IT NEXT SEPTEMBER ISSUE

SEPTEMBER 2010 / RS. 100VOLUME 01 / ISSUE 09

INSIGHT: The Emergence of Liquid-cooled data centre

INSIGHT: Social Media debuts on the enterprise space

INTERVIEW: Sandeep Aurora delves on the transformation of Intel

TECH TALKThe security driven enterprise Pg 51

22 26 42

A 9.9 Media Publication

A SURVIVAL GUIDE

ON HOW TO MITIGATE DISASTER AND

REBOUND FROM IT Pg.10

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EDITORIAL

1S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

The growing dependence of organizations on their IT infrastructure and services has propelled disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity planning to the top of every CIO’s agenda. The biggest reason for this is the high risk and cost of downtime. The inability to access and use production systems, especially by customers and suppliers, can wreak havoc with the organization’s carefully nurtured reputation and relationships—and result in large business losses and lost opportunity costs. Think of bank, a travel web site or a retail POS system. This is one reason why recovery time objectives are now specified in hours instead of days, even for very large, complex systems.

To cope with disasters you need a well-drafted plan. Begin by identifying and classifying data that is critical to the enterprise, and then formulate a strategy to safeguard it. Evaluate the value of the information at risk, and set the recovery time objectives. That’s because the impact of downtime, regulatory risks, and business opportunity costs have to weighed against the eventual cost of installing and operating the DR solution. Invest in documentation, awareness and training—and in enforcing good practices. There is little point in having a good DR system if no one is making data backups. Test and measure regularly—corrupted backups are of little use as are unreliable recovery processes. This is where adopting best practices and tested solutions make for good ideas.

While scope and scale of disasters are hard to predict, good IT managers are learning to prepare for them. Here they are getting help from a wide variety of technology and solution providers. Available options now include traditional hardware systems like redundant servers and clusters, RAID, tape backups and remote sites to third-party services for disaster recovery. These third-party services come in many flavours, including co-location providers, DR service providers and cloud-based DR solutions.

Over the next few years IT managers can expect virtual and cloud-based offerings to mature, and play an increasingly important role in DR. It is likely that these services will be offered both by traditional DR service providers, as well as new players. Service options will include IT-recovery-as-a-service, backup-as-a-service, and on-premises backup to a storage-as-a-service disk target, also known as disk-to-disk-to-cloud. Growing competition will compel service providers to innovate, become more flexible and responsive, and improve support for virtualized environments. Disaster recovery is set to become less painful and more reliable.

“Evaluate the value of the information at risk, and set the recovery time objectives”

Building a Safety Net

R G I R I D H A R

Blogs To Watch!

The Enterprise IT acquisition game: http://blog.fosketts.netDisaster Management using Social Media and Open Source : http://governingpeople.comYour views and opinion matter to us. Send your feedback on stories and the magazine at [email protected] or SMS us at 567678 (type ITNEXT<space>your feedback)

Editorial.indd 1 8/28/2010 12:31:58 PM

2 ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

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CONTENTS E P T 2 0 1 0 V O L U M E 0 1 | I S S U E 0 9

10Page

FOR THE L ATEST TECHNOLOGY UPDATES GO TO ITNEXT.IN

INSIGHTS

18 Suiting for CRM’s next waveTo prepare for a new wave of CRM, it’s important to learn from the mis-

takes and pitfalls of its early years

26 The Power of CollectivesEnterprises are warming up to the benefits of new

communication tools that engage audiences non-hierarchically

30 It’s all about workWireless communication is reaching a point at which enterprise IT managers can depend up on it for fast, reliable communications—both inside and outside the office

04 Green is a double wham-my| Jay J Keller,CIO, MAS Holdings, Srilanka

BOSS TALK

42 We are n’t a semiconduc-tor company now| Sandeep Aurora, Director, Sales, Intel

INTERVIEW

Facebook:http ://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=195675030582

Twitter :http : //twitter.com/itnext

LinkedInhttp://www.l inkedin .com/groups?gid=2261770&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

DR or BCP is akin to an insurance cover against a calamity. Here is primer on how to set up DR

Content Page-01.indd 2 8/28/2010 12:53:25 PM


OPINION05 Money Wise: From sup-port to strategic|By Manoj Garga, CFO, Shape 2012 Project Office, Metro Cash

51 Tech Talk: The secu-rity driven enterprise| by Prashant Mali, President at Cyber Law Consulting

15-MINUTE MANAGER45 Project Management | A project is successfully managed when it is properly budgeted46 Healthy Living | Ways to lower your hypertension

47 Manage IT | Quality and In-novation Co-exist

48 E-Mail Etiquettes| What is expected when you send a mail?

50 Training Calendar | A list of career booster courses

CASE STUDY38 Well begun, half done | MPCB is now ready to enter the next phase of automation

CUBE CHAT 52 The Pragmatic Dreamer | “The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished,” says Berjes Eric Shroff, Manager-IT, Tata Services

OFF THE SHELF54 Simtronics unveiled new desktop PCs | The PC range comes with 15.6, 18.5 and 20-inch LCD monitor options

22Page

24Page

BLUE FOR GREEN. IN YOUR MACHINE Water is increasingly being harnessed for its unique properties in the big boxes sprawling IT backyards. Here’s a tab on this trend

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Content Page-01.indd 3 8/28/2010 12:53:28 PM


G R E E N M A N A G E M E N T

See, green is not only an IT problem, it’s one that touches the whole firm. To be successful in the green initiative, you need to be lean, too. So here’s a suggestion on how to start:�Collect your main processes in the companyAnalyse these for effectiveness and efficiencyMeasure time, money and resources that the current process usesRedefine it to optimise its flow, and therefore, use less timeNote areas where you see a potential for being greenerImplement that leaner processStart to realise the potential areas for the green initiative, and save even moreLean can save you 15 (and more) per cent easily. In a year, SAP saved $120 million worldwide by just realising the low-hanging fruit.Do not forget to enjoy what you are doing!You (the IT guy) are driving the cost savings, but 98 per cent is for the benefit of the business! They will love you!.

The author is a CIO of MAS Holdings, Sri Lanka

SUGGESTION BOX

The book, in one go, combines lean and green, and what I like even more: a paperless live! The idea is not new, but Bell takes it to the next level

WRITER: GORDON BELL, JIM GEMMELL (HTTP://TOTALRE-CALLBOOK.COM/)PRICE:RS 300

Lately everybody in the corporate world has been going green: the talk has been of green this, green that! What is this hype all about it? Do we really need to “go green”, or is it just

another of those passing phases? I don’t believe it is, simply for the following reasons:

First of all, green is a must in today’s sensible and responsible business environment—which also an environment, in which, when a customer wants it, he gets it. If not from you, then from somebody else. You have no choice!

What is green exactly? For many, green IT is just server virtualisation undertaken to save energy, space and maintenance costs. Yes, that’s a part of it, but, that’s only 2 per cent of the costs for not being green!

So, where is the rest? Yes, in all the other small and large processes that a company has. A little hint: it’s there in the AC effectiveness, travel costs, supplier compliance with green principles, employee transportation, recycling of waste, water usage and paper flow through the company, and so on and so forth.

Talk to your board and they will tell you that it costs a lot of money to fix all the above processes, and takes a lot of people, too. But, there’s no way out, but to spend the money.

If you are in IT, like me, green is a double whammy!

You need to be green in the IT and that alone is quite a job. But, that’s just a percentage of the job. For the reminding 98 per cent of a firm’s processes—you need to be involved as well.

How would you know if you improved and saved money if you cannot measure it? And here is the next issue you deal with, before you can report on the savings, you need to measure the actual—and even before that, you need to know what you want to measure and why.

“Green is not only an IT problem, it’s one that touches the whole firm. To be successful, you need to be lean, too”

Green? Green!

BOSS TALK | JAY J KELLER

Boss Talk.indd 4 8/28/2010 12:33:02 PM


OPINION

Till say a few years ago, IT function within an enter-prise wasn’t considered to be extremely critical. Indeed, IT and technology

was important for the sake of opera-tions and alignment, but it had little role beyond that. Thus, effectively, the IT guys were dubbed as the support guys; you called them when you needed sup-port or some machine was down.

But then, much like the Green Revolution in the 80s, the IT Revolution took place in the 90s, and that changed everything in its wake. India, in a matter of years, till then known to the world as the land of elephants and naked sadhus, transformed into a land of IT services’ companies and BPOs. With the change happening outside, it was only a matter of time before the IT function within the organisation was spruced up.

From a pure support and cost-center, the IT function started to become a strategic and profit-center. In fact, I have been privy to a lot of organisations where the IT people play a very strong role as influencers of the business technology. The CIOs from these companies are no less a decision maker than say the CFO, CMO or even the CEO. In terms of stature, the IT function has come at par with most other functions like marketing, finance, etc.

So the big question is what next? Now that the IT guys are like celebrities within the enterprise, where do they go from here? Or is there really a need for them to go anywhere; why not just sit down, relax and enjoy the fruits, right?

Wrong! Complacency is the biggest enemy and the IT guys are no exception

“The next frontier for the IT function is to play a bigger role in business”

From support to strategic

to it. The next frontier is to play a bigger role in driving up the business. For this to happen, IT must be prepared to meet business needs even before they arise. They should try and be pace setters and drive larger benefit to the shareholder value.

The other big focus for the IT function should be on simplicity. Usually, lot of the IT managers are accustomed to speak in technical jargon, which is often Greek and Latin to our ears. So, for instance, when a buying decision of a new datacenter is being made, it is not only important to have the technical specs ready on hand, but also the business specs, like what is the RoI, what is the depreciation, etc.

MONEY WISEMANOJ GARGACFO, Shape 2012 Project Office, Metro Cash

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Opinion_Money wise.indd 5 8/28/2010 1:23:41 PM


TRENDSDEALSPRODUCTSSERVICESPEOPLE

M&A | Intel Corporation has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire McAfee, , through the purchase of all of the company’s com-mon stock at $48 per share in cash, for approximately $7.68 billion.

Both boards of directors have unanimously approved the deal, which is expected to close after McAfee shareholder approval, regulatory clearances and other customary conditions specified in the agreement.

McAfee, which has enjoyed double-digit, year-over-year growth

Intel acquires McAfee

and nearly 80% gross margins last year, will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel, reporting into Intel’s Software and Services Group. The group is managed by Renée James, Intel Senior Vice President, and General Manager of the group.

Graham Titterington, Ovum Principal Analyst, Software, says, “The active involvement of a company with the influence and resources of Intel in the information security arena will have a major impact on the future of computing.”

According to experts, Intel’s objective is to incorporate more security features into its chips. For users, and for businesses, this will be welcomed, but clearly there is a risk of monopolistic behaviour damaging the market. “The situation brings echoes of what we saw in 2002 when Microsoft, in conjunction with Intel, proposed a secure computing platform under the auspices of the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, and Microsoft’s Palladium project,” he further projects..

Intel, notably has made a series of recent and successful software acquisitions to pursue a deliberate strategy focused on leading companies in their industry delivering software that takes advantage of silicon, including gaming, visual and embedded devices. McAfee, based in Santa Clara and founded in 1987, is the world’s largest dedicated security technology company with approximately $2 billion in revenue in 2009.

The acquisition

reflects that security is now a

fundamental component

of online computing

UPDATEI N D U S T R Y

SOURCE: FORRESTER RESEARCH

60

50

40

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0 2012

2013

2011

2010

200

9

The biggest gainer will be tools like Facebook, Myspace and LinkedIn

Enterprise 2.0 Spending is expected to grow at around 400% in the next five years (NUMBERS IN US $BILLION)

WEB 2.0

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POCKET BATTERY CHARGERSGlacialTech has launched a the ML30,

MM30, and MF30 battery chargers which

also incorporate an intelligent

microcontroller to monitor and

supervise the whole charging

process. It is designed

for better efficiencies.

ZOOM YOUR EMOTIONSFujifilm’s new super-zoom digital com-

pact camera capture the smallest of

the details with 18x

zoom! It also has the

capability to quickly

shoots two images in

rapid succession.

FOR FASTER DEVELOPMENTFujitsu Semiconductor has launched 8-bit

Microcontroller with Built-in Ana-

log Comparator and Operational

Amplifier to meet the demands

of industrial equipment - such as

induction cookers, power tools and

auto-testers.

TECH TRENDS | In the next five years, the 4G infrastructure market will reach an accumu-lated $ 1.5 billion

Driven by the growing deployments of 3G and WiMAX networks, the Indian broadband base is expected to surpass 75m by 2015, says a recent research report by Maravedis and Tonse Telecom.

“The recent auctioning of 3G and 4G spectrum will unleash a broadband economic driver value, thus far evasive to India,” says Sridhar Pai, co-author of the report and founder of Tonse Telecom.

“The unmet demand for

India Broadband base to surpass 75 m

TD-LTE, over the next five years,” he added.

“The Indian telecom market will transform from a voice-centric industry to a data-economy,” said Adlane Fellah, Research Director at Maravedis.

The key findings of the report are:

* Accumulated 3G enabled data subscriber base (notebooks, modems and dongles) will reach 40m by 2015.

* 4G subscriber base including 802.1e and TD-LTE adopters will reach 33 m subscribers in 2015.

* In the next five years, the 4G infrastructure market will reach an accumulated $ 1.5 billion

* Innovative device and data -bundling packages will become the norm to meet consumer and business user requirements.

Infrastructure opportunity has moved to a new level

Worldwide mobile device sales to end users

totalled 325.6 m units in the second quarter of

2010, a 13.8% increase from the same period in

2009, says a recent report from Gartner.

The report projects smartphone sales to end

users accounted for 19% of worldwide mobile

device sales, an increase of 50.5% from the second

quarter of 2009.

AROUND THE WORLD

Worldwide Mobile Device Sales Grew 13.8% in Second Quarter of 2010

SALESFORCE.COM CEO MARC BENIOFF ON THE FAILURE OF GOOGLE SO FAR TO MAKE ANY OF ITS TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVES SUCCESSFUL OTHER THAN WHERE IT IS ALREADY DOMINANT (ONLINE SEARCH):

“GOOGLE IS NOT THE HOT COMPANY ANYMORE. THEIR STOCK HAS BEEN MOSTLY FLAT FOR FIVE OR SIX YEARS NOW.”

broadband resulting from poor wire-line infrastructure will be met by a combination of 3G and 4G technologies, including WCDMA/ HSPA, 802.16e and

QUICK BYTE

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TECH TIDINGS | McAfee and Polycom have announced a framework for a global strategic alliance to jointly develop and deliver secure Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC). This is a proactive approach to further enhance the security features of Polycom’s video, telepresence and infrastructure solutions.

Polycom plans to design solutions that feature McAfee threat protection, shielding Polycom telepresence users, from the desktop to the fully immersive suite, from potential and increasingly sophisticated security threats while making it easier to comply with privacy and confidentiality mandates.

According to the joint statement the

alliance will address a growing need for enhanced security, as organisations of all sizes increasingly turn to video conferencing and telepresence to reduce costs, improve productivity, and maintain operations in the face of business disruptions. The enhanced protections can also help IT managers in regulated industries – from health care to financial services – lessen the burden of meeting compliance and reporting requirements. The alliance has three main areas of collaboration: joint research and development, sales and market alignment, and participation in activities promoting innovation and standardization of UC security solutions.

TECH TRENDS | Gartner has made five predictions on the advancement of Business Pro-cess Management (BPM), among which one forecasts that by 2013, dynamic BPM will be an impera-tive for companies seeking pro-cess efficiencies in increasingly chaotic environments

Another prediction is that by 2012, 20% of customer-facing processes will be knowledge-adaptable and assembled just in time to meet the demands and preferences of each customer, assisted by BPM technologies. Also, by 2014, Business Process Network (BPNs) will underpin 35% of new multi-enterprise integration projects, according to Gartner.

It also projects that by the

Polycom, McAfee to develop secure UCC

BPM to drive process efficiencies

IT NEXT: What inspired and motivated you to launch the web browser, Epic?

The web browser is increasingly the

most important piece of software on your

system and its usage is high and going

higher. One key inspiration was to develop

a tool that could help Indian language

conversation and discourse move online as

effortlessly as English.

Considering the market is already cluttered with web browsers, how will Epic be different?

Indian language support is pervasive in

Epic. We support 12 Indian languages in

our built-in, free word processor as well

as in text boxes on almost all websites.

Users can chat, send e-mails, search, post

comments and do anything else in Epic in

Indian languages in an instant. And more

importantly, it holds about 20 pre-installed

communication apps that enable users

to multitask or accomplish simple tasks

quickly.

Can you brief us on the Epic browser’s key security features?

The most important part of any security

system is the user and the user’s common

sense; so our simple address bar tweak

gives users a new tool to make sure they’re

secure before they enter important login

credentials. We provide warnings to users

when they attempt to visit a website known

to host malware or any malicious software

or is in anyway untrustworthy (e.g. disrepu-

table e-tailers as well).

By Dominic K

INTERVIEW

ALOK BHARDWAJFounder and CEO, Hidden Reflex

By 2012, 20% of customer-facing processes will be knowledge-adaptable

same period, 40% of business managers and knowledge workers in Global 2000 enterprises will use business process models to support their daily work. Also, there are various new technologies that are expecting to emerge during this period.

Update.indd 8 8/28/2010 12:34:26 PM

UPDATE


M&A | Adobe Systems has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Web Content Management (WCM) vendor Day Software in a transaction valued at approximately $240 m.

The acquisition will enable Adobe to combine its Omniture online marketing suite, which provides web analytics, with Day Software’s WCM, digital asset management, and social collaboration tools. The combination will enable Day Software and Omniture customers to optimize their websites as part of their efforts to enhance the user experience and convert a higher rate of visitors to customers.

According to the company, the acquisition will enhance Adobe’s

Adobe to acquire Day Software

portfolio and plug a gap in its functionality, and will also provide benefits for Day Software’s customers. The company currently boasts to have a large portfolio of interactive application and document capabilities including Adobe Flash, Flex, Adobe LiveCycle, and PDF.

This can enable organisations to create more innovative web content to help them acquire and retain customers, and users of Communique can also use these capabilities to enhance their customers’ experiences.

In addition, the acquisition will allow Adobe to compete in a new market that will put it into direct competition with WCM vendors that have web analytics capabilities.

IBM has announced an Open

Collaboration Research (OCR)

project with the Industrial De-

sign Centre (IDC) at the Indian

Institute of Technology, Bombay

(IIT Bombay). According to the

company, the research collabora-

tion will focus on the development

of new designs for mobile device

interfaces that can easily be used

by people who are semi-literate

or illiterate, as well as individuals

who have limited or no access to

information technology.

The project aims to develop

simple, inexpensive mobile

phone user interfaces for every-

one, regardless of geography or

education level. It also aims to

introduce new levels of ease-of-

use to mobile phone interaction

via developed software technology

that will be made available to the

public through open source.

The multimodal interface is ex-

pected to offer a simpler, inexpen-

sive option for the underprivileged

to reap the benefits of information

technology.

TECH ALLIANCE

IBM, IIT Bombay collaborate on mobile web research

The acquisition

will enhance

Adobe’s

web content

management

capabilities

RIM ‘OPTIMISTIC’ ABOUT BLACKBERRY IN INDIA

According to Reuters, RIM has promised India a technical solution for decoding encrypted BlackBerry data, a step that could allay Indian security concerns about the smartphone and avert a shutdown. Indian authorities, who met with RIM officials, also pledged to go after other companies, like Google and Skype, to protect the country from cyber-spying and attacks planned over the internet.

NEWS @

BLOG “BLACKBERRY MANUFACTURER Research in Motion is “optimistic” that the company can resolve security demands from the Indian government regarding its popular smartphone,” | David Goldstein in his blog post at <http://www.TelcoNews.com>=

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1 0 ITNEXT | S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0

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WHEN

Cover Story.indd 10 8/28/2010 12:37:56 PM

DISASTER RECOVERY | COVER STORY

1 1S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | IT NEXT

BY SHASHWAT DC

26th July, 2005, is a day that no Mumbaikar will ever forget. It was the day that the city was brought to its knees under a torrential deluge. The flood was caused by a sudden opening of the skies, and a record rainfall of 994mm (39.1 inches). Some 5,000 people perished as the incessant rains virtually submerged all in its wake. Mumbai, the financial capital of India,

drowned under the monsoon fury. It’s a day that everyone remembers as 26/7.

And it was not merely the human cost alone, financial losses running into a few hundred crores. As the waters rose, many companies had to close shop and remain shut for the next few days—till the waters receded. Huge losses occurred because several companies were caught completely unaware and unprepared to face a disaster of such magnitude. Many were unable to resume business for days or weeks because their IT systems were completely destroyed. Some went bust..

To understand the Mumbai disaster better, let’s take a closer look—especially at the banking sector. Almost all major banks (largely PSUs) are based out of Mumbai. Most had their core data centres in Navi Mumbai. As floodwaters rose and drowned these centres, banking transactions across the country

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COVER STORY | DISASTER RECOVERY


a bank, telco, or a BPO, realised the need to have an alternate set-up, which could cushion the impact of such a disaster. Ever since, each company has been trying to put in a DRC (disaster recovery centre) in place. But the truth is, it is not as easy as it seems. Not only from a technological point-of-view but also from a business perspective, there are lots of “ifs and buts” that need to be ironed out.

As Jacob Livingstone, manager IT, BEC Ltd., states, “Disaster Recovery involves preparing of disaster before occurrence and supporting and rebuilding of infrastructure almost instantly without business disruption or in short business continuity in fail safe mode.” The emphasis is on being predictive, i.e., preparing for an event before it even occurs.

DR isn’t backupOne of the single biggest fallacies is that many technologists is that they confuse DR with backup. They think of DR as a backup system that resides in an offsite

Most IT executives don’t have a whole lot of confidence in

their company’s business continuity strategies. The reason for

this lack of confidence isn’t necessarily based on a lack

of will, but rather on a lack of budget.

Though IT organisations generally

have enough funding to support their

ongoing IT operations, they typi-

cally run short of funding when

it comes to buying the second-

ary infrastructure required

to deploy a robust business

continuity plan. As a result,

most IT organisations have no

real business continuity plan in

place—or else they have a plan

to support key assets that’s tenu-

ous at best.

This situation exists primarily

because the vendor community has

always viewed business continuity as an

opportunity to sell additional products. In ef-

fect, vendors are using the fact that IT products can fail

as an excuse to sell additional products to their customers.

The question is, Does it really have to be this way? The an-

swer is, No. A number of products have recently come to market

that not only distribute workloads across multiple

devices, but also automatically pick up for each

other if one of the products fails.

For example, the Oklahoma division

of 7-Eleven manages the IT infra-

structure for 100 stores from its

Oklahoma City facility. The division

is in the process of deploying wire-

less access points across these

100 stores as part of an effort

to improve its inventory control

system. But instead of choosing

one of the better-known providers

of wireless access points, the com-

pany opted for Aerohive’s wireless

access points, which are mutually

supporting in the event of failure.

According to Mike McTice, a senior systems

programmer and integrator at the company, this

means that if an access point were to fail, 7-Eleven would not

have to immediately dispatch someone to fix it. More important-

WHY THERE IS NO BUSINESS CONTINUITY

Traditionalback-up

Days Hours Minutes Seconds Instant

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Two storage back-up recovery

DR Principles

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Recovery time objective

Cost

Local data Replication

Remote date replication

Clustering

were adversely affected. Branches and commercial establishments were unable to function. ATM networks of banks, including State Bank of India, the nation’s largest national bank; ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and several foreign ones like Citibank and HSBC, stopped functioning from the afternoon

of 26 July at all centres of Mumbai. Progressive loss of connectivity with central systems in Mumbai took ATMs around the nation off line on the following days.

The importance of DR (disaster recovery) hit home.

Companies, across domains, be it




location. Nothing could be further from the truth. While there is some similar-ity, but the basic idea, intention, or the function of DR is vastly different from that of backup. Pertisth Mankotia, head IT, Sheela Foam, compares DR to insur-ance. “DR is a hedge against a calamity that could take place in the future.”

Thus, if you have a single data centre, consider how and where you want to move your data out of harm’s way. Solutions could range from purchasing a high-quality fire safe and putting backup tapes inside it each night, to paying for a remote hot backup site where servers are constantly running and data is being replicated near real-time. The migration process could involve a combination of steps, such as making backup tapes and moving them to a remote location on a set tape-rotation schedule, and then replicating data to another storage repository across the internet

ly, the company would not have to pay for additional wireless

access points just to serve as a back up.

A similar concept is at work in a new generation of Ethernet

switches from Woven Systems, which are plugged into a mutu-

ally supporting fabric of switches. This system allows load to be

automatically balanced, and, in the event of a failure, the other

switches on the network automatically kick in to make sure

there is no disruption in service.

When you think about it, this is the way all enterprise-class

technology products should work. If they did, the underlying

infrastructure would be intelligent enough to provide an embed-

ded business continuity capability. With that in place, it would

also be a lot easier to wrap people’s minds around the whole

sustainability issue, which dominates much of the discussion

taking place in the boardroom today.

The core element of creating a business sustainability strat-

egy is to break down processes into a set of modular compo-

nents that can be easily replicated in the event of some type of

disruption. But if the underlying IT infrastructure is too fragile or

expensive to support a sustainability strategy, the issue becomes

moot.

The good news about all the fuss over sustainability is that it

forces companies to take a hard look at their IT infrastructure.

A lot of business executives don’t want to have a conversation

that basically ends up with them having to authorize additional

IT budget allocations. As a result, they wind up shorting the

IT budget in terms of what is really required to sustain the

business. In effect, this means most companies are betting that

a major business disruption isn’t going to happen, rather than

putting appropriate plans in place beforehand.

The best answer to this conundrum would be for every

product to simply plug into a fabric in which every device auto-

matically supports every other system, but it will probably be a

few years before that happens. This means IT people need to

have real conversations about the costs of sustainability, given

the fact that the business basically runs on the back of the IT

infrastructure.

Of course, insisting that technology vendors provide distrib-

uted load-balancing capabilities as a core feature, rather than as

an expensive option, would be a major step in the right direction.

By Michael Vizard © Ziff Davis

41%Business Conti-

nuity/Disaster

Recovery

38% 32%

37%

Internal Policy

Compliance Company

Reputation

Regulatory

Compliance

39%Economic

Downturn

Source: The Global State of Information Security Survey, 2010

Major Factors affecting security spend within the enterprise




Sheela Foam Risk Assessment Analysis for DR

Srl IT services or Servers Natural threats such internal flooding, external flooding, inter-

nal fire, external fire, seismic activity, high winds.

(A)

Human Threats such as robbery, bomb threats, burglary,

vandalism, terrorism, civil disorder, chemical spill, sabo-

tage, explosion, radiation contamination, hazardous waste,

vehicle crash, stoppage (Internal/External), computer

crime.

(B)

Technical Threats such as power failure/fluctuation, heating,

ventilation or air conditioning failure, malfunction or failure of CPU,

failure of system software, failure of application software, tele-

communications failure, gas leaks, communications failure etc.

(C)

Total

Score

(A+B+C)

DR Roll out plan

Based on Total Score

Phase-I : 175-200

Phase-II : 150-174

Phase -III : 100-149

Phase-IV : 50-99Probability Impact on

Business

Resolution

Time

Total A Probability Impact on

Business

Response

Time

Total B Probability Impact on

Business

Response

Time

Total C

0 - 10 0 - 10 0-10 0 - 10 0 - 10 0-10 0 - 10 0 - 10 0-10

1 Greatplus ERP Services- Sheela Foam (Application & Database) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

2 Greatplus ERP Services (Distributors) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

3 Greatplus ERP Services (Joint Ventures) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

4 Greatplus ERP Services (Joyce Foam-Australia) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

5 Document Management system 1 6 10 60 2 3 7 42 5 2 6 60 162 Phase - II

6 File Server 1 6 10 60 2 3 7 42 5 2 6 60 162 Phase - II

7 Mailing Services 1 8 9 72 2 4 5 40 5 1 6 30 142 Phase - III

8 domain controller (DC) 1 8 9 72 2 4 5 40 5 1 6 30 142 Phase - III

9 Design Management Software 1 6 9 54 2 2 10 40 5 1 9 45 139 Phase - III

10 FTP & Catia Server 1 4 9 36 2 3 9 54 5 1 9 45 135 Phase - III

11 SMS Services 1 4 9 36 2 3 10 60 5 0 10 0 96 Phase - IV

12 Sales Slate (Sales Force server) 1 4 10 40 2 2 10 40 5 0 10 0 80 Phase - IV

13 Web server 1 3 10 30 2 2 10 40 5 0 10 0 70 Phase - IV

14 Qlick-View Server (Business Intelligence) 1 4 10 40 2 1 10 20 5 0 10 0 60 Phase - IV

15 Data warehouse Server 1 1 10 10 2 1 7 14 5 0 10 0 24 Not Needed

16 IP Surveillance Storage Server 1 2 10 20 2 0 10 0 5 0 10 0 20 Not Needed

17 Voice Recording server 1 2 10 20 2 0 10 0 5 0 10 0 20 Not Needed

18 Anti Virus & WSUSU Server 1 2 10 20 2 0 10 0 5 0 10 0 20 Not Needed

Take a piece-meal approachThe ideal way to go about planning a DR is to prioritise what needs to be covered. DR is like an insurance, everything can-not come under its wake. Thus, in times of a disaster, the DR cannot replace the actual data centre, but it can ensure that some fundamental functions are not impacted. If your business requires all systems to be up and running at all times, then you need to dig deeper. Rajesh Agrawal, manager IT, Jindal Pipes, says, “Based on the company’s BCP (business continuity practice), the DRP could be tailored to give either

100% recovery, or partial recovery of essential services necessary for con-tinuing the business. In today’s context of 24 x 7 online operations of businesses required to cater to the global market

with geographical time differences, it is preferable to have fully-automated 100% recovery. This is more expensive than the partial DRP options, but is more cost-effective as far as the busi-

How Sheela Foam prioritised its DR rollout

COMPANIES, ACROSS DOMAINS, BE IT A BANK, TELCO, OR A BPO, REALISED THE NEED TO HAVE AN ALTERNATE SET-UP, WHICH COULD CUSHION THE IMPACT OF A DISASTER




marises the same, “First is the DR strat-egy—which applications to be hosted. Is the DR on different seismic zone?”

Also, while technology, investment and location is important, don’t forget the “man factor”. In the end, there should be an assigned person who should be responsible for DR and be a know-all guy. The person should not only be aware of the technical backups but also the processes that need to be followed in case of an exigency. Most often, people forget that while putting in the infrastructure is crucial, putting up a person is equally so. Under ideal circumstances, there should be a senior resource located at the DR site. But in case that is not possible, the site should be remotely managed under expert guidance.

Offsite or outsourced?Finally, over the past few years, there is a rising debate on doing DR in a cloud ecosystem. Many third vendors, like Amazon, Salesforce, etc., offer solu-tions that work to this end. But as stated earlier, DR can be tricky. The reason is simple, the data that you will want to have with you in times of disaster is extremely crucial or critical for your business. And, despite all the security assurances, one cannot be completely sanguine about privacy or security of this critical data. Hence, even though, DR over the cloud seems like a win-win scenario, organisations like banks or tel-cos are wary about it.

Balwant Singh, head IT, IndoAsian Fusegear, empahsises on the need to have stringent SLAs and contracts in place before moving to a cloud. “I will prefer my own DR site as it gives 100% control. Otherwise, working on a cloud can be a good option provided all the checks are in place.”

In the end, like 26/7 was an eye-opener for many banks and enterprises, don’t wait for a calamity to strike before going in for DR. Like the old adage goes, prevention is always better than cure. Thus work out a bailout strategy for your IT and business processes for when the clouds bursts open or the earth quivers.

ness operations are concerned.”To start off, create a matrix of

functions that need to be up and running, and prioritise them accordingly (look at the DR matrix as was prepared by Mankotia for Sheela Foam). Rahul Khattar, GM-ES, Seclore, has sequenced the process like this:

1) Get an Excel sheet to map the existing set-up in terms of criticality, business value, confidentiality, detailed business functionality, data size, laws and restrictions that apply, etc.

2) Now rate each of the elements. Note: The weight each of the individual elements may differ for each application.

3) Once this is done you should move each of apps into three buckets (in-house, cloud based, remote full DR setup location) with “in house” having the lowest number of points.

People priorityChoosing a good off-site location is also important. As one needs to find a place that is as far as from the original data centre in terms of geographic proximity, but not far enough, so as to be unman-ageable. You need to keep in mind all the worst-case scenarios, right from a earthquake to political upheavel. Ravi Sharma, GM-IT, Watson Pharma, sum-

Sheela Foam Risk Assessment Analysis for DR

Srl IT services or Servers Natural threats such internal flooding, external flooding, inter-

nal fire, external fire, seismic activity, high winds.

(A)

Human Threats such as robbery, bomb threats, burglary,

vandalism, terrorism, civil disorder, chemical spill, sabo-

tage, explosion, radiation contamination, hazardous waste,

vehicle crash, stoppage (Internal/External), computer

crime.

(B)

Technical Threats such as power failure/fluctuation, heating,

ventilation or air conditioning failure, malfunction or failure of CPU,

failure of system software, failure of application software, tele-

communications failure, gas leaks, communications failure etc.

(C)

Total

Score

(A+B+C)

DR Roll out plan

Based on Total Score

Phase-I : 175-200

Phase-II : 150-174

Phase -III : 100-149

Phase-IV : 50-99Probability Impact on

Business

Resolution

Time

Total A Probability Impact on

Business

Response

Time

Total B Probability Impact on

Business

Response

Time

Total C

0 - 10 0 - 10 0-10 0 - 10 0 - 10 0-10 0 - 10 0 - 10 0-10

1 Greatplus ERP Services- Sheela Foam (Application & Database) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

2 Greatplus ERP Services (Distributors) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

3 Greatplus ERP Services (Joint Ventures) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

4 Greatplus ERP Services (Joyce Foam-Australia) 1 9 9 81 2 7 5 70 5 5 1 25 176 Phase - I

5 Document Management system 1 6 10 60 2 3 7 42 5 2 6 60 162 Phase - II

6 File Server 1 6 10 60 2 3 7 42 5 2 6 60 162 Phase - II

7 Mailing Services 1 8 9 72 2 4 5 40 5 1 6 30 142 Phase - III

8 domain controller (DC) 1 8 9 72 2 4 5 40 5 1 6 30 142 Phase - III

9 Design Management Software 1 6 9 54 2 2 10 40 5 1 9 45 139 Phase - III

10 FTP & Catia Server 1 4 9 36 2 3 9 54 5 1 9 45 135 Phase - III

11 SMS Services 1 4 9 36 2 3 10 60 5 0 10 0 96 Phase - IV

12 Sales Slate (Sales Force server) 1 4 10 40 2 2 10 40 5 0 10 0 80 Phase - IV

13 Web server 1 3 10 30 2 2 10 40 5 0 10 0 70 Phase - IV

14 Qlick-View Server (Business Intelligence) 1 4 10 40 2 1 10 20 5 0 10 0 60 Phase - IV

15 Data warehouse Server 1 1 10 10 2 1 7 14 5 0 10 0 24 Not Needed

16 IP Surveillance Storage Server 1 2 10 20 2 0 10 0 5 0 10 0 20 Not Needed

17 Voice Recording server 1 2 10 20 2 0 10 0 5 0 10 0 20 Not Needed

18 Anti Virus & WSUSU Server 1 2 10 20 2 0 10 0 5 0 10 0 20 Not Needed

CO

UR

TE

SY

: SH

EE

LA

FO

AM

How Sheela Foam prioritised its DR rolloutThis matrix was created by Per-tisth Mankotia for designing a DR plan for Sheelafoam. In consultation with different functionar-ies within the company -- by assigning points -- Mankotia was able to prioritise his DR rollout. The functions that scored high on the list were taken on the first phase, while the rest were saved for later.




TIPS ON DISASTER RECOVERY

Top tech honchos

share their insights on

DR and BCP

TG Dhandapani, Group CIO, TVS Motor & Sundaram Clayton Group

An organisation should adopt an appropriate business continuity strategy based on recovery point objective and recovery time objec-tive which are driven by the capability of an organisation to invest in such systems and the capacity to wait for IT system to resume in natural way.

Anupam Saraph, CIO, Pune City

There are a lot of “Black Swans” in putting up a DR site. For instance, where? The most important purpose of DR site is to ensure it remains accessible and avail-able. Will your DR location remain accessible or available to you without legal, political, social, envi-ronmental or opera-tional issues? Or, how secure is your data? Do the legal, political, social, operational elements get to your or your clients criti-cal data at your DR centre? How does hosting/exposing the data to various local/remote/cloud servers alter the risks and recovery issues?

Karanbir Singh, VP IT, BSES

The challenges are to identify the failure modes and resulting business loss vis-a-vis plan DR investment accordingly. One has to identify failure modes and estimate business loss in these modes which will lead to plan DR options and give a way to a right kind of DR system in that required invetment to save the business loss. The steps taken are that IT leaders have to come into the business analysts’ role and find out options for the busi-ness continuity under very diversed condi-tions which can result in loss of business.

Daya Prakash, CIO, LG Electronics

Security and privacy concerns are com-pletely dependent on the way DR set up is planned. If the DR set up is planned in house then you take care of as a part of RGC (Risk, Gover-nance and compli-ance) policies. If it is hosted outside then it must be covered through strict SLAs.




TIPS ON DISASTER RECOVERY

Pertisth Mankotia, Head IT, Sheela Foam

DR is like an insur-ance cover and must be treated like one. You do not expect your DR to be useful all the time. It is only at times of crisis or an exigency, that the DR site will come into play. Hence, plan-ning & strategy of a DR must be done keeping the same in mind. One also has to ensure that the DR technology selected will work well within the organisational framework. The ideal way to go is to create a detailed matrix, wherein the differ-ent functions of the company are mapped with their priorities. Based on this matrix, the DR strategy can be worked out within the enterprise.

Pratap Gharge, EVP & CIO, Bajaj Electri-cals

Challanges we face while planning for DR site is to have bal-ance between Recov-ery Point Objectives & Recovery Time Objectives, and the investment capability of the organisation for the DR. For different industry segments, criticality perceived by the organisation for IT infrastructure is different, what might be important for one, might not be so for other. Hence business continuity planning investment justification with the top management becomes an issue.

Suddhar Siddegowda, Head--IT, MAF Fashion

The choice of third-party cloud or remote location or over cloud depends on a few factors, like, what is the risk assessment in terms of depend-ability of the vendor. What is the cost/benefit analysis, and the emergency response mechanism in place. Another factor that plays an important part is the service level agree-ment adherence of the vendor. And finally, there is the security and privacy of data to be considered.

Dhiren Savla, Director IT, CRISIL - Standard & Poor’s Company

One of the common challenge for DR is right sizing of infra-structure. This chal-lenge can largely be addressed by clearly articulating RTO, RPO, RCO and get-ting them validated by the business. Another common pitfall is that while the DR setup is cre-ated and made opera-tional, the DR plan or periodic tests are not carried out. This leads to the risk of DR not working in case of exigencies. Also, DR is one investment which is sparingly used but its one of must have things!! This makes it a good candidate for cloud as capacity on demand could really make it very attractive.

PA Kalyanasundar, GM IT, Bank of India

Never forget the person behind the machine. It is very important to nomi-nate a person, who is responsible for the smooth functioning of DR and BCP. The person, should know all the policies and possibilities when comes to business continuity. By assign-ing DR to a person, an organisation can then concentrate on other aspects of business.


INSIGHT | CRM


To prepare for a new wave of CRM, it’s

important to learn from the mistakes

and pitfalls of its early years

BY JILL DYCHÉ

NEXTSUITING UP

WAVEFOR CRM’S

When I wrote the CRM handbook: A Business Guide to CRM, in 2002, com-panies were spending tens of millions of dollars on CRM software, but industry analysts were predicting that 80 per-cent of CRM projects would fail.

Mistakes and pitfalls of CRM’s early days are now legendary. Companies rushed to embrace CRM technologies, only to discover that automation couldn’t fix broken business processes, absent strategies or bad data.

Consultants keen on helping beleaguered companies get back on track proselytised the importance of change management to CRM initiatives,

but that didn’t stick. As executives continued to aim their silver-bullet technologies toward the customer experience, they remained mired in incumbent business processes and traditional success metrics.

Everyone wanted to participate in vendor evaluation, but no one wanted to own the streamlining of order-to-cash processes or new measurements for customer satisfaction. Despite millions of dollars spent on CRM technologies, it really was business as usual.

Most executives now admit that they were ill-equipped to launch their CRM efforts. Hopes for automating

customerfacing business processes and achieving the celebrated “single view of the customer” were dashed as sales, marketing and customer service executives came to terms with the fact that CRM was more than just a technology solution.

New best practicesToday, however, new corporate strat-egies are resuscitating the need for deliberate and sustained customer man-agement. Is your company ready for the next wave of CRM?

Smart executives are heeding the lessons of firms that have gone before P

HO

TO

GR

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HY

: IS

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PH

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Insight_ERP (baseline).indd 18 8/28/2010 12:40:19 PM

CRM | INSIGHT

1 9S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 0 | ITNEXT

and branded. Wander the halls of any large company’s sales or marketing organisation and you’ll hear “customer experience management” (CEM) or “voice of the customer” mentioned long before hearing the CRM acronym.n Remember your business

model. CRM at a telephone company that wants to understand the calling behaviors within micro-segments to bundle products and services will look very different from CRM at a health care provider that wants to migrate to an end-consumer model, which will look different again from CRM at a retailer with a loyalty card. Understand the boundaries of CRM for both your company and your industry. When in doubt, map out desired outcomes.n Keep social media in

perspective. Many customer-management experts are betting on so-called “social CRM” to resuscitate moribund CRM efforts. But where the customer experience is concerned, your company’s Facebook fan page and Twitter account are merely two additional communications channels. Your brand and your dialog with customers transcend social media.

Recently, a manager at a bank confided, “We’re putting all this effort into social media to get closer to our customers. But we still can’t see the

them. They’re aligning CRM efforts to corporate strategies and forgoing technology investments until their road maps are in place. They’re forging

partnerships with consulting firms that have structured delivery

approaches.They’re being deliberate

a b o u t i n c r e m e n t a l deployment, and are keeping

the customer top-of-mind every step of the way.

Grange Insurance, based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of these

forward-thinking companies. “We were lucky that we had an executive

team willing to invest in the customer experience,” says Mike Buzek, the vice president of EODB (ease of doing business), “but we knew we couldn’t sit around building vision statements and conducting focus groups. We had to craft solid requirements, identify the key stakeholders and define how we were going to execute. And we could never lose sight of what is best for our agents and policyholders.”

Buzek and his team are a reflection of the new best practices in customer management. Here are five habits followed by savvy business owners of customer-focused programs:n Don’t call it “CRM.” The term

is fraught with baggage. Customer initiatives are now business-owned


INSIGHT | CRM


surefire way to secure adequate funding for your effort.

Know your road map. Is your company entrenched in TV and outdoor advertising at the expense of targeted online conversations with customers and prospects? Should you start CRM with your business customers—the 20 percent who produce 80 percent of your revenues—and forego consumers for a year or two? Where you begin will determine where you end up. The key is to do so in circumscribed increments.

Be willing to change measurements. Compensate your employees for adopting fresh, customer-centric behaviors. The most reliable way to ensure everyone is on board is to change measurements and accompanying compensation structures.

My firm helped an automobile company build a CRM strategy in its call center. For its standard brand, the automaker compensated call-center reps based on the number of calls they could take per hour and per day. But for its luxury brand, the automaker paid reps based on the results of post facto customer satisfaction surveys. All customers received good service, but the most profitable customer tier got the best service, and those serving them had an incentive to optimise it.

Lastly, don’t forget to manage expectations. The hardest part for Grange was defining the road map, Buzek confirms. “We invested in a clear and incremental delivery plan that is focused on continuous improvement, and then we socialised the plan with stakeholders,” he recalls.

“That way, everyone understands the value of improving the customer experience. Our CEM program will help us realise the incremental impact of a superior insurance experience so we can continue to deliver those “wow” moments. That’s good for us, our agents and our policyholders.”

Jill Dyché, partner and co-founder of Baseline Consulting, performs advisory services in customer and data strategy delivery. She has written The CRM Handbook: A Business Guide to CRM and two other books on the business value of information. © eWeek

total set of products and services a customer has on a single screen, never mind whether [he or she is] profitable or not.” Social media goals should be a part of a rich set of customer-focused capabilities.n Consider the cloud. That

“customer’s next likely purchase” pop-up doesn’t just magically appear on the callcenter rep’s screen. It’s the product of some rigorous integration and heavy-duty back-office analysis. When it comes to CRM functionality, even small and medium-size companies often have sophisticated processing and storage needs. Don’t let your existing technology infrastructure—or lack

thereof—be an excuse not to launch new CRM efforts. There are plenty of CRM solutions in the cloud that support pay-as-you-go models, while forgoing significant infrastructure and setup costs.n Don’t forget about the data.

That “single version of the truth” promised by so many CRM vendors has ceded to the reality that many of yesterday’s CRM tools have become today’s legacy systems. New customer-focused strategies mandate that the huge volumes of data being generated are accurate, meaningful and reconciled across disparate silos.

Indeed, a single version of truth about a customer is as much a product of formal data governance processes as it is about a centralised technology platform.

The litmus test is the answer to this question: What’s your system of record for customer data? If the answer is, “We have more than one system of record for customer data,” then there is actually no system of record for customer data.

There’s a good chance that data quality is being compromised and that there are, in fact, multiple versions of the truth.

As our knowledge of how to deploy CRM the right way has evolved, so has the sophistication level of customers, who are demanding increasing control of their relationships and have higher expectations. To opt in to receive marketing campaigns means a clear quid pro quo from company to consumer.

Businesses need to expand their customer conversations beyond knowing a customer’s purchase history and offering a product based on next-sequential purchase analysis. Engaging

a customer in a relevant dialog at the right time means optimising the mix of business processes, operational functionality, and information access to give traction to the brand and encourage customers to re-engage with you.

What you should do nowIs your company reviving its CRM pro-gram? Or have you been given respon-sibility for a highly visible “know thy customer” effort? Either way, there are key steps you should consider to launch your customer initiative the right way.

First, whenever possible, align your CRM effort to corporate strategy. Most enterprise CRM efforts will ultimately transcend individual lines of business and drive additional competitive advantage and efficiencies. By linking a new CRM program to a key strategy that’s acknowledged by upper management, you will cement top-level support.

Few executives will scorn a customer-focused project that’s been strategically aligned. And engaging executives is a

PURCHASE ANALYSIS ‘CLOUD’ HAS MADE MORE NOISE AND IMPACT THAN ANY OTHER NEW KID THAT EVER ARRIVED



INSIGHT | GREEN DATA CENTRE

Water is increasingly being harnessed for its unique

properties in the big boxes sprawling IT backyards. Here’s a tab on this trend

BY PRATIMA HARIGUNANI

BLUE FOR GREEN. IN YOUR MACHINE

Insight _ITN.indd 22 8/28/2010 12:43:55 PM

GREEN DATA CENTRE | INSIGHT


called Turbomiser. The unnamed bank will install the chiller in its new data center currently under construction in England’s south. Turbomisers entail use of water-cooling and aqua-condensers.

Back in September, a data center initiative kick-started- it expected to use 50 percent less energy than a typical data center, making it what the company calls, one of the “greenest” computer centers in operation.

Vette Corp a provider of data center thermal management solutions, was selected by Syracuse University and IBM to deliver cooling infrastructure in

what they touted as world’s most energy efficient data centers. The data center project represented a partnership among Vette, Syracuse University, IBM, and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA). It is expected that this $12.4 million, 6,000-square-foot data center will use smarter technologies focusing on the actual infrastructure of the data center itself, not just the computer hardware and software. IBM and Syracuse are creating a liquid cooling system that will use double-effect absorption chillers to convert the exhaust

“The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time.”—Henry David Thoreau

Water which caress stones is now caressing some IT monolith. With mounting energy costs, the challenges of cooling power-guzzling IT horses and awakening of the green conscience is resting upon water.

A Swiss university has launched a water-cooled supercomputer in collaboration with IBM. The system, called Aquasar, has been installed at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich and includes both water-cooled and air-cooled IBM BladeCenter servers for direct comparison with traditional systems. And this is why it gets interesting - Aquasar delivers 450 megaflops per watt and provides enough energy to heat a building.

These water-cooled machines were designed and manufactured by IBM scientists in Zurich and Boblingen, Germany. This is an interesting and shall-we-say a ‘cool’ project wherein Aquasar is built as part of a research program, studying use of waste heat from liquid-cooled supercomputers, and has participants like ETH Zurich, IBM Research – Zurich and ETH Lausanne.

In another news, in December, a major UK bank will deploy what three European companies’ have jointly created a chiller

heat from the microturbines into chilled water that is used to cool the data center’s servers, with sufficient excess cooling to handle the needs of an adjacent building. The IT equipment will be cooled using Vette Corp’s water cooled LiquiCool Rear Door Heat Exchangers rather than with traditional air cooling such as Computer Room Air Conditioners.

This March, Boston IT Solutions (India) Private Limited showcased its water buckets at CeBIT 2010 in Hannover, Germany. Unveiling what it calls, the latest evolution in their range of liquid cooled server and storage solutions,

it claimed that the exclusive use of liquid cooling data centres and large scale server installations could reduce their cooling costs by up to a phenomenal 93 per cent when compared to air cooling. In 2009, Boston IT had announced the evolution in their range of liquid cooled servers at Supercomputing 2009. This one featured patented “modular liquid immersion” technology from Iceotope Ltd, that leverages the thermal superiority of liquids to reduce the operating costs of large-scale computing facilities such as data centres.

Then there is a collaboration announced this July, between SynapSense and GE for dynamic data center cooling, where GE and others invested $5m into product that aligns cooling with IT load in real-time.

The list goes on, from IBM’s concept of Zero emission data centre and changes around community heating, to re-use of wasted heat and chip stacking. We see that water cooling is actually evolving across concepts to practical scalable dimensions.

Why Water?According to IBM, water is 4,000 times more efficient in removing heat

IN ADDITION TO ENERGY SAVINGS FROM WATER COOLING EFFICIENCY, ADDITIONAL OPERATIONAL SAVINGS CAN BE REALISED

4000times

more efficient in removing heat than air

Water is

Source: IBM

Advantage Liquidl Waste heat could be delivered at

useful temperatures like 160 degrees

F (65 degrees C)

l Pump energy could be minimized

enabling PUE levels of 1.05 or better

to be achieved

l Data Centers could be silent as

there would be no need for fans

l No humidity problem, no humidi-

fiers


INSIGHT | GREEN DATA CENTRE


than air. Micro-channel liquid cool-ers bring water directly to the proces-sors. This allows for thermal resistance between the processor and the water to be reduced to ensure that the processor operating temperature stays below the 85 C ceiling.

In it comes to proof of the pudding, Boston has patented “modular immersion technology” from Iceotope

Under this technology, each server motherboard is immersed in an individually sealed bath of inert liquid coolant which passively transfers heat away from the sensitive electronics to a tightly integrated heat exchanger formed by the wall of the bath where water is continuously recirculated and cooled.

And IBM, with the Swiss feat, explained that it uses up to 40 percent less energy than a comparable air-cooled system and which contributes waste heat to a building heating system.

Higher coolant temperature results in higher output temperature, which allows the machine to contribute about 9 kW of thermal power to the comfort heating system of university buildings. According to IBM, this reduces Aquasar’s carbon footprint by up to 85 per cent.

Compared to traditional air cooling systems the two liquids are thousands of times more effective in capturing and tra

nsferring heat, thereby requiring much less energy to run the overall system as the water can be allowed to run warmer whilst still providing adequate cooling, as Boston would argue.

What it exactly does is that it eliminates the requirement for CRAC (computer room air conditioning) units and reduces the need to operate chillers by exchanging heat directly with the air outside the data centre.

Air Vs WaterBack-of-the-envelope calculations

REMOVING EXCESS HEAT FROM DATA CENTRES IS AS MUCH AS 4000 TIMES MORE EFFICIENT VIA WATER THAN IT IS BY AIR, ACCORDING TO IBM

12

34

56

WHAT TO REMEMBER?WHAT TO REMEMBER?For the cooling to operate properly and deliver the flow and pressure required

by the racks at any location in the data center, all cooling equipment must be

not just installed but fully operational from the first day itself. It can lead to

inefficient energy consumption until the data center is fully populated.

Some liquid-cooling units are definitely more efficient than CRAC

units. But they still utilize very powerful air movers that squander a

significant amount of power.

For the components to achieve long life, the water should include a

mixture of antibacteria and anticorrosion materials.

Water being about 3400 times more efficient than air in

removing heat, the heat extraction at the rack level could be

done by a passive rear door heat exchanger or using a hybrid of

passive rear doors and cold plates for high-power components

inside the servers 4...

Data center ambient temperature is a big factor

with efficiency grades.

Try your alternatives. A centrifugal chiller would save five

per cent in energy consumption for every 2°F increase in

chiller water temperature and would produce 19 per cent

improvement for every 10°F decrease.

reveal how cooling typically accounts for 30 per cent or more of electricity operating costs in traditional air cooled data centres due to the requirement to operate Computer Room Air Condi-tioning (CRAC) units and refrigeration plant (chillers) to circulate large vol-umes of cold air to the servers.

If it is possible to eliminate the

requirement for CRAC units and reduce the need to operate chillers by exchanging heat directly with the air outside the data centre, you get free cooling.

As Manoj Nayee, MD Boston, explains, liquid cooling not only reduces the noise and power normally generated by fans at the server level but it can also be used to totally eliminate air cooling within the server room to deliver dramatically improved thermal efficiencies.

An interesting paper by Shlomo Novotny in January, 2010 further highlights that maximum availability and redundancy of the cooling system in an air-cooled data center is accomplished by adding 20 per cent or more CRAC units for extra cooling capacity in case of failure or when there is


GREEN DATA CENTRE | INSIGHT


routine servicing of a CRAC unit. Liquid-cooled data centers accomplish redundancy and availability more efficiently.

As he explains quite poignantly, the liquid-cooled data center uses just the right amount of cooling needed for the IT racks. The coolant distribution unit (CDU) a device that separates the outside water, which typically includes glycol for antifreezing, thus reducing the liquid heat transfer capacity, from the secondary liquid loop leading to the racks. This loop could carry either refrigerant or water.

“Water in this loop would have a high heat-transfer capacity, as it does not need glycol. In a very large data center, this CDU could be replaced with larger centralized CDUs, saving on equipment cost. In areas

where freezing is not an issue, the CDU could be eliminated and the secondary conditioned water loop could come directly from the chiller. Thus, by extracting the heat at the source, new data centers could

eliminate traditional air cooling by using only liquid-circulating pumps to transport the heat to a chiller or to a water-side economizer.” His paper explains.

As data centers install high-power-dissipation racks, air cooling certainly is becoming challenging. The traditional way of cooling such high-power devices is through low-populated racks (low power per rack), rack spreading (getting more air from the floor), hot and cold aisle containment, and creation of small dedicated areas for high-power-density racks. The main problem with all the solutions optimizing and utilizing airflow and CRAC units is the thermal and energy inefficiency of heat transport by air.

For the userIn a report, IDC had warned that CIOs are still not implementing optimum data center management practices.

A data center uses approximately 40 times more energy than an office building of equivalent size and the cooling infrastructure represents approximately half of the total energy use within the data center, if some estimates are true.

In addition to energy savings from water cooling efficiency, additional operational savings can be realized. The reason – you don’t have to supply cooling to the unpopulated IT areas.

A United States Environmental Protection Agency’s Report to Congress on Server and Data Center Efficiency, August 2007 showed how data centers consume one or two per cent of the total U.S. energy consumption. Energy consumption in data centers has been only been growing, according to the EPA, at 12 per cent a year.

Increasing heat density, which demands more cooling, and the cost of electricity have pushed data center operating costs to exceed the costs of the IT equipment itself.

Cooling has suddenly dashed on to the top most rungs in the data centre pecking order. Water, couldn’t have poured in at any better time here. If not all the answers, it is certainly raising some good questions.

When it comes to the word ‘liquidity’, it was definitely not just a co-incidence that it entered business vocabulary. Now it’s time for IT vocabulary to decide.

789101112

WHAT TO REMEMBER?

You still need power to run the data centre kit even if you

don’t need power to run chillers. That’s a trap we still have

to figure out.

Energy usage can be mitigated by using a water-side economizer

that connects through a heat exchanger to the RDHx when outdoor

temperature is appropriate.

Localized liquid cooling at rack level and rack proximity eliminates

one of the most inefficient elements of data center infrastructure

cooling. It also reduces energy consumption, and allows for higher

rack-level compute density.

Liquid cooling enables cooling modularity with a “pay as

you grow” investment.

In May 2010, cooling system failure in a London data center

prevented customers in several parts of the UK from accessing

the data network of O2. An air conditioning failure in one of its

sites caused two nodes which carry network data to overheat

and resulted in intermittent data access for customers.

Any data centre still needs power to run and, unless it comes from

nuclear or renewable generating sources, it’s still indirectly causing CO2

to be emitted, albeit to a lower degree.

80of the IT area

could be reduced by densification utilizing

liquid cooling

%


INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION


Enterprises are warming up to the benefits of new communication tools that engage audiences non-hierarchicallyBY JATINDER SINGH

POWER OF

COLLECTIVES

TH

E

Insight_Enterprise Collaboration.indd 26 8/28/2010 12:47:17 PM

ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION | INSIGHT


ON A CAVALIER SATURDAY EVE-NING, a month ago, Yogesh Bansal, the Founder and CEO of Apnacircle.com, was set to retire early to his bed, till he received a call from his business associ-ate, informing him about the integration of the web platform of ApnaCircle, a com-munity for professionals, with a world-renowned social networking site.

Well, this was the news for which he and his team had waited for long. “Wow! This is something that merits to be shared instantly with my team who worked hard to make this happen,” murmured a charged up Bansal. He unfolded his laptop to log in to his customised enterprise blog.

“Great news guys, your efforts and hard work have paid off. We have managed to partner with a world-renowned company, on which we have been working for so long. Congratulations!” he wrote.

To his amazement, in less than an hour, a series of congratulatory messages, discussing ways to promote this achievement among the web platform users, started pouring in.

Bansal was not sure if he could receive a similar reception from his partners or employees, on a casual weekend, had the same message been communicated through an e-mail, or any other channel.

“Connecting via new-age tools is inarguably the best interactive approach, which makes a long-lasting impression in modern day communication,” Bansal notes, while recalling the moment.

No wonder then, even before the week started, a plan was in place to promote a new idea, developed in a fun-driven, participative environment, without giving any serious trouble to the team. And, that’s how the modern day communication should function—if one needs to outsmart competitors and gain first-mover advantage.

Changing perceptionsWhen compared to 1.0 communication channels (read e-mails and shared fold-ers), industry experts today are convinced that applying real-time collaboration tools is the only way to increasing pro-ductivity—instantly.

And, it is a major method to encourage positive participation from employees,

stakeholders and partners.“Use of collaborative tools can help

organisations circulate the information of ongoing process and projects, that too, with complete transparency. It fosters the evolution of concepts and inferences, as a wide spectrum of people are involved,” says Jacob Livingstone, Manager-IT, BEC.

One can evaluate its utility by way of ideation events and solutions received for a specific problem, or work products being delivered using such tools.

What’s more, groups can be built for opportunities, that work in parallel, which may result in shortening of delivery timelines. This becomes increasingly important for any organisation, that is geographically spread out.

Let’s take an example of a company like Persistent that encourages its employees to be a part of the networking platforms and tools to connect with their customers, counterparts, professional group members, open source communities and former colleagues.

Commenting on the importance of customised collaboration tools over social media platforms, Swapnil Paranjpe, Senior Project Manager–Enterprise Collaboration BU, Persistent Systems, says, “Enterprise collaboration tools are centred around attaining collective intelligence and staff collaboration at the organisation level, or with partners. These include features such as staff networking, expert recommendations, information sharing, expertise location, peer feedback, and real-time collaboration. At the personal level, this enables employees to enhance social awareness and their profiles and interactions.”

For Tulip Telecom, the important lesson, while adopting the new media for partners and employees, was that social media marketing is not just about creating an account and sitting on it.

You need something extra to make it effective, rather than just hoping for customers to come looking for you.

The company has an in-house social engagement platform for employees named Tulip Café where employees are free to share, create groups, get into active discussions and share presentations. “On a daily basis, in fact sometimes at hourly

. “CONNECTING VIA NEW AGE TOOLS IS ARGUABLY THE BEST INTERACTIVE APPROACH, WHICH ALSO MAKES A LONG-LASTING IMPRESSION IN MODERN DAY COMMUNICATION,” —Yogesh Bansal, Founder & CEO, Apnacircle.com

“WE HAVE IMPLEMENTED IDEAS, SOLD PRODUCTS AND SERVICES, CHANGED BUSINESS PROCESSES AND MUCH MORE THROUGH COLLABORATION,” —Manish Mehta, VP, Global Online at Dell


INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION


intervals, there needs to be something relevant the platform should offer to its audience,” says Sujoy Mukherjee, AGM, Marketing–Tulip Telecom.

A couple of years ago, the company started an open-platform enterprise networking tool called Grey Gambit to develop a link with its customers—the IT leaders.

“Recently, we had 1,200 and more members with us. We managed to rope in encouraging participation in all sorts of activities,” says Gaurava Yadav, Project Manager for Grey Gambit

Making the right connectionsSince microblogging is a modest expense (often as low as US$1 per user, per month), there is no need for elabo-rate RoI studies—prior to piloting the service.

However, experts believe, it’s critical to identify “key business goals” that an organisation wishes to achieve, before deploying a solution. A thorough brainstorming—as far as employee feedback is concerned—can be of great use to the organisation.

“Time has come to adopt smart practices that not only help businesses to reduce expenses, but also provide them practical ways of collaboration

and communication,” says Karthik Padmanabhan, Country Manager–Lotus Software, IBM India (South Asia).

“We have implemented ideas, sold products and services and changed business processes through collaboration,” stresses Manish Mehta, VP, Global Online at Dell.

The company uses microblogging services, such as Yammer, to foster sharing among employees, as well as to share critical events within the organisation. “Yammer also integrates with the e-mail and can be used to share documents and links between employees,” Mehta adds.

Data theft & misuse; ignorance can be fatalThe business world is still in the early stages of adopting social networking technologies. But, the future is alive with possibilities.

As different collaborative platforms continue to evolve, and new sets of public and private tools emerge, firms will need to establish corporate governance policies and “agile” IT architectures, which not only support dynamic communication, but also promote deeper and richer interactions that make businesses productive and thriving.

THE FUTURE OF COLLABORATION

By 2014, social networking services

will replace e-mail as the primary

vehicle for interpersonal communi-

cations for 20% of business users

By 2012, over 50% of enterprises

will use activity streams that include

microblogging, but standalone en-

terprise microblogging will have less

than 5% penetration

Through 2012, over 70% of IT-

dominated social media initiatives

will fail

Within five years, 70% of col-

laboration and communications

applications designed on PCs will

be modelled after user experience

lessons from smartphone collabora-

tion applications

Through 2015, only 25% of enter-

prises will routinely utilise social

network analysis to improve per-

formance and productivity

Source: Gartner

81%of all marketers who use social media said it generates more exposure for their businessSource: Social Media Marketing Industry Report, 2009

STEPS TO ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION 2.0

Define the level of member involvement and cross dependencies

Formulate the moderation team comprising of members from various functions

Ensure maximum scalability and flexibility of the medium, with features that can be turned on and off like a tap

Document a clear security and crisis management policy

Chalk out the expectations from the platform


ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION | INSIGHT


Since any collaborative tool has a human intervention side to it, the scourge of data theft and data misuse will always remain the main concern—and the main deterrent towards its use for several enterprises.

“Often, IT managers are left with the option of adopting a mechanism of close monitoring. And, reviewing the purpose for which the data was brought to use in the first place,” explains Minhaz Zia, National Sales Manager, Unified Communications of Cisco India and SAARC.

While this is a double-edged sword, putting in advanced measures of training, guidelines and control, is a prudent way to keeping negative impacts at bay.

Therefore, executive staffs, who take such initiatives, should be informed of the problems and be involved in the security, rather than be allowed to off-load responsibility to the security team. This will encourage a culture of security that is both collaborative and structured, and is also ingrained throughout the organisation’s processes.

There is a combination of things an enterprise has to employ to address the security challenges.

“As IT managers will employ technical means to prevent, or detect, such occurrences, corporate policies should be formulated in a manner which act as a deterrent,” says Ashwani Tikoo, CIO, CSC in India

Most enterprises are going in for background checks and track records of the prospective employees to unearth past records.

While marketing, PR, and sales are prominent when it comes to a global usage of collaboration tools, other core functional areas of the enterprise are increasingly experimenting with these tools, with positive results.

HR, CRM, supply-relationship management, product development and innovation or even service delivery are all parts of the value chain that can derive advantages from social networking tools.

Confronting challengesNevertheless, as organisations look at the future of social media, they must confront challenges such as lack of governance and IT involvement, which may impact the successful inte-gration of these new platforms and tech-nologies.

“THE USE OF COLLABORATION TOOLS CAN HELP ORGANISATIONS TO CIRCULATE THE INFORMATION OF ONGOING PROCESS AND PROJECTS WITH COMPLETE TRANSPARENCY,”—Jacob Livingstone, Manager (IT), BEC

“THE TIME HAS COME TO ADOPT SMART COMMUNICATION PRACTICES THAT CAN HELP ORGANISATION S TO ACHIEVE RESULTS FASTER,”—Karthik Padmanabhan, Country Manager-Lotus Software, IBM India

MAJOR ENTERPRISE COMMUNICATORSSALESFORCE CHATTER: Chatter is a real-time cloud based collaboration

tool for enterprises that enables employees to share the status of

important projects and deals instantly

YAMMER : Founded in December 2007, Yammer is a Twitter like tool for

improving workplace communication

MICROSOFT SHAREPOINT: It’s a software platform developed by Microsoft

for collaboration and web publishing combined under a single server. It has

capabilities for developing web sites, portals, intranets, CMS and BI tools

IBM’S LOTUS: Lotus is a collaboration solution from IBM that provides rich

chat (IM, audio, video), online meetings, and group collaboration.

CISCO’S ENTERPRISE COLLABORATION PLATFORM (ECP): It enables

teams and knowledge workers to quickly and securely create, share, and

scale content and expertise. Companies can invite their customers to

participate and collaborate and work better.


INSIGHT | ENTERPRISE WIRELESS


Wireless communication is reaching a point at which enterprise IT managers can depend up on it for fast, reliable communications—both inside and outside the officeBY WAYNE RASH

ABOUT

WORKALL

IT’S

Insight_enterprise wireless.indd 30 8/28/2010 12:57:13 PM

ENTERPRISE WIRELESS | INSIGHT


PH

OT

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PH

Y: P

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S.C

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Wireless networking in an enterprise is all about getting work done. And work may not always mean e-mail or messaging, or those other nice features on your iPhone or Android device. Instead, work reflects the nature of an enterprise: Whether it’s Sandburg’s hog butchers, tool mak-ers, stackers of wheat, or railroad or freight han-dlers, it’s about the work that companies and their employees do. When you see wireless in the enterprise, it’s as likely to be on a gritty loading dock in the back of a receiving facility or bolted to the side of a forklift, as it is to be in a brightly-lit office upstairs.

That’s why the big news in wireless and mobile computing isn’t that there are iPhone apps for some things. The really important news is that wireless communication is reaching a point at which enterprise IT managers can depend up on it for fast, reliable communications—both in and out of a building. Because of this, 802.11n and 3G or 4G wireless are a lot more important, than the ability to download television shows to a smartphone.

What matters to enterprise IT managers is that a wireless installation works to facilitate the objectives of the business. This may mean that the warehouse crew can get pick orders delivered wirelessly, or that the shipping department can coordinate the loading of trucks. But, it may also mean that the sales staff has access to the latest information on product inventory and pricing, or that the field service force has access to reference information.

Enterprises that plan from the beginning for a wireless environment—or adapt their enterprise to a wireless infrastructure—stand to reap the benefits of being truly flexible and mobile. Companies that let wireless just happen

to them, because they don’t have an identifiable wireless plan, will ultimately pay a price in reduced flexibility, higher costs and limited competitiveness.

A corporate strategyBut adapting wireless to an enterprise takes more than simply giving the company’s manag-ers cell phones. It means approaching wireless as a corporate strategy—the way that Hearst Publishing did when it built its new Manhat-tan headquarters. Hearst was building a new office, not a factory floor wireless environment, but the company moved to a model that would allow ubiquitous WiFi and cell phone coverage throughout the production environment that matters most to the company: its editorial staff.Joe Melfi, D-Link’s associate director of busi-ness solutions marketing, said the critical tech-nology for enterprise wireless is WiFi. “When it [802.11n] was ratified, it was a big deal and companies would spend money on it,” Melfi said. “11n is giving better coverage per access point. You get faster throughput and faster traffic, and it won’t kill your network.”

A key feature of 802.11n that makes it ideal for the enterprise, according to Melfi, is its MIMO (multiple input, multiple output) technology. “The technology is more noise-tolerant,” he explained, “And success in keeping a connection is better. You have dual-band technology, so if you have a lot of noise, you can switch to the other band. You can fall back to lower bit rates and rebroadcast.”

Melfi said that MIMO technology is the real key to WiFi’s sudden growth in the enterprise. “Now everything is going 11n,” he said. “Bar-code readers and inventory systems are all going 11n. When




separate on those networks, but he expects to see an integrated approach in the future. “When this gets tied together, you can do it all at the access switch,” he said. “Then I can think of moving my critical applications to my wireless users, as well as my wired users.”

Robust, flexible technologyWhile wireless networking has been around for years, it was the formal ratification of the 802.11n standard that made enterprise users take notice. The new standard supported technology that was both robust and flexible. In addition, it allowed portability, which, in turn, meant that enterprise-grade portable devices became feasible. Mean-while, the continuing growth of 3G and 4G wireless meant that the enterprise-grade connection could exist outside the office. “The objective is to make sure that people in the field have access to the same information and capability that people in the office do,” said Craig Mathias, principal analyst at the Far-point Group advisory service. “There used to be a saying that people in the field don’t want the same things as peo-ple in the office, but that’s not true. This is the first time we’ve been able to rep-

“USERS HAVE NO IDEA HOW TO MANAGE DATA VOLUME,” —Craig Mathias, Principal Analyst, Farpoint Group

The new wirelessWireless communications have been around in business for a long time, but

serious enterprise-use wireless—whether WiFi or cellular-based wireless data

connections—was always at the margins. Now, that’s

beginning to change. The ratification of 802.11n

and the beginning of high-speed cellular-based

data connections are finally giving businesses

the open door they need to add wireless to

the core of the enterprise.

There are several rea-

sons for this:

Ultimately, for enterprises to invest in a wireless infrastructure and devices, they

need to be confident that the real needs of the business will be met, and that

their technology investment will be around long enough to pay for itself. With

the high-speed, highly reliable wireless that’s just emerging, they have a reason

to feel confident—W.R.

The ratification of 802.11n means that

enterprises can be certain that their investment in

infrastructure is both safe and useful.

The ratification of 802.11n means that

enterprises can be certain that their investment in

infrastructure is both safe and useful.

The ability of 11n WiFi enables workers to be

mobile within a building and have reliable, fast

connections.

Companies are beginning to find applications and

products that are designed strictly for business, rather

than being repurposed consumer electronics.4G communications are

starting to appear, giving enterprise users some hope that reliable, fast

communications will also exist outside the building.

drivers arrive on loading docks they just punch their driver number into a wireless device, and cargo starts arriving.”

There are applications in the enterprise for this emerging capability, but Harpreet Chadha, senior director of product management for Extreme Networks, is already seeing a few that stand out. “I’m surprised about the amount of video coming to the enterprise—collaboration, distance learning, broadcasts from the CEO,” Chadha said. “You need to have more bandwidth for the connections you care about now.” Chadha added that the new reliability and improved bandwidth found in today’s wireless environment are lending themselves to applications that have been confined to a wired network environment. “You

expect that the dashboard on your database will work over a wireless connection,” he pointed out.

Wireless technology is also cropping up in other areas now that more bandwidth and reliability are available.

“Companies are using WiFi and RFID for inventory and warehousing,” Chadha said, noting that while both technologies have been around for some time in the warehouse, faster and more reliable communications are making them the norm rather than the exception. He also noted that some new applications, such as the ability to locate people, are making an appearance.

Chadha expects to see more growth as wired and wireless networks become more integrated. Right now, he said, security and management are still




Find similar stories online on the website www.itnext.in/Insight

With wireless networks supporting more users and newer applications, administra-tors should rethink their coverage strategies to optimise for the usage patterns.

licate office IT functions and put them in the field.”

Unfortunately, some wireless carriers are complicating the adoption of enterprise wireless networking. AT&T, for example, has stopped offering unlimited data plans due to the demand for bandwidth by the Apple iPad and iPhone.

Mathias said this is a problem for corporate users. “Users have no idea how to manage data volume,” Mathias said. “It’s unfair to charge people for the volume of data because people don’t know how much data they’re going to get.” He added that the ultimate direction for enterprise wireless is WiFi—and 4G when it becomes available. “There’s no substitute for capacity and coverage,” Mathias pointed out. “It will involve WiFi playing a strategic role in high density environments. Eventually, it will be an all-IP network. When we move to LTE [Long Term Evolution] and WiMax, we have the potential to move all traffic into the IP domain. The carrier will be able to divide up that traffic dynamically.”

This type of flexible coverage was the rationale for the development of Cisco’s Cius tablet, capable of handling true enterprise applications. According to Barry O’Sullivan, Cisco’s senior vice-president for the Voice Technology Group, the Cius is a video-centric device designed for 11n and 3G environments. “The primary users will be businesspeople who are mobile, inside buildings, or between buildings,” he said.

O’Sullivan said Cisco designed the Cius to support 4G LTE when it becomes available. He said that he thinks the device will be particularly useful for financial services and public sector applications, adding that the device has a rugged case accessory for warehouse and factory environments.

“The name of the game is that all businesses have access to the same information,” said Farpoint’s Mathias. “When everybody has access to the same stuff, the only differentiator will be how quickly you can move stuff around to people who make decisions, and how quickly you can make those decisions known. How much is it

worth to get a temporal advantage over your competition?”

The answer is that it could be worth a lot. Mathias describes a mythical insurance agent to illustrate how a well-designed enterprise wireless approach can make a difference. “You’re an insurance agent sitting in your client’s office, and your client wants to make changes. You take notes and offer to send the new numbers over.A modern insurance agent, and you’re interacting with an application that figures out the new numbers on the fly. Who’s going to get the business? Nothing irritates customers more than having to wait for an answer.”

Ultimately, that’s the promise of enterprise wireless: not having to make your business wait for something to happen, whether it’s for a new insurance quote, or for a pick list to be delivered to a forklift driver, or for the warehouse crew to show up at the loading dock. In business, time is everything, and gaining that temporal advantage is the reason the enterprise is starting to love wireless.

Contributing analyst Wayne Rash is a veteran technology writer and reviewer. © eWeek


Announcing the winners of IT infrastructure audit conducted by APC in conjunction with IT Next

What according to you are the best practices for making a data centre room, “Green”? What is your biggest challenge today in the DC/server room? How do you plan to tackle availability in your DC/server room?

These were some of the questions posed to over 2000 senior IT managers across the length and breadth of India, as part of an IT Infrastructure Audit carried out by APC in conjunction with IT Next. The purpose of the exercise was to assess the preparedness and awareness of the community towards green data centres. The participants in the survey had a chance to win APC data centre solution as a prize (see box).

THE THREE LUCKY WINNERS, WHO HAVE BEEN CHOSEN AFTER STRINGENT MEASURES ARE:

INFRASTRUXUREGREENING th

e

SURVEY | RESULTS


Anand Saxena

Sr. Manager IT,BNP Paribas

WIN

NER

S OF IT INFRASTRUCTURE A

UD

IT1 WIN

NER


UD

IT3 WIN

NER


UD

IT2

Sumit Dutta

AGM,3i Infotech

Mahesh Pardesi

Project Leader,Sodexo Facilities

Management Services India

Event report_APC.indd 36 8/28/2010 12:58:28 PM

In a country like India, where there is an acute deficit of power, green data centre makes immense sense not only from an environmental but also from an economic perspective. Data centres are typically power guzzlers, sucking up immense power.

As, GB Ravichandra, Director Enterprise Sales, APC, points out: “In a tropical country like India, companies mainly rely on air conditioning to keep servers at the right temperature. The more powerful the machine, the more cool air needed to keep it from overheating. Energy costs, now about 10% of the average IT budget, could rise to 50% unless companies take radical measures, CIOs are well aware of this problem,” he says. “Such surveys play an immense role in spreading the awareness about this issue,” he adds.

Vikas Gupta, director, 9.9 Media, also spoke about the survey. “APC is a global leader when it comes to energy efficient solutions. By partnering with them we not only gained insights about the spread of green in the Indian enterprise space but were able to share nuggets of vital information with IT managers,” he stated.

With the help of InfraStruXure Central Standard, IT managers will be able to measure and analyse the power consumption pattern, the Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is one of the most favoured ones amongst the enterprises. Basically speaking, PUE is the sum of total facility power divided by the IT equipment power, wherein, the ‘facility power’ is the power required to operate the entire data center, including servers, IT equipment, lighting, cooling, air movement, etc.

While the ‘IT equipment power’ represents the power required to operate the servers and IT equipment alone.

RESULTS | SURVEY


Encrypted communications

128 Bit, SSL encrypted communi-

cations between client and server,

as well as encrypted user IDs and

passwords stored on the server to

help protect your resources from

unwarranted attacks.

Custom mapping

Custom backgrounds, unique

user-assignable icons, and drag-

and-drop device placement make

it easy to identify problem devices

at a glance, minimizing downtime,

errors, and cost.

Integrated data storage

InfraStruXure Central ships with

internal storage for data and video

collection. Additional storage can

easily be made available using the

built-in Network Attached Storage

server support for long-term stor-

age and archiving.

Centralised management

Simplify management of the physi-

cal infrastructure using a central-

ized repository accessible from

anywhere on the network through a

powerful and easy-to-use console

application.

Custom reporting

Create, save and schedule user-

defined reports for ease of data col-

lection, distribution and analysis.

Alarm filters

Customise the user interface to

display devices in critical, warning

or normal device statuses.

Mass firmware update

Decrease set-up time and complex-

ity of managed devices by simul-

taneously upgrading firmware for

multiple APC devices.

Unified console

Customisable Windows and Linux

client application enables instant

access to InfraStruXure Central

application from anywhere on the

network.

Private networking

Reduce IP addresses needed on

the public network to manage

devices, by placing them on an iso-

lated secure network.

Surveillance add-on application

Enhance visibility of your critical

assets with physical threat man-

agement to monitor and record all

activity in important locations or

secured areas. A centralised repos-

itory allows the user to review,

search and tag surveillance events

for future needs.

Centralised Alert Repository

Access historical alerts from sev-

eral appliances through one central

database. Sort alerts by type, date,

appliance, and/or device group.

Extendable architecture

Available node and application

license keys extend the capabilities

of the platform allowing it to grow

to meet changing business needs.

InfraStruXure Central StandardInfraStruXure Central Standard v6.0 scales up to 2025 devices and 125

surveillance cameras. It supports InfraStruXure Capacity, InfraStruXure

Operations, InfraStruXure Mobile, InfraStruXure Energy Efficiency, Infra-

StruXure Change, and InfraStruXure Energy Cost, up to 210 racks.

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“ENERGY COSTS, NOW ABOUT 10% OF THE AVERAGE IT BUDGET, COULD RISE TO 50% UNLESS COMPANIES TAKE RADICAL MEASURES”

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Event report_APC.indd 37 8/28/2010 12:58:29 PM

CASE STUDY | MPCB


With the integration of its business processes over, MPCB is now ready to enter the next phase of automationBY MAHESH PATHAK, AJAY

DESHPANDE, DINESH SONAWANE

AND RAJIV DESAI

Case Study_MPCB.indd 38 8/28/2010 1:03:08 PM

MAHARASHTRA POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

MPCB | CASE STUDY


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In the life of any organisation, there occurs a singularity—formed when diverse routes meet at a single point. The position-ing and intensity of this point is “severe”, and there’s no organisation that can stand without it.

Take the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), for instance. It’s a public organisation—one which caters to an external world and to an internal world of office functions.

MPCB’s singular point of control can be achieved through e-governance—of all its business processes. E-governance can be its strongest and the most vital technicality—providing a leap into automation.

E-governance encompasses the computerisation of all business processes of an office. Each process is related to the other—and, there is none without the other.

On its part, MPCB set out for holistic

computerisation. This applied to a very large geographical area, especially because the board’s offices were spread across the length and breadth of a large state of Maharashtra—12 regional offices connected centrally to its headquarters at Sion, Mumbai. And, several sub-regional offices.

There were certain challenges that were faced by the organisation—primarily proposed changes in its business processes. E-governnance could lead to a re-engineering, that would affect the process’s owners and employees of the organisation. Thus, before implementation, it was mandatory for the board to address change management, as well. And, it needed to adopt a state-of-the-art technology that could help connect all the state’s centres and facilitate its businesses. As the software to be implemented involved integration of all processes, the project

PROJECT MAPNATUREInterlinking all the 12 offices

centrally

CHALLENGESThe offices were located in

disparate location and also

had legacy infrastructure

TEAM

CURRENT STATUSAll offices have been inter-

linked, a data recovery mod-

ule is planned next

DIRECT IMPACTAs, all different offices of

MPCB were interlinjed, it

resulted in greater transpar-

ency and speedening of the

process. All the cases are now

listed on a central website,

http://mpcb.gov.in

DINESH SONAWANE, ASSIS. SYSTEMS OFFICER, EIC

RAJIV DESAI, MANAGER IT, MPCB

AJAY DESHPANDE, IN-CHARGE, EIC


CASE STUDY | MPCB


was named Integration Management Information System (IMIS).

IMIS project IMIS consists of integration of all pro-cesses formulated into the MPCB busi-nesses, as software modules. These modules have financial implications, as well as, laboratory reports. Integra-tion is concerned not merely with office procedures, but also with laboratories.

The IMIS project included development of an enterprise solution for multidisciplinary functions, including consent, laboratory and waste management, cess collection and establishment and accounts. The project’s main feature was the intention to integrate laboratory functions in the regulatory mechanisms and waste management—for effective control of pollution, and improvement in environmental compliance.

Thus, in case of the Maharashtra board, the need of the hour was to make implementations effective and efficient—as the entire business-to -business (B2B) scenario was dependent

ers and radio connectivity located at suitable venues, which provided a spectral catchment range. The VPN connectivity of each region had a max-imum bandwidth of 128kbps that is now being upgraded to 256kbps. The office internet is shared from the proxy server at the headquarters through the same VPN circuit.

Hardware implementa-tion; Creation of data centreAt the Maharashtra environmental office, information stored in the MPCB data centre is obtained from varied sources and, concerns facts related to the environment—both animate and inanimate.

This repository of information forms the knowledge centre—used for research and development. The main centre housing the servers and database is situated at the head office. This is the Central Network Operations Centre, or C-NOC, for short.

As seen in the diagram on the following pafe, there are application and domain servers, databases, mailing system, storage and backup system that comprises the C-NOC. Atop all servers, there is the “Network Gateway Router” that guards all internal networks and connects regional offices. It is here that the internet connection finds way to all regions. Every regional office is

equipped with a local area network (LAN) and a secondary gateway router connecting to the main at the C-NOC. Thus, a full connectivity is achieved between all MPCB regional offices through an MPLS virtual private network, making it appear as a single-premise network.

Regions connect centrally for getting their access to the application. This

TO HELP CUSTOMERS, A PAYMENTGATEWAY IS ALSO BEING PLANNED, AND IT WILL SOON BE OPERATIONAL

HEAD OFFICE

SION

Amravati

Aurangabad

Pune

Nagpur

Raigad

KalyanNashik

Thane

Kolhapur

Navi Mumbai

Chandrapur

ALL LINKED TO HQThe regional offices have been connected and sub regional offices will be consid-

ered for networking in the next phase

on it. It was also important that implementation be carried out in a time-bound manner and with smooth transition into e-governance.

Strategic approachThe setting up of the IT environment was done to connect locations securely. As regional offices that needed to be

connected were located in far-off loca-tions, a cost-effective, long-term solu-tion was effected through an MPLS VPN connectivity, which was secure, scalable and far-reaching. In fact, the same setup was used to provide inter-net access to all centres. The MPLS VPN was provided by the internet service provider, Tulip. The connec-tivity was established through tow-


MPCB | CASE STUDY


is a web-based architecture, in which users access the database through their browsers. There is also an antivirus server that runs MacAfee antivirus shield, networked to all the computers. The core operating system of the IMIS is MS windows Server 2003 with MS SQL database. The Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) sever runs Oracle databases. All modules of the IMIS are operational from the application server.

Software implementa-tionThis was the process that was the ulti-mate to drive the project. The applica-tion consists of various modules that carry the main business of the organi-sation:n File Tracking System (FTS)n Cess n Consentn Authorisation n L ab o r at o r y I n f o r m at i o n

Management System (LIMS)n Waste Managementn Assets and purchasen Establishment and (Payroll

Financial)n Complaints n Legal

Integration of modulesFunctional modules had to be inte-grated with laboratory module, LIMS and financial module. The process was far from simple, as the functional mod-ules were developed and customised in-house. Whereas LIMS (from Labvan-tage) and Financial Accounting System (FAS) from Virmati were off-the-shelf packages.

The packages had to be customised in accordance with MPCB’s requirements. Customising and integrating them was a challenge. This process of integration caused many deadlines to be deferred. LIMS, though a part of the IMIS, was an auxiliary software that catered to the laboratory processes. While collecting the results of the samples processed, it also interfaced analytical instruments used for samples. Parameters of the collected sample, by a field officer, were

Consent

Cess

FAS Payroll

Authorisation

Estblishment

Stores

Complaints

Legal

LIMS

Waste Management

IMIS INTEGRATION MODULESAll thes functional module packages were customised in accordance with the

Board’s requirement and integrated on the IMIS

LIMS Database

Enterprise Database

FTS

fetched into the LIMS database for further processing. The LIMS package had to be considerably customised, considering laboratory needs and technical details. It had a different database running Oracle. And, a separate component, to integrate it with the enterprise database of the IMIS had to be developed.

Also, the establishment module consisting human resource processes had been developed, but this could not be complete without relating it to the finance and accounts. Thus, a separate service had to be developed to integrate FAS within IMIS. Both LIMS and FAS ran on separate databases.

The websiteThe integration could only be complete if IMIS was now accessible via the inter-net from the board’s website (http://www.mpcb.gov.in), where environmental data could be accessed. With IMIS in place, the website would now be more dynamic. The consent status could be known to the customer after processing the application through the IMIS from the website. The status of complaints could also be ascertained from the web-

site. Given this interactivity required, the next step was to go for an informa-tion security audit. Such an audit is nec-essary since sensitive data is stored in the database. MPCB is now on the way to conduct such an audit.

ConclusionAfter the final phase of the office auto-mation was completed. Data was avail-able in a digital form, and could be accessed from anywhere, at any given time.

This led to a radical change in the business-to-business functions of the MPCB. Also, the regional offices in Maharashtra were finally connected.

Remaining sub-regional offices will be considered for networking in the ensuing phase of the project. To help customers, a payment gateway has been planned, and it will be soon be operational. Also, the consolidation of networks needs a “Network Monitoring System”. A data recovery module is being planned for the next phase.

The authors are associated with the Maharash-tra Pollution Board in various IT and administra-tive roles.


INTERVIEW | SANDEEP AURORA


Interview_Sandeep Aurora.indd 42 8/28/2010 1:04:57 PM

SANDEEP AURORA | INTERVIEW


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“WE ARE NOT A SEMICONDUCTOR COMPANY NOW”

Intel, which is propagating the

advantages of WiMAX for such a long time, has recently closed its WiMAX programme office. What does it mean for India? Are you backing off your support to WiMAX?I would not say so. Let me put it this way. Intel is integrating its WiMAX Programme Office (WPO) into various platforms, product and sales organisations as part of a normal course of busi-ness. This organisational transi-tion is a normal process that takes place as new technologies mature and become a standard part of existing computing platforms, as is the case for WiMAX.

This does not meant any change in our commitment to

WiMAX. We are excited for the growth ahead when millions of WiMAX clients will make their way into the hands of end users.

The fact is that today, everybody has recognised the potential of WiMax. Since, fibre will take 10 more years and perhaps a lot of efforts, this is the only solution to India’s broadband woes. The whole idea is that if you truly want to become a country which cares for its citizens, and adopt computerisation at village level, you need connectivity on the go. And WiMax, undoubtedly, holds an upper hand over rest of the technologies.

Could you share some details on Intel’s upcoming SSDs?We already have and are work-

ing closely to develop SSDs that remove performance bottlenecks associated with traditional hard disk drives to unleash the full performance of our Core and Xeon processor-based systems. By reducing the total infrastruc-ture, cooling and energy costs, the new age SSDs can help busi-nesses lower total cost of owner-ship for enterprise applications significantly.

The company is also betting big on the Atom series of processors which were launched two years back in India. How big is the demand of such kind of near PC’s? In 2008, the Atom processor was introduced on the low-power, low-cost Intel Architecture (IA) microprocessor, post discus-

Sandeep Aurora, Director, Sales and Marketing Group – South Asia, Intel, in a freewheeling conversation with Jatinder Singh shares the company’s new technology initiatives and the learning’s it has gained from the Indian market


INTERVIEW | SANDEEP AURORA


sions over a slower, lower-power, Intel-compatible microproces-sor, which helped in enabling the creation of a new class of small, lightweight netbooks. Tens of millions of netbooks have been sold over the two years of the existence of multifaceted Atom microprocessors. The Atom is now finding its way into televi-sions sets, including the recently announced Google TV and smart phones. Many more applications of Atom processors are in the works. The demand has certainly gained momentum.

You have recently announced a major technology breakthrough that uses light beams to carry data in and around computers. Can you explain how this innovation will change the computers of tomorrow? Yes, Intel has developed a research prototype representing the world’s first silicon-based optical data connection with inte-grated lasers. The link can move data over longer distances and many times faster than today’s copper technology. Today, com-puter components are connected to each other using copper cables or traces on circuit boards. Due to the signal degrada-tion that comes with using met-als such as copper to transmit data, these cables have a limited maximum length. This limits the design of computers, forc-ing processors, memory and other components to be placed just inches from each other. This research achievement is another step toward replacing these con-nections with extremely thin and light optical fibers that can trans-fer much more data over far lon-ger distances, radically changing the way computers of the future are designed and altering the way the datacenter of tomorrow is architected.

What prompted Intel to make an effort towards creating a new operating system on microchips? That whole thing is more about creating applications. It’s more like an application store. It’s a very exciting community. Nokia is a leader in that segment. So, the partnership makes sense for the obvious reasons. The idea was to go and develop something for the market. The whole idea was to create a platform store to prepare developer chips which is good for business smartphones and nor-mal smartphones. As we go along, the performance keeps going up. The roadmap was always there. The intention was to make the smart phone smarter.

Intel is swiftly diversifying its portfolio into varied segments. What, in your opinion, will be the Intel of tomorrow? For most people, Intel’s name

is synonymous with micro-processors powering the vast majority of the world’s personal computers. But, the Intel of today is no longer a pure semi-conductor company serving the horizontally structured PC industry. It has become a vertical computing and communications company providing hardware and software solutions to a vast range of industries and individ-uals around the world. Beyond the traditional PC sectors, we are actively bringing products to market for the home, health, handset, and numerous embed-ded computing and communica-tions markets and one can expect to see a variety of stuff of that sort in future.

Find other inter-views online on

the website www.itnext.

in/resources/interviews

“WE ARE COMMITED TO CHANGING THE FUTURE OF COMPUTING AND ALTERING THE WAY THE DATACENTER OF TOMORROW IS ARCHI-TECTED”



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IT Strat The scope say it all THIS PAGE

Manage IT 10 Email etiquettes PAGE 48

Manage IT Systemic risk poses big threats PAGE 49

Training Calendar Career booster courses PAGE 50

Methodologies and techniques for cost estimation and management have evolved over a period

of time. And, it will continue to do so.There is no formula or technique

when it comes to scoping and managing project budgets. One can use a combination of techniques, or develop some of one’s own, depending on the industry for which the project is being implemented, and the nature of the project. Example; a technology company will like to focus more on R&D and training functions while scoping a budget, whereas a non-technology company will lay emphasis on mission-critical applications, infrastructure development or support services.

Budget planning is a typical constraint for any IT project. The plan’s definition will form a baseline, against which potential changes are assessed and deliverables are defined, along with objectives and timelines.

Usually, during a project, one of the three factors—timeline, performance and budget—affects and dominates the other two. One should have a fine assessment of the three factors, while scoping the budget.

TRAININGEDUCATIONWORKPLACE

COMPENSATIONWORKFORCE TRENDS

SKILLS DEVELOPMENTPERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

LOWER YOUR

BP PAGE 46

IT STRAT

THE SCOPE SAY IT ALL

A project is successfully managed when it is properly budgeted and stays focused,

and has well-defined contours

15MINUTEM A N A G E R

BY ANURAG CHATURVEDI

15 Minutes Manager.indd 45 8/28/2010 1:08:36 PM

15-MINUTE MANAGER

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Hypertension or High blood pressure results

when the force of circulating blood against

blood vessels is overly increased. The reading

consists of two numbers, systolic and diastolic.

Systolic pressure is the force with which the

heart works to pump blood through arteries.

The diastolic figure shows the pressure of

blood in the arteries between heartbeats. A

blood pressure reading of 120 over 80 is within

normal limits. However, if a reading is 140

over 90 or higher, medication will probably be

prescribed. Left untreated, high blood pressure

can cause stroke, heart attack, kidney failure

and other serious ailments. Here are some tips

on how to deal with high BP:

Reduce weight: Eating a diet low in fat and

high in fruit and vegetables acts to lower

sodium levels in the body while increasing fiber,

potassium and calcium. Fiber in the diet can be

increased by adding foods such as dried beans

and peas, fruit and oat products. These foods

help to decrease cholesterol production and

reduce blood pressure.

Lower sodium intake: Reducing salt has a

significant effect on lowering the blood pres-

sure but not only salty snacks and other obvi-

ously salty foods are harmful. Check for hidden

sodium that may appear in cheese, desserts,

ketchup, etc. Avoid fast foods and smoked meat

and fish products, which are high in sodium. .

Exercise regularly: Regular exercise stimu-

lates the metabolism to burn more calories.

If inactive, start the exercise program slowly

with light to moderate walking or light weight

training to burn more calories and increase

muscle mass.

Approximately 1 billion people worldwide have

high blood pressure, and this number is expected to increase to 1.56 billion people by the year 2025

LOWERING HYPERTENSIONHEALTHY LIVING

With poor scoping, budget management goes out of hands and becomes uncontrollable. Some of the problems that occur while scoping are: Ambiguity in scope: Leading to confusion and unnecessary workIncomplete or unclear dataScope creep: Uncontrolled changes in scopeNon-collaborative scope: Scope not vali-dated with stakeholders.

Such problems impede the progress of a project, and their implications can be far-reaching, both in terms of cost and time. In fact, “cost overrun”, which is defined as “excess of actual cost over budget”, is a common occurrence in technology due to inaccurate scoping. An industry study shows that 40% of technology budgets are overrun because of underscoping—mainly because of imperfect forecasting, inadequate data and market awareness, and insufficient knowledge about a product lifecycle.

Once the project starts, changes are bound to happen. But, reasons behind the changes need to be analysed. One should be flexible in approach and account for those reasons that may have been overlooked by the business management. Efficient managers should be resourceful in their project estimations and implementation. Some factors that affect change are:Changing business needsNew legislations and regulationsOther projects and initiativesChange in organisational structure

Business users cannot identify every requirement and feature required for the final solution and delivery. Even if they could, a business changes over time. Therefore, solution requirements change, too. A user must explicitly clarify potential dangers and cost impact of changes and encourage changes that may lead to organisational benefits (this is what is termed as a “good change”). It is wise to judge “changes” early and, accordingly, align the scope and adjust a budget. However, this brings us to a critical question—how does one incorporate changes in a project that is already underway?

CATEGORIES FOR BLOOD PRESSURE LEVELS IN ADULTS (IN MMHG, OR MILLIMETERS OF MERCURY)

CATEGORY SYSTOLIC (TOP NUM-BER)

DIASTOLIC (BOTTOM NUMBER)

NORMAL LESS THAN 120

AND LESS THAN 80

PREHYPERTEN-SION

120–139 OR 80–89

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

STAGE 1 140–159 OR 90–99

STAGE 2 160 OR HIGHER

OR 100 OR HIGHER

CONTROLLING BLOOD PRESSURE LOWERS THE RISK OF STROKE BY 35 TO 40 PERCENT AND THE RISK OF HEART ATTACK BY 20 TO 25 PERCENT,



The answer to this is what the industry calls—scope change management. If the project manager doesn’t invoke scope change management, a project’s success could be in danger.

Scope managementScope change management entails all changes in the scope going through a change management process for bet-ter understanding of all stake holders. A fine balance between flexibility and control needs to be struck by a project manager.

Many a time, personnel are focused on bigger changes and ignore smaller ones. A large number of smaller changes eat into the budget and time. If a process is troublesome—either valuable changes are lost, or participants ignore rules, leading to uncontrolled scope. If a change management process is too

easy, then changes are applied with insufficient thought given to merits and consequences, leading to cost and time overruns.

Granular scopingAs a technology head, I prefer “granular scoping”—an industry concept which means scoping done on an individual initiative. This allows one to manage the budget step-wise, and provides one with greater control and transparency. The ultimate advantage is a greater visibility over execution that proves to be invalu-able, as it helps in estimating future ini-tiatives with similar tasks.

Scope definition is the first step towards successful planning of budget. After preparing the scope, one must monitor it and ensure it doesn’t drain the budget which needs to tightly coupled with tasks to be performed. Any deviation must be recorded and

addressed. The purpose of defining scope is to describe and gain agreement on a project’s logical boundaries. Scope statements are used to define what is within the boundaries, and what is outside. Identifying a greater number of project aspects leads to better budgeting. Following broad heads can be useful in defining scope:Type of deliverables—in or out of a scopeLifecycle processes such as designing, testing and trainingMajor functionalities—support, reporting and data management

Technology managers should, as a thumb rule, keep the corporate vision and mission of an organisation in mind while preparing a technology roadmap. This should ultimately guide the overall budgeting.

The author is Head-IT, (Exchange Business), Reliance Capital

QUALITY AND INNOVATION CO-EXIST

MANAGE IT

Efficient operations and innovation can go together. A number of profitable firms are using unique approaches to strike a balanceBY ELIZABETH KEIM

Despite recent contradic-tory reports, quality processes are not stifling creativity at US corpora-tions. In fact, a number of

highly-profitable firms are using unique

approaches to strike a balance between efficiency and innovation, according to a report released by American Society for Quality (ASQ).

The report profiles two companies—DuPont and Procter&Gamble (P&G).


15-MINUTE MANAGER


10 EMAIL ETIQUETTESMANAGE IT

If you are sending an e-mail to multiple people, put their e-mail addresses

in the BCC field and your own email address in the To: field. No one likes to

share their private e-mail address with strangers.

The e-mail subject should be detailed enough to give the recipient an idea

about the email content without having to open it. Single words like “Hi” or

“Hello” or “Help” are a strict no-no. Think of meaningful but short titles.

Do not attach large attachments in your email since not everyone is on a

broadband connection. If you have to send a large file over email, upload it

to file sharing services like Yousendit and then pass on the link in the email.

If you have to e-mail more than two documents as attachments, zip them

in one file. Doing this would ensure that the recepient won’t miss down-

loading any file.

Do not write an e-mail while you are drunk or in a really bad mood. It will

reflect on the style of your writing.

Do not request a Read Notification Receipt.

Always reply to e-mails especially the ones specifically addressed to you.

The sender is waiting to hear from you.

Keep you e-mail message short and to the point. Sentences like “I hope

this email finds you alive and well” look good only in letter correspondence.

Do not hit the Send button without doing a spell check. An e-mail with

spelling mistakes or grammatical errors indicate that you have written the

message in a non-serious mood and may convey a bad impression. Always read

the message before broadcasting it to the world.

You may want to remove your personal mobile number and office number

from your email signature if you are participating in a big mailing list. You

never know the kind of people who have subscribed to the list.

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In spite of e-mail being the most prevalent form of communication, it is still strange

that most people have still not realised how important their email communications

are. Here are some simple yet effective tips for using email more efficiently:

These industry innovators have taken steps to integrate creativity-generating functions of R&D and product development with regular process management structures and practices.

DuPont uses a variety of Six Sigma methods, as well as Stage-Gate, a carefully-designed business development process that encourages consistency and speed. The company’s goal is to reduce waste in the design, development and commercialisation of products.

There’s no reason why Six Sigma should hamper innovation—if it’s used properly. Management needs to understand that quality process tools aren’t appropriate for all parts of a job, and it should analyse where these tools can best benefit the bottomline.

P&G maintains that a major driver of its innovation efforts includes a mix of quality processes that provide structure. Examples include FutureWorks, an organisation of multidisciplinary teams that look for innovation opportunities outside the existing business units, and Corporate Innovation Fund, which focuses on high-risk, high-reward ideas.

“More than any other factor, systems are the way we avoid dependence on ‘Eureka!’ approaches to innovation,” says Robert McDonald, P&G CEO. “We select innovation projects, allocate resources and ultimately bring the best innovations to market with highly-disciplined processes and systems.”

Here are some tips for enterprises striving to balance quality processes and innovation:

Keep everything in perspective. Qual-ity is broader than Six Sigma, and inno-vation is broader than breakthrough inventions.

Innovation occurs in social systems. Treat it like a team sport involving real-life interactions of multitudes of people.

Go outside the boundaries of your organisation. Collaborate with custom-ers, suppliers, business partners and academia for innovation insights.

Think of innovation as a process. Don’t think of it as a series of unrelated Eureka moments. Instead, consider innovation as a change process that can



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be managed with change and quality management methods.

Establish a widespread culture of innovation. Also, build innovation-enhancing capabilities throughout a customer-centered value stream.

Challenge the common assumption that innovation is inversely related to structure. Common sense will give you common results that are no different from what everyone else is doing.

Promote divergent thinking during ideation and convergent thinking dur-ing development.

One of the tools useful for innovation by Six Sigma teams is TILMAG, an acronym for German words that loosely translate to “transformation of ideal solution elements in an association matrix.” Another is the morphological box, used to solve multidimensional, non-quantifiable problems. Both enable users to look at systems or environments to find new ideas.

A number of tools and techniques allow teams to look at problems in fresh ways to enable them to find new solutions to problems.

These techniques allow teams to leverage solutions found in very different systems.

While some people are more creative than others, anyone can learn to use these tools to be more innovative.

The author is a managing partner at Inte-grated Quality Resources in Boulder, Colo. She works with clients on business results improvement through the integration of meth-odologies such as Lean, Six Sigma, the Bald-rige Award criteria and the ISO 9000 quality systems standards. Keim is a past president and past chair of the board of the American Society for Quality.

SYSTEMIC RISK POSES BIG THREATS

MANAGE IT

Manage risk beyond the comfort zone because the destructive risks live beyond the edges and between silosBY JEFFREY BRUCKNER

To find and manage the most destructive business risks, leaders must build a cul-ture of risk management that is vigilant in its pur-

suit, innovative and agile in its control response, and disciplined in its execu-tion.

Today’s businesses are learning hard lessons about risk: BP Deepwater Horizon, naked credit default swaps, and more than US$63 billion in failed US technology projects, to name a few high-profile cases. Each of these disasters caused billions of dollars in value destruction, yet each happened on the watch of competent risk managers, who did their jobs. Each had compliance systems, regulators and oversight mechanisms expressly designed to mitigate risk.

So what went wrong? In a word: systemic. Systemic risk originates in the complex interactions among the components that constitute a system.

Either individual components can function flawlessly, while the overall system experiences a massive failure, or the system functions as an impact multiplier, magnifying the impact of a single component failure. Managing systemic risk requires a culture of risk management that extends beyond the individual components to the edges, seams and overall system behaviour.

Mature risk cultures are charac-


15-MINUTE MANAGER


Programme Venue Dates

Customer Based Business

Strategies IIM Ahmedabad To be announced

Risk: Modeling and

ManagementIIM Ahmedabad Sep 06-10, 2010

Personal Change Management IMI, New Delhi Sep 13-14, 2010

Work Life Balance for Women

Executives Fore School Sep 14-15, 2010

Marketing Strategies for

Profitable Growth in India IIM Calcutta Sep 14-18, 2010

Improving Negotiation Skills IMI, New Delhi Sep 16-18, 2010

Leadership Excellence IIM Calcutta Sep 20-22, 2010

Advanced Data Analysis for

Marketing Decisions IIM Ahmedabad Sep 20-25, 2010

Forecasting for Effective

Business DecisionsIIM Calcutta Sep 27-29, 2010

Team Building and Leadership Fore School Sep 20-23, 2010

Team Building and Leadership Fore School Sep 30-Oct 1, 2010

TRAINING CALENDAR

Career booster courses for you

terised by a set of essential manage-ment practices that ensure that the risk framework of the enterprise func-tions at a consistently high-level. These include the following:

IdentificationRisk identification—a process of identi-fying sources of risk from internal and external directions. Risk identification is an inherently creative process and requires a collaboration of minds and perspectives that represent all constitu-encies.

ControlRisk control is an analytical process that devises a control system to miti-gate identified risk. Control systems range widely and can be designed to respond to a risk event, re-engineer the process to eliminate or transfer a risk, or detect it early, before it can cause damage.

TestingControl systems require compliance to be effective, and testing simulates risk events and the control-system response. Results are fed back into improved and more-effective control systems; they also serve to identify new sources of risk, each of which requires a corre-sponding control system.

As our knowledge economy expands and global interconnections increase, complexity grows exponentially.

Business leaders and risk managers must proactively manage complexity by constructing control systems that not only function in complex environments, but also adapt and evolve. The changing business environment also demands a better crisis management framework that should be guided by the leaders of the industry.

Our risk systems and culture must evolve as fast as the changes we see around us.

The author is the chief knowledge officer of BTM Corporation. BTM innovates new business models and enhances financial performance by converging business and technology with its products and intellectual property. © 2010 BTM Corporation | [email protected]



OPINIONTECH TALKPRASHANT MALIAdvocate and President, Cyber Law Consulting

Cyber crime generally refers to criminal activity con-ducted via the internet. The attacks can include stealing an organisation’s

plain data or intellectual property, illegal online bank transfers, creating and distributing viruses or worms on other computers, posting confidential business information on the internet and disrupting a corporate or country’s critical national-international infra-structure.

Every corporate, whether it is a bank or IT company, is vulnerable to thousands of cyber attacks that occur daily across all industries, causing information theft, disruption to business operations, loss of brand credibility and serious financial loss. Through actions such as the appointment of a Chief Information Security Officer (CISO), the rollout of an enterprise security strategy, and investments in technologies capable of addressing sophisticated threats and managing complex security events, companies are able to reduce the financial impact of cyber crime.

The most costly cyber crimes are those caused by web attacks, malicious code and malicious insiders, which account for more than 90% of all cyber crime costs per organisation on an annual basis. Cyber attacks can be costly if not resolved quickly. Detection and recovery are the most costly internal activities. On an annualised basis, detection and recovery combined account for 46% of the total internal activity cost, with labour representing the majority of these costs.

formats, processes, source code etc. Applying email forwarding rules

to sensitive accounts.Data diddling (changing data

before it is entered into a system).Industrial espionage, i.e. spying

for competitors by getting employed. Relaying video footages of

sensitive places and technologies.Implanting trojans.Allowing corporate computers to

act as zombies.Deleting or destroying live

information or backups etc.Even though India has a cyber law of

its own, every organisation should be concerned about cyber crime happening and how much it will cost to manage and contain them.

You know how the police protects civilians inspite of having various laws and procedures in place - they take help of civilians, groups and informers. So, having a global standard IT security policy is not enough. An ideal CISO should guard IT Infrastructure with a law and enforcement mindset. If we equate Infosec Policy to a law within an organisation, then ‘laws are meant to be broken’ is a general philosophy with people. Policy can be enforced only with physical will of people and CISO.

There are standard “best practices” and the IT Act 2008 envisaged “Security Practices” that we should be performing to protect our IT Infrastructure and networks, and any of these could also help against advanced attacks. But the issue always comes down to security versus productivity and functionality. The sad truth is that users almost always end up having more privileges and access than they need, making them an easier target. Far fewer threats would affect your users’ systems if they had to prove the importance of a particular business need before they were allowed to access the web.

The author is an advocate and President at Cyber Law Consulting.

“Every corporate, whether it is a bank or IT company, is vulnerable to thousands of cyber attacks”

The security driven enterprise

Detection and recovery costs from cyber attacks can be mitigated by continuous employee training, following global best security practices. Now, under Section(85) of Information Technology (Amendment) Act, 2008, India’s cyber law also makes corporate responsible for security leaks.

Some cyber crimes faced internally by enterprises are: Data theft (clients, employees, etc)

by employee. Theft of technology, designs,

Opinion_Tech Talk.indd 51 8/28/2010 1:23:03 PM


W

“The daily grind of hard work gets a person polished. Whereas an empty-bellied hype leads nowhere, especially in the long-run,” believes Berjes Eric Shroff, Manager-IT, Tata Services

Charles Schulz, an American cartoon-ist, once pointed out that life was like a 10-speed bicycle. And that most of us don’t learn to use all its gears.

However, you can’t say the same about Berjesh Eric Shroff, Manager-IT, Tata Services. He was fortunate enough to pick up the “right gear” at the “right age”. A keen traveller, Shroff dreamt of a career in aeronautical engineering–without realising that his calling lay elsewhere.

“Some time in 1984-1985, during a Christmas vacation, NICE computers conducted a course in my school. I was in Class X then. Before the course, I had wished to study aeronautical engineering. However, the lessons changed all that. It was the beginning of my love affair with computers. Programming excited my mind,” he admits.

“When my father was transferred to the UK in 1986, I went on to study computers there. My journey since then, has been interesting to say the least,” he adds.

Having started his career with Procter and Gamble (India), where he worked for its IT department, Shroff quickly changed direction and became a computer teacher. Soon, Lady Luck saw him travel to Canada to work as a computer programmer–both at Toronto and Vancouver. But, his parents’ illnesses brought him back to his homeland.

“I returned and started working as a freelancer. During one of my assignments with Tata Services, I was offered a permanent job–to set up an IT department for the firm’s Bombay House headquarters,” he recollects.

Since he had the experience of setting up an

Work hard, upgrade your

skills constantly and

reasearch

MY SUCESSMANTRA

CUBE CHAT | BERJES ERIC SHROFF

BY JATINDER SINGH

THE PRAGMATICDREAMER

Cube_Chat.indd 52 8/28/2010 1:17:55 PM


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IT department previously for Procter & Gamble-Godrej joint venture, Shroff knew that he was the right person for the job. And hence he accepted the challenge. .

Hard work, for him, is the only way to accomplishing a dream. He believes that the daily grind gets a person “polished”, whereas “empty-bellied hype” leads nowhere, especially in the long run. “In these times, hype is important, especially if you wish to get noticed. But, I am terrible at it,” he admits, laughing.

It is this dash of humour and his critical eye that keeps him calm, even in the most adverse of circumstances. He deeply admires his late maternal grandfather. “He grew up in a poor family in a remote Indian village with seven brothers and sisters.

His hard work and dedication led him to become India’s first actuary.”

But Shroff is not all work and no play. He loves to relax with a good book and admires works of authors such as Jack Canfield, Brian Tracy and Rashmi Bansal. “Reading books is like taking a vitamin pill. It instills instant energy and fuels my dream of becoming an entrepreneur one day,” he admits.

Unlike others, Shroff has no qualms admitting that he is ambitious—he does dreams of having the title of a CIO one day. “It’s tempting. I would either like to be a CIO, or a VP, or a Director–IT for a reputed organisation. Or, run my own IT security consultancy and training firm,” he asserts.

CUBE CHAT

FACT FILE

NAMEBERJES ERIC SHROFF CURRENT DESIGNATIONMANAGER – INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (IT) , TATA SERVICES CURRENT ROLEHEAD OF IT DEPARTMENT AND RESPONSIBLE FOR IT SECURIT Y

EXPERTISEIT SECURIT Y, NET WORKING, WEB-BASED SOFT WARE DEVELOPMENT

STRATEGIC IT PLANNING AND ALIGNING IT WITH BUSINESS NEEDS

PROJECT MANAGEMENT

VENDOR MANAGEMENT WORK EXPERIENCE 1996 – PRESENT MANAGER-INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, TATA SERVICES (INDIA) 1995 – 1996 SOFT WARE DEVELOPMENT AND IT TRAINING FOR ROYALTECH COMPUTERS IN TORONTO

1993 – 1995 CONSULTANT - MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS, PROCTER AND GAMBLE INDIA

CERTIFICATIONSCERTIFIED INFORMATION SYSTEMS AUDITOR (CISA)

ITIL V3ISO 27001 IMPLEMENTER

ISO 27001 LEAD AUDITOR

A GOOD IT MANAGER SHOULD NOT SHY AWAY FROM TAKING RESPONSIBILITIES.

HE SHOULD BE WILLING TO WORK HARD TO ACHIEVE THE BEST RESULTS


Cube_Chat.indd 53 8/28/2010 1:18:01 PM

UPDATE

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Fujitsu intros power serversNew eight-rack servers to provide benefits of centralised mission-critical computing

OFF THE SHELF A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

Fujitsu has introduced the Primergy RX900 S1 x86 eight-socket rack server to provide economical benefits into mission-critical computing for the enterprises.

The server is mainly intended to help enterprises in the financial sector and public sector spaces, and claims to provide the high-levels of reliability for scale-up applications, which were previously dominated by expensive and proprietary RISC/Unix systems.

The proliferation of business intelligence, data warehousing applications, plus other demanding high-performance back-end databases, makes reliable scale-up performance crucial for a wide range of business sectors.

The product, according to the company, delivers quicker return on investment in an environment where server virtualisation is moving into the mainstream, and the consolidation of resource-hungry or ‘fat’ virtual machines is in vogue.

According to the company, the product also combines with Intel’s Interconnect technology, to deliver mission-critical peace-of-mind at an affordable price.

KEY FEATURES* Innovative ‘glue-less’ design

* Intel Xeon 7500 processor series

* Inbuilt Intel QuickPath

*Interconnect technology

* Unprecedented operational

continuity

D-Link has announced that it is now

shipping the D-Link myPocket 3.5G

HSDPA Router (DIR-457), which will

allows users to securely connect to

mobile broadband networks.

The DIR-457 is a mobile, pocket-sized

router that offers download speeds of

up to 3.6Mbps when using an UMTS/

HSDPA SIM card. According to the

company, the slim design of this rout-

er, along with its built-in rechargeable

battery provides users with portable

convenience.

It offers immediate 3G network ac-

cess and sharing via Wi-Fi with up to

16 clients by simply pushing the “On”

button at the top of the device.

“The myPocket Router was essential-

ly designed for frequent travelers and

for users demanding high speed wire-

less internet connection anywhere,

anytime. With so many different serv-

ices and technologies dependent on

the internet, this little device allows

users to create a wireless connec-

tion regardless of their location,” says

Jayesh Kotak, VP-Product Marketing,

D-Link India.

D-Link launches 3.5G router

PRODUCT SPECIFICATIONSfrequency support: Multiple

download speeds: up to 3.6Mbps

Availability: All India

Warranty: 1 year

Price: ̀ 10,800

Off the shelf.indd 54 8/28/2010 1:17:14 PM

UPDATE


KEY FEATURES* Intel Pentium Dual Core

processor

* Varied LCD options

* Preloaded with Ubuntu

Stellar launches Registry Manager

Premise Networks division of

Molex has released the latest 1.7

version of its advanced physical

layer management tool, MIIM.

According to the company,

the product provides complete

management of the channel

from network attached devices

at endpoints through patches to

switch connections.

Its capabilities extend across

distributed data networks,

allowing centralised monitoring

and control. MIIM’s capability to

detect connectivity changes, in

real time, across the data channel,

enables visibility into the physical

layer infrastructure. MIIM

1.7 includes support for both

inter-connect and cross-connect

architectures.

MIIM 1.7 brings additional

features and benefits such as

improved graphics, multi-window

views of the entire channel,

expanded search capabilities, and

a powerful reporting system for

alarms, logs, work orders and

assets.

Molex unveils its new MIIM tool

Simmtronics unveils new desktop PCsSimmtronics Semiconductors has launched a new range of desktop PCs, which is available in two variants: SDC 2711S and SCD 2911S. The desktop PC range comes with 15.6, 18.5 and 20-inch LCD monitor options.

The SDC2711S comes with Intel Pentium Dual Core processor, 1 GB of RAM (can be upgraded up to 4GB) and 500 GB SATA HDD. The machine has been equipped with DVD R/W Dual Layer, multimedia keyboard, optical mouse and slim cabinet.

While SDC 2711S comes preloaded with Ubuntu, SCD2911S features a Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 1 GB RAM and 500 GB SATA HDD. The other notable features of the desktop include multimedia keyboard, optical mouse and a slim cabinet. It is also loaded with Ubuntu.

Stellar Information System, a data recovery solutions company, has introduced Registry Manager 2.0 for Smart PC Care option to clean registry, junk and internet traces.

The product, according to the company, secures the PC from unwanted space, data, cookies, bookmarks, and optimises the system.It works on Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/Windows 7.

The new version comes with Registry Cleaner, Junk Cleaner, internet Cleaner, among others. Registry Cleaner removes redundant or unwanted items from the Window registry, whereas the Junk Cleaner cleans up junk entries from window registry and the whole system.

The internet Cleaner traces option to clear off all cookies, auto fill information, bookmarks, history folders, etc.

It supports six browsers—Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Opera, AOL, Netscape and MSN.

KEY ADVANTAGES* Supports all Windows edition

* Comes with Registry Cleaner,

Junk Cleaner, Internet Cleaner

* Supports 6 browsers—

Internet Explorer, Mozilla,

Opera, AOL, Netscape and

MSN.

Price starts from

` 1,250

Off the shelf.indd 55 8/28/2010 1:17:17 PM

MY LOG


15-MINUTE MANAGER

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Hypertension or High blood pressure results

when the force of circulating blood against

blood vessels is overly increased. The reading

consists of two numbers, systolic and diastolic.

Systolic pressure is the force with which the

heart works to pump blood through arteries.

The diastolic fi gure shows the pressure of

blood in the arteries between heartbeats. A

blood pressure reading of 120 over 80 is within

normal limits. However, if a reading is 140

over 90 or higher, medication will probably be

prescribed. Left untreated, high blood pressure

can cause stroke, heart attack, kidney failure

and other serious ailments. Here are some tips

on how to deal with high BP:

Reduce weight: Eating a diet low in fat and

high in fruit and vegetables acts to lower

sodium levels in the body while increasing fi ber,

potassium and calcium. Fiber in the diet can be

increased by adding foods such as dried beans

and peas, fruit and oat products. These foods

help to decrease cholesterol production and

reduce blood pressure.

Lower sodium intake: Reducing salt has a

signifi cant effect on lowering the blood pres-

sure but not only salty snacks and other obvi-

ously salty foods are harmful. Check for hidden

sodium that may appear in cheese, desserts,

ketchup, etc. Avoid fast foods and smoked meat

and fi sh products, which are high in sodium. .

Exercise regularly: Regular exercise stimu-

lates the metabolism to burn more calories.

If inactive, start the exercise program slowly

with light to moderate walking or light weight

training to burn more calories and increase

muscle mass.

Approximately 1 billion people worldwide have

high blood pressure, and this number is expected to increase to 1.56 billion people by the year 2025

LOWERING HYPERTENSIONHEALTHY LIVING

With poor scoping, budget management goes out of hands and becomes uncontrollable. Some of the problems that occur while scoping are: Ambiguity in scope: Leading to confusion and unnecessary workIncomplete or unclear dataScope creep: Uncontrolled changes in scopeNon-collaborative scope: Scope not vali-dated with stakeholders.

Such problems impede the progress of a project, and their implications can be far-reaching, both in terms of cost and time. In fact, “cost overrun”, which is defined as “excess of actual cost over budget”, is a common occurrence in technology due to inaccurate scoping. An industry study shows that 40% of technology budgets are overrun because of underscoping—mainly because of imperfect forecasting, inadequate data and market awareness, and insufficient knowledge about a product lifecycle.

Once the project starts, changes are bound to happen. But, reasons behind the changes need to be analysed. One should be flexible in approach and account for those reasons that may have been overlooked by the business management. Efficient managers should be resourceful in their project estimations and implementation. Some factors that affect change are:Changing business needsNew legislations and regulationsOther projects and initiativesChange in organisational structure

Business users cannot identify every requirement and feature required for the final solution and delivery. Even if they could, a business changes over time. Therefore, solution requirements change, too. A user must explicitly clarify potential dangers and cost impact of changes and encourage changes that may lead to organisational benefits (this is what is termed as a “good change”). It is wise to judge “changes” early and, accordingly, align the scope and adjust a budget. However, this brings us to a critical question—how does one incorporate changes in a project that is already underway?

CATEGORIES FOR BLOOD PRESSURE LEVELS IN ADULTS (IN MMHG, OR MILLIMETERS OF MERCURY)

CATEGORY SYSTOLIC (TOP NUM-BER)

DIASTOLIC(BOTTOM NUMBER)

NORMAL LESS THAN 120

AND LESS THAN 80

PREHYPERTEN-SION

120–139 OR 80–89

HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE

STAGE 1 140–159 OR 90–99

STAGE 2 160 OR HIGHER

OR 100 OR HIGHER

CONTROLLING BLOOD PRESSURE LOWERS THE RISK OF STROKE BY 35 TO 40 PERCENT AND THE RISK OF HEART ATTACK BY 20 TO 25 PERCENT,


The answer to this is what the industry calls—scope change management. If the project manager doesn’t invoke scope change management, a project’s success could be in danger.

Scope managementScope change management entails all changes in the scope going through a change management process for bet-ter understanding of all stake holders. A fine balance between flexibility and control needs to be struck by a project manager.

Many a time, personnel are focused on bigger changes and ignore smaller ones. A large number of smaller changes eat into the budget and time. If a process is troublesome—either valuable changes are lost, or participants ignore rules, leading to uncontrolled scope. If a change management process is too

easy, then changes are applied with insufficient thought given to merits and consequences, leading to cost and time overruns.

Granular scopingAs a technology head, I prefer “granular scoping”—an industry concept which means scoping done on an individual initiative. This allows one to manage the budget step-wise, and provides one with greater control and transparency. The ultimate advantage is a greater visibility over execution that proves to be invalu-able, as it helps in estimating future ini-tiatives with similar tasks.

Scope definition is the first step towards successful planning of budget. After preparing the scope, one must monitor it and ensure it doesn’t drain the budget which needs to tightly coupled with tasks to be performed. Any deviation must be recorded and

addressed. The purpose of defining scope is to describe and gain agreement on a project’s logical boundaries. Scope statements are used to define what is within the boundaries, and what is outside. Identifying a greater number of project aspects leads to better budgeting. Following broad heads can be useful in defining scope:Type of deliverables—in or out of a scopeLifecycle processes such as designing, testing and trainingMajor functionalities—support, reporting and data management

Technology managers should, as a thumb rule, keep the corporate vision and mission of an organisation in mind while preparing a technology roadmap. This should ultimately guide the overall budgeting.

The author is Head-IT, (Exchange Business), Reliance Capital

QUALITY AND INNOVATION CO-EXIST

MANAGE IT

Efficient operations and innovation can go together. A number of profitable firms are using unique approaches to strike a balanceBY ELIZABETH KEIM

Despite recent contradic-tory reports, quality processes are not stifling creativity at US corpora-tions. In fact, a number of

highly-profitable firms are using unique

approaches to strike a balance between efficiency and innovation, according to a report released by American Society for Quality (ASQ).

The report profiles two companies—DuPont and Procter&Gamble (P&G).

CASE STUDY | MPCB


With the integration of its business processes over, MPCB is now ready to enter the next phase of automationBY MAHESH PATHAK, AJAY

DESHPANDE, DINESH SONAWANE

AND RAJIV DESAI

MAHARASHTRA POLLUTION CONTROL BOARD

MPCB | CASE STUDY


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In the life of any organisation, there occurs a singularity—formed when diverse routes meet at a single point. The position-ing and intensity of this point is “severe”, and there’s no organisation that can stand without it.

Take the Maharashtra Pollution Control Board (MPCB), for instance. It’s a public organisation—one which caters to an external world and to an internal world of office functions.

MPCB’s singular point of control can be achieved through e-governance—of all its business processes. E-governance can be its strongest and the most vital technicality—providing a leap into automation.

E-governance encompasses the computerisation of all business processes of an office. Each process is related to the other—and, there is none without the other.

On its part, MPCB set out for holistic

computerisation. This applied to a very large geographical area, especially because the board’s offices were spread across the length and breadth of a large state of Maharashtra—12 regional offices connected centrally to its headquarters at Sion, Mumbai. And, several sub-regional offices.

There were certain challenges that were faced by the organisation—primarily proposed changes in its business processes. E-governnance could lead to a re-engineering, that would affect the process’s owners and employees of the organisation. Thus, before implementation, it was mandatory for the board to address change management, as well. And, it needed to adopt a state-of-the-art technology that could help connect all the state’s centres and facilitate its businesses. As the software to be implemented involved integration of all processes, the project

PROJECT MAPNATUREInterlinking all the 12 offices

centrally

CHALLENGESThe offices were located in

disparate location and also

had legacy infrastructure

TEAM

CURRENT STATUSAll offices have been inter-

linked, a data recovery mod-

ule is planned next

DIRECT IMPACTAs, all different offices of

MPCB were interlinjed, it

resulted in greater transpar-

ency and speedening of the

process. All the cases are now

listed on a central website,

http://mpcb.gov.in

DINESH SONAWANE, ASSIS. SYSTEMS OFFICER, EIC

RAJIV DESAI, MANAGER IT, MPCB

AJAY DESHPANDE, IN-CHARGE, EIC

INSIGHT | CRM


To prepare for a new wave of CRM, it’s

important to learn from the mistakes

and pitfalls of its early years

BY JILL DYCHÉ

NEXTSUITING UP

WAVEFOR CRM’S

When I wrote the CRM handbook: A Business Guide to CRM, in 2002, com-panies were spending tens of millions of dollars on CRM software, but industry analysts were predicting that 80 per-cent of CRM projects would fail.

Mistakes and pitfalls of CRM’s early days are now legendary. Companies rushed to embrace CRM technologies, only to discover that automation couldn’t fix broken business processes, absent strategies or bad data.

Consultants keen on helping beleaguered companies get back on track proselytised the importance of change management to CRM initiatives,

but that didn’t stick. As executives continued to aim their silver-bullet technologies toward the customer experience, they remained mired in incumbent business processes and traditional success metrics.

Everyone wanted to participate in vendor evaluation, but no one wanted to own the streamlining of order-to-cash processes or new measurements for customer satisfaction. Despite millions of dollars spent on CRM technologies, it really was business as usual.

Most executives now admit that they were ill-equipped to launch their CRM efforts. Hopes for automating

customerfacing business processes and achieving the celebrated “single view of the customer” were dashed as sales, marketing and customer service executives came to terms with the fact that CRM was more than just a technology solution.

New best practicesToday, however, new corporate strat-egies are resuscitating the need for deliberate and sustained customer man-agement. Is your company ready for the next wave of CRM?

Smart executives are heeding the lessons of firms that have gone before P

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and branded. Wander the halls of any large company’s sales or marketing organisation and you’ll hear “customer experience management” (CEM) or “voice of the customer” mentioned long before hearing the CRM acronym. Remember your business

model. CRM at a telephone company that wants to understand the calling behaviors within micro-segments to bundle products and services will look very different from CRM at a health care provider that wants to migrate to an end-consumer model, which will look different again from CRM at a retailer with a loyalty card. Understand the boundaries of CRM for both your company and your industry. When in doubt, map out desired outcomes. Keep social media in

perspective. Many customer-management experts are betting on so-called “social CRM” to resuscitate moribund CRM efforts. But where the customer experience is concerned, your company’s Facebook fan page and Twitter account are merely two additional communications channels. Your brand and your dialog with customers transcend social media.

Recently, a manager at a bank confided, “We’re putting all this effort into social media to get closer to our customers. But we still can’t see the

them. They’re aligning CRM efforts to corporate strategies and forgoing technology investments until their road maps are in place. They’re forging

partnerships with consulting firms that have structured delivery

approaches.They’re being deliberate

a b o u t i n c r e m e n t a l deployment, and are keeping

the customer top-of-mind every step of the way.

Grange Insurance, based in Columbus, Ohio, is one of these

forward-thinking companies. “We were lucky that we had an executive

team willing to invest in the customer experience,” says Mike Buzek, the vice president of EODB (ease of doing business), “but we knew we couldn’t sit around building vision statements and conducting focus groups. We had to craft solid requirements, identify the key stakeholders and define how we were going to execute. And we could never lose sight of what is best for our agents and policyholders.”

Buzek and his team are a reflection of the new best practices in customer management. Here are five habits followed by savvy business owners of customer-focused programs: Don’t call it “CRM.” The term

is fraught with baggage. Customer initiatives are now business-owned

As a child, I believed that faith and devo-tion were the universal chords that con-nected human beings beyond borders. For me, faith was that “lone warrior” that had the ability to inspire people from dif-ferent walks of life, with diverse interests and collaborations–which gave a meaning to the world of ours. As a child, teachings of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gan-dhi, Mother Teresa and Gautama Buddha inspired me–I believed that their words helped people to connect over an idea.

Similarly, preachings of so-called prophets and gurus, who would encourage irrational patterns of ideas and relate them to God’s will, would irritate me. I believed that they created a discord within the society.

Deep within me, I always nursed a desire to help people connect with each other some day. However, I was not sure how such a communication could be forged. Or, if I had the means to make such a miracle happen. One has to understand that the time I am referring to, was the “dark ages” as far communication technology was concerned–it had not progressed enough to help a common man or woman discover a platform where he or she could interact with similar spirits. There were no platforms where they could come and share views.

However, times have changed. Modern

day advancements have made the impossible, possible! If one is to analyse the past decade, he or she will see how technology is now that “universal chord” that ties “similar souls”. The magic word is not only faith (which still plays a part in unifying souls), but a united media and communication technology–that binds people together.

Tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Youtube are just some of the variants of that universal chord. No matter where you are, whatever you do, or whichever society that you may represent, the world is your oyster if you have a mouse and a keypad. Imagine this: If India had been struggling for independence today, perhaps Gandhi, too, would have resorted to Facebook or Twitter to attract people to the freedom struggle.

Today, faith and technology are two universal bonds that connect people–and act as the cornerstone of the society– enlightening common aspirations and fuelling imagination. We are no longer destined to be rule by powers of “automatic control”. The monopoly of selected few cannot come in the way of driving new initiatives.

Modern day technology does not act as a deviance and it does not pulls us away from one another. It simply intensifies our faith in the tradition of communication.

The Innovative Universal ChordFaith and technology are two universal bonds that connect people

AJAY SARTAPEChief Operating OfficerIbexis

3 ESSENTIAL READS

Prepare for a new wave of CRM that could revolutionise the way customers are engaged Pg 18

Case study on how MPCB inter-connected its 12 branch offices centrally Pg 38

A balance must be struck between operations and innovation Pg 47

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