IT NEXT
AUGUST 2010 / RS. 100
VOLUME 01 / ISSUE 08
INSIGHT: Should
you lose sleep over cloud
28
engulfing internal IT?
DEMOCRATISATION OF BI
VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 08
A 9.9 Media Publication
INTERVIEW: Jim 38
Whitehurst on consumers
IT STRAT: Why it’s 45 THE BIG Q
important to take a strategic How to stem social
driving IT agenda approach to social media media leaks? Pg 51
INTELLIGENCE
MULTIPLIED
The spread of BI across
the enterprise is turning
employees into
knowledge workers.
Here is an update on
how the revolution
is shaping up
Pg.14
EDITORIAL

More than just

intelligence
In many recent surveys of IT heads,
business intelligence (BI) has often come
close to the top of the list of things to get
done. The reasons for this are not hard to
discern. The rapid fluctuations in the global economy “The real challenge is
have made planning more difficult, and compelled managers
to get information into
in all organizations to focus on optimizing resources, cutting costs
and capturing new revenue opportunities. Many of these activities are the hands of people
possible only if people have access to timely and accurate information—and
presented in a manner that can be easily understood and actioned.
who need it most”
The big challenge for IT managers is to get information into the hands R GIRIDHAR
of the people who need it most, while ensuring data security and accuracy.
But, retrieving, collating and presenting data from a variety of enterprise
systems and making it available across different platforms and networks
is formidable task, especially if the BI system has to be delivered across
divisions and offices to support operational decision-making. Ensuring
the performance and reliability of such distributed BI systems, becomes an
enormous undertaking once usage within the organization grows. It puts a
lot of pressure on the IT department to keep up with burgeoning user needs.
BI is often perceived to be expensive to buy, implement and run. While
this was often true for solutions targeted at big enterprises, BI has become
cheaper and easier in past few years. Continuous technical developments
and refinements in both BI solutions and backend systems (like CRM, ERP,
SCM, data warehouses, etc.) have made it simpler to retrieve, store and
process data from multiple systems.
Hardware performance improvements have also helped—storage is
much cheaper now, and server virtualization helps minimize hardware
costs and reduce the overall BI project cost. In fact, you even have cloud and
SaaS-based BI options. However, the real issues with spreading BI within Sites To Watch!
the organization are that the initiative is often driven by the IT department,
The Datawarehousing Institute:
not business units. The unfortunate outcome of this state of affairs is that BI
http://www.tdwi.org
is not perceived as a system that is critical to run the business—and needs B Eye Network : http://www.b-
continuous justification. To resolve this conundrum, it is necessary for eye-network.com
Your views and opinion matter
IT managers to educate and evangelize the benefits of BI to business unit to us. Send your feedback
heads. They will need to assimilate key business issues and demonstrate to on stories and the magazine at
r.giridhar@9dot9.in or SMS us at
decision makers how BI can help them do their jobs better. Write in and let 567678 (type ITNEXT<space>your
us know how BI is making a difference in your organization. feedback)

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 1
4 Edu Tech December 2009
 CONTENT
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.
com/home.php#/group.
php?gid=195675030582

Twitter:
http://t witter.com/itnext

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http://www.linkedin.com/
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FOR THE L ATEST TECHNOLOGY UPDATES GO TO ITNEXT.IN AUGUST 2010 V O L U M E 0 1 | I S S U E 0 8 ugrp_ovr

Democratisation
of BI
From being a tool for the head honchos, to
providing insight to the line managers,
BI is undergoing a metamorphosis and with
it the way the companies conduct
business is changing as well

Page
14
INSIGHTS BOSS TALK INTERVIEW
24 Is it Rain or a Drizzle?
Will cloud computing decimate internal IT?
Is it worth losing your sleep over its rise?

32 Do More with less

Data de-duplication is not just about saving
capacity; it’s also about improving the perfor-
mance of storage systems
C OV ER DES IGN AN D ILLUSTRATIO N : ANIL T

28 Cloud? Yes with riders

involved
There are clear benefits to using the
cloud model to facilitate the rapid avail-
ability of IT resources, but it’s not for
every enterprise 05 Craft a multi-faceted 38 Consumers will drive the
persona| Arun Gupta , Group Tech Agenda| Jim Whitehu-
CTO, K.Raheja Corp rst, President and CEO, Red Hat

2 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

Content Page-01.indd 2 8/5/2010 10:19:53 AM


Page
SECURING THE AIRWAVES | A Wi-Fi plan
42 should be robust enough to address security con-
cerns and clean enough to keep legal risks at bay
OPINION
11 Money Wise: Journey to
the Top ! |By Chinar Deshpande,
CEO, Creative IT India
12 Tech Talk: IT’s better
with governance | by Srinivas
Anapu,VP (Enterprise Informa-
tion Systems) Mahindra Satyam
15-MINUTE
MANAGER
45 IT Strat Social only? |
Taking a strategic approach to
social media is essential to reap-
ing real benefits
46 Healthy Living | Coping
with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
47 Golf Basics | Dummies
guide to golfing
48 Manage IT| Sweat your IT
assets page
Page
24
Content Page-01.indd 3
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 INBOX

is much lesser than a typical PC.

Thin clients used in conjunc-
tion with desktop virtualisation
are a big hit these days, as they
allow simpler provisioning of
new desktops, reduced down-
JULY 2010 time and lower cost of deploying
new applications.
SAURYA BHAUMIK
Independent Consultant
IT NEXT THANKS
ITS READERS
FOR THE WARM Multimodal Qualdplay story
RESPONSE
published in March issue of
IT Next is a good read. I want to
www.linkedin.com/
groups?gid= congratulate you and your entire
2261770&trk=
IT NEXT VALUES YOUR FEEDBACK
myg_ugrp_ovr
team for simplifying technol-
We want to know what you think about the magazine, and how we can make it ogy at such a great extent. While
396 members
a better read. Your comments will go a long way in making IT NEXT the pre- many organisations have already
ferred publication for the community. Send your comments, compliments, embarked on this journey, and are
complaints or questions about the magazine to editor@itnext.in. at various stages of UC matyurity
curve, several others are actively
considering its deployment.
the real challenge, for me, in
I liked the story “De-lighting with a difference” published READ THIS the BIO space comes in conso0li-
ISSUE ONLINE
in the July issue of IT NEXT. In today’s scenario everyone is dating voice voice, video and data
becoming very conscious about rising energy costs and the onto single network. In this con-
http://www.itnext.
text, it’s important to first analyse
effects of greenhouse gas emissions on the environment. in/resources/
magazine if the existing corporate network
Building automation is very effective in reducing both the is ready to deal with the proposed
energy costs and environmental costs of a building. Because deployment
of this, most systems start by automating the heating, cooling, RANJAN JUNEJA,
Technical Manager, Persistent
ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems’ operations.
GAURAV KOHLI The Bluffer’s guide to world cup
IT Consultant, Xebia soccer was a good read. This is the
only IT magazine , I’ve seen in recent
I am really impressed with the way, IT Next is going. The July issue times which is an exciting blend of
was really rich in both content and design. I really liked the cover story IT and IT related non IT stories. I am
on best practices. With every passing day, the intimacy between tech- a big fn of your training calender as
nology and business is evolving. And businesses therefore are look- well. I usually tear it from the maga-
ing at various options which could aid them the best possible results. zine and put on my notice board for
Thanks for the broader picture. I am eagerly waiting for the next issue. my IT managers and other adminis-
SUKHVINDER SINGH trators for a ready information.
MD, Makkar Travels

TANU KAUR,
The magazine is impressive, however I think it is too loud in its HR Associate, Gear
overall appeal. Perhaps that is why it has named IT NEXT.
SHWETA SHAW Thanks for throwing light on the
Assistant Manager, TCS SOA in the July issue of IT NEXT.
I am completely agreed with the
I found the green issue of IT NEXT is noteworthy. The information author that the adoption of SOA
ITNEXT<space>
related to desktop virtualisation is appreciable. In today’s scenerio, <your feedback> is going to be really huge amongst
thin clients are also a great solution to the power issue, as they con- and send it to enterprises, in coming years.
sume much lesser power than conventional PCs and are much easier 567678 ANSHU MUNJAL,
to manage as well. Thin clients consume around 15W of power, which *Special rates apply
System Admin, Clarity India

4 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
BOSS TALK | ARUN GUPTA
PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
Craft a
multi-faceted
persona
E
ver so often, a debate starts on what
it takes to become a CIO—techni-
cal or business skill, or something
else? The answer is not clear—look
around and you will find CIOs from
different backgrounds who have tasted success.
Let’s first assess what is the role of a CIO. Some
70% of the IT budget comprises sustenance of
technology that runs a business—referred to
as “business as usual (BAU)”, or keeping the
lights on (KTLO). Then, there is the incremental
improvement of systems and processes
driven by technology, (customisations, new
development, changes to existing packages and
reports that keep developers both internal or
outsourced busy. New projects form a critical
part of a portfolio, each requiring a business
case, budgetary support, change management,
and sustenance upon institutionalisation.
Lastly, it’s about thought leadership, alignment
and contribution.
A CIO oversees all of the above—impacting
the front office, sales, marketing and customers,
while ensuring support for functions such
as finance, accounting, human resources,
legal and administration. Depending upon
an organisation’s business, a process-related
understanding of manufacturing, distribution
and logistics, supply chain, or loyalty is
required, too.
A jack-of-all-trade’s-CIO is expected to have
a meaningful discussion with business heads
and CXOs on their functions and understand
how technology enables those. This helps a
CIO identify new capabilities that IT can create
with the new innovations, that keep pouring
into the marketplace. Operationally, the CIO is
expected to manage the IT team, mentor them,
keep attrition low, manage operational and
capital budgets, review outsourced vendor
performance, negotiate deals for the lowest cost
“Tech skills are needed but not to the level
of how to configure a router or write a
code—that’s for the next layer”
of services or products, and generate periodic
reports for management reviews. He is also
expected to be on the top of a situation, in case of
exigencies created by the failure of a server, the
network, or even the PC—at a critical moment.
SUGGESTION BOX
Think now, what kind of qualifications would
be required to be a successful CIO. Do you need
to be a major in technology, or business? Will
cross-functional experience offer value? What
about soft skills. A dash of people management?
Look around you—and you will find successful
IT leaders from all walks of life juggling all of
the se tasks. Technology skills are essential.
They are needed, but not to the level of how to
configure a router or write a code—that’s for the
The book talks next layer, even for vendors to address.
about why On the other hand, business and soft
Mastering the Art skills cannot be substituted. Those need to be
and Practice of developed to a level where communication with
Online Learning any CXO is meaningful. If you are challenged in
and Corporate this faculty, then business IT alignment will be
Collaboration is a debated subject. And you may find yourself at
important the receiving end.
WRITER: ROBERT UBELL
PUBLISHER: JOHN WILLY &
SONS
The author is Group CTO for K.Rahega Corp
PRICE: INR 1800
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 5
 UPDATE
I N D U S T R Y
TRENDS
DEALS
PRODUCTS
SERVICES
PEOPLE

MAIN FEATURES
n 1500+ user-installable ap-
plications
n Allows users to access In-
dian content in just one click
n Indic language translitera-
tion to help users write in
mother tongue

The browser boasts of

over 1500 Indian themes and
wallpapers, and supports over
twelve Indian languages on any
webpage, or in write ,by using
Epic’s free built-in word processor. 
The company claims that
this is the only browser in the
world which offers anti-virus
protection. Free antivirus

Hidden unveils Epic has been

created by a
scanning and healing is built
into Epic and enables users

browser for India team of Indian

engineers
and is based
to save money by performing
regular virus scans on
Epic for free, and every file
EXCLUSIVE | Hidden Reflex, a Bangalore–based software start-up has on the they download in Epic is
launched the first browser targeted at Indian audiences. The browser open–source automatically scanned. 
called Epic has been created by a team of Indian engineers on the Mozilla Another unique security
open–source Mozilla platform.  platform measure warns users when
The browser sidebar supports Indian content by providing they’re about to visit potentially
users access to the latest national and regional news from popular dangerous websites.  
publications, live television channels, videos, stock quotes, live cricket It also have feature like Indic
scores, top music albums, and information about local events. language transliteration that
enables users to write emails
and documents in their mother
tongue simply and instantly
M Teledensity in India The number of telephone subscribers in using a regular English keyboard. 
TELECO
India has reached 621.28 mn at the end of Mar 2010 This allows users to access
(NUMBERS IN PERCENTAGE) India content by just one click in
Mobile 60 various languages.
subscribers in
50 Epic claims that it has over
India reached
58.43 crore as 40 8.2 1500 apps that include a word
on March 31, .5
% 43.5 %
8% processor, file backup, my
30 17 11. 52.7
2010 computer, video picture-in-
MAR 2009

MAR 2010
DEC 2009
SEP 2009

20
47.1 picture, e-mail, chat, games and
10
37.0 more. A user can store all these
0 applications which are free and
install in seconds.
SOURCE: TRAI

6 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
STORE IN AN ARTISTIC WAY FOR A SLEEK VIEW COOL YOUR SERVERS
Transcend has launched the 16 GB JetFlash Inspan has launched Mercury GlacialTech launches new series of server
V90C keychain 1660TWG LED Moni- cooler under the Pola-
USB flash tor – the monitor that ris range. The products
drive. This comes with inbuilt are environment
artistic device speakers. It is priced friendly and specifi-
carries lifetime at Rs. 7,499 and car- cally designed for Intel
warranty ries a 3 year warranty LGA771 server CPUs

SAP sharpens its The company is working with

stakeholders and partners to
understand the sustianibility

sustainability focus needs, and making efforts to

TECH TRENDS | Sustainability,
in the past couple of years, has
attracted increasing interest
among businesses across ver-
ticles. In principle, the basic idea
is as simple as it is compelling:
resources may only be used at a
rate at which they can be replen-
ished naturally.
Realising the need, SAP
has sharpened its focus on
proving sustainable solutions to
customers which can help them
gain long term profitability.
The company is driving
its sustainability initiatives
by managing its internal
operations and enabling its
customers to increase their
The company sustainable performance
is working to through compliance, resource
provide new productivity, competitive
sustainability differentiation, and business
solutions longevity needs, with a constant
monitoring in place.
build software programmes and
reports to meet the same.
“SAP’s Sustainability
Report is an important step
towards the company’s ongoing
dialogue with stakeholders
regarding how SAP can best
perform as a company, build
software solutions that promote
sustainable operations for
customers, and play a leading
role in the public policy debate,”
says Rajamani Srinivasan,
Vice President, Solutions
Engineering, SAP India.
It claims that its Web-
based report has achieved
an A+ rating from the Global
Reporting Initiative (GRI),
and allows readers to drill into
sustainability performance.

AROUND THE WORLD QUICK BYTE

Facebook reaches 500 mn

users. Mobile phones aid
the spread
Facebook has crossed 500 mn users around the
world, informs the company. “This is an important
AMAZON.COM CEO JEFF BEZOS ON KINDLE
milestone for all of you who have helped E-BOOKS OUTSELLING HARDCOVERS
“THE KINDLE HAS NOW
spread Facebook around the world,” says Mark OVERTAKEN THE HARD-
Zuckerberg, founder and CEO, Facebook. COVER, EVEN THOUGH
The company has also announced that it has WE’VE BEEN SELLING
HARDCOVER BOOKS FOR
surpassed 12 million users in India as people 15 YEARS AND KINDLE
continue to share their lives on Facebook.  BOOKS FOR 33 MONTHS”

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 7
 UPDATE
Sify, VMware partner
to offer cloud solutions
TECH TIDINGS | Sify Technolo-
gies and VMware have entered
into a partnership to expand the
VMware Service Provider Pro-
gram (VSPP) in India to offer On-
demand hosting (Cloud) services
Sify has joined the global
VMware service provider
program (VSPP), designed for
service-providers who offer
On-demand cloud services
giving them the option to “rent”
VMware software licenses on a
monthly “pay as you go” basis.
According to the official
statement, this model will
help Indian companies, both
large and small, to safely tap
computing capacity inside and
outside their firewalls – how
they want, when they want, and
to the extent they want – to help
User driven IT taking hold
amongst enterprises
TECH TRENDS | The rapid use and
adoption of consumer technologies
like the iPhone and iPad within the
enterprise is compelling organisation
to lay out a security roadmap in this
era of fast changing security environ-
ment, suggests a latest research report
from EMC.
This report offers concrete
recommendations for how
security leaders can get out
in front of user-driven IT and
manage risks to create new
business value.   ORGANISATIONS
While the majority
of decisions about older
technologies such as desktops
and laptops are still made by
8 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
Security chiefs ensure quality of service
need to lay out for any application they
a roadmap for want to run, internally or
enabling the new as a service.
era of choice This partnership
computing helps Sify address the
demand for on-demand
computing in India, one
of the fastest growing
cloud computing markets
in the Asia Pacific region.
IT, this dynamic shifts when it comes
to newer consumer technologies
More than 60% of respondents
report that users have some input
regarding the types of smartphones
purchased, with 20 percent reporting
that they let users decide
52 % of organisations allow some
users to provide input on
52
or make decisions about
netbooks while 50%
involve users in some tablet
% decisions. And 23% of
the largest organisations
ALLOW USERS TO surveyed have experienced
PROVIDE INPUT
DECISIONS a serious breach or incident
ABOUT because of a personal device
NETBOOKS
on the corporate network.   By Jatinder Singh
INTERVIEW
MANISH MEHTA
Vice President, Global Online, Dell
Online
IT NEXT: How is Dell utilising the ben-
efits of collaboration tools to increase
business efficiencies?
Dell was an early adopter of crowd-
sourced innovation with the launch of
ideastorm; we use a similar tool internally,
called “employeestorm.” We see social
media tools as an element of our overall
internal communications and collaboration.
Which are the key business priorities
that should not be compromised when
deploying these tools?
Employees should agree to protect
confidential information. The organisation
should provide adequate training and an-
nual compliance and ethics training around
protecting private customer information.
Collaborative environments can be fostered
without compromising on security and
confidentiality by incorporating adequate
checks and balances at the design stage.
Could you highlight the key precau-
tions that an IT administrator must
take while deploying any collabora-
tion tool?
I suppose it depends on the service you are
considering internally. For us, several of the
platforms are different. However, employ-
PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN
ees share links across the platforms and
inside the firewall, so while tighter integra-
tion might be ideal, I am not sure there
is any such single vendor, or service, that
would necessarily address all the specific
needs for any single organisation.
 UPDATE

NSN to acquire part of

TECH TRENDS

Motorola’s wireless biz
M&A | Nokia Siemens Network (NSN)
has announced plans to acquire
Motorola’s GSM, CDMA, WCDMA,
LTE, and WiMAX wireless assets for
US extends
its lead as a
top spammer
THE
COMPANIES IT security and control firm
EXPECT TO Sophos has published its latest re-
COMPLETE THE port that identifies the top 12 spam
ACQUISITION relaying countries, covering the
BY THE END OF second quarter of 2010. According
2010. to the report, the USA continues to
be the number one spam polluter,
piping out 15.2% of all global spam
messages, an increase from 13.1%
in the first quarter of 2010.
The UK, a nation that last year
fell out of the spam hall of shame,
- also saw a significant rise in the
proportion of spam it relayed.
area,” explained Julien Grivolas, The top spam relaying countries
Principal analyst, Ovum. for April to June, 2010, are as
“After its failed attempt to acquire follows—
Nortel’s CDMA/LTE assets, Motorola

India 7.7%
$1.2 billion. NSN will acquire several was NSN’s last potential target to

S Korea 4.2%
Brazil 5.5%
R&D centres as a part of the deal. achieve this goal. Huawei and ZTE

UK 4.6%
Also, approximately 7,500 Motorola were also in the mix, but would have
employees are expected to be trans- struggled to close such an acquisition USA (15.2%)

ferred to NSN. The companies expect
to complete the acquisition by the
end of 2010, subject to customary
closing conditions including regula-
tory approval.
“Having historically been out of
the CDMA business, NSN had a weak
position in the US market despite some
deals in the mobile core segment (such
as an IMS deal with Verizon Wireless
for its LTE project) and in the optical
for political reasons,” Grivolas adds.
Globally, this deal is mostly about
scale and reach. The deal also marks
NSN’s entry into the CDMA business,
as well as its comeback in the WiMAX
infrastructure market. Adding
Motorola’s wireless RAN assets –
which represented a turnover of $3.7
billion in 2009 – will make NSN
better positioned to compete against
Ericsson, Huawei, and Alcatel-Lucent.
According to the findings, the
best way for users and administra-
tors to reduce the risk of being
compromised is to run anti-spam
and anti-malware protections,
behave sensibly while online, and
ensure that their systems are up-
to-date with security patches.

NEWS @
BLOG
ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE IS SEXY AGAIN 
WITH PROHIBITIVE PRICING, long product cycles and user interfaces only a mother could love, the enter-
prise offerings of Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, and other big vendors, are about as appealing as Steve Ballmer in a
bikini | Aaron Levie, CEO and co-founder of Box.net in his blog post at <http://www.TechCrunch.com>

The guest post further quotes him as saying that the latest crop of enterprise
ILLUSTRATI ON: ANOOP PC

software companies are approaching business problems with the agility,

speed and mindset of consumer start-ups, bringing explosive innovation to
a traditionally stagnant, slow-moving market. To retain customers in this
incredibly competitive landscape, you’re forced to build better technology.

10 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
 MONEY WISE
OPINION CHINAR DESHPANDE
CEO, Creative IT India
Journey to the top!
The new IT Leader
B
usiness environment is
becoming so competitive,
and market dynamics are
changing so fast, that it has
become imperative for an
organisation to be flexible and incor-
porate easy-to-change process architec-
ture. It’s possible to adopt fluidity, only
if organisations have strong technology
backbones supporting business opera-
tions. As technology becomes the core
business driver, IT leadership has to
evolve to suit demands of the business
and stakeholders’ expectations.
Traditionally, IT functions of an end-
user organisation are divided into two
pillars of IT delivery; infrastructure and
business applications. This leads to a
situation wherein a IT personnel with
high-growth potential ends up focusing
on either infrastructure, or business. By
the time, he/she reaches the number two
spot in the IT function, all versatility is
lost. And an individual settles into a role
of a senior-most subject matter expert.
It is therefore imperative for senior IT
managers, aspiring to be the next CIOs,
to stop being specialists, and be sensitive
to the business. The journey to the top
can start by taking a few measures:
Becoming one with business: It is
critical for an IT leader to become a
part of the mainstream business, to be
recognised as a key influence. When
you understand challenges of business
teams, you are able to relate to their true
needs for solutions.
In order to achieve this one has to:
n Establish a rapport with key business
users across departments
nUnderstand business processes
n Participate in informal chats on
“It is critical for an IT
leader to become part
of the mainstream
business to be
recognized as the
key influencer in the
business”
business performance, challenges in day-
to-day operations, and external factors
influencing the company’s progress
nBecome aware of business targets set
for key people in departments
nIn short, speak the same language as
your internal customer
Measuring business benefits of IT:
Any technology initiative has to have
business needs. Its implementation
success has to be measurable in the
form of tangible business benefits.
In order to adopt this practice one can
follow a few steps such as:
n Capturing the business scenario
in quantifiable parameters before
starting an IT project. Ensuring that
the outcome of a project is measured in
n
terms of improvement in these numbers
Associate each IT project to goals
of key business leaders, which may
n
have to clear financial measures. This
allows one to assess the true return
Establish a balanced scorecard for
IT function in order to judge the
impact of IT on all four dimensions of
organisational improvement—viz.
a. Financial growth
b. Customer satisfaction
c. Internal process improvements
d. Learning of the organisation
Aspiring to be a game changer for
the business: IT function is no longer
a support function, but a business
enabler. But, one cannot stop at this.
To be a successful IT leader, it’s
important to identify opportunities
where technology can introduce a new
business model and offer a competitive
edge to the firm.
Any technology initiative that
empowers your organisation to create
markets, addresses customers differently,
or opens up new avenues of revenues and/
or profit-making, would automatically
put you in the leadership role.
Developing a friendly ecosystem:
Leadership in any field needs support of
friends, followers and alliances. Hence,
it is critical to establish a professional (or
personal) relationship with IT vendors,
implementation partners, consulting
companies and technology companies.
A senior IT professional has to get
as close to the business as possible and
establish a connect between technology
and business. One has to show
sensitivity towards the fact that money
is spent on each IT project. Hence, treat
it as an investment and show tangible
returns that catch the fancy of business
PHOTO GRAPHY: MEXY ZAVIE R
leaders. Ensure that you build a support
system that facilitates your career, both
internally as well as externally. Finally,
make a business impact through
technology-driven innovation—and the
crown is yours.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 11
 TECH TALK
SRINIVAS ANAPU,
OPINION VP (Enterprise Information Systems)
Mahindra Satyam
IT’s better with
governance
R
esearch conducted by MIT
has found that companies
with better than average
IT governance earn at
least 20% higher return
on assets than organisations with
weaker governance.
Government regulations require
companies to assess IT risks impacting
financial disclosure at stages of a
company’s lifespan, and to maintain the
effectiveness of the control environment
when information systems are changed,
updated, or expanded.
In other words, IT compliance is a
continuous process—compliance cost
cannot be looked at as a onetime cost.
IT governance is a framework which
ensures that technology decisions are
made in support of business goals
and objectives.
It provides the critical checks and
balances to better manage and mitigate
risk, standardise practices, streamline
procedures, and strengthen returns
on assets.
Companies should look at IT
compliance initiatives not like a duty
to accomplish, but like an opportunity
to exploit—to improve awareness of
accounting information systems, to
reduce IT risks, to enhance value of
financial information, and to gain the
trust of investors and financial markets.
Companies should transform IT
compliance from a cost driver to a
value driver—aligning IT compliance
initiatives with their strategic IT goals
and investments.
The roadmap for a well-conceived
IT compliance framework starts with
defining the scope of IT compliance and
12 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
“When aligned with
strategic IT goals
and investments,
IT compliance
transforms from a
cost driver to a value
driver”
mapping all operations comprising the
processes related to financial data. This
should be documented too.
Design a control against each of
the existing risks and threats for
data integrity. Evaluate each of these
controls and verify if they are able
to remediate the systems failure,
unauthorised accesses or human
mistakes in accounting.
Finally document and report all the
IT compliance activities so that this
requires a complete traceability of each
of the finance-related transactions.
The IT compliance activity is really
complex, especially for large compa-
nies that have subsidiaries in different
countries and are listed on different
stock exchanges. To support IT compli-
ance, standards like COSO and COBIT
are available to drive companies in the
right direction.
While it may sound expensive, you
can reduce the IT compliance cost by
encapsulating the compliance processes
into an automated system.
Besides, create a structured,
controlled software development
processes and apply best-practice
methodologies. Finally, ensure that you
develop specific compliance reports
and templates.  
While the IT compliance framework
is complex in nature, there are
fundamentally two types of controls
that this framework encapsulates. They
are the IT general controls and the IT
application controls.
The IT general controls should
reduce the risk of systems failure and
unauthorised access to programs and data,
thereby assuring the system’s integrity
after operations such as acquisition,
implementation, configuration and
maintenance of operating systems,
database management systems,
middleware, communication software
and utilities that run the system and allow
financial applications to function.
The IT applications controls aim to
verify the correct functioning of the
financial applications and of each of
the other process software producing
accounting entries. These controls
assure completeness, accuracy,
authorisation and affordable disclosure
for each financial transaction.
Finally we all have to understand
that while the CIO is the sponsor and
completely accountable for the data
governance in an organisation, the
responsibility lies with the respective
process owners and everyone directly
related to data governance.
 DEMOCRA T

14 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE | COVER STORY

A TISATION

From being a tool for

the head honchos, to
providing insight to
BI
BY S H AS H WAT D C

“Have I bitten more than I could possibly chew?”was a

the line managers, thought that flashed across Suresh Shanmugham’s head as
he got down to the deliverables that he had committed upon.

BI is undergoing a As head of IT at Mahindra & Mahindra Financial Services

Ltd (MMFSL), Suresh had in the operations committee meet-
ing promised to deliver growth in figures that were pointing
metamorphosis and with northwards in comparison to current numbers. The specific
product sales were not looking too optimistic either, but
it the way the companies Shanmugham had confidence in his team and on technology
and was confident on delivering the stiff targets.

conduct business is Among the many technologies in his armoury, Shanmugham

was banking heavily on Business Intelligence or BI to deliver
ILLUSTRATIO N: ANI L T

the goods. He knew that if MMFSL had to make headway

changing as well as a rural NBFC, the only way he could do the same was by

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 15
 COVER STORY | BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

empowering his workforce and making market trends. With the MF Connect 450 branches across the length and
strategic information readily available. (the handheld device) in their hands, breadth of India. The credit for success
Over the next few years, MMFSL each agent was a decision maker. And according to Shanmugham lies as much
agents in far-flung areas across the nation with this decentralisation of information, with technology as it does for people.
were empowered with a hand-held intelligence was effectively multiplied. “One of the distinguishing factors,
device that not only helped them record The result: In a decade, MMFSL was that we were able to empower
financial transaction, but also gave them has grown to be one of the largest our agents through the right tools and
insights on customer behaviour and rural NBFC in India, having over technology. This helped us to be agile
and realign ourselves to the shifting
market dynamics,” he states confidently.
The reason behind MMFSL’s
TOP 5 METHODS OF MONITORING PERFORMANCE success is not all that hard to guess. In
BI is still fairly in the infancy as far as performace monitoring is concerned today’s dynamic environment, the only
as only 10% of respondents were using it companies that will succed is the ones
that will be most agile and responsive to
Spreadsheets
ERP Reports/

MS Excel and
Dashboards

the changing scenario. BI,. as a tool, aids

Reports from Financial

(Base 207 and abets this agility.

Database Reports

30
respondents) Like it is often said that the proof of
the pudding is eating it, the success of
Applications

25
BI can too be measured in two simple
ways, how much revenue was added or
20
how much revenue was saved.
BI is particularly effective in these
15
times, where the problem is not the
BI

lack of information but information

10
overload. With data flowing in from
Other

different points within the organisation,

5 it becomes particularly cumbersome
26% 26% 19.1% 16.9% 10.4% 1.1% and almost impossible for someone to
0 collate all the data and then make much
sense from it. BI in conjunction with
business analytics (BA) helps do this
data crunching, to find trends, to bring
TOP 5 CHALLENGES IN BUSINESS insight from the information and open
PERFORMANCE MONITORING new vistas. While, more often the terms
The biggest concern with performance monitoring is still around BI and BA are used inter-changeably,
the issue of data integrity and security the essential difference is that while
BI tools are typically more focused on
measuring business performance using
from multiple applications

assigned metrics, BA takes a predictive

Lack of integrated data
Time taken to obtain

(Base 207
approach to business performance,
respondents)
People who need information do

using insights gained from a relatively

relevant data

vast set of data. Both, of course, serve as

Difficult to control control

decision making tools.

access to sensitive data

Reports too complex and

25
difficult to understand
not have access

Other

20 Traditional BI
Previously, BI was touted as a magic
15 wand–it could change business for-
tunes. Coming at a premium, these
10 standalone solutions–namely Cognos,
Hyperion, etc.–promised the moon;
5 agility, productivity and profitability.
Though, many did deliver, the crux lay
23.4% 21.1% 13.2% 11.6% 11.2% 19.2%
0 in how the application was integrated

16 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

with the existing infrastructure.
The system was dependent on the
information being supplied by other
enterprise applications. The focus
was on reporting, especially for the
honcho, on assessing the success (or
failure) of the business processes
and marketing initiatives.
BI was considered an additional
functionality, something that came
on top of other business applications,
like the cherry on top. Considering
the costs and issues with integration,
only big or aggressive players went
in for BI–after all it the magic wand
for revenue growth. Little wonder
then that the verticals that were the
biggest users of BI were also the ones
that were gunning for maximum
“The secret to BI’s
success is team
work. Participation
from all side of
business is not
only crucial but
critical”
—KRISHNAKUMAR
AVANOOR, CUSTOMER
CARE ASSOCIATE &
DGM, SOLUTIONS AND
TECHNOLOGY TEAM,
SHOPPER’S STOP
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE | COVER STORY
“A business
intelligence
solution focused
on vertical
needs shortens
the execution
cycle and adds
business value
for the customer”
—MANEESH SHARMA,
HEAD-BUSINESS USER &
PLATFORM, SAP INDIA
growth. Speaking from the Indian
context, BFSI and telecom were at
the forefront of economic growth.
Democratisation of BI
All that changed in the past decade.
The growth bubble burst and reces-
sion clouds appeared. Organisations
that were gunning for growth sud-
denly were grappling with suste-
nance. In that competitive landscape,
which had evolved over the years,
caught several enterprises unawares.
The result was mayhem– as compa-
nies were unprepared for both. Big
ticket companies, also using high-
end analytics software, were not able
to duck the trend, either.
With the realisation hitting the
management that saving the buck
was as important, (or probably more
important), than earning the buck–
scope and focus of BI was turned
inward. So, while BI was a telescope that
could look at new horizons outside, it
could also play a diagnostic role within
the enterprise.
It was also around this time that
another important change took place.
Companies realised that limiting the
access to BI reports to only the top
managers was not the best way to
function. Instead, if the whole platform
was more democratised, and reports
(specific to job profiles) were made
available to even line managers, the
enterprise’s agility would increased
by leaps and bounds. So, if market
intelligence, or customer insight, was
provided to even sales manager trying
to sell a product or service, it greatly
helped in closing a deal.
Again, banks and telecoms were
at the forefront of this change–
providing customer details to even
the customer-relationship officers
and sales representatives to help
them make an informed decision.
Suddenly, from being an ancillary tool,
BI became pervasive. It was no longer
an additional factor, but a must-have
for firms that wished to cut their loses
and grow. There was a shift– BI was
no longer focusing on data generation,
but on enabling efficient and smart
resource utilisation.
Verticalised Solution
One factors that enabled this shift
was the emergence of “verticalised BI
solutions”. Larger enterprises such
as software companies acquired BI
vendors–IBM acquired Cognos, SAP
acquired Business Objects, and Oracle
acquired Hyperion–looked at ways to
integrate features into their existing
offerings such as ERP and CRM. The
result was appreciated by all.
A reason why IT managers were
skeptical about BI was because of the
implementation issues. Integrating
BI suite with other existing enterprise
applications was a tough call– it
involved a lot of customised coding work
at the clients’ end. This customisation
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 17
 COVER STORY | BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

not only took a lot of time, but also
money. Result; people were never
satisfied with the output, as it was not
commensurate to efforts.
But, with enterprise vendors
offering an integrated suite with BI
capabilities that was specifically
aligned on a vertical basis, companies
were able to adopt BI into their
operations without quickly and
without hassle. Also the fact that
now BI had specific features based on
a space that a company operated in
greatly aided the adoption.
Companies are moving beyond the
traditional reporting and analysis
tools. They are increasingly banking
on capabilities that could assist them
with targeted data mining, dash-
boarding, collaboration, statistical
analysis and dimensional analysis.
Moreover, there has been a growing
uptake of customised analytical and
intelligence tools. Some enterprises
have felt that standardised models are
too complex and inadequate to meet
their needs effectively.
Maneesh Sharma, Head-Business
User & Platform, SAP India, reaffirms
his faith in verticalised solution.
“The reason behind the evolution
of verticalised BI solutions is the
specific requirement in any industry.
Each industry vertical has an unique
speciality segment, with specific BI
needs and pain points–unique data
structures, process patterns and
standards, job roles with industry-
specific responsibilities and KPI’s.
A business intelligence solution
focused on vertical needs shorten the
execution cycle and adds business
value for the customer.”
Concurs Nitin Singhal, Country
Manager, Information Management-
Software Group, IBM India (South
Asia). “As industry adoption of IT
matures and competitive differentiation
of IT reduces between similar
organisations, companies are looking
for faster implementation of key
initiatives and are leaning towards
preconfigure vertical solutions. Apart
from this, lack of standard business
definitions is continuing to inhibit
business transformation. Customers
want to spend time in bringing out
the potential from the information
available within the transactional and
non-transactional systems; rather
than spend time defining the basic
framework for the applicable BI”
Challenges remain
Even as BI adoption continues to grow, there
are two challenges that continue to haunt
decision revolving BI–data quality and cost
of solution. Take for instance the example
of Bank of India, one of the premier banks
in India. It has completed its first phase of
modernisation. Now, its looking at imple-
menting BI within enterprise. But, because
of its past legacy, it has huge amount of
records that are stored in silos and in an
unstructured manner, getting them in a

TOP REASONS TOP REASONS

FOR CHOOSING BI FOR NOT USING BI
BI is now considered to be more pervasive Over 25% of respondents still mentioned
and inward looking, as it is being used to costs as the main reason for not opting for
increase operational efficiencies BI solution

Improve business planning Cost & budget

Control Costs Satisfied with current system
Improve operational efficiencies Unclear about business
& cut waste benefits
Manage vendors and suppliers Unaware of solutions available
Manage inventories Haven’t thought about it in
detail
Explore new business
opportunities Lack of IT resources
Cut revenue leaks and
prevent fraud
Comply with regulations

18 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

central repository is a challenge. “We are
currently working on ways to collate all
data and records into a central location. To
ensure that it is clean and error free. Once
we have laid the foundation, we can move
to the next level, using business analytics
for growth and productivity,” explains
P.A. Kalyanasundar, GM-IT, Bank
of India.
Problems faced by BoI is a common
one. It is said that a BI, or BA, solution
can be only as good as the quality of
data. If the data is a suspect, it can lead
to an implementation failure, which
can prove to be catastrophic for any
organisation. Ensuring data integrity
across systems can be a nightmare
sometimes. This is ab area that can
be challenging for an IT manager
entrusted with the task.
“Heterogeneous
systems pose
a challenge, as
the application
aims to integrate
and analyse
information from
all areas of
business.”
—BINU LAKSHMAN,
MANAGER - IT, HONDA SIEL
CARS INDIA
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE | COVER STORY
When IT
managers
approach BI with
business buy-in,
there are benefits
that can be seen
immediately”
—NITIN SINGHAL,
COUNTRY MANAGER,
INFORMATION
MANAGEMENT-SOFTWARE
GROUP, IBM INDIA (SOUTH
ASIA)
The other tangle is to justify the
cost of implementation. Most of IT
managers often debate if it is really
worth the effort–considering the costs
and results. Singhal attempts to answer
the dilemma. “Previously the issue was
that an IT manager looked at the BI only
from a pure play-reporting perspective.
The first leg of implementation on
reporting business now demands
more capabilities from a platform. And
When IT managers approach BI with
business buy-in, there are benefits that
can be seen immediately.”
In fact, he goes on talk about how
a customer using IBM solution was
able to show a whopping 403% ROI
and a payback period of 3 month for a
predictive analytics implementation.
Going forward
The next big leap for BI would be a
movement towards hand-held devices.
In days to come BI systems will not only
reside on a server, but will also port on
to mobile devices. They will have access
to data and capability to perform ana-
lytics themselves, potentially enabling
use of optimisation and simulation
everywhere.
Bhavish Sood, Principal Analyst–BI,
Gartner (Asia Pacific), captures the shift
when he says, “Another way to view
this is as a ‘shift in timing’. Business
intelligence has provided us historical
analysis; powerful ways of analysing
what has already happened. We can
increase the scope of the information
that is analysed. We can reduce delays
between data creation and analysis. In
the future the step would be predicting
what can, or will, happen.”
Another development is BI on a
SaaS model, delivered over the cloud
seamlessly. As the cloud computing
market expands, the on-demand
business analytics model has been
getting much attention by the IT
managers. In fact, according to IDC,
the BI SaaS market is set to grow three
times faster than the overall business
analytics market with a CAGR of 22.4%
through 2013, though the base is indeed
much smaller now.
In the days to come, as the market
dynamics become more complex and
enterprises drown under TBs and
PBs of data, making sense of it all will
become extremely critical. And BI will
become more pervasive. And credible
information will be readily available
to the man of the ground. This will
help even the smaller companies to
compete with the behemoths. Or even
open up new markets or business
opportunities, like Shanmugham was
able to do for MMFSL.
Through the spread of relevant
information across the organisation,
not only are people empowered but
companies become profitable. And
whats good for the balance sheet,
needs to be good for all. So, let’s hail
the new avatar of BI, a refurbished
democratic one.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 19
 COVER STORY | BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE

INTERVIEW

MAIA Intelligence is a provider of BI and BA solutions that

are customised to the needs of users. In a conversation with
Shashwat DC, Sanjay Mehta, CEO, MAIA Intelligence, charts
out the evolution of BI and maps how the change is affecting
all the employees in an organisation.
BY S H AS H WAT D C

How has the shift in BI been from a tool of
revenue growth to that of productivity gain?
We have saved average daily time for our cus-
tomers by over 20 minutes in productivity on
reports for a normal user and over 90 minutes
for a power user. Besides productivity gains,
they got excellent insight on their own data and
different perspectives to analyse the same with
actionable information.
How do you view the evolution and
efficacy of verticalised BI solutions?
There are two types of verticalizations that are
happening in the BI space. One is in terms of
function, like balance sheet consolidation, and
the other by industry segments like healthcare
and logistics.
We could sense the requirements for balance
sheet consolidation from our customers for
quick closure of books through an error-free
analytics. So, financial consolidation is an area
that is seeing a lot of knitted BI solutions. Due
to heavy M&A activity and a stricter regulatory
environment, all branches, subsidiaries and
sister concerns of these organisations have to
have some common financial binding. And that
is where BI is capturing the screen space.
The big question is which industry can
be verticalised. Those industries that are
regulated and follow some standard procedures
are easier to verticalise. Going by that, BFSI,
pharmaceuticals and telcos obviously look
like hot segments. However, others like retail,
manufacturing, broking are not being left out.
Economics is another key factor. Not
all solutions can be viable from a cost
perspective. There is a cost challenge attached
to verticalisation. New fields, new reports, new
laws, all need constant up-gradation and we have
to understand how it can be technically deployed.
What are the steps that an IT manager
needs to undertake before selecting a
BI solution?

20 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

Keep in mind: the goal is not to find
the “best tool” but to find the “best fit.”
Every BI tool has its sweet spot. If you
deploy the tool outside its sweet spot,
you will see its weaknesses. A BI solu-
tion must integrate and align to deliver
maximum business value.
Most BI projects and applications
are motivated by a desire to derive
more value from existing IT
infrastructure and applications. The
selection of data integration and BI
tools should complement and leverage
these investments as much as possible.
It is therefore necessary to define a BI
architecture and vision to complement
the existing IT infrastructure. This
means considering the issues of
scalability, usability, security and
metadata from an overall system
perspective and not just from a stand-
alone tool perspective.
Likewise, it’s important to have an
overall BI applications roadmap that
specifies the type of BI applications to
be built and when. The architecture
(both infrastructure and information)
needs to be able to evolve over time
to meet the new applications and
changing business requirements. The
tools need to be able to support and
adapt to that evolution.
How big is the issue of integrating
the BI solution with other apps?
We have seen customers asking for
real-time reporting rather than waiting
for big bang data warehouse modelling
where this issue of data integration was
a concern. As the business is chang-
ing very quickly, near-enough is good
enough for business users. They expect
quick reporting and analytics rather
than wait for large data warehouse to
get ready and then use the same.
COVER STORY
Are the gains that accrue from BI
match up to the costs and pain of
implementation?
Budget cuts have been limiting long-
range thinking, requiring that new
projects provide extremely short-
term value. Yet, organisations can’t
lose sight of driving value over time.
Customers are opting for lightweight
BI solutions that are easy to install,
easy to use and which leverage existing
IT investments and data sources. Also,
they do not want to leave anybody out
– ensuring everyone has the metrics
they need to make competent, fact-
based decisions.
What are the top three challenges
in BI implementation and how they
can be addressed?
Cross organizational collaboration:
Data integration with multiple source
systems is still one of the biggest chal-
lenges. BI is has the potential to deliver
enormous payback, but demands
unprecedented collaboration. Where BI
is concerned, collaboration is not limited
to departments within the organisation;
it requires integration of knowledge
about customers, competition, market
conditions, vendors, partners, products
and employees at all levels.
Implementation time-lines:
Customers no longer like to wait for
a complete BI implementation to be
rolled out and see its benefits after a
year or so. They want instant access to
the reporting analysis from their data
within few days of the signup.
Foreseeing the real RoI: BI
implementations fail because they are
sold to IT departments and not to the
business users.
What are biggest trends that you
see in BI at the moment?
We see embedding of BI within appli-
cation as one of the biggest growth
areas. We are also looking forward to
new technology wave of Rich Internet
Applications (RIA) based BI. This kind
of intuitive GUI was never experienced
before by business users.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 21
 INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING

CLO U
As cloud computing continues to
roll over the landscape, many enter-
prise IT organisations still struggle
to resolve questions about its secu-
rity, reliability and resiliency. These
questions come up regardless of
whether companies are considering
a public or private cloud. Enterprise
IT leaders are examining the risks,
benefits and issues of this approach,
but many feel their judgment is still
too cloudy to make the leap. Discus-
sions at the industry group SHARE,
IT professionals voice concerns about
performance, availability, security,
resiliency and usage accounting.
  Cloud computing is a way of
delivering IT services and resources
PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

over the web, using rapid, self-service

I MAGING : SANTOS H KUSHWAHA

provisioning, while insulating the

user of the services or resources from
the management of the underlying IT
infrastructure. In other words, as a
consumer of IT resources, you can focus
on using the resources, rather than
managing them. So, you don’t have to

24 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

O UD? YES
WITH RIDERS
INVOLVED There are clear benefits to using the cloud
go through the hassles of procuring and
implementing hardware and software
to use IT resources.
  The benefits of cloud computing
for enterprise IT are pretty
straightforward and well-documented.
One of many benefits is that the cloud
greatly reduces the time to market for
developing new software applications.
That results from the significant
reduction in IT resource acquisition
time—in many cases, from weeks to
minutes. In addition, if enterprise IT
organisations are using a public cloud
approach, they have to pay only for
what they use, without committing
to a long-term relationship. When a
project is completed, the IT resources
PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN
are returned to the pool for reuse or
reallocation. That means companies
don’t have to make capital expenditures
to purchase their own IT resources,
which would have to be repurposed
once the initial project was completed
in order to continue justifying that
capital expenditure.
CLOUD COMPUTING | INSIGHT
model to facilitate the rapid availability of IT
resources, but it’s not for every enterprise
Underlying the cloud computing
model is the notion of automation, which
enables self-service provisioning, high
scalability, elasticity and ease of “return”
when no longer needed. This model has
been associated with virtualisation,
since virtualisation is typically required
to dynamically provision IT services or
resources. However, cloud computing
adds the capabilities of user self-service
request of services and automatic
fulfillment based on those requests.
Potential uses range from short-term
development, or test projects, to dynamic
incremental capacity for mission-critical,
customer-facing web sites.  applications want assurances of
Public or Private?
The two primary types of cloud deploy-
ment have been called “public” and “pri-
vate.” A public cloud refers to shared
IT services or resources (a multi-tenant
environment) obtained from a third-
party service provider, while a private
cloud is usually owned and managed in-
house. In some cases, a third party pro-
BY R AY M O N D J. SUN
vides a private cloud specifically for one
company. Examples of a public cloud
include Amazon EC2 (Elastic Compute
Cloud), Google AppEngine, IBM’s Blue
Cloud and Microsoft Azure. A public
cloud allows customers to create their
own images, and they pay only for their
hourly use, including data storage and
transfers. While a public cloud offers
the ultimate in convenience, a private
cloud seems to provide better control
and assurance of security and privacy.
 Regardless of which approach an
IT organisation takes, enterprises
t h at de p l oy m i s s i o n- c r i t i c a l
reasonable system responsiveness
through service-level agreements.
They also want protection through
data isolation in a multi-tenant
environment, fail over protection
to minimise service outages and
predictable recharge rates. Portability is
also an issue. For example, public cloud
users want to know if they can easily
change providers.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 25
 INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING
What about software licences? Can
they be moved from one cloud provider
to another?
  Another area of concern: When
an enterprise IT organisation is done
with its public cloud environment,
what assurance does it have that all
the private data that was used has
been removed?
Data privacy is a critical concern
that requires tight standards. since IT
organisations pay only for what they use.
There aren’t any facility or energy costs.
But that still leaves concerns about
public cloud security, resilience and
service. The public cloud does offer
security, but it’s still not clear to many
enterprise IT organisations whether
the level of security offered will meet
the needs of corporations that are
ENTERPRISES NEED TO CONDUCT A
BREAK-EVEN ANALYSIS TO
DETERMINE WHETHER A CLOUD
WOULD BE MORE COST-EFFECTIVE
notoriously protective of their data,
including credit card numbers and
medical records.
Convincing corporate security
management that data stored with
a third party is safe remains a
significant challenge, and there is also
the question of liability if any data is
compromised.
 Reliability is another major issue.
Public cloud providers offer reliable
environments in which replacement
instances can be created, but is that
good enough?
What about data and transactions
in flight? Do partially completed
transactions get backed out?
Enterprise IT typically has disaster-
recovery sites to take over operations if
there is an event at their primary site,
and significant effort is expended to
ensure the integrity of transactions.
And, of course, the price of cloud
computing is a key issue.
26 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
The public cloud offers pay per use,
which can provide low-cost options
for short-term projects. Still, for long-
term use, enterprise IT organisations
may be better off making a capital
investment to purchase additional
hardware and software.
Enterprises need to conduct a break-
even analysis to determine whether a
public or private cloud would be more
cost-effective for them. The public cloud
offers benefits for application development
resulting from rapid acquisition time and
reduced capital expenditures.
But for high-availability, data security
and privacy reasons, enterprise IT
organisations remain skeptical about
turning to the public cloud for mission-
critical applications, and for sensitive or
confidential data.  Those requests for service will be
Going Private
Many corporations are looking to ben-
efit from cloud computing. However,
since a number of them are concerned
about availability and security issues,
they are looking to private clouds, which
provide an ideal situation for enter-
prise servers and mainframes. These
environments are known for flexibility,
scalability, security and high utilisation,
as well as for optimising delivery of IT
resources to mixed workloads.
 These companies have enterprise IT
expertise and experience that can create
dynamic virtualised environments that
are ideally situated for success in the
private cloud model.
The combination of skilled staff and
attractive software pricing models for
virtual systems on enterprise servers
provides an appealing setting that
serves as an inexpensive, value-added
host for private cloud offerings.
The most common initial use for
the private cloud is to provide test
and development environments for
enterprise applications.
Developers are able to request resources
and almost immediately get access to an
environment on which to build and test
their applications. When the development
is complete, the resources can be returned
for use by others.
While cloud computing insulates
the IT user from the management of
the infrastructure, someone still has
to manage the IT resources. Private
clouds clearly have a major impact on IT
departments, since these organisations
will need to provide clouds with
additional capabilities to handle
dynamic provisioning and automated
request processes.
handled automatically without the
IT organisation’s intervention. Thus,
monitoring and balancing workloads
will need to be an ongoing focus.
Head in the cloud
Cloud computing is still an emerg-
ing capability, and many enterprise IT
organisations are just starting to poke
their heads in the cloud. For many, there
are more questions than answers. That’s
why we continue to examine some of the
early cloud implementations and look
to develop much-needed requirements
for IT providers, as well as best prac-
tices for managing cloud environments.
The enterprise IT community is evalu-
ating emerging cloud computing con-
cerns regarding service levels, the best
workloads, disaster recovery, help
desks, change-control issues, approval
and audit issues, and the management
of rapidly changing environments.
There are some very down-to-earth
benefits to using the cloud model
to facilitate rapid availability of IT
resources, whether public or private.
What is necessary now is a way to
document the needs of enterprise IT
managers to make both public and
private cloud computing more secure,
reliable, resilient and suitable for
mission-critical uses.
Create that, and they will be nothing
but blue skies ahead.
4 Edu Tech December 2009
 INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING
IS IT
RAIN
DRIZZLE?
Will cloud computing decimate internal IT?
Is it worth losing your sleep over its rise?
BY P R AT I M A H A R I G U N A N I
 The thing about underdogs is, well, they
are still dogs, and everyone likes them to win.
From the pages of The Godfather to the
blind alleys of politics; from the vuvuzela-
drowned battles to a corporate tug-of-war;
you will find them everywhere.
Crawling upwards silently, tip-toeing
in the stranglehold of their prey, and
shadowing its might while it snoozes
unaware; the underdog usurps it all.
May be that’s why the wise men know
that one should never underestimate small,
28 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
OR A
seemingly petite things. Anyone who does
so has yet not been bitten by a mosquito.
There’s more than just a mosquito
somewhere disturbing the sleep
I LLUSTRATIO N: SANTO SH KUSHWAHA
of some men nowadays. And this
is a breed of men who won’t let an
underdog shadow their power, or
shall we say, ‘cloud’ their power?
Ever since, the ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’
author Nicholas Carr, made another
new, big stir that needs absolutely no
introduction in CIO bastions today;

insomnia has become more than
Enrique’s copyright.
And why not?
Hardly a few budgets old, the ‘cloud’
phenomenon has made more noise and
more impact than any other new kid
who ever arrived. What is more, this
kid has all the power and prognosis to
elbow out the boys who have always run
the show, so far.
So far! Now that’s the operative word.
The argument that cloud’s advent can
hurt or challenge the very existence of
internal IT departments has naturally
started ‘hurting some brains.’
It’s not just applications any more.
The wave is touching networks, server
provisioning, infrastructure monitoring
and management, and what not. The
interesting part is that there is no sign
of it sucking back.
The way it has arrived and
announced itself – cloud computing,
certainly signifies a fundamental shift
in the role of IT in the way it removes
from IT much of its mundane chores.
Ok! But why the heck were we talking
about insomnia?
Here’s why.
The worry mercury was initiated
dramatically by Nicholas Carr, who
augured the rise of utility computing in
his second book, ‘The Big Switch.’
His argument that stirred many a
media pages, is, “IT would abandon
running their own IT infrastructures.”
What does that mean?
Simple—one may no longer need the
IT firemen or plumbers to keep things
up and running because someone
‘on-call’ is going to do to it much easily,
much cheaper and much faster. IT aka
your pizza delivery boy, could capsize
the traditional hulks, if the hypothesis
is interpreted right.
Teddy bear or bug bear?
So, while almost every vendor and
lighthouse customer is giving it the
bear hug, is cloud computing strong
enough to arrogate the power and
functions of traditional IT? Does it
not raise worries on new redundancy
spots, and thus a threat to internal  companies jumping into the cloud game
IT teams?
CLOUD COMPUTING | INSIGHT
Now on that, Carr’s theories have
some intellectual company. Another
maverick thinker, who has been vocal
against the likes of Google, takes the
same drift when it comes to cloud
computing power as a nemesis, albeit
in his own ways and arguments.
“Of course, to a guy like me, that just
means an opportunity to start another
niche service.” He quips first.
But ask Bob Massa, and there is more
HARDLY A FEW BUDGETS OLD,
‘CLOUD’ HAS MADE MORE NOISE AND
IMPACT THAN ANY OTHER NEW KID
THAT EVER ARRIVED
to the argument, as you discover.
Massa is a mind and a voice that will
go into the annals of history for more
than his coup d’etat of suing Google
some years back. His polemic, bold and
candid wisdom continues to challenge
perceptions again, when the word
‘cloud’ pops up.
“As for Mr. Carr, as much as I like to
think of myself as an optimist, I’m afraid
I tend to agree with his rather dark
vision of IT and how it is going to affect
business,” he opines.
“Once computing becomes a utility
and the collective sum of ‘data’ is stored
within the cloud and becomes available
to all but controlled by a few, then I can
certainly see where Carr may have a very
valid point. I know from experience that
technological advances run far ahead of
the ability of any country’s legal system
to keep up,” explains Massa.
Now that raises the quintessential
question again.
Can cloud computing have enough
potential (or promise) to sideline
erstwhile IT functions handled
internally? When and where will
internal IT be indispensable, cloud or
no cloud?
At the moment, there are several
and there is choice and competition as
the industry is driven by supply and
demand as it should be in a free market.
But, as Massa would underline here,
while it is true the cost of bandwidth and
storage is dropping, the resources required
to handle the amount of data we’re talking
about is still a huge barrier to entry of all but
those with the deepest of pockets.
“There is no question that in the
coming months there are going to be
mergers, acquisitions, takeovers and
buyouts.” In his incisive glance into the
future, Bob Massa, opens another volley
of questions.
“What effect is cloud computing
going to have on privacy, intellectual
property rights, open source
agreements, software licensing, and
so on?”
There could be more to be alarmed
about if what he prognosticates
comes true.
With everything on the cloud, there
is no guarantee that your competitor
won’t have your source code in his
back pocket tomorrow. There may be
many a cost associated with all that
cheap bandwidth, storage and access
to everything.
“Where’s your competitive advantage
when ‘everyone’ has access to the same
everything too?” He serves you a ‘too big
to chew’ question here.
Scared yet?
As is clear by now, cloud computing is
influencing a lot of intelligent debate.
At the same time, it has also started
impacting IT budgets and decisions in
a significant way. Yet, is there a negative
fine-print in this ballyhoo? How should
internal IT engines of an enterprise
interpret it? Cause for worry for IT
managers already?
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 29
 INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING
Bhavin Patel, Head IT, Fortis
Emergency Services feels that cloud will
certainly have a big edge for smaller firms.
“You have to understand that they
clearly lack the basic expertise of
handling all the processes related to IT,
for instance, administrative services.
Even today, over 80% of Indian SME
firms do not have any IT department
and that’s a large number.”
What, however, does matter for
any organisation is to plan things in
advance and have a clear roadmap of
the core requirement and scalability,
he advises. “Since it’s just the starting
phase of commercial deployment of
cloud computing, we need to explore
many options to get the picture right.”
Over-stated threat
It could yet be too insignificant or too
early a threat to worry about.
The advent of cloud computing
represents neither threat nor boon
to IT as a whole – it is merely a
natural evolutionary step in
the IT industry, argues a
research eye.
As with any
change, there will be
ACCORDING TO EXPERTS
THE ADVENT OF CLOUD COMPUTING
REPRESENTS NEITHER THREAT NOR
BOON TO IT AS A WHOLE – IT IS
MERELY A NATURAL EVOLUTIONARY
STEP IN THE IT INDUSTRY
some ‘losers’–either a reclassification
of personnel and internal IT assets
or administrative staff reduction as
cloud services replace traditional
infrastructure, as Jim Frey, Research
Director, Enterprise Management
Associates. (EMA) sees it.
“In my view, this will be much less
disruptive to personnel than the large-scale
outsourcing wave of the past,” he says.
EMA’s research indicates that
30 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
organisations that are actively engaging
external cloud services are using them
for non-business critical applications,
particularly as a means to better
accommodate workloads that are highly
variable in nature.
For instance, a suitable area is R&D
testing, where needs are periodic and
dedicated infrastructure often sits idle
a significant majority of the time, while
continuing to require the same level of
upkeep and administration as more fully
utilised infrastructure. Smaller companies
are looking to external cloud providers for
such services, while many larger companies
are using R&D as a pilot for testing internal
private cloud approaches.
Before you pack up
If data and trends from the likes of
Gartner show it right, cloud comput-
ing is slated to grab more adoption
horsepower ahead. Amongst the latest
reports, worldwide software as a service
(SaaS) revenue within the enterprise
application software market is fore-
cast to surpass $8.5 billion in 2010, up
14.1% from 2009 revenue of $7.5 billion,
according to Gartner.
Enterprises are loving the
transition to the utility-model, at least
some of them, strongly enough. And
maybe there’s some silver lining we
are missing yet.
So, will cloud computing just disrupt
IT or decimate it? Could it be a blessing
in disguise in any way, say a strategic
reorientation?
There is indeed a plus side, as EMA’s
Frey illustrates.
“It represents positive movement
80
%
of Indian SME
firms do not
have any IT
department
in India
towards service-oriented practices,
plus much greater leverage for
smaller organisations seeking access
to the same enabling technologies
that could otherwise only be reached
by larger organisations.”
Agreed. Writing an obit could
be blowing the argument out of
proportions, especially when IT men
have a logical defence.
“In my opinion what is critical
is security—prevention of data and
information leakage. Everything what
your company is doing, all that data
resides with the other party. IT team
is more relevant if one is relying on an
internal cloud,” Patel points out.
It is tempting to ask if cloud will be
big enough in the near future to make
in-house IT management a history, but
there may not be much of an actual
apprehension. Cloud will not find it
easy to sideline and muscle in, when it
comes to ‘roots’ of IT—the core.
What the cloud blitzkrieg will likely
do is to raise the bar a little up. For those
who don’t re-orient and re-align their
‘indispensability,’ a dark horse is not
always a pleasant surprise.
Forget horses, underdogs and
mosquitoes, it’s always handy to
remember that…no one suspects 
a butterfly.
Find similar stories online
on the website
www.itnext.in/Insight
4 Edu Tech December 2009
 INSIGHT | DATA DEDUPLICATION

doing
more
with less

Data de-duplication is not just about

saving capacity; it’s also about improving
the performance of storage systems
BY JAT I N D E R S I N G H
PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

In the age of shrinking IT budgets, and rising data volumes, finding an ideal
way to manage data in an organisation is seen as a challenging task for many IT
managers. Data redundancy makes it worse. While the issues related to storage
efficiencies are continuously discussed and debated, not much attention is paid
to address the issues surrounding to data redundancy.

32 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

Driven by the rising use of rich
media and e-mail applications and
given that policies favour storage at
more than one place, unstructured
data in organisations is witnessing an
astounding growth today. According
to a recent report released by IDC,
unstructured data in traditional data
centres will eclipse the growth of
transaction-based data that has so far
accounted for the bulk of enterprise
storage needs. The report further
projects that the transactional data will
see a compound annual growth rate
(CAGR) of 21.8%, while unstructured
data will grow at 61.7% at data centres.
Moreover, the critical data is estimated
to see 52% growth annually.
This situation has eventually
asked for an increased effort from IT
departments of the organisation to
minimise the total amount of storage
and network bandwidth required,
and to improve availability and lower
the total cost of ownership (TCO) in
terms of hardware, administration, and
environmental costs.
And that’s where tools like data
de-duplication comes to the rescue.
Often referred to as a cost-effective
information management tool, the
technology helps enterprises to address
the pressing IT challenges related to
effective usage of storage.
Smart storage
In simple terms, data de-dupli-
cation, also called intelligent com-
pression, refers to the elimination of
redundant data. It plays a role of a cat-
alyst in controlling storage costs and
helping enterprises to simplify opera-
tions and better manage workloads at
remote offices, virtual machines, and
data centres. By elminating the need
for additional hardware, it brings with
it economic benefits as well.
Let's understand how de-dup can solve
the puzzle of umpteen amount of growing
data that gets stored in an organisation.
Consider this: a marketing manager
sends out a 1MB presentation to each
member of his sales team, thereby
making the same presentation available
to 5-10 different mailboxes. Now, on the
DATA DEDUPLICATION | INSIGHT
enterprise storage and backup systems,
the same file may get copied in 10
locations, occupying a 10MB space, a
redundancy that is of no use.
Now by allowing the run of
deduplication process, the duplicate
data is deleted, leaving only one copy
of the data to be stored, leaving more
storage space more for you. It essentially
does three things-redundancy
identification, fingerprinting and
redundancy elimination.
“Data de-duplication helps IT
“YOUR DATA IS OF NO managers to utilise disk archiving
platforms, which means increased
USE, IF ITS QUALITY storage capacity at any given time,”
IS HAMPERED. says Gaurav Kohli, Consultant, Xebia
DATA QUALITY IS A IT Services.
For optimum usage, De-duplication
PROCESS RATHER hash calculations are created on the
THAN AN EVENT” target device as the data enters the
—Ashit Panjwani, Executive device, in real time. If the device spots
Director- Sales, Marketing and a block that it already stored on the
Alliances, SAS India system it does not store the new block
and instead just references to the
existing block.
"Regardless of the operating system,
applications, or the file system, all
data is written to storage by using
61.7%
data reference pointers. After that,
the catalogue and indices of all data
objects are maintained using hash
and a comparison between the two
data objects is made.” explains Suresh
Kakkar, Practice Manager, Wipro.
CAGR is the growth
“Moreover, if you are still using
tape as an alternate backup medium,
of unstructured data in the technology will help you to make
data centres smaller backup windows, which
Source: IDC means relatively lesser tapes. This
not only saves costs, but also eases
manageability,” Kohli notes.
Quality of data
80%
Up to
Apart from storage costs, duplication of
data also causes issues such as higher
bandwidth requirement for data recov-
ery (DR) implementation and delayed
backups. It also impacts manageability
of data.
of the data within “Management of data is perhaps
an organisation is the most intimidating challenge that
unstructured IT organisations face. They must
keep important information available
Source: Global Data Deduplication
Market 2009-2013 and protected, even as the amount of
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 33
 INSIGHT | DATA DEDUPLICATION

data grows at rapid pace,” says Vijay

Mhaskar, Vice President, Information
Management Group, Symantec India.
According to Shailesh Joshi, Head
IT, Godrej Properties, “With increasing
importance of compliance, digitisation
NEED
of corporate assets has gained
n Relentless data growth
tremendous importance. Moreover,
given the kind of market dynamics n High management cost
involved in storage
we have, high availability of data is of
prime importance.” n Huge backup and missed
More importantly, while most of us backups
will agree that the benefits of information n Growing virtualisation
as an asset are huge, one should not demands
forget that, if misrepresented, the same n Statuary requirements
information could easily transform into like high data retention
a serious liability for an organisation. period
To understand this, let’s consider
a situation where a telecom operator
sends promos pertaining to the new
value added services (VAS) services it
has launched, via text messages or e-mail
to its premium customers. However,
due to some transmission errors it ends
up sending out the same information
twice to some of its consumers. Worse,
some of those consumers had opted
for a do-not-disturb (DND) service a
few months ago. Expectedly, a series of
consumer complaints follow, and some
subscribers even threaten to switch to
another operator.
The key reason which resulted in
the given problem was the duplication
of data, which prompted the automatic
systems to send the mailers twice, or
thrice, to the same address.
Similarly, let’s take another example
of a household where every member of
the family takes the banking services
from a single bank. In this case, where
the bank has a household account, “WITH INCREASING “BY LOOKING AT THE
sending the same marketing mailer or
a call to each family member separately
IMPORTANCE OF AREAS WHERE ONE
does not entail a good logic. Therefore COMPLIANCE, CAN BENEFIT FROM
it is extremely important to put filters DIGITISATION DE-DUPLICATION,
which should resist marketers to send
repetitive messages, thereby wasting of
OF CORPORATE IT MANAGERS CAN
time of consumer. ASSETS HAS GAINED TAKE THE RIGHT
Says Ashit Panjwani, Executive TREMENDOUS DECISION”
Director-Sales, Marketing and
Alliances, SAS India, “Your data is
IMPORTANCE” —Vijay Mhaskar, Vice President,
—Shailesh Joshi, Head IT, Godrej Information Management Group,
absolutely of no use, if its quality is Symantec India
Properties
hampered. Data quality is a process
rather than an event. Both organisations

34 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
 DATA DEDUPLICATION | INSIGHT

BENEFITS
n  educes administrative costs and
R
lower disk costs
n Provides backup optimisation
n
OUTCOME
Improves the percentage of
n  elps to achieve green efficiencies
H
by reducing power, space and cooling data being backed up
needs n Storage that could be
n I mproves RTO and reliability, hence redeployed for backup de-
optimise for recovery duplication

n  nables and expands remote

E n Savings that would be
replication option realised if, say 50%, of
tapes were eliminated
n  liminates 80% of tape costs and
E
fends off the need to invest in n Removes any major
virtual tape libraries discrepancy in the quality
of data

and the IT managers need to generate
intelligent strategies for maintaining
its productivity in a consistent manner.
Over 70% of data is still unstructured
and data duplication is a major concern
area for organisations.”
Strategy De-duplication
For any IT manager who want to carry
out data de-duplication, the first step
is to be aware of what exactly can a de-
duplication solution do for the organi-
sation? The next step is to identify what
the solution can do beyond just elimi-
nating the redundant data? And finally,
what can be the additional benefits
that might bring the strategic value for
the organisation?
So the strategic value lies in
understanding the other benefits being
accrued. This includes benefits such
as bandwidth savings, faster backups,
backup consolidation, and easier
disaster recovery, depending on where
and how it is used.
“By looking at all the ways and
areas where one can benefit from
de-duplication, IT managers can take
the right decision on where to begin
using this powerful technology,” says
Mhaskar of Symantec India.
Before implementing, however,
one should try to measure the overall
requirement. For example, one could
estimate the percentage of data being
backed up currently and the savings
that would be achieved if 50% of tapes
were eliminated.
Today, there are solutions offering a
combination of both source and target
de-duplication to achieve even greater
storage savings and ROI.
For instance, a scalable data reduction
(SDR) based de-duplication solution
would offer fast and efficient data
snapshot capabilities.   The snapshots
can later be used to access information
that may have been inadvertently
deleted from an active volume. These
snapshots can be used for versioning,
for compliance purposes (to prove
the state of data at a specific point in
time), and as a fast and efficient data
restoration mechanism for recovering
any inadvertently deleted information.
The heavier-duty solutions can
de-duplicate data globally and at the
source for fast, secure backup and
recovery across the enterprise including
remote environments.
Having said that, there are also a few
downsides to de-duplication that one
should watch out for.
It is important to note that de-dupli-
cation, as it changes the data layout on
the disk, can affect the performance of
sequential read applications.
Another critical factor is to identify
the location where the software
agent need to put the controls which
deduplicate the process? While in few
cases, it is advisable to put the agents
at the source, thereby allowing each
and every server to take the backup,
many other instances demand real
backup appliance.
The methods can be workout depending
upon the IT policies and server inside the
business entity. While many vendors like
CA offer backup solution that work in both
the locations, many others are incapable to
provide such solutions.Also, selecting the
way that a deduplication apliance appear
to the backup software application is
very critical.
The selection should be hence
based on the backup software which
an organisation is already having.
Nevertheless, make sure to look for
vendors who have specialised skills
to understand your business and its
specialised storage requirements in the
long run.

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 35
 INSIGHT | VIRTUALISATION

VMware vSphere 4.1

LEADS
THE PACK
IT managers should ensure that the
new memory management, storage and
network control features of vSphere
4.1 lead to improved host utilisation and
REVIE
W automated scale from the VM systems.
BY C A M E R O N ST U R D E VA N T

VMware vSphere 4.1 continues to lead the

A vNetwork Distributed Switch can now assign priority to a variety of
traffic types.
enterprise virtual machine platform pack. New
memory management, storage and network con-
trol features enable resource pool creation that
improves scale while reducing performance
drags. Virtual machine management gains
increased importance in the vSphere 4.1 plat-
form, and IT managers should plan to have their
virtualisation experts devote themselves full
time to studying these new features to ensure
that they lead to improved host utilisation and
automated scale from the VM systems.
  During tests at eWEEK Labs, I learned that
vCenter 4.1—the command and control module of the
VMware virtual infrastructure world—is now 64-bit
only. As part of the move to vSphere 4.1, IT managers
should build in extra planning and migration time to
move any vCenter 4.0 or older servers to systems that
are running a 64-bit operating system.

36 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

vSphere 4.1 now adds a method to compress memory pages to reduce
swapping and improve performance.
  The payoff for the vCenter transition is a
substantial increase in the number of VMs per
cluster and the number of physical hosts that
each vCenter can handle. I was not able to test
the posted limits due to hardware constraints.
However, VMware states that the latest version
of vCenter can handle 3,000 VMs in a cluster
and up to 1,000 hosts per vCenter server.
 Both of these large numbers are a threefold
increase over the stated capacity of VMware
vSphere 4.0. Aside from the sizable scale increase
enabled in this version of vSphere 4.1, the main
advances in the platform are evolutionary
extensions of capabilities that improve how the
platform handles VM resource contention.
 During tests, I used the new I/O controls in
networking and storage to govern resource use.
IT managers who are already accustomed
to using resource controls in VM CPU
settings will have a leg up when it comes to
using I/O controls in both network and storage
areas. Even with the CPU control heritage, my
use of network and storage control features
revealed a fair number of “version 1” limitations.
Network I/O control prioritises network traffic
by type when using network resource pools
and the native VMware vNetwork Distributed
Switch. Network I/O control works only with
the 4.1 version of the vNetwork Distributed
Switch—not with the Cisco Nexus V1000 or
the standard switch from VMware.  screens, but there was nothing that would puzzle
Implementation is simple
While it takes advanced network expertise to
design and tune the policy that runs network I/O
VIRTUALISATION | INSIGHT
controls, the implementation of the feature is quite
simple. Entering the parameter changes to enable
the feature and set the specific physical network
adapter shares is simply a matter of walking
through a couple of configuration screens that are
easily accessed from the vSphere client. I was able
to assign a low, medium, normal, high or custom
setting that designated the number of network on
an iSCSI-connected storage array. It also works on
Fibre Channel-connected storage, but not on NFS
or Raw Device Mapping storage.
  Virtual machines can be limited based on
IOPS (I/O operations per second) or MB per
second. In either case, I used storage I/O controls
to limit some virtual machines in order to give
others priority. I found that the large number of
considerations—for example, each virtual disk
associated with each VM must be placed under
control for the limit to be enforced—meant that
I spent a great deal of time figuring policy to get
a modest amount of benefit when my systems
were running.
3,000 Memory innovation
VMs
VMware included a handy memory innovation
in vSphere 4.1 called “memory compression.”
and up to 1,000 IT managers should become familiar with
hosts per the feature as it is enabled by default. In my
vCenter server tests, I saw improvements in virtual machine
can be handled performance after I artificially constrained the
by the latest amount of physical host memory. As my virtual
version of v machine systems started to access memory
Center to handle test workloads, my EXS 4.1 system
started to compress virtual memory pages and
stored them in a compressed memory cache.
 Since accessing this memory is significantly
faster than swapping memory pages to disk,
the virtual machines ran much faster with this
feature than they did when it was disabled and
the same workloads were started. IT managers
should expect to devote at least several weeks
of expert analysis to determine the most
effective memory compression configuration
for each workload.
VMware did some housekeeping in the
incremental release of vSphere. The vSphere
client is still available in the vCenter 4.1
installation bits, but it is no longer included
in the ESX and ESXi code. There also were
some minor changes made to various interface
an experienced IT administrator.
Find similar stories
online on the
website
www.itnext.in/ Cameron Sturdevant is technical director for eweek labs,
Insight and can be reached at csturdevant@eweek.com. ©eWeek
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 37
 INTERVIEW | JIM WHITEHURST

38 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

“CONSUMERS
WILL DRIVE THE
TECH AGENDA”
Jim Whitehurst, President and CEO, Red Hat, in a conversation
with Geetaj Channana, says that technology vendors must listen to
customers and not only sell products
Have the platform
wars, like the ones
between Windows and
Linux, turned into service
oriented wars?
I think that platform wars are
moving more towards a stack war.
People are now looking for holis-
tic environments to build and run
applications. For most companies
it is not about choosing between
Unix or Linux, or Windows — it’s
all about the platform on which
developers will be developing
— that’s changing. With Red
Hat we have always been oper-
ating system centric, but now
we have to think about rea-
sonable well-integrated infra-
PHOTO GRAPHY: JI TE N GANDHI
structure components.
Would you agree that
vendors like you, Microsoft,
Amazon and Google, are
trying to oversimplify the
cloud in some manner?
JIM WHITEHURST | INTERVIEW
Yes, because I do not think cloud
is a product that a vendor brings
to the table. My view of cloud,
the way customers say cloud,
and what they really mean, is
a modern layered architecture,
where you have a choice of
those various layers and appli-
cation development capabilities
that delivers rich quick appli-
cation development. By defini-
tion, you cannot have cloud in a
box. So, I do think there is a bit
of an over-simplification.
Is there a disconnect
between what people are
asking for and what is
being delivered?
Absolutely. Most IT heads are not
ready to move their applications
outside of their data centre. There
is so much hype around cloud;
people are saying different things.
But, when I go to IT heads, I hear
three things –
1. They want to pay for what
they use, and when they use it –
they don’t like the model where
they buy all the software, and the
hardware, and take risks.
2. They want a layered modular
architecture which allows them to
move their applications and run it
where it is best.
3. Richer, better and faster
application development experience.
People hear the hype and they
think that it is cloud – which
does not necessarily mean
cloud. And cloud done wrong
actually makes these problems
worse. I think that is where the
disconnect is, because when
people say ‘cloud’ we literally
take it as an off-premise solution
to run functionality. I think that’s
a mistake, and is not really what
the customer is asking for.
You have said in your past
interviews that PCs would die
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 39
 INTERVIEW | JIM WHITEHURST

in the future – why and how?

PCs will exist, but they will be a
minority among devices because
of the explosion of the mobile. By
‘mobile’ I refer to mobile devices
and mobile broadband that have
changed radically the way we
interact with technology. The
iPhone, iPad, Android, the expe-
riences are getting richer.
The way we see the PC, may
exist on some desktops, but in
terms of computing devices,
it’s going to have a smaller
share everyday.

Earlier the enterprise drove

consumer technology
– now, do you think the
consumer is affecting the
enterprise more?
Oh yes! When I talk to IT heads
around the world, I hear over
and over again that they are
being forced to support con-
sumerist things like software as
a service or devices. And, they
have to do it, because everybody
is demanding it.
People are going to blog and
they are going to tweet, whether
you like it or not. So, CIOs have
had to set policies to help people
connect their personal devices. I
do think that it is a very different
world where innovation is being
led by certain Web 2.0 type
companies and they are setting
the pace for IT. And, it really puts
a lot of pressure on the CIO, not
only to support these devices and
applications, but also puts a lot of
pressure on the expectation levels
of what they should deliver.
I would also like to talk about
the death of version 2.0. There is
no Google Docs 2.0 or 3.0, there
is just rapid innovation that is
adding feature and functionality.
The whole programming model
that is being used inside of large
corporations has to change. And,
that is as much behaviour as it
is underlying technology. The
usual way was to plan a new
implementation and spend years
spec-ing it and coding it - then
many years later you introduce a
new product.
Would you say the role of an
IT head in an organisation
has changed from being a
guardian of technology to an
enabler of business?
I think that the role of the IT head
needs to change really to be an
enabler of the business, but, I’ll be
frank - half of them are still strug-
gling to keep the lights on, keeping
close to the budget, and just surviv-
ing - that they are not playing the
role that they need to play. When
80% of your costs are lights on, then
you are always concerned about
how you can keep those costs down.
Most IT heads need and want
to be strategic, but are completely
hampered by their IT infrastructure.
They have no time left whatsoever
“THE PROGRAMMING
MODEL BEING USED IN-
SIDE LARGE CORPORA-
TIONS HAS TO CHANGE.
IT IS AS MUCH BEHAV-
IOURS AS IT IS UNDER-
LYING TECHNOLOGY”
from keeping the lights on to focus
on strategic parts of the business.
But IT drives business – it
is a core of operation for many
businesses, and presents new
opportunities, but in a day-to-
day operation, the IT head is
more concerned about how to
keep their e-mail server running,
or how to keep their ERP going -
things like that.
That is why we see an interest
in the cloud because of the
Find other inter- frustration with what they have,
views online on
the website and what they have to maintain.
www.itnext. They think that “if I could source
in/resources/
interviews it from somewhere else, from this

40 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

miracle light shining on top of that hill,
it would make life so much easier.
But are people really doing that;
shoving the old things out of the
window and investing in the cloud;
or are they just talking about it?
Oh, they are just talking about it. There
are a lot of companies that are investing
in development and testing on Ama-
zon EC2 cloud, or the IBM cloud. But,
these are all development and tests, lots
of playing around. We also have some
companies pooling in and trying to set
up private clouds, but I would say that
these things are in the advanced R&D
stage now. And, most of it is because the
CIO’s boss, the CEO, or the CFO, is ask-
ing them about it.
Whenever I talk to the IT heads they
are sick of listening to the cloud!
This is because it is so far away from
really being able to deliver on the
components and the pain points like
flexible modular architecture, newer,
faster ways to develop functionality
and paying on what you use and when
you use it.
We think that it is the cloud – but
what is really happening is that the
technology industry does not listen
to the customer – we just take the
technology that we have, and shove it
down the customer’s throat. So, cloud,
from an IT industry perspective has
turned out to be a hammer, while
everything else is the nail, when
actually, there are screws out there. We
in the IT industry need a different tool.
That’s what I say in Red Hat’s
marketing too, if you want to pay by
the drink, we do that already with
our subscription model; you want a
layered modular architecture, we do
that already.
What we have to be careful about is
what we understand from customers on
what they think the cloud is, and so we
are delivering off-premise computing.
Off premise could be an option in the
long term, but what customers are
demanding now is a solution.
This is where the disconnect is, and this
is where I refer to the Gartner hype cycle
JIM WHITEHURST | INTERVIEW
– this is why there is going to be a valley
of discontent.
You entered pretty late into
virtualisation space. How do
you see yourself placed in the
market within the next three to
five years?
We see ourselves as one of the major
players. This is because going for-
ward, architecturally, virtualisation
will be a part of the operating system.
This is similar to the way 25 years ago
you used to buy the TCP/IP stack for
networking. Virtualisation is now a
feature in the operating system, it is
not a standalone layer.
VMware was the first to find the
market as a standalone hypervisor,
but there are so many architectural
constraints to that. I think our model
is superior. We made the switch in
November 2009, before that we were
offering our version of Xen. And it
was painful for us to explain to our
large base of customers why we were
making the change. But, it is really
the next generation of virtualisation
that is built into the operating system.
You can get the benefit of reusing the
code and security.
Secondly, you get the power of
open source and Linux for hardware
management. This is what we
announced with KVM. In the Fall
when Red Hat 6 comes out, it will
blow away ESX, whether it is in terms
of performance, the number of cores
supported, server density and other
things. And I wish I could take credit for
that, but that credit goes to Intel.
In five years, our virtualisation
share will be roughly the same as our
operating systems share. It will be
difficult to say the same for VMware
though, when Microsoft and Red Hat
both integrate virtualisation, in our
underlying operating system.
This is a very interesting
relationship that you share with
VMware – you compete with them,
yet you support the same too.
Yes, it’s the same with Microsoft. We
support HyperV on Red Hat Enter-
prise Linux (REL) and they support
REL on Windows. It’s an interesting
set of relationships, and it is really
important. The key to the next genera-
tion data centres is that they have to
be layered. So, we are adamant that we
will neither lock layers, nor provide
the alternatives that our customers
want at each layer. We have something
called ‘cloud foundation’ for that.
It is important for us because we
cannot come out with a cloud in a box.
Thus, it is about giving your customers
choice, at the hypervisor level, at the
operating system level, at the messaging
layer, application layer, all the way up
the stack. We call it cloud foundation
because it is foundational elements
that you can take and set up together.
They would help you build and manage
cloud. That does not mean that it all
has to be on the cloud – it could be on
ESX or on Windows. Quite frankly, you
cannot run ESX without buying their
management suite. You are tied to the
layer and stack together. The problem is
that as soon as you tie them together, it
is very difficult to move things around
because you have to hardcode the links.
On the other hand, if you have a nice
clean layered model, you do not face
these problems.
However, this creates a problem for
vendors, as it is difficult to make money
in these models because they are unable
to lock-in their customers. A lot of these
spaghetti architectures keep the cash
registers ringing.
Finally, how do you see Red
Hat evolving over the next five
years?
We are focused on defining the 21st cen-
tury enterprise architecture. We may
not deliver that architecture; but we
will deliver com[ponents of it, if not the
whole. We are working hard to ensure
that this architecture is defined by open
layers that give, customers a choice at
each and every layer.
This is a hypervisor that is open
and inclusive, an operating system
that can run on any hypervisor, and
application server that can run on any
operating system.
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 41
 INSIGHT | Wi- fi

SECURING the
AIRWAVES A Wi-Fi plan should be robust enough to address
security concerns and clean enough to keep
legal risks at bay
BY B E R J ES E R I C S H R O F F

42 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0

Aren’t we all at some stage dis-
gusted to see the mesh of those wires
connected to our computers? Don’t
we wish we could make it clutter-
free by getting rid of at least some of
the wires? Don’t we wish we could
connect to the Internet or access the
printer without those wires, securely?
Well, Wi-Fi lets users access the
Internet and other network resources,
without the hassles of plugging in
the Ethernet cable. It offers them
convenience of moving their machines
around the office, without losing
connection to the Internet or other
network resources.
Installing a Wi-Fi LAN in the office
initially helps you set up the network
for a fraction of the cost, especially if
your office does not have structured
cabling. Wireless access to the Internet
at airports, restaurants and coffee shops
is all courtesy Wi-Fi.
However, like most good things
in life, Wi-Fi comes with its share of
drawbacks. These negatives appear
in the form of security risks, which
can be of various types. These could
compromise your confidential data,
lead to theft of bandwidth resources,
amount to a legal action against your
organisation and in some extreme cases
even land you behind bars!
Considering all these risks, is
the convenience of Wi-Fi worth it?
Alternatively, can we protect ourselves
and the organisation against these risks,
and at the same time take advantage of
the benefits Wi-Fi has to offer?
While there cannot be complete
security, there are ways to mitigate,
and to an extent, circumvent some
of these risks. So how should
an organisation go about taking
advantage of the technology and at the
same time, protect itself from the risks
identified above?
IMAGI NG: SANTO SH KUSH WAHA
It all starts with
planning
Planning the strategic location to install
the access points, the strength of these
strategically placed access points, who
in the organisation can and cannot use
the Wi-Fi technology (including visi-
tors), and the security levels of Wi-Fi
such as authentication or encryption
are all very important prior to even pro-
curing the infrastructure.
Aspects such as thickness and
material of the outer walls and ceilings,
and those of the different cabins inside
also play an important part in the
planning process.
Why is all this so
important?
Well, let’s say that you have installed
an access point near a window, or
maybe close by, which causes the sig-
nal to leak outside the office. A person
with a laptop in the opposite building
or maybe even a floor above or below
your office is able to access the Inter-
STRONG PASSWORDS RESIST BEING
COMPROMISED THROUGH BRUTE
FORCE ATTACKS. DISABLING SSID
BROADCAST FURTHER MITIGATES
RISKS
net using your facility. He is now going
to ‘steal’ your bandwidth resource to
access the Internet.
Not much harm done here, but what
if this person now uses your Internet
facility through Wi-Fi, to hack into
another organisation? How would you
ever be able to trace this person? Like
it or not, legally, it’s your organisation
that is going to get penalised. Of course,
this intruder can also hack into your
own network, thus compromising your
organisation’s confidential data. And
once again, how are you ever going to
be able to trace him or her?
Securing the
installation
Let us address some technical aspects
of securing a Wi-Fi installation in your
organisation. Start by using strong
passwords, to prevent the likelihood
of this being compromised through
brute force attacks. Also, it’s strongly
Wi- fi | INSIGHT
advisable to rename the default
administrator user name. Disabling
the SSID broadcast i.e. your network’s
‘name’ is a good idea and mitigates the
risk of an attack.
Restricting access through MAC
address filtering will not deter a hard-
core hacker, as MAC address spoofing is
not that great a deal, but a combination
of disabling the SSID broadcast and
restricting access through MAC address
filtering, will deter most novice hackers or
script kiddies from compromising your
Wi-Fi facility. Although it’s not always
possible to do so, especially in large
organisations, it’s a good idea to switch
off a Wi-Fi network when not in use.
Personally, I am very uncomfortable
with DHCP and prefer using static IP
addresses, as this definitely helps as an
added layer of security, in spite of its
slight inconvenience. Ensure that your
router’s firewall is not disabled while on
the other hand, firewall on all desktops
and laptops is enabled.
Encryption scrambles messages
sent over the air. Deploying encryption
technologies such as WPA2 with EAP
authentication, TKIP/RC4 or AES-
CCMP encryption technology, is a must
for large organisations and depending
on the nature of the business, this is
applicable to SMBs too. WEP encryption
is outdated and should be avoided at
all costs, as it can be compromised in a
matter of minutes. Also, there is nothing
stopping you from deploying a second
layer of encryption, for added security.
Deploying a Remote Authentication
Dial In User Service (RADIUS) server
for authentication, authorisation and
accountability should definitely not
be overlooked by medium and large
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 43
 INSIGHT | Wi- fi
2
Prepare a detailed plan for Wi-Fi
installation
Ensure strong passwords are used
and the default administrator user-
name is changed
3 Deploy encryption technologies such
as WPA2 with EAP authentication,
TKIP/RC4 or AES-CCMP, but avoid
WEP which is outdated
EDUCATING USERS ON SAFE USAGE
OF WI-FI WILL HELP CONTROL
COSTS FOR DEPLOYMENT OF
EXPENSIVE TECHNOLOGIES SUCH
AS JAMMERS
organisations. This will ensure that
the user is authenticated before being
authorised to access the network and at
the same time, a track is kept of usage in
terms of time and data transferred.
The IT manager of an organisation
must be aware that there exists a
plethora of free downloadable software
on the Internet for detecting presence
of Wi-Fi devices and hacking Wi-Fi
facilities or capturing and deciphering
packets. The IT manager must also be
aware of the laws relating to Wi-Fi and
the consequences of a Wi-Fi system
being compromised.
Education is key
Educating users is a very important
aspect, which sadly gets neglected
by the best of organisations. Even
in the absence of a Wi-Fi facility in
your organisation, educating laptop
users regarding Wi-Fi security is
absolutely essential.
There are multiple dimension of
educating them. It is important that
they know about the risks involved
when using Wi-Fi in public places
like coffee shops and airports and
how these risks can be mitigated, but
44 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
7 4
REMEMBER
POINTS TO
it is more important that they are
aware of the risks when they are in
office, even when your organisation
has decided against deploying
Wi-Fi technology and your LAN is
a wired network.
How? Well, your laptop users may
access Wi-Fi at home or at airports
and when they return to office, most
of the time, Wi-Fi on their laptops is
still enabled. As a result of this, they
will be prompted of the presence of
any external Wi-Fi signals leaking
into your building / office. Either
intentionally or unintentionally, a
user may clicks ‘yes,’ to connect to this
external network, which could very
well be from a rogue access point. In
this case, without the user’s knowledge,
the hacker can compromise not only
the user’s laptop, but your entire LAN
security with firewalls and IDS and
IPS. All your security precautions
could go for a toss.
If you are able to detect, or an audit
reveals presence of rogue signals in
your office building, then a solution
might be to install jammers to prevent
those signals from entering your
organisation’s premise. However, this
5
Disable SSID broadcast and restrict
access through MAC filtering
Ensure firewalls are enabled on all
devices, including laptops
6 Educate your users for safe usage of
Wi-Fi
7 Conduct periodic IT audits
could be an expensive proposition, and
educating users on a regular basis is
the cheapest and best alternative. Also,
software to ensure that at any given point
in time, only one network connection can
be present on a laptop is available. This
solution too, can address the risk.
The IT manager should, even in the
absence of Wi-Fi deployment in the
organisation, have the network audited
for rogue signals, for reasons mentioned
above. If Wi-Fi is deployed, then apart
from the security measures such as
encryption and authentication methods
used, the audit must also include rogue
signals leaking into the office. At the
same time, audit for signals leaking
outside the organisation from your own
network should also be carried out.
There are even phones under
development that would help
organisations to switch seamlessly
from cellular networks to wifi networks
without a call drop.
Be it a wireless or a wired network,
educating users and scheduling
periodic audits is extremely important.
Educating users on safe usage of
Wi-Fi could help you control costs for
deployment of expensive technologies
such as jammers, while periodic audits
will enable you to identify the loopholes
and plug those. Many organisations
ignore these two activities and as
a result, end up spending more on
technologies while also increasing the
risk of their organisation’s data being
compromised.
The author is Manager–Information Technology,
Tata Services Limited
 15MINUTE
TRAINING
EDUCATION
WORKPLACE
COPING
WITH
CTS
IT Strat Social only? No More THIS PAGE
MANAGER

Golf Basics Dummies guide to golfing PAGE 50

COMPENSATION PAGE 48
WORKFORCE TRENDS Manage IT Sweat your IT assets PAGE 51
SKILLS DEVELOPMENT Training Calendar Career booster courses PAGE 52
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

BY P R AV I N SAVA N T

E
veryone seems to agree and
predict that social media
is the next thing to watch
out for. The numbers and
analysis seem to agree as
well. Some findings suggest that social
media is growing by 100% in India, and
that the country is the fastest growing
country on LinkedIn.
Social media is definitely a buzz
word today, and every now and then,
one comes across a reference or an
article on it in business magazines and
IT journals.

The rise and the spread

As everybody knows, social media first
gained acceptance and prominence
among individuals, particularly the
IT STRAT

SOCIAL ONLY?
youngsters. Be it Orkut or Facebook,
social media was first embraced by
individuals who recognised its power
as a platform to connect and reconnect

NO MORE
with their friends and families. Later
benefits included knowledge sharing,
recruitment referrals and of course, fun
I LLUSTRATIO N: ANO OP PC

and entertainment. Very soon, it became

a way of life. A vast population of young
individuals became very comfortable To leverage benefits of social media for
using social media.
These early adopters carried the
your organisation, the approach has to be
experience and expectations into their strategic and not just social

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 45
 15-MINUTE MANAGER
workplaces. They wished and expected
that the ease and comfort with which
they connected with their friends
on social networking sites should be
replicated when they connected with
their peers at offices. Their main point
of argument was that why should it take
more time to search for any info on the
intranet for official work.
Before long, corporates started
recognising the huge user base and
growth of this media and the buzz
started to get around on the social media
and the opportunities it presented.
What are those opportunities?
The answer, unfortunately, is not
as straightforward as setting up an
email account or creating a Blackberry
interface for it. Each social media site
has to be seen as a different channel.
Opportunities at a
glance
Media and advertising necessarily fol-
low consumer attention, which is shift-
ing towards social media in a big way.
Internationally, most media companies,
large and small, have mounted some
sort of response to the phenomena of
social media: they’ve launched their
own blogs, added consumer commen-
tary and Web 2.0 features to their sites,
built or bought online communities,
and promoted or distributed media
products in online social environments.
The biggest advantage that this
platform brings to the table is that it
cuts across the entire value chain. Your
stakeholders, competitors, customers,
suppliers, agencies, employees, future
prospects--all are on a common
platform. It can cut both ways, as BP
recently found out with negative PR.
Therefore, it is all the more important
that one approaches it with some
thought rather than taking an “I too
need to have something” approach. In
this context, answering some simple
questions will be useful:
n  How does this impact my
organisation and specifically my
function or my team?
n How does it affect my customers?
n  Does it throw open some
opportunities in the recruitment area?
46 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
HEALTHY LIVING
COPING WITH CTS
Are you experiencing excessive pain in the
CTS FACTSHEET
fingers of your hands, or a strange tingling
CTS IS THE #1
REPORTED MEDICAL
PROBLEM, ACCOUNT-
sensation? Are you also a heavy user of tech-
nology, spending many hours on a computer or
ING FOR ABOUT 50%
OF ALL WORK-REL ATED
a smart-phone? If your answer to both these
INJURIES
PRESENTLY, 25% OF ALL
queries are in the affirmative, then you might
COMPUTER OPERATORS
HAVE CTS
be afflicted with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome or
WOMEN ARE T WICE AS
CTS. This common ailment usually afflicts the
LIKELY TO DEVELOP CTS
AS OPPOSED TO THEIR
fingers of the hand, but one may experience
MALE COUNTERPARTS
pain, numbness and tingling sensations in the
THE FAIL RATE FOR CAR-
PAL TUNNEL SURGERY
arm, which may extend to the shoulder and
IS OVER 50%
neck area. Here are some tips on how to reduce
CTS pain:
Stretch and Clench: There are various
Blackberry thumb is a stretching exercises of the wrist that are known
neologism that posits to relieve the pressure that gets built up. One
a form of repetitive of the most basic and effective exercise is to
strain injury caused rotate your wrists clockwise and counter-clock-
by the frequent use of wise, and clench and unclench your wrists.
the thumb(s) to press Immobilizing braces: A rigid splint can
buttons on PDAs, smart keep the wrist straight. A wrist splint helps
phones, or other mobile limit numbness by limiting wrist flexion. Night
devices. splinting helps patients sleep.
Localized corticosteroid injections: Corti-
costeroid injections can be quite effective for
temporary relief from symptoms of CTS for
a short time frame while a patient develops
a longterm strategy that fits with his/her
PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN
lifestyle.
PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTOS .CO M
Medications: In special circumstances,
various drugs can ease the pain and swelling
associated with CTS. Nonsteroidal anti-inflam-
matory drugs, such as aspirin, ibuprofen, and
other nonprescription pain relievers, may ease
symptoms that have been present for a short
time or have been caused by strenuous activity.
 n What is the impact for my alliance
partners, distributors and suppliers?
n  How does this change the
technology landscape?
The idea is to first decide the needs
and the corresponding approach and
then look around for the platform
that is best suited. You probably
cannot have a Twitter strategy or a
Facebook strategy.
Taking a closer look
Each social media needs to be leveraged
differently, based on its specialties.
LinkedIn: Most of us know that
LinkedIn is an online network useful
for sharing our professional updates
with people with whom we like to be
linked. Additionally:
n  Most of the Fortune 500 companies
are represented at LinkedIn and many
of them are represented by director-
level and above employees.
n  More than 70 million experienced
professionals from around the world
representing 130 industries are on
LinkedIn.
n People with more than twenty
connections are thirty-four times
more likely to be approached with a
job opportunity than people with less
than five.
n There are also about 130,000
recruiters listed.
n Importantly, LinkedIn has over 6
million members in India.
n One new member was reportedly
added every 7 seconds in India over the
past few months.
Here are some of the ways in
which LinkedIn can be used at your
organisation:
n Check references for potential
hires.
n  Get advice using LinkedIn
Answers.
n Do research and get to know a
company.
n Discuss a topic on a forum and get
feedback.
Recently, as part of an evaluation
around feasibility to have employee-
owned assets, I started a discussion
at the CIO Club group forum. Within
a short period of time, there were a
number of comments and feedback,
which helped in the formulation of
the strategy.
Facebook: Facebook has over 500
million users, out of which about 9
million  people are in India, as of June
2010, and that number continues
to grow steadily. It is the third-most
trafficked website in the world (behind
Google and Yahoo) and the most
trafficked social media site in the world.
As early as July 2007, Facebook started
calling itself one of the leading people
and social search engines on the web,
though some disagree with that.
Here are some business goals for
using Facebook:
n  Reach to people who are searching
for your products or services.
n Connect and engage with current
and potential customers.
n Create a community around your
business.
n  Promote content that your
organisation creates, including
webinars, blog articles, or other
resources.
Some of the good examples of
Facebook are: Amul Butter’s Facebook

HANDLING SOCIAL MEDIA: THE CHALLENGES

While everyone seems to agree that social media important, not many have a clear strategy or action
plan to explore and exploit it. There is often a dilemma when attempting to answer the following:

What about
Do we allow the privacy of Do we encourage
all sites to be What guidelines content? greater usage of
accessed by all are to be given internal sources like
employees? on publishing the intranet or allow Do we only
corporate content creation of sub-sites focus on
and even personal at popular forums? customer
views and personal
feedback or
information?
complaints?

Do we have the
right to monitor Do we engage
How much do we
and the means someone else to
invest in terms of
to measure its do it for us?
Should we explore time or money in
impact?
and rather focus this area?
on CSR initiatives
at these sites?

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 47
 15-MINUTE MANAGER

GOLF BASICS page is a repository of all the Amul Butter

DUMMIES GUIDE TO print ads and a way for the company to

share its platform with its customers.

GOLFING
Without an iota of doubt, golf is one of the most popular sports on the planet, espe-
Likewise, Vodafone zoo zoo is a good
example of usage of this platform which
over 6 lakh people claim to like.
cially with the rich and famous. In fact, it is often said that some of the biggest deals
Twitter: While Twitter gives us a
are not worked out in boardrooms, but on the golf course. So, before you pick up the
space to express “what are you doing
club to swing in the tee, here is a basic guide on what you need to know:
right now” in a quick 140 words, it has
some far-reaching impacts, which have
been used well by some organisations
and some business leaders in India.
Anand Mahindra is one of those few
who have been on Twitter and it’s been
simply amazing to observe the impact.
He has more than 86,000 followers.
Dell has found a way to use Twitter
to generate sales and says it surpassed
$3 million in sales attributed to Twitter.
Dell has now taken its Twitter campaign
to a new level by offering discounts
exclusively to people who follow @
DellOutlet.

Start with the gear: The biggest issue for a beginner is to decide on Summing it up
1 which club to use for which shot. The best thing to do when you are start- Social media offers structured ways to
ing out is to stick to just a few clubs, using only those. After you practice a little, track the relevant feedbacks and inputs
you will get the feel of what is required, understanding the differences between for your organisation, and the benefits
each club. this brings to the business can be critical
and valuable.
Gripping it right: How to grip the club is another bewildering thing for
2 most beginners. Well, here is one. Both your hands should work like a
However, it is important to note that lever-
aging the social media is a continuous and
single unit, each palm facing the other, as if joining your hands to pray. In order
gradual process. It is easy to start, but it
to check this out, get into the starting position, standing with your feet apart with
takes quite an effort to sustain the drive
your knees slightly bent, and then just bend your wrists and lift the club-head up.
and consequently the interest of an inter-
If you find that you can swing the shaft up straight, to the middle of your head,
active audience. It is therefore necessary
without the angle of the face changing, that means you have a good grip.
to keep the following considerations in
Pre-shot routine: Before every shot, most, if not all golfers, have a view when building a social media pres-
3 specific routine for getting ready. They may move a certain way, practice ence:
visualization of a successful shot, or concentrate on something motivating. This n It requires a long-term strategic
would be defined as a pre-shot routine. Every player has a unique prep ritual. thought process
n It’s not about getting lost in a sea
Tips for putting: Putting is probably one of the most important skills you
4 will need to develop. You need to master the pace, first of all. You can do
of Internet, but more about addressing a
focused, targeted audience that matters
this by practicing acquiring a smooth rhythm of putting. There are no particular
n  The objective should be clear
rules about addressing the ball; just keep practicing until you get a reliable and
and the benefits need to be visualised
smooth stroke.
in advance, so that the activities are
Matchplay: This term refers to the original way that golf was played - aligned to the goals
5 hole-to-hole. Whoever scores lowest on the first hole is the winner of that n It’s not technology, but a business
PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTO S.C OM

hole, and then goes “one up”. Then, the winner on the second hole goes “two up”. initiative
This score pattern continues for each hole thereafter. If you lose a hole, then you As for the outcome, it may be complex
go “down one”. If a hole is tied, you then “halve” the hole. The final outcome is de- enough for even Paul the octopus to
cided by how many holes you are either up or down by, compared to the number predict!
of holes left. For example, if you are 4 up with only 4 holes left in the game, you
are the winner of the match. The author is CTO, Lowe Lintas (IPG)

48 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
 MANAGE IT
SWEAT YOUR
IT ASSETS
An asset management system will
help you draw maximum leverage
from IT investments in your
organisation
BY SAT Y E N D R A P T R I PAT HI
I
T asset management is very
important for any organisation.
It refers not only to managing
the IT assets but also amounts to
their effective utilisation, optimi-
ILLUSTRATI ON: ANOOP PC
sation or virtualisation.
Asset management starts from the
organisation’s business requirement.
It is the prime responsibility of IT
managers to assess and ensure that the
right kinds of assets are bought into the
organisation. Once the procurement
process starts, it ends with the asset’s
complete life cycle management. Here,
assets are not only hardware but
also include software in the business
environment.
A typical asset management process
goes through the following life cycle:
n  New business requirement
n  Request and approval process
n  Procurement management
n  Life cycle management
n   Redeployment and disposal
management
IT asset management practices are
process-driven and matured through
iterative and continual improvement
process. Asset management data is
very important and is required in an
organisation at various levels such as
end users, budget managers, IT service
departments (for providing information
on warranties), and finance (for invoice
reconciliation and updates for fixed
asset inventories).
IT asset management is a very
challenging task for IT managers since
many organisations normally outsource
the whole asset management part and
don’t have a single integrated asset
management application to manage IT
assets. In addition, due to high attrition
rates, assets are re-allocated to different
employees at different locations as per
the business needs normally, but that
doesn’t get automatically updated.
Manual verification of asset data is also
not fool proof due to human errors; so,
the sanctity of asset data is in question
most of the time.
IT asset inventory is very critical
for many management decisions like
opting for some newer technology
for business benefits, asset upgrade
decision, and asset optimisation or
virtualisation decision. IT managers
struggle to maintain accurate asset
details in large organisations in
the absence of an integrated asset
management system.
IT assets data requires best business
practices to be in place to manage it
properly. It is advisable that IT managers
adopt a process-driven approach and
follow best business practices. A good
IT asset management system must have
linkage with helpdesk management. It will
be even better if it is also integrated with HR,
procurement and finance systems.
One way of adopting best business
practices is to drive an ISO 20000 or
Information Technology Infrastructure
Library (ITIL) certification in the
organisation. This will really help a lot in
building and adopting the best business
practices across the organisation. This
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 49
 15-MINUTE MANAGER
TRAINING
CALENDAR
Program
Financial Strategies for
Creating Value
Leading Teams for High
Performance
Brand Management for
Corporate Growth
Integrated Marketing and
Communications
Transformational Leadership,
Tapping into your Personal
DNA
Managing Business and
Financial risks during
Turbulent times
Strategic Sourcing and Supply
Chain Management
Self Development for Global
Managers
Competing through
Manufacturing
Development Projects
50 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
ASSET MANAGEMENT
OBJECTIVES
 The basic objectives of IT asset man-
agement primarily include the following:
l Fulfilment of business needs
l Standardization of IT assets and risk
reduction
l Complete control over asset inventory
and transparency of asset data
Career booster l Optimum utilization of IT assets
courses for you l Virtualization of IT assets
l Uncover savings through upgrade/re-
deployment and support for strategic
decision making
l For good IT governance and to ensure
compliance
Venue Dates l Enhance performance of assets and
the life cycle management
ISB Aug 1-5, 2010
will not only help in organising the
assets, but also lead to many business
ISB Aug 11-13, 2010
benefits like virtualisation and optimum
utilisation of assets.
Today, there are many freeware
asset management applications that
XLRI Jamshedpur Aug 13-16, 2010
are available on the Internet. These
applications can be downloaded
and further customised as per the
ISB Aug 24-27, 2010 organisation’s needs. If the organisation
is ready to go for a standard asset
management application, then one
may opt for an ITIL/ISO 20000
ISB August 27-31, 2010 compliant system. These applications
will automate the whole activity,
starting from the asset’s requisition till
its disposal. There are tools available
IIM Calcutta Aug-29-30, 2010 which can automate the capturing of
asset data and populate the same in
Configuration Management Database
(CMDB). The automatic capturing of
IIM Bangalore Aug 30- Sep 3, 2010
asset data in real time ensures that
all asset movements are recorded in
the system and asset data is always
IIM Shilong Sep 02-03, 2010
updated. By using advanced tools, we
can find out the actual usage details of
each asset like who has used the system,
IIM Calcutta Sep 13-16, 2010
through which application and for what
duration. This information helps a lot in
ensuring that each IT asset is optimally
used in an organisation.
IIM Shilong Sep 20-23, 2010
The author is Head – IT, JSL Limited
 SOCIAL NETWORKING

HOW TO
STEM SOCIAL
THE MEDIA
LEAKS?
BIG EXPERT PANEL

RATNAKAR B MURALI ALOK KUMAR,

NEMANI, CIO NAIR, CTO, HEAD, SEARS IT
AND HEAD OF L AXMI VIL AS AND MANAGE -
IT PROJECTS BANK MENT SERVICES
WING, VST (INDIA)
INDUSTRIES

disturbed by what she had just seen: the mes-

THE SITUATION...
Harsha looked at the “friend” request she had
just received from a colleague. She remembered
Vikas well, with whom she had shared the table
for an extended lunch at the company cafeteria.
Harsha had joined IT solutions company, Saensem
India, a day ago as a senior member of the Infor-
mation Security Team. Vikas came across to her
as a friendly and open person, who seemed to have
something to say on any subject under the sun.
She clicked on the link in her mailbox, which took
her to the social networking site. She clicked on
the “accept” tab and Vikas quickly appeared on her
friends list.
PHOTOG RAPHY: XXX XXXX
sages posted by Vikas and some other colleagues
seemed to give out critical information regarding
an ongoing project that it amounted to a serious
information security breach.
It seemed that all witnessed by information
security measures, taken so far at Saensem India
had gone to the dogs due to unmindful messages
posted on a public domain, Harsha said to herself.
No doubt, they appeared to be very loyal to the
company and there was no deliberate intent of
leaking information.
Harsha wanted to pick up the phone and warn
Vikas how irresponsible he and his friends had
been, but she hesitated. She was not sure how
Vikas would respond to remarks from a newly

Harsha leisurely went to Vikas’ page and looked joined employee.

at the posts around. As she started reading, her
expression changed. Suddenly, she sat very upright
and started browsing through Vikas’ friends list.
She went through the posts, many of those being
from fellow colleagues at Saensem.
After some time, she sank into her chair, visibly
FROM HERE
Harsha was confused. She feared being seen by
Vikas and his colleagues as someone who is trying
to bully them. Her caution could also make her
unpopular, which in turn will affect her day-to-day
functioning. Yet, if she remains quiet, that can do
irreparable harm to the company.

Your responses count. Log on

to www.itnext.in/bigQ to submit
NEXT
CUT IT

your replies. The best entry will be

published in the next print edition.

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 51
 THE BIG Q

THE BIG QUESTIONS...

?WHAT SHOULD HARSHA DO TO STOP POSTING OF MESSAGES THAT CONTAIN
VITAL INFORMATION ABOUT THE COMPANY, WITHOUT BECOMING
UNPOPULAR AMONG FELLOW EMPLOYEES?

? WHAT INITIATIVES SHE CAN DRIVE AS A SENIOR MEMBER OF THE IS TEAM

TO COUNTER THE INFORMATION SECURITY BREACHES POSED BY SOCIAL
NETWORKING SITES AND OTHER SUCH WEB-BASED MEDIA?

HERE ARE THE ANSWERS...

‘INVOLVE ALL EMPLOYEES’

FIRST ANSWER
To start off, there are two aspects to Harsha’s dilemma, one pertains to
ethics and other to the business angle. First up, from a legal and ethi-
cal perspective, one should not mix personal, professional and social
activities. In this case, it is the clash between personal–vs-organisa-
tion entirely, that means if it is the security breach for customer, the
organisation can be closed down.
Now from a business perspective, even if Harsha doesn’t want
to raise an alarm, someone else may do it. So, she can alert the
authorities, without really revealing her identity. Looking at the
situation, impact and risks associated, it can be handled sensibly.
Usually, these kinds of issues occur at the workplace out of sheer
ignorance on part of the employees. People do not necessarily
RATNAKAR understand the true implications of their actions. Hence, it is
NEMANI incumbent upon the organisation to educate its workforce on what
is acceptable and what is not. It also needs to clearly spell out the
CIO and Head of IT consequences of such acts. For instance, in this particular case, Vikas could be counselled
Projects Wing, VST
Industries Ltd and, if need be, helped to find another job, etc. The action taken by the organisation is
completely dependent on the motives of the perpetrator, if it is found that the act was
About me: A finance a deliberate one, the punishment will be dour and if on the contrary, it was done out of
executive by choice
and an IT executive by ignorance, it could be light.
chance, he is an industry Interestingly, such issues are quite common in IT /BFSI sector where spouse or
veteran with over 18
years of experience in roomates work together. Harsha should not ponder too much over the issue, and bring it
the current organisation. to the notice of the management. Else, she could be aiding in compromising the security.
A recipient of multiple
awards, he is renowned
for his ability of bringing SECOND ANSWER
in business insights on
technology issues There are quite a few steps that can be taken by the Information Security team to counter
the threats posed by social media sites. Here is what they can do:
1. Immediately cut off Vikas’s Internet access at office
2. Check background from HR, both discrete and otherwise, to ensure that he is not
working for competition
3. Filter all data pertaining to the ongoing project through the proxy
4. Issue a circular to all from Head HR about gravity of exchanging data on public
domain
5. Separate the public domain collaboration from the internal collaboration unit
6. Conduct classes on security related issues for all employees
7. Counsel Vikas privately, informing him that such activities are not entertained
One thing is certain here, she should not be really worried about her image with the
colleagues, as she is bound to be at loggerheads with employees on one issue or another.
And that will be her mark of success as an IS professional.

52 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
 THE BIG Q

‘FRAME AND ENFORCE AN IS POLICY’

FIRST ANSWER
As a corporate policy, we do not allow social networking sites on the
corporate network. This is a given policy in most corporate offices
where IS policies are in place and where customer information is
vital. Presently, the defamation and libel laws in the country are
not very stringent, but going forward I am sure the so called “dis-
claimer” clause we put everywhere will not be of any consequence.
In the present case, I think Harsha should post a newsletter bring-
ing out clearly the security loopholes in social networking sites and
how the vital information can be compromised by using the site for
official, or semi-official, work. If indeed the information leak seems
to be unintentional, she would be best advised to bring it to the notice
of the senior team members and also counsel Vikas in person about
what could be the possible consequences of the indiscrete postings. B MURALI
IS policies work best when the employees are well-informed about NAIR
them, otherwise, these issues keep cropping up.
CTO, Laxmi Vilas Bank

SECOND ANSWER
About me: A multi-
Harsha and the team should also put in place an Information Security Policy duly faceted banking
approved by the top management/board and implement the same across the manage- veteran, he is renowned
in the tech circles for
ment. This is a tough job since it will require a number of sessions for creating aware- his business acumen
ness, conditioning and bringing in certain inevitable changes in the work culture and and ability to resolve
technology issues
practices. But the matter requires firm handling and in spite of initial resistance, when in a short span of
the objective is well understood, the resistance will give way to acceptance. Like much time. Currently he
is overlooking the
else in life, prevention is always better cure, but in case of security prevention , its more complete technology
critical than cure. And not only should such a policy be framed, it should be prominently roadmap at LVB and prior
to that he was associated
displayed at all vital locations, so that the same is reinforced time and again. with Union Bank of India

NEXT

SOCIA
L Top Security Concerns of using Social Media Network by Organisations
MEDIA
Most social network users fail to perform basic security measures on a regular basis

47% 55%
26%
20% a tion
orm
Inf
l
tia

s
on
en

cti
ck
fed

nfe
ft

a
Att
the

co n

eI
Phishing
Identity

Sharing

Malwar

SOURCE: AVG
AND CMO
COUNCIL

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 53
 THE BIG Q

‘HIGHLIGHT SOCIAL MEDIA THREATS’

FIRST ANSWER
Whatever might be her concerns regarding her image, etc., Harsha
is required to take an action. There are no two ways about it. But
she should not take any unilateral decision. In all such cases, it is
important for any employee to give detailed information to the
concerned superior and follow up to see the action gets completed
in the interest of the company. On the other hand, it is also necessary
for her to immediately talk to the concerned person on the hazards of
such information leaks. Ascertain if the same was unintentional and
work in tandem with the employee to ensure that such leaks do not
take place in the future.

ALOK
KUMAR
Head, Sears IT and
Management Services
(India)
About me: Is a tech
evangelist, who has a
distinguished career
spanning multiple
companies, like
Hutchinson and Reliance
Infosolutions
SECOND ANSWER
She should immediately formulate and circulate a “Social Media
Policy” which should be applicable to all employees. Now a days, all
large companies understand the power and threat of the social media
have come out with such policies to which each employee is bound. In such a policy there
are clear do’s & dont’s mentioned making easy for an employee to restrict his blogging &
messaging on things which are neutral or not part of the policy. Training and awareness
are also important, so training sessions and consequences in case of a breach should be
clearly spelt out. Security policy and social media policy in general should be hyped up
through sessions, posters, screen savers and like.

NOTES
NOTES

Social Networking, The “Third Place,” And The Evolution Of Communication: http://jobfunctions.
MORE RESOURCES bnet.com/abstract.aspx?kw=social+media&docid=328488
Social Media: Risk and Policies: http://www.socialfish.org/whitepaper#policies

54 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
4 Edu Tech December 2009
 CUBE CHAT | BHOODEV TYAGI
TAKING UP
CHALLENGES
“I aspire to raise the standard of my
work,” says Bhoodev Tyagi, Leader–IT,
Dun & Bradstreet, India
BY JATIN D E R S I N G H
MY SUCESS
MANTRA
Work hard, keep a
positive attitude,
and concentrate on
your goal
56 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
C
hallenges make you discover things
about yourself that you never really
knew. They’re what makes the
instrument stretch—what makes
you go beyond the norm.” This
statement made by Cicely Tyson, a successful
stage actress of 19th century, seems to go with the
work philosophy of Bhoodev Tyagi, Leader–IT,
Dun & Bradstreet, India.
An admirer of M.S. Dhoni for his leadership
skills, Tyagi believes that no problem ever comes
without a solution. And, one just needs to think
differently to overcome it. “This belief helps
me to achieve my goals as an IT leader in my
organisation,” he explains.
Presently, he is handling the critical project
of server consolidation in a live environment to
achieve a zero downtime for his organisation.
The process is based on virtualisation and
maneges to reduce hardware and operating
costs—including energy costs.
“The project helps reduce the time taken to
provision new servers,” he explains further.
The mark of a true leader, Tyagi pays a great
deal of attention on learning and teamwork. He
is dedicated and passionate about any project
that he is involved in. For him, the definition
of a successful IT manager lies in the way he
collaborates with a client or stakeholders in
order to understand them properly.
If knowledge is a critical to achieving goals, it’s
the vision of the future and the ability to create
a good working team that, he believes, make a
project successful.
“Nowadays, IT is dynamic. Therefore, an
IT manager should be able to keep pace with
 W

CUBE CHAT

FACT FILE

NAME
BHOODEV T YAGI

CURRENT DESIGN AT I O N
LEADER–IT FOR D U N &
BRADSTREET, IND I A

CURRENT ROLE
RESPONSIBLE FO R T H E
MANAGEMENT OF T H E
DATA CENTRE, US E R
SL A COMMITMEN TS ,
PERFORMANCE,
AVAIL ABILIT Y,
RESPONSE TIME A N D
PROBLEM RESOLU T I O N .
RESPONSIBLE FO R
EFFECTIVE RESO U R C E
MANAGEMENT, AN D
SYSTEM AND RES O U R C E -
PL ANNING BASED O N
BUSINESS FOREC AST

EXPERTISE
SOFT WARE DEVELO P M E N T
STRATEGIC PL AN N I N G

“KNOWLEDGE IS CRITICAL. BUT, IT IS THE VISION

INFRASTRUCTUR E
MANAGEMENT

AND THE ABILITY TO CREATE A TEAM, WHICH WORK EXPERIENC E

MAKES A PROJECT SUCCESSFUL”

2002 – PRESENT
LEADER – IT
DUN & BRADSTRE E T
(D&B), MUMBAI, I N D I A

technological advancements. One should
be able to deliver innovative and timely
solutions,” he stresses.
“An IT manager should be capable
enough to understand the pain of his
clients and learn how IT can help solve the
problem,” he adds.
Tyagi is a strong believer in God. His
faith is unshakeble, despite the fact that
the man has faced several hiccups during
various stages of his life.
PHOTO GRAPHY: JI TE N GANDHI
2001-2002
spend quality time with his family. He
TEAM LEADER
is very particular about balancing his NIVA ONLINE, MU M BA I ,
personal and professional lives. “I always INDIA
try to live life to the fullest. Spending time
2000 -2001
with the family, listening to old Hindi
PROGRAMMER-CU M -
film songs and watching cricket are some ANALYST
of my favourite pastimes,” he reveals. GEBBS SOFT WAR E
There is a scripture in the Bible that says INTERNATIONAL , N J , U SA
without a vision, people perish. Without
1999 -2000
something to live for, we die, before we
CONSULTANT
begin to live truly. So, does this IT manager DUN & BRADSTRE E T,

“Every morning I thank God for the life aspire for a new (and bigger) role—perhaps MUMBAI, INDIA
that he has given me. Many a times I have that of a CIO?
been desperate, but I have always managed “My ambition is that I will continue to 1993 -1999
PROGRAMMER-CU M -
to keep a situation under control. And, I’ve raise the standard of the work that I do. I am
ANALYST
let a bad time pass,” he says. always ready to take on new challenges and CAPITAL MARKET
Despite the hard work at office and his responsibilities. But, I’m not after any tag, PUBLISHERS IND I A ,
commitment to work, he never forgets to even that of a CIO,” Tyagi concludes. MUMBAI

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 57
 UPDATE

OFF THE SHELF A sneak preview of enterprise products,

solutions and services

Ericsson introduces LTE

based solution
Faster mobile broadband applications
on offer , along with video on offer and ADATA intros 3.5”
video on demand external hard drive
ADATA technology has introduced
NH03, the 3.5” external hard drive
with SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface. 

SuperSpeed USB 3.0 interface on

the sleek-looking NH03 3.5” external
hard drive is designed to deliver faster
data-transfer rates— never seen on
hard drives. With the addition of built-in
TurboHDD USB software, the transfer
performance is further accelerated,
reaching up to 140 MBs, based on real-
world results. Company claims that
the product will aid users to experience
a significant performance upgrade of
400% in terms of transfer speed com-
pared to devices with conventional USB
2.0 interface. The SuperSpeed USB 3.0
is backward compatible with previous
versions for greater flexibility and con-
venience in daily computing use.

Other than speed, NH03 includes 256-bit

Swedish networking firm Ericsson has KEY FEATURES
AES encryption to keep personal data
unveiled its TD-LTE solution at a recent * 256-bit AES encryption to keep
safe and confidential while protecting
China event. The solution will help run faster personal data safe
against any unauthorized intrusion.
mobile broadband applications, such as * Stylishly designed and innovative
video on demand (VOD) and video stream- heat vents The company is also providing 60 day
ing, using a live camera. * Blazing-fast backup solution trial version of Norton Internet Secu-
LTE, the next generation of mobile * Backed by 3 year product warranty rity 2010 with the product.
broadband technology, includes two
versions: one for paired spectrum, frequency division duplex (FDD); and one for
unpaired spectrum, time division duplex (TDD). The global deployment of LTE-
PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

based solutions is expected in the coming years. The company has also introduced
a new base station as a part of its TD-LTE offering. RBS 6000, the TD-LTE base PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONS
station, offers an integrated solution with minimal dimensions and low-energy Interface: USB 3.0

consumption, fit for every implementation. “The demonstration reflects not Special Feature: one-touch auto backup button,

only Ericsson’s undisputed technology leadership in the LTE domain, but our AES encryption

unwavering commitment to the development of TD-LTE in the world,” said Mats Data Transfer Rates: Transfer rates reaching up

H. Olsson, President, Ericsson (China & North East Asia). The solutio has the to 140 MB/s

capability to achieve a single-user peak rate of 110Mbps in the downlink.

58 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
 UPDATE

VMware intros
ZyXEL economical
launches Solutions
N Gigabit VMware, the global player
in virtualisation solutions right

Router from the desktop, through the

datacentre, to the cloud, has
introduced new VMware vSphere
4.1 solutions for small and mid-
size businesses with
Price prices starting at US$83 Price
Rs 13,500/- per processor and aims to $495 for six
help businesses improve processors
infrastructure-efficiency
and business continuity
ZyXEL Communications has unveiled a new KEY ADVANTAGES According to an independent
NBG 460N wireless and Gigabit router in India. * 8 times faster than the normal survey of North American and
This wireless N gigabit router delivers speed speed and 5 times more in European SMB x86 server
and coverage, and is compliant with the latest terms of coverage virtualisation decision-makers,
802.11n technology . * Ensure safe and secure data conducted by Forrester Research,
The product is aimed at helping enterprises transfer 60% of SMBs rated standardising
manage the limited bandwidth for multimedia * Enhanced wireless scheduler on virtualisation for server
applications. save the power deployment, disaster recovery,
It has an inbuilt feature, which enables * New build-in MBM v2 business continuity capabilities,
the device to save power and reduce wireless technology shape traffic and infrastructure consolidation,
radiation by configuring to fit in the needs. as a high, or critical, priority.
According to ZyXEL, the router also The company is focussing
supports IPSec VPN (Virtual Private Network), which ensures secure heavily on small and medium
transmission between two sites, eliminating the necessity for expensive size businesses in India and has
leased-lines, enabling interconnectivity at minimal expense. It is priced at Rs. tripled the number of customers in
13,500 this space in two years.

Telesoft unveils interac- KEY ADVANTAGES

* Features up to 240 media

tive VAS platform channels

* Easily connects to mobile and
fixed networks
Telesoft Technologies has introduced the ARNE IVR platform in India. * Uses open standard XML
Aimed at VAS and enterprise players in India and Asia, this product offers * Six-level output power control
voice and video platform, on which VAS developers can build innovative capability
new revenue streams. * 64/128-bit WEP
According to the company, the solution can easily connect to mobile and fixed
networks, and provides services such as caller ringback tones (CRBT), customer
self-care—bill payment systems—as well as information and entertainment
applications; news, timetables, horoscopes and cricket scores.
It has built-in SS7/ISUP signaling protocol software for call control, an MRCP
interface for text-to-speech (TTS) and automatic speech recognition (ASR) and
built-in in video streaming capability.

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 59
 UPDATE

INDULGE The hottest, the coolest and the funkiest next

generation gadgets and devices for you

Presenting a range of must haves

that will cast an impressive spell on
those around you

HOT

DELL STUDIO
ONE 1909
19 inch touch-screen monitor,
Core2 Duo Processor,
Nvidia GeForce 9400
PRICE:
R S 34,000

P3110 3G READY
LIFEBOOK
SAMSUNG C9000 Ultra-low-voltage processor, 3G
Collector’s edition, swiss ready, size 11.6 inch, weighs 1.6
durability, improved mechanical kg, perfect for video conferencing
grounding, HDMI 1.3 Video and and Internet telephony (VoIP)
Audio digital output PRICE:
RS 63,500

PRICE: NEW
US$5,999 AND ABOVE

ZENITH XTREME
TOURBILLION ZEROG
Watch that can operate in Zero
gravity, mounted with a free
moving gyroscope, water proof
up to 1,000 ft.
PANASONIC
HD 3D CAM PRICE: US$ 500,000

3D camera, convenient
replacement for their 2 camera
and mirror, can record 3D HD
content on 2X32 GB SD cards
PRICE: US$21,000

Like something? Want to share your

objects of desire? Send us your wish-list or
feedback to editor@itnext.in

60 IT NEXT | J U N E 2 0 1 0

OPEN DEBATE
Can iPhone replace
the Blackberry?
DHIRAJ SINHA
LEADER (TECH),
DELL PEROT
SYSTEM
One should not forget
that the iPhone has long
been seen as the phone,
which simplifies the
smartphone functional-
ity. It is certainly simpler,
efficient and easy to use
device compared to the
Blackberry. On the other
hand, RIM has not been
able to come with any
new cutting-edge tech-
nology to outsmart the
popularity of the iPhone.
For me, the first thing
which is critical while se-
lecting the smartphone
is its high-end security
features like data en-
cryption, wireless access
to business applications,
remote IT security
controls, etc., which both
these devices have.
Your views and opinion matter to us. Send us your feedback on stories and the
magazine to the Editor at editor@itnext.in
A platform to air your views on latest
developments and issues that impact you
DEEPAK KUMAR
MANAGER
IT, TRIVENI
INFRASTRUCTURE
& DEVELOPMENT
I have been extremely
loyal to my Blackberry
so far. Can you name
even a single organisa-
tion which has com-
pletely rolled out the
iPhone. Not possible.
From an IT perspective,
BlackBerry provides
features such as native
VPN, native Mobile
Device Management
(MDM), private on-
premise secure OTA app
push etc that the iPhone
does not have. In addi-
tion, the IT department
of most organisations
are not compatible with
the Android platform.
It lacks the acceptance
when it comes to enter-
prise usage.
RAKESH MOHAN
PROJECT
MANAGER, FLYTXT
Well, I will put it in this
way. Blackberry is a
very trusted enterprise
device. iPhone4 is a good
attempt, but its still an
underdog when you see
its level of expertise and
sophistication which an
enterprise will be seek-
ing. The style and look is
certainly tempting, but
when it comes to reliabil-
ity, Blackberry wins the
race, hands down. There
are different people who
have different needs.
The usability of both the
devices is pretty different
and I strongly feel that
at least in the forseeable
future Blackberry will
continue to be a widely
popular enterprise de-
vice, meanwhile iPhone,
a consumer one.
UPDATE
BOOK FOR YOU
Gandhi CEO
14 principles to guide and Inspire
modern leaders
PUBLISHER : STERLING
PRICE : RS 499
The latest novel by Alan Axelrod looks
at Gandhi in modern light, focusing on
his leadership style to serve as a guide
to help existing and aspiring CEOs. It
aims to relate Gandhi’s thoughts to
modern day complex business environ-
ment and identifies truth, non violence,
do or die, sacrifice, and its co-relation,
exemplary miracles as the critical
traits which a CEO should focus upon.
Born in 1869, Gandhi’s struggle and
circumstances, according to the author,
make his life a true example relevant to
the multinational business environment
of the 21st century. It discusses the
leadership scenerios, that lie beyond
the complacency of the everyday and
the ordinary.
Written in a conversational style,
the book holds a distinct potential
to mentor young leaders in parts.
However, it fails to match the practi-
cal approach that drives the leaders
in the highly complex period such as
recession. For instance, the lesson
“be an open book,” cannot be of much
value to CEOs today.
IT NEXT VERDICT
Recommended for second generation of
entrepreneurs and leaders trying to make their
presence felt in any given industry. Written in a
simple language, the book is handy for people
who aspire to become people’s leader .
STAR VALUE:
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 61
 SUBHOJIT PAUL
MY LOG Chief Photographer,
9.9 Mediaworx
Saying it in
1000 Words
You have to be sure of what
you are doing in that moment
when you click
Honestly speaking, I had never planned on
becoming a photographer. It just happened.
It began as an infatuation of a 12-year-old,
and inadvertently grew into a passion. And
the love affair is on. The relationship, how-
ever, began after school, when yours truly
laid hands on a 35mm single-reflex cam-
era–Vivitar V3800.
Back then, Agfa, Nova and ILFORD,
were the preferred monochrome films.
Around 40 per cent of the process
was about clicking the picture, the rest
took place in the darkroom in trying to
develop and print a picture. Photography
was more about the process back then.
Geometry, textures, patterns, hues and
flora were few of my favourite subjects.
After a shoot, the long wait for the final
product would be excruciating. Processing
films and printing them was like giving
birth (if I can use that term). Today, the
development of technology is providing
every person a chance to experience
the magic of photography. Having said
that, I don’t believe everyone becomes a
photographer–unless, there is that special
something in the blood that makes the
process into an addiction .
Earlier, the art of photography
entailed that a photographer would give
considerable thought to the “frame” before
shooting. Now, with the process becoming
simpler and, to some extent, cheaper, the
62 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
thought comes after a picture has been
clicked (perhaps through the simpler
auto mode). If this trend continues, soon
there will be newspapers and magazines
carrying photo credits for the camera
company, and not the person clicking it.
As time went on, I found myself
graduating to storytelling through the
lens–I began to shoot musicians and
models for magazines. The intent was to
capture motion. Like a chapter of a story.
As a photojournalist I have been fortunate
to meet people from different walks of
life. Celebrities, artists, students, actors,
leaders, professors, business heads, IT
managers, models and designers. And
I have discovered that a simple picture
is sometimes the hardest to shoot. Or
that, clicking a baby’s picture is more
challenging than shooting a supermodel.
Shooting IT managers is really unique, as
most of them are camera shy. If there is
no control over that moment, it might not
just happen. And then there are logistics
of the moment–deadlines, opportunities,
locations, props, lights, number of people,
etc., involved in a shoot. Not to forget that
a picture plays a critical role in every
story–thus, you have to be sure of what
you are doing in that moment when you
click! Obviously, the art needs constant
innovation to simplify the meaning of
thousand words with a single click.
RA
ILLUST
3 ESSENTIAL
READS
INSIGHT | VIRTUALISATION
VMware vSphere 4.1
LEADS
THE PACK
vSphere 4.1 now adds a method to compress memory pages to reduce
swapping and improve performance.
The payoff for the vCenter transition is a
substantial increase in the number of VMs per
IT managers should ensure that the
new memory management, storage and
cluster and the number of physical hosts that
each vCenter can handle. I was not able to test
the posted limits due to hardware constraints.
However, VMware states that the latest version
network control features of vSphere of vCenter can handle 3,000 VMs in a cluster
4.1 lead to improved host utilisation and and up to 1,000 hosts per vCenter server.
Both of these large numbers are a threefold
REVIEW automated scale from the VM systems. increase over the stated capacity of VMware
vSphere 4.0. Aside from the sizable scale increase
BY CAMERON STURDEVANT enabled in this version of vSphere 4.1, the main
advances in the platform are evolutionary
extensions of capabilities that improve how the
platform handles VM resource contention.
During tests, I used the new I/O controls in
VMware vSphere 4.1 continues to lead the networking and storage to govern resource use.
enterprise virtual machine platform pack. New IT managers who are already accustomed
memory management, storage and network con- to using resource controls in VM CPU
trol features enable resource pool creation that settings will have a leg up when it comes to
improves scale while reducing performance using I/O controls in both network and storage
drags. Virtual machine management gains areas. Even with the CPU control heritage, my
increased importance in the vSphere 4.1 plat- use of network and storage control features
form, and IT managers should plan to have their revealed a fair number of “version 1” limitations.
virtualisation experts devote themselves full Network I/O control prioritises network traffic
time to studying these new features to ensure by type when using network resource pools
that they lead to improved host utilisation and and the native VMware vNetwork Distributed
automated scale from the VM systems. Switch. Network I/O control works only with
During tests at eWEEK Labs, I learned that the 4.1 version of the vNetwork Distributed
vCenter 4.1—the command and control module of the Switch—not with the Cisco Nexus V1000 or
VMware virtual infrastructure world—is now 64-bit the standard switch from VMware.
only. As part of the move to vSphere 4.1, IT managers
should build in extra planning and migration time to Implementation is simple
A vNetwork Distributed Switch can now assign priority to a variety of move any vCenter 4.0 or older servers to systems that While it takes advanced network expertise to
traffic types. are running a 64-bit operating system. design and tune the policy that runs network I/O
36 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
Building automation system
conserves energy and saves much
money in the bargain Pg 34
INSIGHT | Wi- fi
Aren’t we all at some stage dis-
gusted to see the mesh of those wires
connected to our computers? Don’t
we wish we could make it clutter-
free by getting rid of at least some of
the wires? Don’t we wish we could
connect to the Internet or access the
printer without those wires, securely?
Well, Wi-Fi lets users access the
Internet and other network resources,
without the hassles of plugging in
the Ethernet cable. It offers them
convenience of moving their machines
around the office, without losing
connection to the Internet or other
network resources.
Installing a Wi-Fi LAN in the office
initially helps you set up the network
for a fraction of the cost, especially if
your office does not have structured
cabling. Wireless access to the Internet
at airports, restaurants and coffee shops
is all courtesy Wi-Fi.
However, like most good things
in life, Wi-Fi comes with its share of
drawbacks. These negatives appear
in the form of security risks, which
can be of various types. These could
compromise your confidential data,
lead to theft of bandwidth resources,
amount to a legal action against your
organisation and in some extreme cases
even land you behind bars!
Considering all these risks, is
the convenience of Wi-Fi worth it?
Alternatively, can we protect ourselves
SECURING the
and the organisation against these risks,
and at the same time take advantage of
the benefits Wi-Fi has to offer?
While there cannot be complete
security, there are ways to mitigate,
AIRWAVES
and to an extent, circumvent some
of these risks. So how should
an organisation go about taking
advantage of the technology and at the
same time, protect itself from the risks
identified above?
A Wi-Fi plan should be robust enough to address
I MAGI NG : SA N TO SH KUSH WA H A
It all starts with
planning
security concerns and clean enough to keep
Planning the strategic location to install
legal risks at bay the access points, the strength of these
strategically placed access points, who
BY BERJES ERIC SHROFF in the organisation can and cannot use
the Wi-Fi technology (including visi-
42 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
SOA and Cloud can complement
each other to help enterprises
increase productivity Pg 30
INSIGHT | CLOUD COMPUTING
insomnia has become more than
Enrique’s copyright.
And why not?
Hardly a few budgets old, the ‘cloud’
phenomenon has made more noise and
more impact than any other new kid
who ever arrived. What is more, this
kid has all the power and prognosis to
elbow out the boys who have always run
the show, so far.
So far! Now that’s the operative word.
The argument that cloud’s advent can
hurt or challenge the very existence of
internal IT departments has naturally
started ‘hurting some brains.’
It’s not just applications any more.
The wave is touching networks, server
provisioning, infrastructure monitoring
IS IT
and management, and what not. The
interesting part is that there is no sign
RAIN
of it sucking back.
The way it has arrived and
announced itself – cloud computing,
certainly signifies a fundamental shift
in the role of IT in the way it removes
OR A from IT much of its mundane chores.
DRIZZLE?
Ok! But why the heck were we talking
about insomnia?
Here’s why.
The worry mercury was initiated
dramatically by Nicholas Carr, who
augured the rise of utility computing in
his second book, ‘The Big Switch.’
His argument that stirred many a
Will cloud computing decimate internal IT? media pages, is, “IT would abandon
Is it worth losing your sleep over its rise? running their own IT infrastructures.”
What does that mean?
Simple—one may no longer need the
BY PRATIMA HARIGUNANI
IT firemen or plumbers to keep things
up and running because someone
‘on-call’ is going to do to it much easily,
much cheaper and much faster. IT aka
your pizza delivery boy, could capsize
The thing about underdogs is, well, they seemingly petite things. Anyone who does the traditional hulks, if the hypothesis
are still dogs, and everyone likes them to win. so has yet not been bitten by a mosquito. is interpreted right.
From the pages of The Godfather to the There’s more than just a mosquito
blind alleys of politics; from the vuvuzela- somewhere disturbing the sleep Teddy bear or bug bear?
I L LUSTR AT I O N : SA N TO SH KU SH WA H A
drowned battles to a corporate tug-of-war; of some men nowadays. And this So, while almost every vendor and
you will find them everywhere. is a breed of men who won’t let an lighthouse customer is giving it the
Crawling upwards silently, tip-toeing underdog shadow their power, or bear hug, is cloud computing strong
in the stranglehold of their prey, and shall we say, ‘cloud’ their power? enough to arrogate the power and
shadowing its might while it snoozes Ever since, the ‘IT Doesn’t Matter’ functions of traditional IT? Does it
unaware; the underdog usurps it all. author Nicholas Carr, made another not raise worries on new redundancy
May be that’s why the wise men know new, big stir that needs absolutely no spots, and thus a threat to internal
that one should never underestimate small, introduction in CIO bastions today; IT teams?
28 IT NEXT | A U G U S T 2 0 1 0
Peer coaching can help an aspiring
leader to grow in stature Pg 51
M
.CO
OS
OT
PH
:
ON
TI
VIRTUALISATION | INSIGHT
controls, the implementation of the feature is quite
simple. Entering the parameter changes to enable
the feature and set the specific physical network
adapter shares is simply a matter of walking
through a couple of configuration screens that are
easily accessed from the vSphere client. I was able
to assign a low, medium, normal, high or custom
setting that designated the number of network on
an iSCSI-connected storage array. It also works on
Fibre Channel-connected storage, but not on NFS
or Raw Device Mapping storage.
Virtual machines can be limited based on
IOPS (I/O operations per second) or MB per
second. In either case, I used storage I/O controls
to limit some virtual machines in order to give
others priority. I found that the large number of
considerations—for example, each virtual disk
associated with each VM must be placed under
control for the limit to be enforced—meant that
I spent a great deal of time figuring policy to get
a modest amount of benefit when my systems
were running.
3,000 Memory innovation
VMs
VMware included a handy memory innovation
in vSphere 4.1 called “memory compression.”
and up to 1,000 IT managers should become familiar with
hosts per the feature as it is enabled by default. In my
vCenter server tests, I saw improvements in virtual machine
can be handled performance after I artificially constrained the
by the latest amount of physical host memory. As my virtual
version of v machine systems started to access memory
Center to handle test workloads, my EXS 4.1 system
started to compress virtual memory pages and
stored them in a compressed memory cache.
Since accessing this memory is significantly
faster than swapping memory pages to disk,
the virtual machines ran much faster with this
feature than they did when it was disabled and
the same workloads were started. IT managers
should expect to devote at least several weeks
of expert analysis to determine the most
effective memory compression configuration
for each workload.
VMware did some housekeeping in the
incremental release of vSphere. The vSphere
client is still available in the vCenter 4.1
installation bits, but it is no longer included
in the ESX and ESXi code. There also were
some minor changes made to various interface
screens, but there was nothing that would puzzle
an experienced IT administrator.
Find similar stories
online on the
website
www.itnext.in/ Cameron Sturdevant is technical director for eweek labs,
Insight and can be reached at csturdevant@eweek.com. ©eWeek
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 37
tors), and the security levels of Wi-Fi
such as authentication or encryption
are all very important prior to even pro-
curing the infrastructure.
Aspects such as thickness and
Wi- fi | INSIGHT
advisable to rename the default
administrator user name. Disabling
the SSID broadcast i.e. your network’s
‘name’ is a good idea and mitigates the
risk of an attack.
material of the outer walls and ceilings, Restricting access through MAC
and those of the different cabins inside address filtering will not deter a hard-
also play an important part in the core hacker, as MAC address spoofing is
planning process. not that great a deal, but a combination
of disabling the SSID broadcast and
Why is all this so restricting access through MAC address
important? filtering, will deter most novice hackers or
Well, let’s say that you have installed script kiddies from compromising your
an access point near a window, or Wi-Fi facility. Although it’s not always
maybe close by, which causes the sig- possible to do so, especially in large
nal to leak outside the office. A person organisations, it’s a good idea to switch
with a laptop in the opposite building off a Wi-Fi network when not in use.
or maybe even a floor above or below Personally, I am very uncomfortable
your office is able to access the Inter- with DHCP and prefer using static IP
STRONG PASSWORDS RESIST BEING
COMPROMISED THROUGH BRUTE
FORCE ATTACKS. DISABLING SSID
BROADCAST FURTHER MITIGATES
RISKS
net using your facility. He is now going addresses, as this definitely helps as an
to ‘steal’ your bandwidth resource to added layer of security, in spite of its
access the Internet. slight inconvenience. Ensure that your
Not much harm done here, but what router’s firewall is not disabled while on
if this person now uses your Internet the other hand, firewall on all desktops
facility through Wi-Fi, to hack into and laptops is enabled.
another organisation? How would you Encryption scrambles messages
ever be able to trace this person? Like sent over the air. Deploying encryption
it or not, legally, it’s your organisation technologies such as WPA2 with EAP
that is going to get penalised. Of course, authentication, TKIP/RC4 or AES-
this intruder can also hack into your CCMP encryption technology, is a must
own network, thus compromising your for large organisations and depending
organisation’s confidential data. And on the nature of the business, this is
once again, how are you ever going to applicable to SMBs too. WEP encryption
be able to trace him or her? is outdated and should be avoided at
all costs, as it can be compromised in a
Securing the
matter of minutes. Also, there is nothing
installation stopping you from deploying a second
Let us address some technical aspects layer of encryption, for added security.
of securing a Wi-Fi installation in your Deploying a Remote Authentication
organisation. Start by using strong
passwords, to prevent the likelihood
Dial In User Service (RADIUS) server
for authentication, authorisation and
of this being compromised through accountability should definitely not
brute force attacks. Also, it’s strongly be overlooked by medium and large
A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT 43
CLOUD COMPUTING | INSIGHT
Now on that, Carr’s theories have the industry is driven by supply and
some intellectual company. Another demand as it should be in a free market.
maverick thinker, who has been vocal But, as Massa would underline here,
against the likes of Google, takes the while it is true the cost of bandwidth and
same drift when it comes to cloud storage is dropping, the resources required
computing power as a nemesis, albeit to handle the amount of data we’re talking
in his own ways and arguments. about is still a huge barrier to entry of all but
“Of course, to a guy like me, that just those with the deepest of pockets.
means an opportunity to start another “There is no question that in the
niche service.” He quips first. coming months there are going to be
But ask Bob Massa, and there is more mergers, acquisitions, takeovers and
HARDLY A FEW BUDGETS OLD,
‘CLOUD’ HAS MADE MORE NOISE AND
IMPACT THAN ANY OTHER NEW KID
THAT EVER ARRIVED
to the argument, as you discover. buyouts.” In his incisive glance into the
Massa is a mind and a voice that will future, Bob Massa, opens another volley
go into the annals of history for more of questions.
than his coup d’etat of suing Google “What effect is cloud computing
some years back. His polemic, bold and going to have on privacy, intellectual
candid wisdom continues to challenge property rights, open source
perceptions again, when the word agreements, software licensing, and
‘cloud’ pops up. so on?”
“As for Mr. Carr, as much as I like to There could be more to be alarmed
think of myself as an optimist, I’m afraid about if what he prognosticates
I tend to agree with his rather dark comes true.
vision of IT and how it is going to affect With everything on the cloud, there
business,” he opines. is no guarantee that your competitor
“Once computing becomes a utility
and the collective sum of ‘data’ is stored
won’t have your source code in his
back pocket tomorrow. There may be
within the cloud and becomes available many a cost associated with all that
to all but controlled by a few, then I can cheap bandwidth, storage and access
certainly see where Carr may have a very to everything.
valid point. I know from experience that “Where’s your competitive advantage
technological advances run far ahead of when ‘everyone’ has access to the same
the ability of any country’s legal system everything too?” He serves you a ‘too big
to keep up,” explains Massa. to chew’ question here.
Now that raises the quintessential
question again. Scared yet?
Can cloud computing have enough As is clear by now, cloud computing is
potential (or promise) to sideline influencing a lot of intelligent debate.
erstwhile IT functions handled At the same time, it has also started
internally? When and where will impacting IT budgets and decisions in
internal IT be indispensable, cloud or a significant way. Yet, is there a negative
no cloud? fine-print in this ballyhoo? How should
At the moment, there are several internal IT engines of an enterprise
companies jumping into the cloud game interpret it? Cause for worry for IT
and there is choice and competition as managers already?
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