooth transition plan.
Consultant Xebia Architects to policies, procedures, and contractual and First, it is extremely important to verify
India legal obligations will make key differences that your existing financial consolidation
in overall success of the transformation,” system should support the transition.
Khetarpaul comments.
However, for Arun Dixit, CEO, Udyog
Software, things are not that difficult as
they appear to be. According to him, it is 7 steps
only a presentation layer—so it will take
minimal time and investment. successful
“Indian CIOs and IT managers are transition
smartest. In India, one has to address
taxation and various regulatory needs ake up and start the process, the
W
by way of a number of reports over 1 earlier you start the better
specific intervals,” Dixit elaborates.
Manage the transition in project
“They have also implemented a lot of 2 mode
complicated processes and procedures in
global ERPs. It is not a big challenge for Allocate and mobilise adequate
this community at all,” he points out. 3 resources
“The broad nature
of the project Making transition 4
Map the IFRS change impact for
strategies all transactions
requires the IFRS is ‘principles-based’ and not ‘pre-
Determine the approach for paral-
support and scriptive-based’. Therefore, a comprehen- 5 lel running multi gap reporting
participation of sive review of regulated reports is needed
to assess the differences between current Identify the sources of additional
management at the reporting data and processes and the new
6 information as required under IFRS
highest level,” data and processes that will be required
—Simon Dale, Senior Vice under IFRS. Both the scope and the nature 7 Initiate training and testing of
changes
President, SAP Asia-Pacific of the required information will change,
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Accounting | insight
The impact on IS previous financial reporting standards did not require the use
of a system for IFRS reporting, certain new software will be
New data requirements: New accounting disclosures and required. The interfaces may be affected by modifications to
recognition requirements may result in more detailed informa- existing systems, the need to collect new data, the timing and
tion, new types of data, and new fields. Hence, information may frequency of data transfer requirements.
need to be calculated on a different basis. Action: Evaluate and carry out the new software implementation.
Action: Modify the system to capture new or changed data
Consolidation of entities: Under IFRS, there will be potential
Changes to the chart of accounts: There will almost changes to the number and types of entities that need to be in-
always be a change to the chart of accounts due to reclassifica- cluded under the head ‘consolidated financial statements.’ Also, the
tions and additional reporting criteria. application of the concept of ‘control’ may be different under IFRS.
Action: Create new accounts and delete accounts that are no Action: Update consolidation systems/models to account for
longer required. changes in consolidated entities.
Reconfiguration of existing systems: Existing systems Reporting packages: Reporting packages may need to be
may have built-in capabilities for specific IFRS changes, particu- modified to gather additional disclosures in the information from
larly the larger enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and branches or subsidiaries operating on a standard general ledger
high-end general ledger packages. package or to collect information from subsidiaries that use dif-
Action: Reconfigure existing software to enable accounting ferent financial accounting packages.
under IFRS. Action: Modify reporting packages and the accounting systems
used by subsidiaries and branches to provide financial information.
Modification to existing systems: New reports and calcula-
tions are required to accommodate IFRS. Spreadsheets and Financial reporting tools: Reporting tools can be used to
models used by management as an integral part of the financial perform the consolidation and the financial statements based
reporting process should be included when considering the on data transferred from the general ledger or prepare only the
required systems modifications. financial statements based on receipt of consolidated informa-
Action: Make amendments such as new or changed calcula- tion from the general ledger.
tions, new or changed reports, and new models. Action: Modify reporting tools used by subsidiaries and
branches to provide financial information.
New systems interface and mapping changes: As Source: KPMG (IFRS for technology companies: Closing the GAAP?)
It should be able to support parallel wide ERP or GL system, your IFRS if the existing technology or ERP
reporting, top side adjustments, implementation strategy should systems are capable enough to support
rules-based environment, disclosures consider avoiding flat files and manual the new changes.
and commentary, and a flexible data entry as much as possible. This “An IT manager should gear up
and powerful reporting and XBRL way your IFRS transition will progress to address issues like additional
publishing. more smoothly,” suggests Simon Dale, quantitative and qualitative disclosures
Second, if you are evaluating a new Senior Vice President, SAP Asia-Pacific. required under IFRS. He will also need
financial consolidation application, “Therefore, in order to cover to keep multiple sets of books during the
the evaluation criteria should stress the wide array of issues involved transition period to resolve complexities
upon software vendors that provide in adopting IFRS, companies will better,” advises Zoeb Adenwala, CIO,
pre-configured IFRS complaint content need an interdisciplinary team. The Essel Propack.
in order to accelerate your IFRS broad nature of the project requires The implementation team should
implementation. the support and participation of include, at a minimum, management
The third and most important management at the highest level,” Dale accountants, tax accountants, external
consideration is to improve source points out. auditors, IT managers and IT staff. Since
systems. Integration of the financial “The major issue comes when implementation of IFRS is likely to affect
consolidation system as the organisations fail to do the impact many aspects of the business, several
underlying transactional general analysis well ahead of the actual departments outside financial accounting
ledger (GL) systems will provide implementation date,” says Gaurav should be involved as well.
reliability, flexibility and ability to Kohli, IT consultant, Xebia Architects
fast adapt to changes. India. According to him, it is
How did you like this story?
“If it is not realistically possible advisable for the IT manager and the Send your feedback at
to use a single-instance enterprise- organisation to assess and evaluate editor@itnext.in
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 23
insight | Business Analytics
I
t’s been quite many years since strategising towards achieving those sophisticated aspects of BI and BA.
IT has been seen as a business- goals. The team has 75% participation from
supporting and enabling func- Do Business Intelligence and business side while the remaining
tion. Everybody, from research Business Analytics help in interlinking members are from IT. We feel that
firms to vendors to media, has the IT and business functions more strong business participation is a
noted that IT needs to be aligned to cohesively? Potentially yes. must for the success of BI.”
business objectives in the organisation. Some organisations that have “It’s been around 18 months since
The slowdown that’s passing by did successfully done BI implementations the BI deployment was initiated
make the chorus even louder. haven taken the approach of having a in the organisation. We have made
However, most of the IT areas are core team in place to work out greater satisfactory progress and are
expected to support business objectives BI and BA benefits for the organisation. steadily moving towards a mature BI
by ways such as lowering of IT costs, Often, these teams have members from environment,” he notes.
converting capex into opex and ensuring both IT and business teams, who work
quicker RoI. Some areas fare still better, closely towards extracting advantages Growing dependence
by employing more direct ways to of BI for the organisation. The business environment has become
make IT dynamic and responsive to Krishnakumar Avanoor, Customer highly competitive, and more impor-
business needs. Some of these areas are Care Associate & Deputy General tantly, increasingly complex. Techno-
virtualisation, sales force automation Manager, Solutions and Technology logical excellence is easy to emulate
and enterprise mobility. Team, Shopper’s Stop Ltd, who has and surpass and as such a product can’t
None of these, however, give IT the been leading the BI implementation differentiate much—and for long—in
chance to have a close participation at his organisation, says, “There is terms of features.
in determining business goals and a core team that works on the more To be ahead of the competition
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Business Analytics | insight
satisfactorily monitored the quality of Shopper’s Stop. It is often said that a BI or BA solution
querying and reporting for some time, However, initiating BI also can be only as good as the quality of
they move on to the next step. promotes and facilitates a cultural data. If the quality of data is suspect, it
Experts feel this is a good approach, shift, as Bhavish Sood, Principal can actually lead to an implementation
as it de-risks a BI/BA strategy by Analyst—BI, Gartner Asia-Pacific, failure, which can be catastrophic for
ensuring that data coming from legacy points out, “BI will be a key enabler in the organisation.
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 25
insight | Business Analytics
26 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
Business Analytics | insight
Panjwani of SAS sees the BI organisation is being served very well rules and prepared policies gave way
framework as constituted by four key by the existing ERP system and it will to more informed decisions powered
building blocks—data integration, be only after another two to three years by the right information delivered at
analytics, reporting and business that it will become advantageous to go the right time, whether through CRM
issue or business challenge. for a BI implementation. or ERP or other applications. The
“Each of these blocks is equally Sure, there will be benefits to be new step is to provide simulation,
important, but then it is the business reaped in the long run. “After we have prediction, optimisation and other
challenge for which the other three the required preparedness, we can go for analytics, not simply information,
come into being and as such it is a BI implementation. A good database at to empower even more decision
necessary that the first three blocks the backend and BI tools can help us go flexibility at the time and place of
are linked to the business challenge. for long-lead items,” Stone says. every business process action.”
This forms the basis of a successful “Another way to view this is as a
BI implementation,” Panjwani Looking ahead shift in timing. Business intelligence
emphasises. Gartner had talked of “Advanced Ana- has mainly provided us historical
lytics” in Top 10 predictions for 2010. analysis, increasingly powerful
Going mainstream How cleanly do BI and BA fit into the ways of analysing what has already
Contrary to the general perception, concept? happened. We can increase the scope
today BI tools are available to suit the We have reached the point in the of the information that is analysed and
needs of all size and type of businesses. improvement of performance and we can reduce delays between the data
Panjwani strongly agrees with this. costs that we can afford to perform creation and its analysis, but at heart
But, are there some verticals that have analytics and simulation for each and this is a look backwards. The new step
seen more BI implementations by looks into the future, predicting what
comparison? “Well, there have been can or will happen,” he adds.
more implementations in organisations Advanced analytics also involves
from BFSI, manufacturing, telecom, Analytics and new technologies to search
government, IT/ITeS and Performance unstructured content and other
pharmaceutical verticals, but it is Management market to search enhancements.
equally relevant to all organisations be US$ There is a steady progress
31.1
across other verticals as well,” he that organisations are making.
reemphasises. Avanoor of Shopper’s Stop
Verma of IDC also feels that says, “While prediction and
EUQRA kind of solutions can be forecasting is not full blown yet,
adopted by an organisation of any we do make use of analytics and
size and there are many small ISVs modelling for specific purposes
offering such solutions. However, million, by 2014 at in certain key areas.”
advanced analytics solutions need
much greater user maturity as well
a CAGR of 14.6% “One of our key BI goals for this
year is to provide dashboards for
as structured and clean data at the Source: Gartner senior management,” he notes.
backend. Though advanced analytics Yet, organisations in India are
tools are expensive, they are useful for not among the frontrunners in
larger organisations as they help manage every action taken in the business, implementing Advanced Analytics
volumes and need greater user maturity. says Sood. Not only will data center solutions. Verma of IDC India agrees,
“The market will continue to have a mix systems be able to do this, but mobile “The global markets are a lot more
of both large and small ISVs for EUQRA devices will have access to data and advanced as compared to India on
solutions, but the advanced analytics enough capability to perform analytics account of the maturity of their
space will continue to be dominated by the themselves, potentially enabling processes, automation, data capture
larger software vendors,” his colleague use of optimisation and simulation and management.”
Sandeep at IDC comments. everywhere and every time, he adds. “Leverage analytics to compete at
Not everybody is on the bandwagon From BI and BA, the market will the global level” is the message that
yet. Many organisations still believe, and next move to the “Advanced Analytics” needs to be there, Panjwani feels.
with sound reasons, that they will be stage, Gartner had said in its 2010 “It’s time to evaluate BI, if not
better off delaying BI implementations predictions early this year. implement.” That’s IT Next’s take.
by another few years. Sood explains the concept, “This can
Jacob Stone, Manager-IT at Bhilai be viewed as a third step in supporting The author is an ICT/Media market researcher
Engineering Corporation Ltd, says his operational business decisions. Fixed and consultant
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 27
insight | open source
free
Wares
Dotcom’s 25
years have helped
open-source tools
mature decisively.
Here are some
useful picks for you
By S h as h wat D C
one two
Operating system Google applications
While Microsoft has ruled the OS space on the desktop front, the story Since Larry Page and Eric Schmidt ven-
has been very different on the server side, with Unix and Sun Solaris tured into the online sphere in 1998 with
being some of the powerful options. Ranging from Novell to Red Hat, Google; the innocuous search company has
companies around the world have opted for Linux derivatives to build grown up to become the world’s largest Inter-
their offerings. net company. Google is now part of every
But now, Linux is becoming a stronger alternative on the desktop Internet user’s life, with the name Google
front as well. For the past few years, Ubuntu, a derivative of Linux, has becoming a synonym for online search.
been making inroads in the desktop space. A package consisting of a However, Google is no longer about merely
free OS and some basic productivity applications, Ubuntu more or less search and offers a host of services for both
mimics the Windows or rather the Vista environment. It has steadily individuals and the enterprise users, both for
gained ground as software of choice for companies and professionals free and for a fee.
that are looking for easy-to-use open source options to Windows. And Google Apps continues to be one of the
with the current release of Karmic Koala (Ubuntu version 9.10), the most innovative services from Google. It
OS’ share is estimated to be anywhere between 40% and 50% of Linux features several Web applications with
desktops. similar functionalities to traditional office
Yet another compelling alternative to Windows on the desktop is suites, including: Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs
expected to come in the form of Google’s Chrome OS, another big-ticket and Sites. Most of these services can be linked
Linux derivative to be available in the second half of this year. to a common Gmail login ID.
Open source is getting better on the desktop! Worth noting among other services is
Google Analytics, a service that lets an
Links ubuntu.com | debian.com | mandriva.com individual or a company get an in-depth view
of the efficacy of an online property. Recently,
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open source | insight
Google also released Buzz and Wave, online social networking tools and also has plans to offer online storage service
collaborative platforms that can also be used as much for work as for fun. named Gdrive.
three
Online storage and Symantec also offers the
four
backup facility of online backup with its ERP
new release of Norton 360 v4.0,
Backup and storage are among where it gives 2GB backup and Previously known as Tiny ERP, OpenERP
the IT must-haves. While usually the rest can be upgraded based is touted as a complete ERP for small and
NAS, SAN and tapes are used for on need and requirement. medium businesses. It’s a complete Open
storage and backup, off-the-Inter- Interestingly, the biggest online Source software with inbuilt modules for
net options are also available for storage option is available from CRM and BPM. Other features include man-
the purpose. the Microsoft stable. Windows agement and financial accounting, inven-
For example, there is Dropbox. Live SkyDrive service from tory management, sales, purchase human
io that provides a 2GB free online Microsoft currently offers 25 GB resource and project management. The
space for a user and then has of free personal storage, with file software, released under General Public
graded payment options for size capped at 50 MB. Earlier, License (GNU), has a very modular charac-
people who want more. Box.net Yahoo! too had provided a similar ter with more than 500 modules available
is yet another service that allows service called Yahoo! Briefcase with customisable reports.
1 GB of space free of cost with a but now it has been wrapped up.
file-size limit of 25MB. Some reports say that Google Links openerp.com/downloads.html
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insight | open source
five seven
Office productivity Antivirus
One of the reasons why Microsoft has been able to maintain a domi- Protecting the company’s assets can be
nant position in the desktop space is due to the spread and reach of a tough job, especially against viruses and
its MS Office suite of applications. People across the world are using malware. While there are a host of suites and
Window applications like MS Word and Excel. The company sells a proprietary solutions available to help do the
suite of these applications in the market and the pricing is dependent same, there is a good amount of freeware that
on the type of application desired by an individual. is equally effective. One of the most popular
If you want to save on the MS Office licensing cost, an alternative options is the AVG Free Edition (it is a propri-
available is OpenOffice.org. Available freely on the Internet, the suite etary software that also has a paid product). It
offers applications like Writer (functional equivalent of MS Word), Calc also has versions available for both Microsoft
(MS Excel), Impress (MS Powerpoint), and Base (Microsoft Access). and Linux and has constant updates over the
Web.
Links openoffice.org | softmakeroffice.com Another option is Clam AV, a GPL antivirus
toolkit for Unix platforms. The salient feature
of this software is its integration with mail
servers (attachment scanning). The package
six provides a flexible and scalable multi-
threaded daemon, a command line scanner,
FTP number of people. and a tool for automatic updating via the
While there are several FTP Internet.
Often, IT users need to mail applications that offer similar
avg.com/in-en/homepage
huge files in the range of 20MB or
above to multiple recipients. This
functionalities, it is hard to beat
Filezilla in the game. FireFTP is
Links antivirus.comodo.com
clamav.net/lang/en
can clog the network and create also equally effective in uploading
e-mail server-related issues. files to a ‘storage cloud.’
A simple way out is to upload For larger uploads, there is
the file on the Web and mail the Yousendit, a free service that
link to recipients and it is in
this context that a File Transfer
lets one send attachments up
to 1 Gb. And then there are also
eight
Protocol (FTP) utility becomes services like AxiFile that allows Data recovery tools
useful. FTP can be used to one to store and share files of up
upload files to be accessed by a to 10 Gb. One of the biggest headaches for an IT
manager is to recover data that has been
4shared.com | filezilla-project.org | fireftp.mozdev.org accidentally lost. Causes of data loss can
Links yousendit.com | axifile.com vary from computer viruses, power failure,
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open source | insight
operating system crash, appli- and import/export the boot sector website. Services like Freeservers, 5gighost
cation crash, corrupt or missing of a drive. and Freebeehosting let one host a website
system files, accidental format- Another tool is Disk with limited bandwidth and storage space for
ting of hard disks, hard disk Investigator, which can display free. Google too lets people develop their own
media failure and accidental a drive’s actual data content by websites, with its service called Google Sites.
deletion of files. bypassing the operating system Meanwhile, for small businesses wanting
One of the popular freeware and directly reading the raw a more professional website, Intuit offers a
for data recovery is ADRC data drive sectors. It can also view free website builder that lets people build a
recovery software tool, which and search raw directories, files, website in a jiffy. The service is initially free
can undelete files, recover files clusters, and system sectors and and then charges are applicable based on the
from damaged disks, copy a raw verify the effectiveness of file level of expertise that is required by the user.
disk image to another disk, create and disk wiping programs. It can
freeservers.com | 5gighost.com
and write disk image files to/from undelete previously deleted files Links freebeehosting.com
internal and removable drives, as well.
ten
The social universe
nine Over the past many years, the real world is
Free website hosting being literally overshadowed by the so-called
social universe made up of the Facebooks and
To facilitate hosting of websites, there are scores of hosting service the Twitters of the world. Not just the indi-
providers that let businesses and individuals host pages for free, in viduals, even enterprises are now looking at
exchange for banner or sponsored adverts that are displayed on the social networking and micro-blogging tools to
reach out to their customers as well as engage
their employees.
LinkedIn has become one of the most
Protecting the company’s potent professional networking tools, which is
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 31
insight | Security
Knowing
is
A mechanism that can unravel the real persona
of an alias is the way to keep cyber crime at bay
By D r . A n to n i o N u c c i
preventing
photo : Photos.co m
32 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
Security | insight
The Internet has become the central identify and tag cyber users and traffic, including P2P flows. In fact,
nervous system for our networked life. communities of cyber users whose commercial bandwidth management
As a global network of loosely con- activity and content may harm the safety tools and network security appliances
nected IP-based networks, it reaches and transparency of the cyber world. use application signature matching to
everywhere and provides a common Third, it is critical to gain visibility enhance robustness of classification and
platform for communication to govern- into who is the real person behind an deep inspection of packet content even
ments, businesses and consumers. alias or cyber-identifier used to enter in the case of encapsulated protocols
With the Internet, however, a new the cyber world. A critical problem within each other.
kind of criminal has emerged—the in this digital world is knowing with
cyber criminal. whom you are interacting. Newer threats
The pervasive nature of cyber crime Yet, recently several threats appeared
today threatens loss of proprietary The weak links to use this technique to hide their pres-
corporate information to the loss of Critical to the success of a network mon- ence and break through firewalls and
life. Various forms of cyber crime have itoring tool is its ability to accurately— other security devices. The progress
emerged, from predators exchanging and on a real-time basis—identify and in hardware acceleration has allowed
child porn and scammers stealing categorise each flow of packets associ- packet content inspection techniques to
identities to countries attacking ated with a transaction and connection run at speeds as high as 40 Gbps and
countries. by application. have made them the most commonly
Identifying network traffic using port used approach to gain visibility into any
Quantifying cyber crime numbers was the standard in the recent Internet stream.
The US FBI estimates that various types past. This approach was successful Nevertheless, packet-inspection
of computer crimes in the U.S. now
cost the industry about US $400 bil-
lion, while officials in the Department Packet-inspection techniques
only identify traffic for which
of Trade and Industry in Britain said
computer crime rose by 50% in 2006
over 2005. It is estimated that only 5%
of cybercriminals are ever arrested or signatures are available
convicted because the anonymity asso- and work if full packets are
available as inputs
ciated with Web activity makes them
hard to catch, and the trail of evidence
needed to link them to a cyber crime is
hard to unravel. The CERT Coordina-
tion Center estimates that as much as because many traditional applications approaches face two severe limitations.
80% of all computer security incidents used port numbers assigned by or First, these techniques only identify
remain unreported. registered with the Internet Assigned traffic for which signatures are
Numbers Authority (IANA). The available. Maintaining an up-to-date
Combating the threat accuracy of this approach, however, list of signatures is a daunting task.
There are certain steps to be taken before has been questioned because of the Information is rarely fully updated and
we can successfully combat cyber crime. evolution of applications that do not complete. Furthermore, the traditional
First, it is important to increase our communicate on standard ports. Many ad-hoc growth of IP networks, the
understanding of the many languages current-generation P2P applications use continuing rapid proliferation of
and dialects (protocols, applications and ephemeral ports, and in some cases, use applications of different kinds, and
services) being spoken in the cyber world. ports of well-known services such as Web the relative ease with which almost
Network traffic monitoring and and FTP to make them indistinguishable any user can design and infiltrate
measurement is increasingly regarded as to a port-based classifier. a new application to the traffic mix
an essential function for understanding Techniques that rely on inspection in the network with no centralised
and improving the performance and of packet contents have been proposed registration, contribute to this gap.
security of our cyber infrastructure. With to address the diminished effectiveness Second, packet inspection techniques
networking technologies and services of port-based classification. These only work if full packets (header and
evolving rapidly, as witnessed by the approaches attempt to determine whether payload) are available as inputs and are
explosive growth of the Web, accurate or not a flow contains a characteristic completely harmless whenever coarser
network traffic monitoring is required to signature of a known application. information is provided. Unfortunately,
ensure security in a cyber world. Studies show that such approaches only a few service providers today have
Second, it will be timely to promptly work very well for today’s Internet equipped their networks with packet
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insight | Security
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4 Edu Tech December 2009
case study | Meru Cabs
I
n 2007, when Meru Cabs first
First IT lanes,
started its cab operations in
Mumbai, there was skepticism
on the roads; it was not the first
time that such a service was
highway
being introduced in Mumbai. Yet, all
earlier attempts had fizzled out mainly
now due the non-viability of the operations
from an economic viewpoint.
The urban spread of the city, the
presence of numerous small-time cab
operators, and the sheer dominance of
Meru vroomed past early challenges with the black-yellow taxiwallahs presented a
in-house IT engines and was quick to use full- huge challenge for the radio taxi operator.
Meru’s strengths came from it being a
blown ERP when volumes swelled professionally managed company with
capital infusion from a private equity
By Shashwat D C fund. The management at Meru decided
The technology
Hardware: Sun T6340 blade servers with UST2+
processors
OS: Solaris 10
Consolidation: Solaris 10 virtual containers or logi-
cal domains (LDOMs) made it possible to consoli-
date 18 server instances on six physical blades
High Availability: Active/Passive cluster was used for
databases and applications with Solaris Cluster Suite
3.2. Siebel’s internal load balancing capability was
used to load balance requests on Siebel web server
Storage: EMC fiber channel storage area network
was used with multi-pathing for redundancy on
connectivity with the hosts
Backup: Symantec Netbackup was used with Sun’s
Tape Library for backing up all the servers
The team
Sourav Das (Sr Manager, Infrastructure)
Merene Gomez (Manager, Application Support)
Key learning
n Since configuration of applications like Siebel
and Oracle EBS on a cluster environment is a spe-
cialised skill, take external help for implementation
photo: jiten gand hi
36 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
Meru Cabs | case study
to tackle the business issues with the After much deliberation, the conjunction with Sun. It took a good
help of using technology innovatively. management in consultation with the amount of time, with some help from
So they launched a whole fleet of GPS/ technology leader at Meru, CTO Nilesh external solution architects, to finally
GPRS luxury sedans that could be hired Sangoi, decided to implement a complete arrive at the right size and design for
by calling a single multi-line number. suite of ERP with various business the architecture, keeping in mind
The bet on technology paid off quickly. applications that could be customised for future performance, stability and high
After starting with some 46 cabs in specific needs. The decision to implement availability of the system.
Mumbai, today the company runs close an ERP was certainly not as easy as it Similar challenges were faced during
to 5,000 cabs in four cities of Mumbai, sounds, because much of the transactions the implementation phase and after a
Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. carried out were in cash. The decision month-long effort the infrastructure
But the exponential growth also was taken some time in June 2009. was made ready for production use.
brought along with it the issues Multiple instances of applications
of scale. Almost suddenly the call The solution like Production, Pre-prod, UAT
volumes breached the roof. This posed PwC was appointed to document pro- and development were created. The
operational problems, as until about cesses and convert them into a compre- toughest challenge was to complete the
a year ago most of the systems of the hensive RFP to be circulated to various entire ERP project within a very short
company, developed in house, were ERP vendors. Ultimately after much timeline of nine months. This meant
working in silos. deliberation the team selected Oracle’s that only two months were available for
E-Business Suite ERP solution for its setting up the complete infrastructure.
Financial, HR and Fleet Management
needs, Siebel for Subscriber Manage- The rewards
ment and Ad-sales, Oracle Business The system is now fully up and run-
Intelligence for Analytics and Oracle ning. The single biggest benefit of the
SOA suite for integration between integrated ERP system is to help Meru
these applications. Once Meru decided in consolidating applications and bring-
on implementing the solution, the first ing much better operational efficiencies
thing done was to identify a consul- in the business. The systems have been
tant, which was when Accenture was sized to handle the business scale up for
brought into the project. The team next four to five years. The company is
worked hard on defining what was to be now looking at raising the ante, by look-
achieved and how, as part of the proj- ing at analytics.
ect scope document. Next the scope and Not only the technical team, even the
“Standardising requirements were defined, the techni- CEO Rajesh Puri seems to be enthused
processes and using cal team analysed and evaluated differ- by the implementation. “I am excited
a single, integrated ent solutions that were available. about strengthening and combining
The infrastructure team was assigned all systems together into a single,
system will help us the responsibility of setting up a high- integrated software program that runs
increaseproductivity performance, high-availability hardware off a single back-end system, so that the
and improve service infrastructure for this project. various departments can more easily
The biggest challenge faced by share information and communicate
levels” the team was the sheer scale and the with each other,” he says.
— Rajesh Puri, CEO, Meru Cabs novelty, as the entire infrastructure in “Standardising those processes
terms of hardware, a high-availability and using a single, integrated system
load balancing OS cluster, installation will help us increase productivity and
and configuration of the application improve service levels,” he adds.
suite, was relatively new to Meru’s “Meru Cabs has always been an
environment. innovator in the radio cab service
An ERP core team was created space, and we are proud to be the
consisting of people from various only cab service company in the
departments and Accenture to arrive world to implement ERP systems
at the proposed transaction volume in our organisation. Implementing
and load in the foreseeable future. ERP systems shall have tremendous
Sourav Das Based on this, a high availability payback for Meru Cabs and will help
Merene Gomez
Manager, Sr Manager, and load balancing OS cluster for us to grow even faster,” Puri states with
Application Support Infrastructure various applications was designed in a touch of pride.
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 37
interview | Selina Lo
38 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
Selina Lo | interview
“it’s time to
switch over
to 802.11n”
In India, Ruckus Wireless has been most noted as the technology
provider behind wireless broadband player Tikona Digital Networks.
Selina Lo, CEO, Ruckus Wireless, was in Delhi recently to give fillip to
the company’s growth plans in the country. She spoke to Shubhendu
Parth at length on how Ruckus technology betters standard Wi-Fi and
how that makes IT managers’ work simpler. Excerpts:
With the Wi-Fi Alliance IEEE standard, we have eliminated environments. The 5GHz radios
ratifying the standards both the price and performance can be used to establish wireless
for 802.11n in September barriers. Ruckus Wireless has mesh connections to build a wire-
2009, do you expect recently introduced a new line less backbone. This eliminates
enterprises to make a major of enterprise access points that, having to cable every access point
shift towards the wireless for the first time, has brought the to an Ethernet connection—mak-
environment? Why? price of 802.11n to under US $500 ing deployment much simpler.
Absolutely! And this is already with performance that can clearly IT managers need only find a
underway. With the explosion beat higher-end products. In the power source, plug the AP in and
of wireless-enabled devices hit- last quarter, worldwide revenue walk away. At the same time, the
ting the market, there is a pent shipments of 802.11n products 2.4GHz radio can be used to ser-
up demand for better and faster surpassed 802.11g products and vice client traffic. When combin-
wireless connectivity. With the continue to rise quickly. ing the attributes of dual-band
popularity of mobile Internet 802.11n with advanced quality of
applications growing by the day, How does the dual-band and service techniques, smart antenna
enterprise environments are QoS tagging support that arrays and tagging, IT managers
becoming much more dynamic 802.11n provides make a can now begin to support latency-
and mobile in nature. This is driv- difference? Will that make an sensitive applications much bet-
Photo graph y: ji te n ga ndhi
ing interest in new technologies IT manager’s job any easier? ter such as streaming IP-based
such as 802.11n. Because dual-band 802.11n pro- video, voice and other multime-
However, three primary vides support in both the 2.4GHz dia applications.
roadblocks—price, performance and 5GHz bands, IT managers
and standardisation—inhibited are better able to support a wider While a group of experts
the mass adoption of 802.11n. But, range of applications from wire- have been suggesting that
with 802.11n now ratified as an less meshing to high capacity 802.11n can truly replace
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 39
interview | Selina Lo
an enterprise’s Ethernet,
most of the others have
been advocating for a mixed
network. What is your take
on this?
802.11 will never fully replace
a wired network. While it might
eliminate pulling Ethernet
cable to every cube or office,
wired connections will still be
required. However 802.11n, when
combined with enhancements
such as dynamic beamforming
that dramatically increases the
reliability of the medium, will
become the primary access
method for the enterprise
over time. Because of Wi-Fi’s
instability, it has always been
viewed as a backup or secondary
means of connectivity. But with
more mobile devices that don’t
have Ethernet jack and more
robust implementations of Wi-Fi,
such as from Ruckus Wireless
that increases both the range and “By combining
reliability of Wi-Fi connections,
802.11n will undoubtedly become attributes of
the primary means of connecting
to a network with Ethernet cabling 802.11n with smart
now becoming the backup.
antenna arrays, IT
Ruckus has the patent
for multicast-to-unicast will actually work properly with-
managers can
conversion of video on
wireless LANs. How can the
out a lot of configuration, optimi-
sation and tuning of the network.
support latency-
enterprises benefit from it? sensitive applica-
Within the enterprise, deliver- Can you elaborate on how
ing streaming video and other exactly does the Smart Wi-Fi tions better”
broadcast applications are often technology works?
best served through multicast Smart Wi-Fi works by leveraging
transmissions. It’s projected that advancements in Wi-Fi technol- ing Wi-Fi “beams” and steering
over the next two years, video ogy such as miniaturised intelli- them around interference, enter-
will become the dominant appli- gent antenna arrays and RF signal prises realise much better perfor-
cation over enterprise networks. control software to increase the mance at longer distances. It also
Multicast-to-unicast conversion range and reliability of wireless dramatically reduces packet loss
is essential for delivering stream- communications. Smart Wi-Fi and brings in the ability to confi-
ing video content over Wi-Fi. The works by focusing and direct- dently support latency-sensitive
802.11 protocol inherently treats ing Wi-Fi transmissions over applications over Wi-Fi such as
multicast traffic as best effort the best performing signal path IP-based voice and streaming
traffic only, giving it no priority for each client and constantly video. Consequently, enterprises
or preference. By automatically “steering” or “switching” these can deploy fewer access points
converting this traffic to unicast, transmissions when interference that yield more stable and con-
IT manager can now be confident or obstacles that impede perfor- sistent performance for a given
that streaming video over Wi-Fi mance as experienced. By focus- area. This reduces both capital
40 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
Selina Lo | interview
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 41
Tech for telecom
42 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
tech for telecom
Outsourcing
for
value
Putting the right mix of non-core IT functions
in the vendor’s basket can drive benefits for both
the parties
BY Jat i n d e r S i n g h
W
ith over 600 million cellular subscribers,
Indian telecom industry is today also con-
sidered to be one of the most competitive,
8.27
globally. India has an addressable US$
The mobile-led telecom revolution
has given the country No. 2 position in terms of number of
subscriptions, but the remarkable growth is also accompanied
with its own set of challenges for operators, when it comes to
maintaining profitability. With over a dozen operators in the fray,
bn
Photo graph y: photo s.c om
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 43
Tech for telecom
44 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
tech for telecom
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 45
Tech for telecom
Telecom
Date operator Vendor Deal Description
Nov 2009 Uninor Genpact Genpact to set-up customer service solution centre for operator in
North India using its centre in Jaipur
Apr 2008 BSNL Convergys Convergys to support BSNL’s 18 million wireline subscribers. BSNL
will replace its legacy billing systems with the Convergys’ Infinys
rating and billing solution
Jan 2008 Aircel Wipro Wipro to support IT infrastructure for Aircel in India. The nine-year
deal is estimated at $450 to $600 million.
Sep 2007 BSNL TCS TCS to develop a billing system for BSNL The deal covers the North
and West of India, includes deploying operational support systems
and business support systems components such as CRM, billing,
mediation and directory enquiry. The nine-year deal is valued at
$140 million.
July 2007 Vodafone IBM IBM to manage all of Vodafone Essar’s IT operations with
the exception of network service platforms. It also includes
maintaining billing, data centers and financial systems. The tenure
of the contract is five-years and is estimated value of the deal is
$600 to $800 million
Mar 2007 Idea Cellular IBM IBM to integrate Idea’s business processes, IT and IT infrastructure.
About 70-75% of the Idea’s total headcount will be moved to IBM.
The vendor will also provide technology to handle billing and credit
collection, manage frauds and customer relationships. This 10-year
deal is estimated to be valued at $600 to $800 million.
April 2004 Bharti Airtel IBM Airtel outsourced its operations to IBM which started at $750
million and now reached $2.5 billion
Source: ValueNotes/IT Next Research
Middle East where a company runs Then there are those disciplines There is no formula for outsourcing.
your solution for you on an interim where there are skills shortages and The decision has to be based on the
basis and transfers skills over time so outsourcing to an expert company local market conditions, business
you can run it yourself,” says Teresa might be your only option,” Cottam model, and customer expectations. As
Cottam, Director of Research and further commented. an example, one may decide to support
Publications at Babworth. To ensure quality of service (QoS) at all customers based on ARPU, with low-
“You may also fully outsource to such times one has to regularly verify systems ARPU customers being redirected to
a company because it makes sense as and tools used, analyse various reports self-service or outsourced call centres
the skills required are so specialised,” on network uptime, and ensure that SLA while high-ARPU customers are given
Cottam adds. norms are being met. It is also important premium customer service.
“Outsourcing like roaming data to determine that resources are deployed
Find similar stories online
exchange through a clearinghouse is adequately and best practices are being on the website
pretty standard for a lot of operators. followed across systems. www.itnext.in/vertical
46 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
15minute
training
Education
workplace
Asanas
For
back
manager
By Thej e n d r a B S
I
f you have the habit of reading
business magazines, manage-
ment books or articles you will
definitely encounter countless
references about super perform-
ers or hyper efficient employees that
exist in various organisations, depart-
ments and teams.
Of course, the definition of a super
performer is a subjective term that
can vary from manager to manager or
from company to company, and can be
quite varied based on their personal
experiences. And that picture can
range from someone who is super
fast at everything, a noisy person, a
flamboyant person, someone who has
all the answers, the management’s blue
eyed boy, a jargon emitting person, a
go-to person, or even someone who
always comes to office very early and
Leadership
Have ateam,
leaves very late, and so on.
Yet, going by the job advertisements
of organisations today, a super
performer is someone who meets (or
not a hero
claims to meet) the fancy criteria like
below (based on real sentences picked
I maging: santos h kus hwaha
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 47
15-MINUTE MANAGER
80
can corrode the manager’s opinion of place your right foot on the floor next to your
others as they will invariably be com- Over left knee. Sitting with spine straight, place
pared against the heros. But people hate your left elbow on the right side of your right
being compared with others as it will knee. Bend your left arm so that your left
make them look inferior and dull. This fingertips are touching your right hip. At the
Photo graphy: Jayan K Narayanan
48 it next | M a y 2 0 1 0
15-MINUTE MANAGER
kids, a super performer in a team of co- rewards. So they will start invading into super performers will refuse, avoid or
workers will soon be viewed as someone other team members’ territories and quietly offload such activities to their
who is hogging all the limelight and the even start finding fault in the way oth- co-workers as they start believing such
manager’s attention or affection, while ers work. They could also start showing menial activities are to be done only by
others are automatically viewed as off how they could handle the same job the lesser mortals. This can lead to vari-
morons being unable to do work as effi- better, and start giving unwanted sug- ous workload conflicts.
ciently as the super performer. Constant gestions, thereby making other team As you can see from the above,
success of this type is a guaranteed way members look stupid. And in many you have as much to fear about super
to gain unpopularity. Apart from the cases, super performers in their desire performers as you have to fear about
usual feelings of envy it can also lead to to remain at the top will start grabbing inefficient and troublesome workers.
fear among co-workers. So team mem- ideas and pieces of work (or even entire And such things could be happening
bers will start viewing the super per- work) from others, thus depriving oth- right under your nose and just waiting
former as a danger to their survival ers of their rightful share of the work- to explode at the most inconvenient time.
rather than an inspirational soul. load, or maybe even make them lose However, if you can recognise the smoke
Managers will intentionally (or their job. signals early and apply the necessary
3 unintentionally) start diverting Like a child that gets bored of balances periodically then you can
all the juicy jobs to the super performers 5 every toy within hours or days ensure that everyone in the team can
and the routine or mundane work to and expects its parents to buy a new toy, contribute to their potential without
others, thereby depriving them to get super performers by nature are restless stepping on others’ toes. Finally, at the
ahead or get involved. Team members individuals constantly seeking new end of the day one should understand
will start feeling they are getting activities that will excite them. But a that super performers can shine and
unequal amount of the manager’s atten- manager or an organization cannot find bloom only because bad, normal and
tion and responses. or invent exciting work perpetually to good performers exist around them.
Appreciation can be intoxicating keep their super performers happy. And And we can conclude this article
4 and addictive. Once high per- because of the halo surrounding them with a quote that says, “Either super
formers get continuous attention and and the holy throne on which they sit, competence or super incompetence may
appreciation the natural tendency is to they will be unwilling to do ordinary, be offensive to an establishment.”
seek activities and tasks that can earn mundane and routine work that is
them more and more limelight or essential in any department. Hence The author is IT Manager at ANZ OTSS
G
Manage IT etting a new broadband
connection is much like
Getting your
procuring a new mobile
connection. No matter
data card
how much discretion or
research is put in, in the end organisa-
tions don’t necessarily get what they
right
expect.
The story is not much different when
it comes to buying a USB-based wireless
Internet connection, the plug-and-
As the pre-3G era continues to drag play broadband solution that is quite
common these days. While all service
on, CDMA still edges out GSM when providers, including Reliance, Tata,
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 49
15-MINUTE MANAGER
50 it next | M a y 2 0 1 0
15-MINUTE MANAGER
robust network it has across connectivity beyond the 4-5 major met-
ros is pathetic to say the least. While all
net/ or http://www.pingtest.net/. If you higher when it comes to speed, Tata network that stretches across the length
are able to touch a download speed of 1 Photon has not really lived up to its and breadth of the country.
Mbps too, consider yourself extremely promise in this regard, it so appears.
lucky. After-sales service
So how do the providers compare, Reach and coverage More often than not, one factor that
well last year one of the networking Ask any frequent traveller holed up in is clinching when it comes to making
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 51
15-MINUTE MANAGER
training
resolve your problem and more impor-
tantly, what is the response time. In this
regard as well, Reliance seems to have
52 it next | M a y 2 0 1 0
Mobility
How to live
with a lost
the Black-
berry?
big EXPERT PANEL
Vasudeva was in-charge of new products and beads of sweat on his forehead.
was in the middle of applying the final touches to “Can I please use your phone,” requested Vas-
the design of a personal video player, the compa- udeva to the theatre guy.
ny’s first foray in the consumer electronics space. He quickly dialled his number and heard the
The product would be a big break for Vasudeva as inevitable - “The number you are trying to reach
he had driven the project from the very start. is currently switched off. Please try again later.”
Post movie, the father-son duo sauntered to the “This can’t be happening to me, what if the phone
pizza outlet to end their day on a high calorie note. reaches the wrong hands, what if…,” Vasudeva’s
Ready to leave after a hearty meal, Vasudeva head was a whirlwind of doomsday scenarios.
from he re
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 53
the big q
FIRST ANSWER
The problem faced by Vasudeva is big but is also fairly common.
In today’s hyper-connected world, security of the data in the mobile
device is a critical requirement. Yet, even in these trying times, pro-
tecting the data is not that hard if you follow some ground rules. If
an organisation is running Blackberry server one can put different
restrictions on the device depending on the need and requirement.
Coming to the issue faced by Vasudeva, I would make the following
suggestions to him:
n Stop the mobile services so that the mobile will not be accessible.
n Provide the unique Mac ID of the Blackberry to the service
provider so that if anybody tries to access the device the service
provider can block the device and it becomes unusable.
Satish n If the Blackberry is controlled through the local server of the
Mahajan organisation then control becomes easier and activation can be
completely disabled.
Head IT— n The Blackberry information can be completely erased if there were third party
Infrastructure,
Raymonds solutions ported on the device.
n These are some of the methods practiced in the industry to prevent data access of
About me: Tech leader the users though Blackberry.
with over two decades
of experience, have
worked with companies second ANSWER
like Hinduja Group and
ICICI Ltd, before joining Increase of storage capacity of the mobile devices has threatened the security of the data
Raymond in the organisation. We are not really able to categorise the data as per its importance and
create backup of the same. Encryption of the data is one of the easiest ways to handle this
issue. But there are not many reliable ways available today to retrieve the data. So, it’s
risky to encrypt the data if we are not able to restore back to normal form.
One can have remote data access policy through Blackberry servers, where we can
prevent deleting, copying or transferring of data in case of a loss of the mobile device.
This is possible if and only if one know s the unique pin number of the device.
Discourage user to store data on mobile devices like Blackberry and Windows mobiles
so that minimum business data is available on mobile devices. This will help maintain
the privacy of the data. .
Some of the other standard practices are, frequently synchronize the data of the mobile
devices with local laptops or desktops. This can be as frequent as daily, depending on the
criticality of the data stored in mobile device.
Also, important data should be backed to the local hard disk so that it can be made
available in case of a loss. Many organisations follow a method of storing critical data at
a central location with right access control and proper documentation so that data can
be retrieved quickly in case of loss due to any reason..
54 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
the big q
FIRST ANSWER
Unfortunately, as businesses’ reliance on technology continues
to grow, risk factors are growing in tandem. I personally keep my
important details on my phone but at the same time I always make
sure that I religiously take care of the following precautionary mea-
sures to protect it. I would suggest the same to Vasudeva:
1. Protect the phone with a strong password, both for the device
and the storage card.
2. Always encrypt your storage card, it is a MUST.
3. Don’t forget to synchronise your device on regular intervals with
any primary or secondary device, it will at least make you feel relaxed
even after losing your device.
4. If your data is very critical then use any third-party service to
track and delete your data remotely. Vishwajeet
5. If possible, try to physically mark your handset with personal Singh
information. This will greatly reduce the second-hand value of the
mobile if it is stolen. National Manager – IT,
FCm Travel Solutions
6. Record your IMEI: Every mobile phone has a unique 15-digit electronic serial
number. Inform your operator and the police as soon as you lose it. About me: Tech
7. Don’t leave your device open to access (e.g. leaving Bluetooth or WiFi on). professional with a
management bent,
8. Remove old SMS or emails on your handset that you don’t need any more. have been associated
with companies like
Indiamart Intermesh
SECOND ANSWER Ltd. and Innoserv
As the number of such loses have increased, the options for handling such incidents have Systems prior to joining
FCm
also grown. To minimize their potential privacy liability, companies need to:
1. Train employees and contractors to understand their responsibility in the protection
of data assets.
2. Ensure that mobile devices are encrypted and that employees understand the
organisation’s policies on downloading sensitive information and working remotely.
3. Make employees aware of the precautions that should be taken when travelling with
laptops, PDAs and other data bearing devices.
4. Devices like laptop can be protected through different layers of authentication like,
security chip, smart cards and USB tokens. NEXT
Strat
egy Securing mobile workforce
e P o l i cy Orc h est rato r
C e nte ra liz e d ma n ag e me n t
Compr e h e nsive re po rtin g a n d au diting
Irr ef uta ble pro o f o f protectio n
Host DLP
Encrypted USB Contr ol ov er inter nal data
Endpoint E nc ryption
Standa rd, secure USB f l ash stroage tr ansfer
Pow erful full-disk, f ile, and folder
Driv erless zero footprint Comprehensive device manag em ent
encryption
technology Multil ayered pr otection
Strong access control
T wo-factor au thentication Comprehensive device and data
Syn chronized password ch anges
Secure token services m anag ement
G ranul ar controls
Source: Mcafee
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 55
the big q
SECOND ANSWER
As with desktops, companies should adopt the same rules for mobile
data protection like prevention and control. Formal risk analysis
helps in risky incidents and mitigation strategies. Companies should
TR Madan go for device and memory card encryption, which does not require
Mohan much user intervention. They should adopt stringent password pro-
tection and content protection procedures and insist that first-time
President/Managing users of a device set the password before devices are activated. Also, it should be ensured
Partner, Browne &
Mohan that passwords are changed frequently.
Another important way of protecting the mobile device is by deploying anti-theft soft-
About me: Consultant ware, something that most companies must follow. From a control perspective, a clear
and academician, have
been associated with password change and data swipe process needs to be defined. Finally, the users need to
Frost & Sullivan, Carleton be made aware on the importance and criticality of such measures, and hence training to
University, IIM Bangalore
users on security aspects should be provided before handing down the device. Security
is seldom a single solution or methodology, instead it is multi-pronged approach.
Notes
NOTEs
56 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
4 Edu Tech December 2009
cube chat | Binu Lakshman
Disciplined
doer
“I believe in creating opportunities
from every situation of life,” says Binu
Lakshman, Manager IT, Honda Siel
Cars, India
By Jatinder S i n g h
M
ost of us dream of creating a any other manager, he or she should be able to
roadmap, which could be fol- delegate, check and allow people to participate.”
lowed by others. Binu Laksh- “IT managers should know what’s happening
man, Manager IT, Honda Siel around. They should be up-to-date on trends in
Cars has a slightly different IT and should be able to communicate and sell
philosophy. their ideas to the board room,” he further adds.
“I walk my talk, both personally and At present, he is involved with a supply
professionally. I believe in creating opportunities chain optimisation project–Honda Dealer Order
from every situation of life” he says. Management System–to help company meet the
My sucess Hailing from Kerala, Lakshman believes that demand-supply gap by optimising the inventory.
mantra he is an action-oriented person and loves taking “It is integrated end-to-end with our upstream
up new challenges. For him, it is the long-term and downstream systems,” he explains.
Put in your best foot for- vision that differentiates the ratio of successes “The other projects I am currently involved
ward and rest assured. and failures. with are outsourcing of facility management
Do not, however, forget Elaborating on the qualities that an IT services and the managed print services, which
that destiny does play a manager should have for a longer-term success, will provide lot of added value to the organisation
role as well. he says, “One should be able to see the big picture in terms of cost savings, and improved service
and align himself to organisational goals. Like levels,” he adds.
58 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
cube chat
Fact File
Name
Binu L akshman
Current designatio n
M anager IT, Honda
S iel Cars, I ndia
Current rol e
M anaging the
applic ation spac e,
contri buting
to strategic
outsour cing,
business proc ess
reengineering and
automation, and
managing and leadi n g
the team to achieve
long-term goals of
the organisation
Ex pertise
1998 -2003
Programmer Analyst,
Visesh I nfosystems ,
Coming from a highly disciplined family his never-say-die spirit and composure, Bangalore
culture, no wonder, he gets annoyed if which earns him the respect from the
something is not organised. entire fraternity; Shah Rukh Khan for his Edu c ation
2006 - 08
“Any one and anything that is not hard work, dedication, determination and
M C A, MD Universit y
organised irritates me the most. I get making all of us believe that nothing is
irritated by the infrastructure mess in our impossible if you dream and Aamir Khan 2005 - 07
country and I get very irritated when I see for the perfectionist he is.” M.Sc ., MD U niversit y
people misusing and abusing nature and So is he taking some inspiration to get
1995 - 98
public property,” he says. into the next big thing—the CIO? GNIIT from NIIT,
IT apart, Lakshman loves long drives “I believe in contributing to my profession Bangalore
Photo graph y: S hamik Bane rjee
and playing cricket whenever he gets time. and the IT community in the best possible
1992- 94
“I had played many tournaments, but manner and to the best of my ability, and
BSc . (M aths), Kumaon
I miss all that now. I also enjoy driving. want to see myself advancing in my career U niversit y, Nainital
Long drives with family are very relaxing, goals by taking new responsibilities” he
provided there is no traffic” he says. says. Certifi cations
Certified PM P
When asked about his role models, he “Yes, if the opportunity comes, I will
smilingly says, “All my role models are accept it with open heart and mind,” Certified Qua lit y
from Bollywood: Amitabh Bachchan for Lakshman adds. Professiona l
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 59
update
removing the need for the datacenter “hot aisle” – the space behind racks where
hot air is blown out of the back of running servers.
The product features an internal chimney that funnels hot air through the top Product Specifications
of the standard-size rack thereby allowing rows of Primergy CX1000 racks to be Interface: USB 3.0
placed back-to-back, resulting in floor-space savings alone of up to 40%. Storage Capacity: Up to 640 GB
The company claims that the product has a simple design and provides Warranty: 3 years
flexibility when it comes to replacing individual server nodes in case of a system Data Transfer Rates: 88 MB/s in read and 81
failure. It also helps one replace faulty components offline. MB/s in write overall
60 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
update
Symantec
Hitachi intros enterprise
launches protection suites
external Symantec has introduced its
new protection suites, which
solutions
gateways and servers; and deliver
targeted protection
for enterprises. As
per the company,
these new solutions
are aimed to alleviate
challenges of security
Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (Hitachi Key Advantages administrators by
* Simple and high-speed USB
GST) has unveiled its new range of external bringing in simplicity
2.0 interface
storage solutions. The range includes portable and protection across
* Preloaded backup software
USB drive-SimpleTOUGH, which is water and the enterprise infrastructure in a
* Up to 2TB capacity to store or
shock-resistant, and the Hitachi X Series that seamless manner.
backup
includes the XL Desktop Drive and Mobile The foundation of each of the
Drive. new protection suites will be
According to the company, the solutions are best suited for people on the move Symantec Protection Center, a
and SOHO users and provide easy add-on storage, effortless backup and restore single sign-on Web console that
capabilities making it easier for users to manage and protect data. provides administrators full access
The products have simple and high-speed USB 2.0 interface and are preloaded to configuration management,
with the backup software, to enable users protect files and folders stored on their report generation and dashboard
systems with a single click or automatically. views of the multiple Symantec
The Hitachi XL Desktop Drive has up to 2TB capacity and a plug-and-play protection technologies relevant
design. It gives both Mac and PC users enough capacity to store or backup to each suite. It will also
660,000 photos, 500,000 MP3 files or 153 hours of digital video. provide consolidated access to
The Hitachi X Mobile Drive is cost-optimised and comes in the capacities of threat, security and operational
500GB and 320GB. dashboards.
Caching Appliance
* Pure AP mode with full WDS
* 802.11n technology
* Six-level output power control
Blue Coat Systems has launched a carrier appliance solution CacheFlow 5000 capability
for large-scale bandwidth savings. This product specifically addresses escalating * 64/128-bit WEP
international and mobile backhaul bandwidth consumption and is targeted at
regions where bandwidth is expensive and limited.
This cloud-based service provides rules and instructions designed to fine-tune
CacheFlow 5000 appliances to better address the changing Web and deliver
consistent bandwidth savings.
Using advanced caching technology, this new appliance helps scale service
delivery to meet the burgeoning subscriber demand for online video, large file
downloads and other Web 2.0 rich media content while improving subscriber
experience.
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 61
update
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62 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0
update
the cloud?
Price : Rs 200
m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 63
Osama Manzar
my log Founder-Director, Digital
Empowerment Foundation
For the
people
o op pc
: an
on
ti
ra
If e-Governance is to be transparent
st
lu
Il
years, I could not find content for any of are elected by people to represent their FRee
WAReS
this is the Silver Jubilee year of “.com”—the omnipresent top-level internet
domain that came into existence in 1985. A small Massachusetts-based
computer maker Symbolics had the honour of registering the first .com.
Today, according to an Information Technology & Innovation Foundation (ITIF)
study, there are over 80 million dotcoms registered. These dotcoms lead to
those.
Dotcom’s 25
the next 10 years, says ITIF.
years have helped
and dotcoms are not the sole domain names, as there are some 270 other so-called top level
open-source tools domain names including .net, .org, .edu, .mil, .gov and the domains for individual countries
mature decisively. such as .in for India, .cn for China, and .ru for Russia. Now, with the mobile Web growing, a new
Here are some breed of domain name, .mobi, has emerged.
useful picks for you This spirit of sharing and collaborating that the Internet has fostered has also helped the Open Source
Software (OSS) movement spawn and grow into a meaningful existence. The OSS movement more or
We have 4,011 Members of Legislative how are they spending the MPLAD
BY SHASHWAT DC less relies on the Web not only for its proliferation but also for its sustenance.
What better way to mark the 25th anniversary of the domain name system than to list 10 tools found on the Web
that are open and that are free!
ONE TWO Google also released Buzz and Wave, online social networking tools and
collaborative platforms that can also be used as much for work as for fun.
also has plans to offer online storage service
named Gdrive.
Operating system Google applications
Assembly (MLA) constituencies across all fund? What questions and queries are
wave.google.com | buzz.google.com | desktop.google.com skydrive.live.com | getdropbox.com
LINKS docs.google.com | adwords.google.com | google.com/analytics LINKS box.net | humyo.com | drop.io
mozy.com | xdrive.com | adrive.com
While microsoft has ruled the OS space on the desktop front, the story Since larry Page and Eric Schmidt ven-
has been very different on the server side, with Unix and Sun Solaris tured into the online sphere in 1998 with
being some of the powerful options. Ranging from Novell to Red Hat, Google; the innocuous search company has
companies around the world have opted for Linux derivatives to build grown up to become the world’s largest Inter-
THREE
their offerings.
But now, Linux is becoming a stronger alternative on the desktop
net company. Google is now part of every
Internet user’s life, with the name Google Online storage and Symantec also offers the
FOUR
front as well. For the past few years, Ubuntu, a derivative of Linux, has becoming a synonym for online search. backup facility of online backup with its eRP
been making inroads in the desktop space. A package consisting of a However, Google is no longer about merely new release of Norton 360 v4.0,
free OS and some basic productivity applications, Ubuntu more or less search and offers a host of services for both Backup and storage are among where it gives 2GB backup and Previously known as Tiny ERP, OpenERP
mimics the Windows or rather the Vista environment. It has steadily individuals and the enterprise users, both for the IT must-haves. While usually the rest can be upgraded based is touted as a complete ERP for small and
the 35 states of the country, but there is not they presenting in the assemblies and
gained ground as software of choice for companies and professionals free and for a fee. NAS, SAN and tapes are used for on need and requirement. medium businesses. It’s a complete Open
that are looking for easy-to-use open source options to Windows. And Google Apps continues to be one of the storage and backup, off-the-Inter- Interestingly, the biggest online Source software with inbuilt modules for
with the current release of Karmic Koala (Ubuntu version 9.10), the most innovative services from Google. It net options are also available for storage option is available from CRM and BPM. Other features include man-
OS’ share is estimated to be anywhere between 40% and 50% of Linux features several Web applications with the purpose. the Microsoft stable. Windows agement and financial accounting, inven-
desktops. similar functionalities to traditional office For example, there is Dropbox. Live SkyDrive service from tory management, sales, purchase human
Yet another compelling alternative to Windows on the desktop is suites, including: Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs io that provides a 2GB free online Microsoft currently offers 25 GB resource and project management. The
expected to come in the form of Google’s Chrome OS, another big-ticket and Sites. Most of these services can be linked space for a user and then has of free personal storage, with file software, released under General Public
Linux derivative to be available in the second half of this year. to a common Gmail login ID. graded payment options for size capped at 50 MB. Earlier, License (GNU), has a very modular charac-
Open source is getting better on the desktop! Worth noting among other services is people who want more. Box.net Yahoo! too had provided a similar ter with more than 500 modules available
Google Analytics, a service that lets an is yet another service that allows service called Yahoo! Briefcase with customisable reports.
LINKS
a single official website of any of the MLA the Parliament, and are those questions
ubuntu.com | debian.com | mandriva.com individual or a company get an in-depth view 1 GB of space free of cost with a but now it has been wrapped up.
of the efficacy of an online property. Recently, file-size limit of 25MB. Some reports say that Google LINKS openerp.com/downloads.html
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constituencies. relevant for the constituency under 10 Freewares ranging from online
consideration? storage to Free OS for the IT manag-
We have 542 Member of Parliamentary
ers to chose from Pg 28
(MP) constituencies in India, and Intentionally or unintentionally, the
again, there is not a single official MP entire e-government focus has been INSIgHT | sEcurItY sEcurItY | INSIgHT
KNOWING
The Internet has become the central identify and tag cyber users and traffic, including P2P flows. In fact,
nervous system for our networked life. communities of cyber users whose commercial bandwidth management
As a global network of loosely con- activity and content may harm the safety tools and network security appliances
nected IP-based networks, it reaches and transparency of the cyber world. use application signature matching to
everywhere and provides a common Third, it is critical to gain visibility enhance robustness of classification and
IS
kind of criminal has emerged—the in this digital world is knowing with
cyber criminal. whom you are interacting. newer threats
A mechanism that can unravel the real persona The pervasive nature of cyber crime Yet, recently several threats appeared
today threatens loss of proprietary the weak links to use this technique to hide their pres-
of an alias is the way to keep cyber crime at bay corporate information to the loss of Critical to the success of a network mon- ence and break through firewalls and
life. Various forms of cyber crime have itoring tool is its ability to accurately— other security devices. The progress
BY DR. ANTONIO NUCCI emerged, from predators exchanging and on a real-time basis—identify and in hardware acceleration has allowed
elected representatives and as such they by people are hardly accountable for
Combating the threat accuracy of this approach, however, list of signatures is a daunting task.
There are certain steps to be taken before has been questioned because of the Information is rarely fully updated and
we can successfully combat cyber crime. evolution of applications that do not complete. Furthermore, the traditional
First, it is important to increase our communicate on standard ports. Many ad-hoc growth of IP networks, the
understanding of the many languages current-generation P2P applications use continuing rapid proliferation of
and dialects (protocols, applications and ephemeral ports, and in some cases, use applications of different kinds, and
services) being spoken in the cyber world. ports of well-known services such as Web the relative ease with which almost
Network traffic monitoring and and FTP to make them indistinguishable any user can design and infiltrate
measurement is increasingly regarded as to a port-based classifier. a new application to the traffic mix
an essential function for understanding Techniques that rely on inspection in the network with no centralised
explosive growth of the Web, accurate or not a flow contains a characteristic completely harmless whenever coarser
network traffic monitoring is required to signature of a known application. information is provided. Unfortunately,
ensure security in a cyber world. Studies show that such approaches only a few service providers today have
Second, it will be timely to promptly work very well for today’s Internet equipped their networks with packet
media, no other media than the Internet Can we somehow mandate that all I
n 2007, when Meru Cabs first to tackle the business issues with the After much deliberation, the conjunction with Sun. It took a good
First it lanes,
started its cab operations in help of using technology innovatively. management in consultation with the amount of time, with some help from
Mumbai, there was skepticism So they launched a whole fleet of GPS/ technology leader at Meru, CTO Nilesh external solution architects, to finally
on the roads; it was not the first GPRS luxury sedans that could be hired Sangoi, decided to implement a complete arrive at the right size and design for
time that such a service was by calling a single multi-line number. suite of ERP with various business the architecture, keeping in mind
HIGHWaY
being introduced in Mumbai. Yet, all The bet on technology paid off quickly. applications that could be customised for future performance, stability and high
earlier attempts had fizzled out mainly After starting with some 46 cabs in specific needs. The decision to implement availability of the system.
nOW due the non-viability of the operations Mumbai, today the company runs close an ERP was certainly not as easy as it Similar challenges were faced during
from an economic viewpoint. to 5,000 cabs in four cities of Mumbai, sounds, because much of the transactions the implementation phase and after a
The urban spread of the city, the Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad. carried out were in cash. The decision month-long effort the infrastructure
can access and post content anytime have websites of their own and are
ment and Ad-sales, Oracle Business The system is now fully up and run-
tHe teCHnOLOGY
Intelligence for Analytics and Oracle ning. The single biggest benefit of the
Hardware: sun t6340 blade servers with ust2+
SOA suite for integration between integrated ERP system is to help Meru
processors
these applications. Once Meru decided in consolidating applications and bring-
Os: solaris 10 on implementing the solution, the first ing much better operational efficiencies
consolidation: solaris 10 virtual containers or logi- thing done was to identify a consul- in the business. The systems have been
cal domains (lDOms) made it possible to consoli- tant, which was when Accenture was sized to handle the business scale up for
date 18 server instances on six physical blades brought into the project. The team next four to five years. The company is
worked hard on defining what was to be now looking at raising the ante, by look-
High availability: active/passive cluster was used for
achieved and how, as part of the proj- ing at analytics.
databases and applications with solaris cluster suite
ect scope document. Next the scope and Not only the technical team, even the
“STANDARDISING
was used with multi-pathing for redundancy on A SINGLE, INTEGRATED ent solutions that were available. about strengthening and combining
The infrastructure team was assigned all systems together into a single,
connectivity with the hosts SYSTEM WILL HELP US the responsibility of setting up a high- integrated software program that runs
Backup: symantec netbackup was used with sun’s INCREASEPRODUCTIVITY performance, high-availability hardware off a single back-end system, so that the
tape library for backing up all the servers
AND IMPROVE SERVICE infrastructure for this project. various departments can more easily
The biggest challenge faced by share information and communicate
LEVELS” the team was the sheer scale and the with each other,” he says.
tHe teAM — Rajesh Puri, CEO, meru Cabs novelty, as the entire infrastructure in “Standardising those processes
sourav Das (sr manager, Infrastructure)
there is a saying ‘failing to plan is planning to at the proposed transaction volume in our organisation. Implementing
fail’. meticulous planning during the initial stage is and load in the foreseeable future. ERP systems shall have tremendous
critical for a large scale Erp deployment, some- nIlEsH sanGOI, Based on this, a high availability payback for Meru Cabs and will help
36 it next | m a y 2 0 1 0 m a y 2 0 1 0 | it next 37
offices and officers have to make all 350,000 in terms of digital content creation Meru Cabs have raced ahead of the
information open and available, Web is the of a true e-Governance genre. league with ERP deployment. Pg 36
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