IT Next Jan 2011 by Manan Mushtaq

IT NEXT

JANUARY 2011 / RS. 75 VOLUME 01 / ISSUE 12

FORENSICS: Combat cyber crime as a Digital Evidence Analyst

FEWMOREGROWTH AREASINCOMINGYEARS: 1)VIDEOMANAGEMENT2) SECURITYSERVICESFOR ENTERPRISES3)SUPERHIGH BROADBANDSERVICES ENTERPRISE WILLLOOKTO DIGITIZETHEIR DATAWITHAPPS

VIDEOCONFERENCING ANDMOBILECOMPUTING ARETHETECHNOLOGIES THATWILLBEVITALFOR 2011ANDMOREENDUSERS WILLBEUTILIZINGTHESE TOTHEFULLPOTENTIAL

MORE SECUREENVIRONMENTNEEDED FORCUSTOMERS/FIRMS,TOENABLE MOREBUSINESSESON NETWORKS

SPENDING IS BACK

MOBILECOMPUTINGANDWIRELESSCONNECTIVITYWILL BETHEMAINSOURCE FORITIN2011. COMPLIANCEWITH GLOBALSTANDARDS IMPORTANTFOR2011, ASPUBLICCLOUD SHALLBECOMBINED WITHTHEPRIVATE CLOUDIN-HOUSE.

UTMIS SECURITY

DMS ISCRUCIAL

TECHNOLOGIES WHICHREDUCE COSTAND INCREASELIMITS WILLCOME FORWARD RICH INTERNET APPSARE VERYIMPORTANT

CLOUDIS OVER-HYPED

I5 MINUTE MANAGER: Learn to lead to make a change

WIRELESSBROADBAND ANDTABLETCOMPUTING COULDBEEASILYRUNOVERBY THESMARTPHONEINDUSTRY, THANKSTOTHEGROWTHIN THEMOBILECOMPUTING SPACE

IN 2011,CLOUDCOMPUTING&VIRTUALISATION WILLLEADTOAMAJORPARADIGM SHIFTFORACIOWHILELAYING OUTTHEITROADMAPFORAN ORGANISATION

THE WORLDWOULD CONVERGETOMOBILE COMPUTINGIN2011

VIRTUALISATION WILLPLAYACRITICALROLEIN2011

COMMUNICATION SECURITY&INTELLIGENTINFOMGT.WILL PLAYIMPORTANT ROLEIN2011

TABLETSWILL HAVESOMUCH CAPABILITYTHAT THEYWOULD MERGEWITH MOBILEPHONES

BIOMETRICS,UNIFIED COMPUTINGANDGREENITARE THETOPMOSTTECHNOLOGIES THATWILLGAINMOMENTUMIN2011, WHEREASCLOUDCOMPUTINGMAY FADEAWAYTOWARDSTHEYEAR END,ONLYTOEMERGESTRONGER INTHEYEAR2012

1)DATALEAKAGE PROTECTION 2)NEW ENCRYPTIONTECHNIQUE 3)SECURITYINCLOUDCOMPUTINGWILLBEIMPORTANT FORCOMINGYEARS

THENEXTWAVE WOULDBEINTEGRATINGSMARTDEVICES,WEB &BROWSER&CLOUDBASEDSERVICES

41 BOSS TALK

CLOUD COMPUTING: Sunny days ahead for private cloud

BISETTO ROCKIN 2011

SKILLED RESOURCEISVITAL FORANYTECHNOLOGY LOOKINGFORIMPLEMENTATIONINANORGANISATION

Save time, not money to excel Pg 04

CLOUD COMPUTING WOULDPLAYA VERYIMPORTANT PARTIN2011

DEMANDFORINTERNATIONALBANDWIDTHWILL RISETHROUGHTHEUSAGE OFCLOUDANDNETWORKED DATAHOSTING INFRASTRUCTURE

TECHNOLOGIESTHAT ENABLECONSOLIDATIONAND ITONDEMANDWILLBEONTHE RISE,TOMAKETHEITCOSTMORE ELASTICTOTUNETOBUSINESS GROWTH.COMMUNICATION PLATFORMSLIKEMOBILE ANDUCWILLENABLEFASTER RESPONSE

UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS ANDAPPLICATION USABILITYTHROUGH MOBILITYWILLBETHE RULINGTECHNOLOGY IN2011 EMPHASIS WOULDBEGIVEN FORERPUPGRADEAND FOCUSINGONBI/ANALYTICALTOOLS WIMAX ONTHE RISE

COST REDUCTIONIS THEKEYDRIVERFOR IMPORTANTTECHNOLOGYADOPTION CLOUD &MOBILE COMPUTINGAND VIRTUALISATIONWILL BEBIGPLAYERSINTHE COMINGYEARS

MOBILEACCESS ANDCOMPUTINGISVERY IMPORTANTVALUE-ADDITIONINHEALTHCARE, SINCEACCESSTOMEDICALRECORDSANDTELECONSULTATIONISALIFE SAVERMANYTIMES

VOLUME 01 | ISSUE 12

SPENDING IS BACK IT MANAGERS VOTE FOR 11 TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT IN 2011

A 9.9 Media Publication

EDITORIAL

Connected Everywhere As we usher in a new year, our thoughts

turn to technologies

that promise to make a difference to our work and personal lives. All of us eagerly await pronouncements from experts, analysts, researchers and industry mavens

to get on the inside track on trends and developments so that we can be better prepared. We devour and discuss all kinds of lists, while waiting for vendors to roll out the promised products and solutions.

To keep with tradition, this issue of ITNext also has a list—with a twist. We decided to ask you, the community of IT managers, to vote on technologies and issues would matter in 2011—and why. While there are no real surprises in the final list (which we have dubbed as “11 for ‘11”), the fact that so many of you have voted for these subjects indicates that these will be on the agenda and task lists of IT managers in corporate India for the year. At ITNext, we committed to supporting you with knowledge and information on all these topics (and more) through the year—through our print, online and event platforms. We encourage you to participate and contribute to the forum on ITNext.in, and share your knowledge, experiences, challenges and pains. Link up with your peers—and benefit from the power of collective knowledge. One technology that is anticipated to make a big impact on connectivity is 3G. Beginning this month, we can look forward to operators rolling out a host of services and high-speed packages that can enable mobile workers connect effectively to the office. The extension of 3G to smaller towns will, for the first time, enable thousands of users to access broadband services conveniently. Couple ubiquitous high speed access, low tariffs, wide availability of low-cost smart mobile phones and tablet devices, and you have the makings of a new online revolution. The technology can prove to be a great tool to bridge the internet connectivity gap, that the country is facing since many years. Only, this time IT managers will need to be well prepared to support the bewildering profusion of technologies, protocols, processes and challenges. That’s because this trend will be driven by both internal users and external customers. It will impact all your businesses, and compel you to seek innovative ideas and solutions that can deliver greater value. While on one hand it will promote greater collaboration, it will also bring bigger risks and threats. Successfully navigating this transition will be the key to success. Write in and let us know how you plan to deal with “connected India”.

“Link up with your peers—and benefit from the power of collective knowledge” R GIRIDHAR

Blogs To Watch! The Enterprise System Spectator http://fscavo.blogspot.com/ Network Security Blog http://www.mckeay.net/ The Enterprise Architect http://www.theenterprisearchitect.eu/ Sandhill.com http://sandhill.com/opinion/ index.php Digital Landfill http://aiim.typepad.com/ aiim_blog/ Your views and opinion matter to us. Send your feedback on stories and the magazine at editor@ itnext..in or SMS us at 567678 (type ITNEXT<space>your feedback)

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

CONTENT FOR THE L ATEST TECHNOLOGY UPDATES GO TO ITNEXT.IN

JANUARY 2011

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BOSS TALK

04 What it takes to be a

SPENDING IS BACK Page

smart manager | Save time, not money, if you want to excel, says Vishnu Gupta, CIO of CMRI.

INTERVIEW

INSIGHTS

23 Forensics to catch a cyber thief Cybercrime is not perpetrated by simple hackers any more, it has become an organised crime

30 How to measure ROI by using WEM? COVE R DES IGN: PRASANTH T R

With relevant content and an engaging web presence, organisations can influence their stakeholders in a massive way

33 Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about experience Upcoming transformational technologies are set to enhance the internal and external guest experience of Hotel s

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

36 Of Private Jets and Supermarkets | Peter Coffee, Head of Platform Research at salesforce.com discusses the relevance of cloud computing and different models to look for

ITNEXT.IN

MANAGEMENT Managing Director: Dr Pramath Raj Sinha Printer & Publisher: Vikas Gupta

EDITORIAL Group Editor: R Giridhar Associate Editor: Shashwat DC Sr Correspondent: Jatinder Singh

Page

20 OFF THE SHELF

05 Moneywise: IT Processes that Fit the Firm | by Pankaj

56 DIGISOL launches USB print server | A sneak

Mitra, Owner, MIDAS Automation & Telecommunications

preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

15-MINUTE MANAGER 41 The Leading Edge |

Managing people is not an easy task, but building a winning team is not impossible either 42 Strategy | How I communicate 43 Android In Enterprise | Android smartphones battle with BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and Apple iPhone for acceptance in the workplace

Sr. Creative Director: Jayan K Narayanan Art Director: Binesh Sreedharan Associate Art Director: Anil VK Sr. Visualiser: PC Anoop Sr. Designers: Prasanth TR, Anil T, Joffy Jose & Anoop Verma Designers: Sristi Maurya & Charu Dwivedi Chief Photographer: Subhojit Paul Photographer: Jiten Gandhi

CUBE CHAT

SALES & MARKETING

54 The Pursuit of Happiness | “I aspire to acquire

VP Sales & Marketing: Naveen Chand Singh (09971794688) Brand Manager: Siddhant Raizada (09990388390) National Manager-Events & Special Projects: Mahantesh Godi (09880436623) National Manager -Print , Online & Events: Sachin Mhashilkar (09920348755) South: B.N.Raghavendra (09845381683)) North: Deepak Sharma (09811791110) West: Hafeez Shaikh (09833103611) Assistant Brand Manager: Swati Sharma Ad co-ordination/Scheduling: Kishan Singh

an overall understanding of customer needs, and thus be able to drive end-to-end solutions” says Aanchal Mishra, Program Manager, Hewlett Packard (HP)

REGULARS Editorial _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 01 Industry update_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 08

PRODUCTION & LOGISTICS

Tech indulge _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 58

Sr. GM Operations: Shivshankar M Hiremath Production Executive: Vilas Mhatre Logistics: MP Singh, Mohamed Ansari, Shashi Shekhar Singh

Open debate _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 59 My log _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 60

OFFICE ADDRESS

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ADVERTISER INDEX APC IFC Airtel 2,3 & 14(insert) Speaker Bureau 43 Check Point IBC Digilink BC This index is provided as an additional service.The publisher does not assume any liabilities for errors or omissions.

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Published, Printed and Owned by Nine Dot Nine Mediaworx Private Ltd. Published and printed on their behalf by Vikas Gupta. Published at A-262 Defence Colony, New Delhi-110024, India. Printed at Silver Point Press Pvt Ltd, D-107, TTC Industrial Area, Shirvane, Nerul, Navi Mumbai 400706. Editor: Vikas Gupta

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

OPINION

DESIGN

BOSS TALK | VISHNU GUPTA

TIME MANAGEMENT

Save time, not money to excel

PHOTO GRAPHY: NI TI SH S HARMA

mart time managers know that there is much more to do than anyone could possibly accomplish. So, instead of trying to do it all, they’re selective about how they spend their time. They focus and spend time on a few vital projects that’ll make a difference, rather than spend all their time on many trivial things that don’t matter all that much. Being a good time manager means you’ll get a lot more done in less time, with less stress, more focus and be in control. The art of arranging, organising, scheduling, and budgeting one’s time with the purpose of generating more effective work and productivity is ‘Time Management’. This is a set of principle systems work together to help you get more value out of your time, with the aim of improving quality of productivity and work-life balance . Building time management strategies is like planning a budget. Just as a budget puts you in control of your money, time management helps you regain control of your time. First analyse how you spend your time. List out everything you do and the approximate time it takes in a week. Examine the routine and determine where alterations can be accomplished. Include all your daily tasks, scheduling them at their usual times and allot ample time to complete them. Then create a to-do list. Divide it into priority levels which are defined by the importance of completing the task and the timeline required to do so. Break them up into: m Critical: Tasks which need immediate attention and are due to be completed first. m High: Tasks which are important and have to be finished at the earliest. m Medium: Tasks which are important and need to be finished soon. m Low: Tasks which are on agenda and to be completed. Allocate 70-75 per cent of your time to this

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

“Smart managers spend time on a few vital projects that’ll make a difference”

The people who have greatest clarity about both personal and organisational values have the highest degree of commitment

to-do list, and set aside the rest to deal with adverse or crisis situations. Break down your to-do list on priority levels with this matrix. (Allocated tasks should be evaluated using the criteria important/ unimportant and urgent/not urgent and put in corresponding quadrants.). 1. Tasks in important/urgent are done immediately and personally. 2. Tasks in important/not urgent get an end date and are done personally. 3. Tasks in unimportant/urgent are delegated. 4. Tasks in unimportant/not urgent can be dropped. Don’t put all small projects in the first category. That list is for things you need to accomplish. You can optimise your time by including some small projects in 2 or 3. Prioritise the three sections of your to-do list; listing items first by deadline is always a better approach. Time management is not necessarily about getting lots of stuff done, but doing the right things, which truly need to be done.

WRITER: KOUZES AND POSNER PUBLISHER: PRICE: INR890.00

The author is the CIO of Calcutta Medical Research Institute.

SUGGESTION READ

OPINION

MONEY WISE PANKAJ MITRA, Owner MIDAS Automation & Telecommunications

IT Processes that Fit the Firm

PHOTO GRAPHY: D RIS HTI

hen the chips are down and an o r g a n i s at i o n’s sales and margins are under pressure—it’s the CEO, COO, CFO or departmental heads who have to take stock of the situation. But the key question is how can a CIO or the COO of an enterprise, or organisation, help in this process? The answer lies in their approach towards coordination with the team. That’s because there are several shortand long-term measures that need and must be adopted. Together with their teams, they have to find ways of reducing operating costs to combat the situation. For long-term solutions: CIOs can play a lead role in high-value engineering and business process re-engineering. In consultation and association with their peers— heads of other functional areas—they can ensure that the IT processes in place fit the exact requirement of the organisation. The teams must ensure that the IT processes are secure; that there are no compromises; the control of these are well within their and their teams’ ambit; that they are not dependent on thirdparty support (a lazy way out); and are in total command of their function and the organisation’s internal databases, and IT processes. Obviously it make more sense if you are doing it in a step by step approach. In the shorter term, CIOs can take immediate action on IT infrastructure to reduce the organisation’s operating costs (telecom and travel).

“For long-term results CIOs can play a lead role in highvalue engineering and business process re-engineering—in consultation with their peers and heads.” What could be another way out is to increase the security of the internal databases to 100 per cent, which will lead to an improved company operation, and convert the Multi-locational organisation into a Virtual single office. All this can be achieved within four to six months, depending upon the size of an organisation.

If they are using a VPN (MPLS or otherwise) for WAN connectivity, their internal databases are vulnerable to hacker or cracker attacks, despite the most complex and expensive Firewall arrangement they may have, implemented. To overcome this security problem, they should convert their WAN connectivity using P2P (point-to-point) leased lines between their offices, separate the internet connectivity from the intranet LAN. The COOs or the CIOs must ensure their presence in the network by physically connecting their “web server” (PS) to the internet LAN. The exchange of information between the PS connected to the internet LAN and the CS (company communications server) connected to the intranet LAN, may be arranged through a Secure Transfer System (STS). Once this is done, the CIO in consultation with those responsible for telephony in their organisation may integrate inter-locational voice and fax communication over this 100 per cent secure, 100 per cent uptime intranet. This cannot work through VoIP, which is bandwidth inefficient. VoIP uses five times more bandwidth per WAN voice call than that what is required in CS voice. However, to make it work a mixture of Circuit Switching (CS) for voice and fax, and PS (packet switching) for data and other IP services, may be used— much in the same way, as was done in the public 3G mobile communication system that was recently launched in the Subcontinent. Such a system for the private network environment is available in the business tool PVDTN (Private Voice-Data Telecommunications Network). This re-engineering of the present WAN connectivity can be accomplished in four to six months. And re-engineering can save an organisation upto 50 to 75 per cent of their present telecom costs. Finally, it saves a substantial portion of the company’s inter-locational travelling costs as well.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

TECH TALK OPINION

DR. MUTHUKUMARAN B CTO and Chief Consultant, Gemini Communication Ltd

owners guard their botnets jealously and invest huge amounts of time, effort and money in them.

details and initiate the transfer. Botnets make use of some well-defined network communication protocols that more importantly include IRC protocol. Generally, the Zeus botnet aims to make machines behave as spying agents with the intent of getting financial benefits. The Zeus malware has the ability to log inputs that are entered by the user as well as to capture and alter data that are displayed onto webpages. For example, fake Internet postcards circulating through email inboxes worldwide are carrying links to the virus known as Zeus Bot, said Gary Warner, Director of Computer Forensics at the University of Alabama in Birmingham (UAB). A virtual machine in Amazon’s EC2 cloud has been used as a command and control host for a password stealing version of Zeus, says a senior researcher in the Internet Security Intelligence Initiative, part of CA’s security unit. HTTP protocol and other protocols like IM and P2P protocols. Some bots such as BlackEnergy, Rustock, and clickbot.A, rely on HTTP protocol since the bot hardens the detection process. Generally HTTP traffic is allowed in most network policies and the bot exploits this. Other types of botnets do not rely on centralised command and control mechanisms and use distributed control techniques to avoid the single point of failure problem. Zeus remains a robust botnet network, which is difficult to destroy, in spite of international sting operations. One can even use the Zeus crimeware toolkit to personalise his copy of the Zeus bot. The toolkit is a set of programmes, available to setup a bot over a highscaled networked infrastructure. In fact, the criminal ecosystem has become so sophisticated that the toolkit has introduced a hardware-based product activation scheme similar to what’s found in Microsoft Windows for antipiracy control!

Cyber thunderbolt Zeus is a powerful piece of malicious software that can capture online banking

The author has been associated with firms like NCR and Sutherland and is an alumnus of IIT-Kanpur and IIM-Calcutta

Commanding a BOT World!

PHOTO GRAPHY: AAHANA MATHANI

usually spend a lot of time reading about security especially ‘bots’, their in-built modularity and taxonomy. A casual glance at the headlines of popular IT publications will reveal that the security community and society at large are often in a twist about the overwhelming onslaught of ‘bots’ or ‘zombies’.

Valuable assets! But what is a bot? It is a piece of code (classified under malware due to its differential payload capabilities) which allows an attacker to gain complete control of an infected computer. The term ‘botnet’ is used to define a network of infected personal computers that are under the control of a human operator commonly known as a ‘bot-master’. Bots originated as a useful method for carrying out repetitive and timeconsuming operations. One would be surprised to learn that botnets are created, nurtured and treated as valuable assets by their owners (‘bot-herders’), who make money by hiring them out to other cyber criminals and for a potential user community, leading to offensives such as phishing attacks, spam attacks, identity theft, click fraud and the distribution of scam emails. The hiring is similar to providing an empty house, a partially furnished house, or a fully furnished house to a prospective buyer. In a scenerio, where the security systems are changing continuously, without any control, these

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

“The Zeus botnet aims to make machines behave as spying agents with the intent of getting financial benefits using data entered by the user”

TCS Bags Deutsche Bank Deal TECH TIDINGS | Software Major, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS)

has bagged a 10-year contract from Deutsche Bank to deploy its core banking suite and enabling the bank implement branchless banking in over 30 countries. Under the deal, TCS will replace the multiple legacy core banking systems at Deutsche Bank, many of which were either developed in-house, or procured from third party vendors. TCS BaNCS Core Banking provides transaction banking functionality including

ER NUMAB BILITY PORT

According to reports, the size of the deal is estimated to be over $50 mn

IT Managers’ vote for cellular service providers in the Post MNP era (FIGURES INDICATE % OF ENTERPRISE USERS OPTING FOR A PARTICULAR SERVICE PROVIDER, GIVEN A CHOICE)

Over 450 senior IT Managers and experts, from different industry verticles across India, participated in the poll

Others

Aircel

BSNL/ MTNL

SOURCE: IT NEXT RESEARCH

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

4% Reliance 6% Idea 41% Airtel 11 % Tata Docommo 22 % Vodafone

TRENDS DEALS PRODUCTS SERVICES PEOPLE

account services, interest and charges, limits and facilities, liquidity management, funds transfer and payments, statements and risk management and reporting. As a first step, Deutsche Bank migrated its GTB branch in Abu Dhabi to the new core banking platform on December 11. The branch was opened in January 2010. “This is a significant step in strengthening our GTB platform worldwide. We expect the new platform to deliver significant improvements that will benefit our clients,” said Werner Steinmüller, Head of Global Transaction Banking and Member of the Group Executive Committee of Deutsche Bank. “The deal is for a ten year period which includes the implementation and after sale services. This is one of the largest deals in the core banking sector,” N Ganapathy Subramaniam, TCS president for financial solutions. “Deutsche Bankdemonstrated rightly that technology is the inexorable choice for large financial institutions to become faster, more efficient and offer seamless customer experience,” Subramaniam further said. TCS Financial Solutions is a strategic business unit of Tata Consultancy Services and dedicated to provide business application solutions to financial institutions globally According to the reports, the size of the deal is estimated to be over $50 mn. The deal once again signifies the growing need of IT solutions for developed markets.

PHOTO GRAPHY:PHOTOS .CO M

UPDATE I N D U S T R Y

HIGH DEFINITION PLASMA

SPEED UP YOUR PC SPEED

THE POWER OF BLU

Panasonic has launched its ultra large 152-inch 3D Plasma Display in India which combines splendid mix of style and the cutting edge 3D technology that enables a lifelike viewing experience.

Stellar has launched Speed-Up, a software tool that efficiently gets rid of all the unwanted files and applications that eat up space on Mac drive and optimizes the Mac hard drive performance.

Sony has introduced its next generation Blu – Ray disc Rewritable to the Indian market. The writers organises personal movie, photo and movie collections and frees up space on the hard disc.

Nokia, IBM Collaborate for Mobility TECH TRENDS | Handset major, Nokia and Tech giant IBM have entered into collaboration to deliver business mobility solutions to Indian enterprises. Under the alliance, IBM Lotus Notes Traveler will be made available for Nokia smartphones to enable collaboration solutionfor Indian enterprises. The solution – which delivers direct, secure access to email and personal information via organizations’ IBM Domino servers – is now available for Nokia Symbian S60 smartphones. “IT directors are being pressurised to deploy business mobility solutions such as

Lotus Notes Traveler solution is supported by a wide range of Nokia smartphones

email, IM and intranet access for more employees, without incurring high costs on additional middleware, licenses and maintenance. “IBM Lotus Notes Traveler gives business and IT

AROUND THE WORLD

professionals easy, secure and real-time access to their email boxes, corporate contacts and corporate calendar on their Nokia smartphones,” says V Ramnath, Director Operator Channels for Nokia India. The company announced that the IBM Lotus Notes Traveler solution is supported on a wide range of Nokia smartphones. Through joint activities targeted at enterprises, Nokia and IBM are bringing operational efficiencies and substantial savings in total cost of ownership (TCO) for IT decision makers. According to the official statement, the joint activities will kick off with a ten city enterprise roadshow which will be targeted at key decision makers and CIOs of enterprises.

QUICK BYTE

Facebook poses serious threat to Britain In a shocking revelation, Britain police have reportedly register of over 100, 000 criminal cases linked with the social networking site Facebook. The figure encompasses the accumulated number of criminal cases in the Britain over the last five years. Reports says the website has been used by criminals to make threats, intimidate, bully and harass. Police chiefs in 16 forces claim that 7,545 calls from the public since January were concerned with the social networking site.

ANKIT FADIA, AN ETHICAL HACKER AND CYBER SECURITY EXPERT, ON USING 3G

“NOT MANY PEOPLE IN INDIA INSTALL ANTI-VIRUS IN CELL PHONES. I WOULD RECOMMEND THEM TO INSTALL ANTI-VIRUS AND FIREWALLS WHILE USING 3G”

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

Dell to Acquire Compellent to provide customers additional M&A| Dell has entered into a definimid- and high-end network storage tive agreement to acquire Compelsolutions that simplify and reduce lent, a provider of highly-virtualized the cost of data management,” storage solutions with automated said Brad Anderson, senior vice data management features and thin president, Enterprise Product provisioning, for enterprise and cloudGroup, Dell. computing environments. The acquisiUpon closing the transaction, Dell tion is the latest strategic investment said it will make Compellent a part by Dell as it expands its portfolio of of its storage portfolio which already enterprise-class storage solutions. includes PowerVault, EqualLogic and Under the terms of the agreement, Dell/EMC. Dell also plans to keep Dell will pay $27.75 per share in cash Compellent’s existing operations for each share of Compellent for a in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, and total equity value of approximately $960 million, and aggregate purchase will invest in engineering, support, operations and sales capability to price of approximately $820 million grow this business. net of Compellent’s cash. Compellent sells its The transaction, which Around solutions through an is subject to approval by extensive network of Compellent’s shareholders channel partners. Dell said and customary closing per share will it would keep the channel conditions, is expected to be paid by program that Compellent close in early 2011. Dell for the acquisition has developed, while “The Compellent storage making additions to it. platform will enable Dell

$28

Datacraft Eyes Govt. Biz for growth TECH TIDINGS |IT services

and solutions major Datacraft, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data, is eying to double up its market share from the government business in India. “The major focus of the company would be on developing partnerships with government and government owned enterprises in this fiscal. At present, it earns miniscule revenue from this sector in India,” Datacraft India CEO Sunil Manglore said. The company has recently entered into a partnership with BSNL, to launch IT-enabled services based on cloud run enterprises and eying some

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

It will focus on developing partnerships with government owned enterprises

more government wins this year. “We also have a huge focus towards setting up private cloud on both enterprises and government domain,” added Manglore.

INTERVIEW ASPANDYAR KARKARIA PRODUCT MANAGER, HIQUBE, ALTAIR ENGINEERING

IT NEXT: How do you see the role of analytics solution evolving in the modern business cycle? KARKARIA: Modern day business cycles are complex, multi-dimensional (as many as ten or more in some cases), with large stake holders and wind through multiple paths. Analytics, unlike some other business application and transaction systems, are aligned to the business vision and the business strategy, and the decisions linked to that. Increasingly analytics will be the defining factors for business, and the transaction systems will become the necessary infrastructure. What goals should an IT Manager set before deciding on an analytics solution? BI is about part technology and part domain. It is a confluence of the two. Either piece missing will result in implementation failure. The IT Managers will need to assess the business requirements in Toto. Then they will need to identify the technology which best fulfills the business requirements. What differentiates Altair from its competitors in the BI market? We will focus on verticals where our key strengths of engineering domain knowledge can be leveraged. Altair also has domain consultants on record and who will bring about the all necessary expertise, including business consulting, to ensure that the customers meet their end objectives. By Jatinder Singh

UPDATE

LinkedIn Lists Overused Buzzwords Dynamic, Innovative and Extensive experience tops the list of 2010

TECH TIDINGS | LinkedIn, the world’s

largest professional network with more than 85 million members worldwide, has recently released the most overused words and phrases in members’ LinkedIn profiles. The top 10 terms that are overused by professionals based in India are: 1. Dynamic 2. Innovative 3. Extensive experience 4. Team player 5. Motivated 6. Proactive 7. Proven track record 8. Value add 9. Skill set

NEWS @ BLOG

10. Out-of-the-box “We have the unique ability to uncover interesting workplace trends in our data given the high volume of people with profiles on LinkedIn,” said DJ Patil, LinkedIn’s Chief Data Scientist”. The list aims at providing a clear insight of poorly composed LinkedIn profiles. The company advised that the users should wipe these terms out from their profiles and use focussed and meaningful sentences and phrases, highlighting achievements of career. It also helps giving insights on best ways to reaching out to new clients or networking with peers.

TECH TRENDS

E-reader Sales to Surpass 6m Worldwide connected e-reader sales to end users are forecast to total 6.6 million units in 2010, up 79.8% from 2009 sales of 3.6 million units, according to Gartner. In 2011, worldwide e-reader sales are projected to surpass 11 million units, a 68.3% increase from 2010. The market for e-reading devices — portable devices that use an E Ink, e-paper or similar display technology — has become crowded and is at risk of commoditisation due to developments in adjacent markets, such as those for media tablets, according to Gartner analysts. Although three vendors dominate today’s e-reader market (Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Sony), new competitors may well appear in the future with low-cost devices subsidized by content owners. Large consumer electronics and PC firms such as HP and Dell are also trying to position themselves strongly in the market for connected consumer devices. The research further said that E-readers have carved out a solid niche in the consumer electronics market due to their portability, long battery life, display technology and inexpensive retail prices.

WIKILEAKS, COULD IRM HAVE HELPED? “THIS IS A PROBLEM with a lot of security technologies today, they focus either on the location, the network or a gateway to define access to information.” writes IRM expert Simon Thorpe.

One thing the release of this information is demonstrating, is as soon as you’ve lost control of information, it’s gone. Once those cables existed as clear text on a website, they were quickly copied, distributed via Torrent networks and mirrored at a rate that it is now impossible to destroy all evidence of these files. J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

SPENDING IS BACK IT MANAGERS VOTE FOR 11 TECHNOLOGIES THAT WILL HAVE THE GREATEST IMPACT IN 2011 BY SHASHWAT D C & JATINDER SINGH

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY

CLOUD COMPUTING . DISTRIBUTED COMPUTING . MOBILE COMPUTING . DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEM . DATACENTER TRANSFORMATION . ENTERPRISE APPS . UNIFIED COMMUNICATION . VIDEO CONFERENCING . BIOMETRIC SECURITY . E-COMMERCE . VIRTUALISATION . SOA . GREEN IT . TABLET COMPUTING . BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE . OPEN SOURCE . WAN OPTIMISATION . NETWORK SECURITY . ENTERPRISE MOBILITY . SAAS . ENTERPRISE-GRADE SOCIAL SOFTWARE . ENTERPRISE APPS HYBRID COMPUTING . WIRELESS BROADBAND . DATA WAREHOUSING . UNIFIED THREAT MANAGEMENT . UNIFIED STORAGE . SEO . DOTNET . DLP . FIREWALL . RFID . DR

We asked IT managers to evaluate the importance and relevance of enterprise technologies for 2011

nterprise IT has been reeling from the impact of the recession and economic gloom. With companies focussing on curtailing costs, investment in technology was not based on RoI, but CRoI (Cost Reduction on Investment). Hence, only those technologies and services were taken up by IT managers that resulted in tangible savings. The finance guys were making the calls. Now, the cloud of gloom too seems to be dissipating thanks to the winds of economic growth and optimism. A renewed exuberance and optimism is evidenced in our latest survey. Over 500 IT managers share their views on

RANK 2010

2009

1 2

CHANGE

TECHNOLOGY

Debut

Enterprise Apps (ERP, SCM, CRM)

Green IT

Debut

Mobile Computing

Cloud Computing

-3

Business Intelligence

-2

Virtualisation

7 8

Debut

Unified Threat Management

-5

Datacenter Transformation

Debut

Wireless Broadband (3G/WiMAX)

Debut

WAN Optimisation

what technologies will be prominent this year (and the years to come). Chosing from a shortlist of 20 odd technologies, IT managers selected the top 10, and also graded them on 4 parameters - ability to integrate with existing IT, maturity or readiness for use, potential benefits for the organisation, and, cost of acquisition. Based on these inputs, we present the list of top 11 technologies for 2011. This list reflects the views of 535 senior IT managers. Unlike projections and forecasts made by consultants, this is a community generated list by the people who actually use and work on these technologies. So, this list more closely reflects the views and opinions of the ground reality in the Indian enterprise. One of the biggest shifts this year, (over the survey done last year) is the positive outlook towards investment in technologies that can aid enterprises to expand and grow. Not surprisingly, Enterprise Apps rose to the top of the list, with more than 90% respondents rating it as a priority for the year. Green IT, mobile computing and the cloud were next on the list. Thanks to all the excitement and clamour around 3G, wireless broadband debuted into the list. Meanwhile, BI and datacenter transformation held their places. The surprise dropouts this time were unified communications and enterprise-grade social software; both seemed to have slipped from the radar. All the shifts and changes in the top 10 list point to the fact that IT managers will be exploring and looking at deploying technologies that can help their companies grow and become more profitable in 2011. There is less focus on cost-cutting and more on creating value.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

COVER STORY | TECH TRENDS

PITFALLS

To make mobile apps deliver the business objectives IT heads will need to construct a risk analysis of both internal & external strategies

DEBUT

2 PITFALLS

Green as a concept has still not matured enough to convince organisations taking initiatives solely with the contention of protecting environment

Increased concerns about the power tariffs have raised the importance of Green IT, thereby taking it up 5 ranks over the last year

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

Enterprise Apps From ERP to HRMS, IT managers are optimistic about deployments So, effective utilisation of There is much excitement on Leveraging exist3.7 enterprise appsâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; in ERP, the cards as far as enterprise ing IT CRM, financial applications, applications are considered. 4.25 Maturity Web, and Content Thanks to the recession, Management Systems will many companies were combe the prime concern for pelled to eliminate the flab Potential Benefits for the 4.63 organisation the upcoming year, say and look at their IT archiIT managers. To reap the tecture in ways they did not Low Cost of 2.53 benefits of collaboration, before. Also, considering Acquisiton IT heads will need to that many companies have embraced the cloud for enterprise functions, conduct a risk analysis of both internal & the year ahead seems to be that of assimila- external strategies. The biggest challenge will be to accommodate the changeâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;both tion and integration. Secondly, the volume of data being in functionality and behaviour patterns, accumulated is exploding, and it is yielding rather than just strategy. Also, the pricing new value for those who know how to will play a role in determining the essential mine and refine it. Finally, the impact suite of services; however, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the network of enterprise mobility is also having its and reliability of service provider that will natural consequence on the infrastructure. influence the execution plan.

Green IT Power saved is money saved. This realisation is driving the uptake of green technologies by enterprise IT Green technologies are still high on the consumption of power. Another reason for the gaining popularity wishlist of many managers, despite some ambiguity. The main driving force is not of green in the IT manager community is that the environment, but economy. With the within any enterprise, the IT department increasing cost of power, any decrease in the plays a crucial role in driving the green consumption of electricity can produce a sig- agenda. In fact, IT managers are often the thought leaders and anchors in the roll out nificant reduction in operating costs. The first port of call for green IT is usually of green policies. Vendors are also promoting green the datacenter, which is not surprising, as it solutions, like green data consumes a lot of electricLeverage of 3.4 centers and green storage ity. Automation, virtuExisting IT solutions. alisation and use of green In 2011, while the hype is hardware can effectively 3.13 Maturity set to increase; hopefully, the curb costs. implementation will too. It will Green IT has also an impePotential Benefits for 3.9 be also critical for enterprises tus from the green buildthe organization to identify vendors who are ing movement, which Low Cost of designing green products to relies heavily on usage of 2.9 Acquisiton manage the resources better. technology to reduce the

4 3

TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY

PITFALLS

While mobility will add wings to growing enterprise ambitions, the lack of best security practices could lead to critical data becoming vulnerable

DEBUT

Mobile Computing

The evolution of cloud management technologies is still under process and accomodating technologies like virtualisation in their current format will take time

IT managers are getting accustomed to the idea of using the cloud for applications and backup, hence it moves up 4 ranks on the charts

Cloud Computing

Spurred by the popularity of smart phones and tablet devices, enterprise managers are looking at incorporating mobile computing platforms and aligning them with business

Driven by cost and convenience, cloud computing is steadily gaining foothold in the enterprise. However, security concerns remain high

As the year 2011 begins, the industry is eying a swift transformation towards new mobility platforms that threaten to displace traditional desktop computing. In 2010, tablets became mainstream, and the challenges related to internet security increased in complexity. With the flow of information on a continuous rise, new enterprises expect their employees to stay connected all the time, thereby making a strong case for a mobile workforce. The trend is evident from the fact that in the last twelve months, there has been a tremendous growth in the market of tablet PCs, smartphones, collaboration tools and cloud computing. What’s more, in its recent report, research firm IDC projects 2011 to be the most challenging year Leverage of 3.43 Existing IT for PC market. It estimates shipments of app-capable, 3.13 Maturity non-PC mobile devices (smartphones, media tablets, Potential Benefits for 3.75 etc.) to outnumber PC the organization shipments within the next 18 months. And expects apps Low Cost of 3.43 Acquisiton store phenomenon to spread up from smartphone and tablets to PC s and next generation enterprise solutions. According to a recent survey commissioned by Check Point, IT security administrators expect a significant increase in the number of users connecting to their network in the next year, with 54% citing specific growth in the number of remote users. While the mobile computing led remote workforce certainly provides an opportunity to businesses, looking to optimise their resources more effectively, this will place more stress on IT managers to enforce better security protection to secure data on-the-go.

In the year gone by, the cloud was the most prominent technology in every report or prediction. The biggest attraction of going on the cloud has always been the low costs associated with the paradigm. Just going by the hype-cycle alone, the cloud beat all the rest, hands down. Even while adoption lacked, vendors and service providers promoted cloud solutions heavily. To allay the security concerns of the IT department, the “private cloud” was proffered up as an alternative. However, despite the numerous flavors of the cloud, the IT community is still wary of putting its mission critical data or porting services to the cloud. People are still not very convinced about the security. The tussle between RIM and the Government of India Leverage of 3.25 Existing IT over security and sharing of data, brought the issue of data 3.14 Maturity privacy and storage on the cloud to the fore. Potential Benefits 3.9 The question that most large for the organization corporations planning to use the cloud are asking, “Where Low Cost of 3.2 Acquisiton will my data be stored?” and “What jurisdictions will apply to it?” These sort of questions will gain much importance in 2011. Conceptually, a private cloud will look great on the paper, but it is much more complex a task to make it a reality for many organisations. The biggest obstacle comes in the form of lack of system management tools that can synchronise the data centre functions with that of the cloud. Nevertheless, the benefits that are offered by the cloud, namely in terms of efficiency and costs, are just to good to be ignored. As more enterprise applications get ported on the cloud, companies will be more inclined to make use of them. The future is indeed very cloudy.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

COVER STORY | TECH TRENDS

PITFALLS

A key challenge seen by IT managers in adopting BI tools is establishing the core transaction systems and suport from senior management

While BI may have come down 2 ranks over the last year, it still remains a high priority with the IT department for the year 2011

6 PITFALLS

Maintenance of virtual infrastructure like defining centralised control, security and access right management while scaling up, is a huge challenge

Among all the other technologies deployed and used, virtualisation has been termed as the most over-hyped, reflected in a fall of 4 ranks in the survey

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

Business Intelligence Analytics has transformed into a strategic tool for both business growth and productivity gains

digitised, companies will be BI has been topping the techLeverage of Exist- 3.78 able to obtain prospects, new nology lists for a while, and ing IT insights on their customers and in a special issue of IT Next (a suppliers. few months back), there was a 3.86 Maturity Also, the fact that there has detailed dicussion on its new been a significant consolidation avatar, from being strategic to Potential Benefits for 4.38 in the enterprise software productive. the organization market, with most of the The recent recession demLow Cost of 3.2 smaller players being acquired onstrated that BI could play Acquisiton by enterprise software vendors, a diagnostic role and help increase productivity within the enterprise. are pushing BI and information management The big shift that is taking place is that even more strongly than ever. Also, during last one small and medium companies are looking at year, some organisations felt that standardise BI solutions to get better insights about their models are too complex. Overall, BI is set to gain renewed traction customers and markets. In 2011, the trend will only strengthen, this year, as enterprises with a growth as enterprises look to make most of the agenda, deeply into their dashboards to enormous volumes of data within the know which customer segments to target, enterprise. Once the data is â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;cleanedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; and and which markets to enter.

Virtualisation From the server to desktop, virtualisation is being heralded as the panacea for savings and improved mangeability However, many IT managers After the cloud, virtualisaLeverage of Exist- 3.83 point out that consolidation of tion is the technology that has ing IT servers requires much planning recieved much attention from 4.24 and groundwork, and can result Maturity the vendor community. The in some disruptions. Also, principal benefits of virtualisation are cost and consolidaPotential Benefits 4.09 since there are only a handful for the organization of players in the market that tion, and the chief reasons offer virtualisation services, why many enterprises have Low Cost of 3.56 the license prices are still fairly warmed up to the technology. Acquisiton high. Also, there are still areas Thus, enterprises that are of concern when it comes to looking for increased manageability, application performance, energy hosting mission-critical applications in a efficiency, look to virtualisation. While the virtualised environment. Nonetheless, enterprise IT managers are biggest trend is server virtualisation (consolidation of many disparate servers into a single excited about virtualisation and are keeping one), desktop virtualisation is also gaining a tab on the latest offerings to deploy them traction. Many enterprises believe that vir- within their companies. As virtualisation tual desktops can substantially reduce IT moves from the server to the desktop companies, it will find greater credence. infrastructure maintenance costs.

7 PITFALLS

Rising performance demand and load balancing capabilities of UTMs through multi-core architecture have also made it a bit complex

TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY

PITFALLS

DEBUT

Unified Threat Management

The risk of falling for an ad-hoc approach to data centre virtualisation itself can defeat the very objective of virtualisation and lead to significant losses

IT managers still thump their support for realigning the datacenter to business needs and requirements, and so, it continues to be a major concern

Datacenter Transformation

Single solution to combat multiple challenges finds favour

Reducing power consumption is a key concern for IT managers

With security threats on the rise, UTM is being progressively considered as the most efficient way of protection. The year 2010 saw a number of swift and growing attacks which were specifically targetted at individual organisations or a small, select group. With a growing understanding of critical data being lost and attacks being launched by cyber criminals hampering the business, enterprises looked to UTM solutions for cost efficiencies. In the view of experts, while small companies are not specific targets for criminals, because of the limited opportunity they represent. But they are vulnerable to sophisticated attacks which may be very expensive to support and outside the Leverage of Exist3.33 ing IT ambit of medium businesses. UTM provides SMBs to man3.41 Maturity age their security, without much effort or cost. Small Potential Benefits for 4.05 organizations are increasthe organization ingly deploying it as gateway security solutions and are Low Cost of 2.86 Acquisiton showing keen interest in the UTM concept of all-in-one security. Gartner defines small businesses “as those with 100 to 1,000 employees, and revenue ranging from $50 million to $1 billion.” As per the Gartner’s report, the worldwide UTM market was worth approximately $1.5 billion in 2009, representing 25% growth over Gartner’s 2007 estimate. The analyst firm believes the UTM market will remain squarely focused on midsize enterprises. The IDC report says that the UTM appliance market in India is slated to cross $100 million by 2012, which will generate fresh business opportunities for solution providers.

The emergence of new technologies like cloud computing, virtualisation and managed infrastructure services has reaffirmed the faith of enterprises in third-parties for setting up data centres. Post recession, organisations are increasingly focussing on virtualisation. Given that high redundancy levels of servers and storage resources are common in data centres, a virtualisation strategy can result in immediate benefits in terms of server and storage rationalisation. Application virtualisation also leads to substantial savings in data centre costs. From an IT Manager’s point of view, virtualisation of a data centre brings in a level of abstraction and pooling of Leverage of Exist3.45 ing IT IT resources, which comes handy in aligning IT with 3.61 Maturity business needs. The practice of maintaining Potential Benefits for 3.89 smaller data centers all the organization over the globe is quickly getting replaced by having a Low Cost of 2.98 Acquisiton larger data center at selected locations. In case of new buildouts, ‘green’ has to be grounds- up. According to experts, the overall design and layout of the data centre has to be such that it facilitates air flow and its management and reduces dependency on artificial cooling. Experts have pointed out that most of the data centres suffer from the problem of over feeding, and that the solution lies in identifying the hot spots and facilitative airflow in deficient zones. While elements such as unified architecture, virtualisation and green form the core of a data centre transformation strategy, the existing and prevailing best practices will continue to play their roles.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

COVER STORY | TECH TRENDS

PITFALLS

IT managers have to be extra cautious on the vendor support and making their transcoding engines future proof from all the vulnerabilities

DEBUT

Wireless Broadband (3G/WiMAX) With the advent of 3G in India, IT managers are seriously evaluating the potential of using the same within the enterprise This year saw some really According to Ovum, Leverage of 3.33 Existing IT services such as MPLS VPNs, exciting developments in the Ethernet, and CDNs will have area of wireless broadband. 3.65 Maturity a larger impact on demand With 3G finally becoming a for international bandwidth reality in India, the demand Potential Benefits 3.8 among the enterprise space. for quality voice network, for the organization As the global demand and rich data applications like for high-definition video live mobile TV, video calling, Low Cost of 3.6 Acquisiton services and collaboration music streaming and mobile solutions grow swiftly conferencing saw a huge amongst businesses, service providers are upsurge in the last quarter of 2010. Telecom Regulatory Authority of India increasingly aiming to deliver customised (TRAI) expects almost 60 million (37.5%) of solutions based on the specific business the forecasted 160 million broadband sub- needs of the enterprises especially in the scribers in 2014 to use 3G. It also estimates media and entertainment sectors. Ovum further projects the demand for almost 400 million mobile data subscribers across both 2G and 3G technologies, thereby international bandwidth rising through a considerable increase in the total internet the usage of cloud and networked data hosting infrastructure. users in the wireless over fixed.

DIRTY DOZEN 12 MOST OVER-HYPED TECHNOLOGIES IN 2010 Green IT

Over 500 IT managers rated the 12 most over-hyped technologies of 2010, which were much promoted by the vendors and analysts and would possibly not find much takers in the year to come

95%

Data Warehousing

Dotnet

Cloud INFO GRA PH ICS: PRASANTH T R

WiMax

Unified Communication

Enterprise Social Networking Tablet PC SEO SOA

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

Hybrid Computing

Unified Storage

FELT THAT CLOUD WAS MOST OVER-HYPED EVEN THOUGH RELEVANT

81%

STATED THAT GREEN IT HAS GOT MUCH PROMOTION, MAKING IT THE SECOND MOST HYPED

17%

FELT THAT UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS DOES NOT MERIT THE HYPE

10 11

TECH TRENDS | COVER STORY

PITFALLS

In the year 2011, WAN optimization will see an acceleration of demand, largely because of the IT practices skewed towards virtualisation and consolidation

DEBUT

PITFALLS

Building awareness and convincing people accustomed to hard copies to move to a digital way of working is a big impediment towards growth

WAN Optimisation

Document Management

As part of a growth strategy, companies are looking to optimise their Wide Area Networks through different ways

Reducing paper not only curtails cost but also improves mangeability. And here managing documents in an effective way holds the key

Wisespread deployment of enterprise applications propelled the spread of Wide Area Networks (WANs) and rise in spending on bandwidth. With the demand for video as a tool to communicate among business units rising, there is a need for a better conceived WAN traffic management strategies in the deployment pattern from enterprises. According to the industry trends, in the year 2011, WAN optimization will see an acceleration of demand, largely because of the IT practices skewed towards virtualisation and consolidation. WAN optimisation has enabled many organisation to get more out of their existing infrastructure. WAN optimisation solutions aid Leverage of Exist3.66 ing IT and assist IT managers to improve their flexibility to 3.88 Maturity run applications and save considerable amount of Potential Benefits for 4.1 costs. the organization As per Aberdeen’s recent Low Cost of benchmark report, the top 3.54 Acquisiton obstacles enterprises face in ensuring seamless delivery of data to end users are: increasing research hypothesis which amount of rich content, increasing TCP traffic, and “Chattiness” will be explored based on of currently deployed applications. The report further says that the business benefits from shared WAN infrastructures based on underlying MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS) networks that create high bandwidth aggregation are particularly focused on data centers. Also, as the low cost internet connectivity is becoming a reality and making its way in India , businesses are swiftly getting into VPN to interconnect their networks.

As the businesses are growing, the organisations are looking for solutions that can help them manage things smoother and faster. A document management system (DMS) is one such tool, that manage the growing volume paper. It has also been referred as the Electronic Management System, Enterprise Content Management (ECM), Electronic Data Management and many similar things. The worldwide market according to industry estimates, is expected to surpass over $75 million this year. DMSs have been around ever since the idea of a paperless world came in many years ago. However, there is a significant cost involved with DMS. And that’s what initially prohibited many businesses to buy the idea. If an organisation is already running an ERP solution, then running a document management system is relatively cheaper. And since most large organisations are already on ERP, they find it a good bet to invest in content management systems. DMS is also now increasingly becoming essential for compliance purposes. And that is one reason that even midsized organizations are opting for it— at least the basic level of DMS, if not the advanced model. Industry sectors that have been the early adopters of DMS in India include BFSI, telecom, IT and ITeS, government, transportation and logistics. According to experts, pharmaceuticals is the next big emerging vertical for DMS adoption. Some key trends in the document management space include optimization of storage, and improving bandwidth, readiness and accuracy of data. DMSs are also being engineered to support more document formats and access from mobile phones.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

INSIGHT | CLOUD

DAYS

SUNNY

AHEAD FOR PRIVATE

CLOUDS

Merrill Lynch says the public and private cloud infrastructure will be a $160 billion market by 2011. So understanding the concepts and principles behind private clouds will help you evaluate your options and lay the foundation for the future. BY M AT T H E W SA R R E L

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

CLOUD | INSIGHT JAPAN

PERCEIVED CLOUD RELEVANCE HAS INCREASED SIGNIFICANTLY IN ALL ASIA PACIFIC MARKETS

92%

CHINA

75%

INDIA

91%

MALAYSIA

90% THAILAND

88%

Source: Springboard Research

SINGAPORE

86%

AUSTRALIA

84%

ILLUSTRATI ON: PC ANO OP

CLOUD ADOPTION RATE IN ASIA PAC

While there’s still plenty of room for growth among enterprises for straight ahead, consolidation-oriented server virtualization projects, many organizations are looking to take their virtualization deployments to the next level. How? By shaping their data centers into elastic and self-service platforms akin to those built by large cloud computing outfits such as Amazon.com and Salesforce.com. “Customers are quickly moving beyond the core hypervisor and focusing on mobility, self-provisioning, and metering and chargeback capabilities,” said Matt Eastwood, group vice president of Enterprise Platforms at IDC. Eastwood, along with a host of analysts, pundits and vendors, have a name for these next-generation virtualization deployments: the private cloud. Settling on a precise definition of the term isn’t easy, since the term “cloud,” on its own, remains rather nebulous, but for the purposes of initiating a discussion, let’s say that the private cloud boils down to a set of scalable, dynamically provisioned, IT services which, unlike the public cloud, are hosted within an organization’s corporate data center. All the elasticity and convenience of a public cloud service, with the same option to go hug your servers that IT

admins have always had—or so the sales pitch goes. According to Matthew Richards, senior director of Product Marketing, Cloud Computing, at CA Technologies, “There’s a lot of interest in building private clouds on the part of large enterprises today. It’s becoming more and more important for IT departments to think of themselves as an internal service provider and focus on the services that are being delivered to business people.” CA Technologies swept up a bunch of startups and recently released CA 3Tera AppLogic 2.9, a turnkey platform that facilitates the rapid delivery of application-centric public and

IT’S BECOMING MORE AND MORE IMPORTANT FOR IT DEPARTMENTS TO THINK OF THEMSELVES AS AN INTERNAL SERVICE PROVIDER —Matthew Richards, senior director of Product Marketing, Cloud Computing, at CA Technologies

private clouds. At this year’s VMworld, VMware announced a slew of products to enhance vSphere with private cloud functionality, such as support for pooling virtual infrastructure resources for delivery as catalog-based services, and for chargeback models to measure and assign costs of virtual machines. Truly exciting is the availability of vSphere Enterprise Plus, which can be used to build private clouds and bridge to public clouds to automate the creation of hybrid clouds. Other prominent initiatives in the private cloud space include Amazon Virtual Private Cloud, IBM CloudBurst and VMware’s vSphere and vCenter. Dell offers Virtual Integrated System, Novell has Cloud Manager—and then there’s Intalio, Oracle, Fujitsu—the list goes on and on. Of course, it’s not as simple as merely buying the right software. Amazon EC2 or Salesforce.com weren’t built in a day, and companies that are in the business of providing utility compute services as their core business will always boast more resources, know-how and sheer scale than will be available to any single private enterprise. Public cloud players are quick to point out the scale issue in their criticism of the private cloud concept. Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff urged attendees at this year’s Cloud-

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

D’

36 %

DA TA

‘O PS AU TO M

AT ED

TE RN A

SE RV I A

DE LI VE RY

TH E

CE NT RE

AN DE M

CE NT ER

55 DA TA AL

D’

‘O NG

NE TW OR KI

EX TE RN

The perceived weaknesses of the public cloud approach typically revolve around security, control and demonstrating that both exist. The paradigm of protecting data by securing it within the corporate perimeter is familiar to just about every IT staffer. So in many ways the public cloud is a challenge to the status quo. Just as people love their privacy, enterprises want to keep their clouds private. We understand how to protect something that’s private. “It isn’t necessarily that public cloud services are insecure by nature, but rather that they are not under a company’s direct control,” said Scott Crenshaw, vice president and general manager of the Cloud at Red Hat. “We know how to achieve compliance with internal resources, but don’t fully understand the ramifications of doing so in a public environment.” Even in private cloud environments, however, multitenancy is a word that can strike fear in many an IT security administrators’ hearts, particularly those responsible for audits and compliance. According to Eric Chiu, president and CEO of Hytrust, “the challenge becomes how to thrive in a multitenancy environment while preserving VM and data segregation as well as separation of duties.” Virtual policy enforcement solutions such as Hytrust allow administrators to logically separate environments within the private cloud. Similarly, Checkpoint and Altor Networks apply security policy in virtual environments. Assess the current regulatory environment and make sure that you can build a private cloud that is compliant today and hopefully in the future, or at least be updated when future changes occur. In addition, legal discovery or e-discovery, particularly the cost of

What’s So Attractive About the Private Cloud?

CLOUD APPLICATIONS IN ORGANISATIONS

ST OR AG E

force to “beware of the false cloud. The false cloud is not efficient.” With that said, there’s value in maintaining your own private IT resources that’s not easily obtained from the public cloud, particularly where security, compliance and legal discovery are concerned.

76 DE % M

INSIGHT | CLOUD

Source: Springboard Research

the process, is a growing concern in virtualized and cloud environments. Managing virtual sprawl is one thing, but building a secure environment that preserves security controls over applications, data, personnel and the virtual machines is another. “Many enterprises realize one day that they have terabytes or petabytes of files and they literally have no idea what is in them,” said to Steve Akers, CTO and founder of Digital Reef, a company that provides e-discovery and governance solutions. “Organizations now have huge numbers of virtual machines (many of them with sensitive data on them) and files. A system must be in place to track virtual machine provisioning, file ownership and file contents.

“THERE’S VALUE IN MAINTAINING PRIVATE IT RESOURCES THAT’S NOT EASILY OBTAINED FROM THE PUBLIC CLOUD, PARTICULARLY AS FAR AS SECURITY COMPLIANCE AND LEGAL DISCOVERY ARE CONCERNED”

Plan for Flexibility There are many ways to get a private cloud off the ground. As usual, meet today’s needs and build an adaptable management and security foundation for the future. Several current initiatives offer on-premise, cloud-like options for customers that entail the possibility of tapping a hybrid model in the future—you organize your internal stuff in a cloud-like way, you get more flexibility internally, and you get the option of hitting up public cloud resources to solve that elusive scale or capacity bursting bit of the equation when you need it and when you’re comfortable with it. An important consideration in building a private cloud or using a combination of public and private clouds is the interoperability and portability of virtual machines and virtualized workloads. The OVF (Open Virtualization Format) is an open and secure format for the packaging and distribution of virtual machines. A DMTF (Desktop Management Task Force) initiative, OVF promises to facilitate portable VM packaging, among other things, but difficulties regarding portability of VM’s remain. “OVF isn’t fully supported across vendors,” said Navin Thadani, senior director, Virtualization Business at Red Hat, “and as a result we’re seeing a great deal of demand for portability tools, especially from companies looking to cloudburst by dynamically scaling the private cloud into the public cloud.”

FORENSICS | INSIGHT

Catch FORENSICS

A CYBER THIEF Cybercrime is not perpetrated by simple hackers any more, it has become an organised crime. BY N I N A D N AWAG H A R E I L LU ST R AT I O N BY P C A N O O P

yber criminals can gain unauthorised access to systems or information to commit fraud, network intrusion, industrial espionage, identity theft, and even disrupt whole systems or networks. Typical targets include financial institutions, enterprises, the defence forces and government agencies. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s look at how they affect our lives, and at different levels:

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

INSIGHT | FORENSICS

“WHEN IT COMES TO ENTERPRISES, THE NATURE OF IT IS SUCH IS THAT IT TAKES ONLY ONE INGENIOUS CYBER CRIMINAL TO CAUSE DAMAGE -FROM A MINOR LOSS TO MASSIVE FINANCIAL DAMAGE ” At a national level Cyber terrorism is closely related to the national security and cyber security of any nation. While the jury is still out on the exact definition of cyber terrorism, it has been made amply clear to how information and communication technology can be used to not only attack crucial computer systems but the country as well. Nations around the world have been reorganising their defence networks, and India has also woken up to the challenge and is making efforts to upgrade its cyber security. The need of the day is to prevent cyber terrorism, cyber espionage and cyber war among other defensive tactics.

At a corporate level: According to Symantec India, 42 per cent of Indian enterprises rate cyber security among their top issues. The attacks, they say, cost Indian enterprises an average of over Rs. 58 lakhs in lost revenue in 2009, apart from bigger financial losses due to loss of confidential data and productivity. Another Symantec study on the State of Enterprise Security 2010, says that at least 42 per cent of the enterprises surveyed, ranked cyber risk as their top concern, more than natural disasters, terrorism and traditional crime combined.

On a personal level: Everyone who has an email account gets number of spams everyday, announcing that an indecent amount of dollars or pounds have been

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won but a sizable transfer charge is required to get the money. Some people pay for goods online that they don’t get; phishing and credit card frauds are commonplace now as are unauthorised bank transfers. Then there are malicious emails that assassinate characters and ruin reputations; people’s accounts are hacked into for fun, malicious viruses and anonymous threats are sent… and the list goes on. While none of the above is good, it has created new career opportunities that were not really thought of 15 years ago. One such opportunity is training to become a Digital Evidence Analyst (DEA). The avenues for applying this training are quite extensive. Some of them include working with the compliance department of a company or the vigilance department of a state government or in the fraud control department or as a computer forensic investigator. You could also assist law enforcement agencies or lawyers in digital evidence cases or give expert testimony in court cases.. Existing fraud examiners and analysts, compliance officers, risk assessment professionals, lawyers and law students, police and law enforcement officials, investigation officers, IT security professionals, network and systems administrators and IT students and professionals could benefit from the extra training as well.

Digital Evidence Analysis Digital Evidence Analysis involves the

What Type of Cases does a DEA Solve? DEAs are called in to solve different types of cases which involve recovery and analysis of digital evidence and cyber trails. Some of these cases include: n Divorce cases n Murder cases n O rganised crime, terrorist operations,

extortion n Defamation, pornography n O nline banking / share trading / credit

card fraud n S muggling, tax evasion, money laun-

dering n V irus attacks, cyber sabotage, source

code theft n P hishing attacks, email hijacking,

denial of service n C ounterfeit currency, stamp papers,

postage stamps

INSIGHT | FORENSICS

“THE NEED OF THE DAY IS TO PREVENT CYBER TERRORISM, CYBER ESPIONAGE AND CYBER WAR AMONG OTHER DEFENSIVE TACTICS”

SEVEN WAYS A DEA can use his/her training in the following ways:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Perform forensic analysis of digital information using standard computer forensics and evidence handling techniques. Use forensically sound procedures to identify network computer intrusions, collect evidence and identify perpetrators. mploy forensic tools and techniques E to identify and examine malicious files. Employ forensic tools and techniques to crack file and system passwords. etect steganography and D recover deleted, fragmented and corrupted data from digital media Observe proper evidence custody and control procedures. Document procedures and findings in a manner suitable for courtroom presentation, and prepare comprehensive written notes and reports.

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collection, investigation and analysis of digital evidence. This digital evidence may be found in computer hard disks, cell phones, ipods, pen drives, digital cameras, CDs, DVDs, floppies, computer networks or the Internet. Digital evidence can be hidden in pictures (steganography), encrypted files, password protected files, deleted files, formatted hard disks, deleted emails, chat transcripts, among other digital space. Digital evidence can relate to online banking frauds, online share trading fraud, source code theft, credit card fraud, tax evasion, virus attacks, cyber sabotage, phishing attacks, email hijacking, denial of service, hacking, divorce cases, murder cases, organized crime, terrorist operations, defamation, pornography, extortion, smuggling… the applications are vast. A United States Government Accountability Office Report to Congressional Requesters in June 2007 said, “The annual loss due to computer crime was estimated to be $67.2 billion for U.S. organisations.” As mentioned above, Symantec India reported that cyber-attacks cost Indian enterprises an average of over Rs. 58 lakhs in lost revenue in 2009, apart from financial losses on account of loss of confidential data and productivity. The global figure today, however, is likely to be considerably higher than the figures quoted above. In view of this, the fact that there is a massive global shortfall of skilled cyber security and incident response professionals needs attention.

The McAfee Virtual Criminology Report 2007 states, “One hundred and twenty countries have been developing ways to use the Internet as a weapon and target financial markets, government computer systems and utilities.” The report adds, “Evidence suggests that governments and government-allied groups are now using the Internet for espionage and cyber-attacks on the critical national infrastructure (financial markets, utility providers, air traffic control) of other countries.” As technology advances, so do skilled opponents. When it comes to enterprises, the nature of Information Technology is such is that it takes only one ingenious cybercriminal to cause damage—from a minor loss to massive financial damage and the repercussions extend far beyond the affected organisation. Around the world, countries have been reorganising their networks, and India has also woken up to the challenge. The need is to prevent cyber espionage and cyber war among other defensive tactics. Training as a DEA ensures that after every cybercrime, there are people who can collect evidence and nail the perpetrators. Today, the Indian police cybercrime cell is not as wellequipped as it should be and is also short-staffed. And this is a job that can be easily managed by IT managers who already have the know-how but can fine-tune their knowledge to keep enterprises safe. The author is CFE, CFAP and Associate Director of the Asian School of Cyber Laws.

UBUNTU REVIEW | INSIGHT

Ubuntu Linux Desktop Builds on App Store, Cloud Service Strengths

PHOTO GRAPHY: JAYAN K NARAYANAN

buntu 10.10, the latest version of the popular Linux distribution from Canonical and the Ubuntu community, hit FTP servers, early October 2010, bearing a slate of open-source software updates along with enhanced tools for locating and installing those applications. The new release, also known by the code name Maverick Meerkat, also sports an overhauled user interface for the distribution’s netbook-optimized edition, and new functionality for Canonical’s set of personal-cloud services, Ubuntu One. In my tests of Maverick, I’ve been really impressed by the enhancements to the distribution’s Software Center tool for finding and installing applications. The thousands of open-source applications that sit packaged up and waiting to be installed in the project’s networked repositories have long been a differentiator

Ubuntu 10.10, code-named Maverick Meerkat, brings a number of software updates and an overhauled user interface for its netbook edition. BY JAS O N B R O O KS

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INSIGHT | UBUNTU REVIEW for Ubuntu, and the improved software tools that ship with the OS do a great job of showing off this resource. New Ubuntu releases drop about every six months, with so-called Long Term Support releases being spaced out every two years. Maverick follows April’s release of “Lucid Lynx,” the most recent LTS version. As one of Ubuntu’s fastermoving, shorter-lived releases, Maverick will best suit desktop users who are willing to upgrade their OS version at least once a year or so, and who are prepared to debug an issue if they hit one. Organizations running or considering running Ubuntu as a client OS would do best to stick with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, although the sharp new interface in Ubuntu’s netbook edition might make an earlier upgrade worthwhile for mobile users. Ubuntu 10.10 is freely downloadable and comes in 32-bit and 64-bit desktop editions, as well as a 32-bit netbook edition. Ubuntu 10.10 is also available 32 and 64-bit server editions. The download page includes very clear, OS-specific instructions for creating CDor USB-based installation media from a Windows, Mac or Ubuntu machine. Ubuntu installer discs include bootable OS environments, which are great for testing the system without modifying your machine’s hard drive.

The Ubuntu One Music Store is integrated with the Ubuntu One service making it a cloud-enabled digital music store. An Ubuntu One subscription is required to purchase music from the Ubuntu One Music Store.

Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, is a desktop operating system for people who use Facebook. It is faster and secure compared to Windows

By using Shotwell, photos can be tagged and organised by tag, creating a new tool for managing the photo collection It can also help your pics published to Google’s Picasa Web Albums service.

Maverick Meerkat in the lab Perhaps chief among the advantages that Ubuntu inherited from the Debian GNU/Linux project is the deep catalog of open-source software applications that are available for installation on Ubuntu systems (not to mention the processes and people responsible for maintaining them). I’ve spent many hours trawling through that catalog, learning about and trying out the myriad applications the open-source community has created. Over the past few Ubuntu releases, the project has focused on making this catalog more accessible to its users through the Ubuntu Software Center—a sort of app store, albeit one limited to freely downloadable applications. In Version 10.10, Ubuntu’s Software Center

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can be used to purchase applications, as well, although at launch time there was only one app available for purchase: a $25 DVD player application from Fluendo. During Maverick’s beta period, I tried out the paid application functionality by buying a $1 test application. The payment process, which required the same sort of Ubuntu SSO (Single Sign-On) account

used for logging into the Ubuntu One service or for reporting bugs at the project’s Launchpad site, was similar to buying an app through Apple’s App Store. I used a credit card for payment, and the app I’d purchased remained available for reinstallation when I shifted to a new machine. Putting the necessary plumbing in place

UBUNTU REVIEW | INSIGHT for handling paid apps should make life easier for ISVs looking to sell their wares to Ubuntu users in the future, but the updated Software Center impressed me with its knack for promoting applications in Ubuntu’s existing open-source catalog. For instance, the package metadata that spells out dependencies for a piece of software often includes suggestions for other, optional packages that can extend or otherwise pair well with a particular application. The newest version lists these package add-on suggestions with check boxes for easy installation. Elsewhere in the Software Center, I liked the way the tool segregated graphical or otherwise easy-to-use applications from potentially confusing packages by adding a “show XX technical items” at the bottom of search results. For instance, a search on the term “FTP” turned up 14 applications, most of which were FTP clients, out of a total of 184 results, which included things like development libraries.

Netbook UI The netbook-optimized edition of Ubuntu 10.10 sports an overhauled UI, called Unity, which makes better use of the limited screen space that’s typically available on netbook hardware. I tested the new UI on an MSI Wind 100 and a Dell Mini 10, both of which come with 1024-by-600 pixel displays. Like the netbook UI that came with Ubuntu 10.04, applications that run under the new interface are “maximized” by default and, as a way of conserving vertical real estate, the application menu for the interface runs in a strip down the left side of the display. In Version 10.10, the menu panel is much narrower than that in 10.04, and consists mostly of application shortcuts instead of menu categories. Considering that netbooks tend to be saddled with miniature input devices, I appreciated every click the new UI managed to save me. The launcher does contain catch-all “applications” and “files and folders” menu shortcuts, but both items are laid out more cleverly than in the previous UI. In the applications menu, I could search for the app I was after, and the system returned results sorted into three buckets:

COOL APPS THAT MAKE IT BETTER Cheese! – Use this simple app to take pictures, create special effects and share your photos with friends

Shotwell allows you to manage and share your pictures easily - on many popular photo and social network sites

Me Menu lets you access your Facebook and Twitter accounts straight from the desktop. You can connect to all your favourite chat channels through a single window. Blender – the global tool for creating 3d artwork, animations and games is now integrated with the new version. With this, you can play with the pictures and create funny things

Get chatting with Empathy. Quickly integrate your chat accounts from Yahoo, Gmail, MSN, Jabber, AOL, QQ and many more. Evolution Mail provides easy, intuitive email

Watch all your favourite content from YouTube, iPlayer, and MSN Player. Play your own videos with Movie Player or use Pitivi to edit.

frequently used matches, matches among installed software and matching applications that I could install through Ubuntu’s software center. The Unity UI requires hardwareaccelerated graphics to run—both of the netbooks I tested Maverick on fit the bill, and there’s a list of all the netbook hardware requirements here. The new mode, which can be used on the regular desktop version of Ubuntu by running Evolution with an “—express” argument, is thriftier with available screen space. I’d love to see more Ubuntu desktop applications add an express UI option. In particular, Firefox could stand to go on a diet. Slim as the Unity interface’s launcher bar may be, it cuts enough into the 1024 pixels available on most netbooks to force horizontal scrolling on many Websites.

Ubuntu One Canonical’s Ubuntu One personal cloud service picked up a handful of updates at the Maverick launch—some of which involved improving the function of the service on Ubuntu systems, and some of which extended the service’s functionality to new platforms. On the Ubuntu side, I found it simpler to configure a new machine with my Ubuntu One account—on Maverick, there’s a new tool for creating a new account or for associating an existing account with a system. I also noted that notes synchronization from the distribution’s Tomboy note-taking client performed more quickly on Ubuntu 10.10 than on the previous 10.04 release. As for extending to new platforms, Canonical has announced that it will soon be making available a file synchronization client for Windows systems, which should make life easier for users who switch back and forth between the two operating systems. Canonical has also announced a music streaming service that will enable subscribers to stream the MP3 files stored in the Ubuntu cloud to their Apple iOS or Android devices. The service, which I have yet to test, is available now for Android, while the iOS client is somewhere in Apple’s approval queue.

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INSIGHT | SOLUTION DESIGN

HOW TO MEASURE THE ROI FROM WEB EXPERIENCE MANAGEMENT

With relevant content and an engaging web presence, organisations can influence their stakeholders in a massive way BY LO R E N W E I N B E R G

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1 2 34 5 SOLUTION DESIGN | INSIGHT

The Internet has become a key channel for converting prospects into customers, increasing customer loyalty and maintaining operational efficiencies. Building an effective Web presence has become critical to achieving business success. Web Experience Management (WEM) solutions can enable enterprises to build and deploy an effective Web presence that can help drive revenue and cost savings by enabling business users to efficiently manage Websites, Web content and campaigns. WEM solutions enable users to deliver a relevant and engaging experience to Website visitors. Demonstrating a positive ROI is an essential part of planning for a WEM implementation, both for securing internal support for these projects and for ensuring they continue to deliver over the years to come. Fortunately, a compelling case can be constructed for WEM using a straightforward method of ROI calculation and measurement. Measuring ROI begins with outlining a business case for your WEM initiatives and determining the metrics most important to your business that WEM projects can impact. Straightforward ROI projections can then be created based on potential bottom-line as well as topline improvements. These projections can help to get your projects funded and off the ground, and can also demonstrate success to your organization

PHOTO: PH OTOS. CO M

WEM: Managing more than content Organizations have realized that to be effective in marketing, customer service and internal and external communications, they need to deliver highly relevant content and a rich, interactive online customer experience. This makes the Web an essential component of the overall customer experience. WEM capabilities are the tools that marketers and customer experience professionals need to easily manage and update Web content to make the Website visitorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; experience as rich and effective

as possible. The right WEM platform not only supports revenue-generating activities but also drives significant operational cost savings. It does so by enabling organizations to engage a broad audience with targeted content and promotions, grow communities around their products and services, and manage a large Web presence with ease. Thus, a WEM solution is central to driving both topline and bottom-line business results. With WEM, organizations can centrally manage and globally deliver a rich experience with consistent branding, doing so across multiple sites in multiple languages and supporting a diverse set of content contributors.

Driving revenue

Organizations that deliver an engaging online customer experience can gain tremendous benefits, including increased site traffic, conversion rates, customer advocacy and customer loyalty. Organizations can drive revenue using WEM through three key methods:

1. More return visits and loyalty

With relevant content and an engaging Web presence, organizations can influence prospects, customers, partners and other site visitors to return more often and recommend the organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s products and services to others. For companies that sell their online ad space, this leads to greater revenue through more eyeballs on the site. For organizations selling products, this leads to a greater likelihood for prospects to become customers, as well as shortened sales cycles.

2. Higher online conversion rates

By enabling targeted content and campaigns, WEM can help increase conversion rates as well as up-selling and cross-selling. Organizations can use WEM to provide site visitors with the most relevant information based on their preferences, needs or stage in the

5 Tools You Can Use to Improve Web Designs

HEAT MAPS Heat maps by companies such as CrazyEgg give a visual representation of what users are doing on your site by tracking each individual click a user makes.

ONLINE USABILITY TESTING Organizing users for traditional usability testing in a controlled environment can be a very time consuming and costly process. This can save time and give more control over your testing scenarios. A/B TESTING Having trouble deciding which design for your home page will work the best? Google Web Optimizer can implement A/B testing on your site to help determine which one is most effective. It allows you to implement multiple designs of the same page, which are then randomly shown to visitors.

CROWDSOURCING Headlines are known to literally make or break an article regardless of its content. To help create the most interesting headlines that will capture the audiencesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; interest, visitors are shown one of two different headlines randomly for the same story on a page. INTERNAL SEARCH DATA Google Analytics has a feature called Site Search that uses internal search data to track and analyze what visitors are searching for within your site. Source: Adapted from the blogpost of Mike Takahashi, a Web Strategies Manager for Communications and Public Outreach at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles).

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INSIGHT | SOLUTION DESIGN sales cycle, making them more likely to register and make purchases.

3. Faster time to market (TTM) By launching new online content and promotions more quickly, organizations can realize the gains from their programs more quickly, as well as respond rapidly to new developments or market changes. For example, a news site that is able to post frequent updates during a major newsworthy event can increase page views significantly and, thus, ad revenue. Meanwhile, a company that can get information about a new product or service online faster can see the impact of those new capabilities realized earlier.

Achieving efficiencies and saving time WEM solutions can also allow organizations to achieve significant savings by minimizing the amount of time it takes to perform routine site maintenance tasks, and enabling IT and business resources to be used more strategically. Three key efficiency drivers include:

1. Greater output from IT By enabling marketers, content contributors and other line of business (LOB) staff to author and edit content, WEM solutions can create dramatic savings by allowing IT resources to be redeployed from routine site maintenance to higher-value technical tasks. For example, WEM solutions have enabled one major financial company to support more than 100 sites and 150 different content contributors globally—with a team of only four developers. This has helped them to drive tremendous efficiencies for their business, enabling their small development team to strategically and successfully support a global business.

2. Greater output from content contributors and marketers Easy-to-use tools for managing Website content and campaigns can also enable great efficiencies for the marketing department and other LOB staff.

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BY ENABLING TARGETED CONTENT AND CAMPAIGNS, WEM CAN HELP INCREASE CONVERSION RATES AS WELL AS UP-SELLING AND CROSS SELLING. ALSO ORGANIZATIONS CAN USE WEM TO PROVIDE SITE VISITORS WITH THE MOST RELEVANT INFORMATION BASED ON THEIR PREFERENCES MAKING THEM MORE LIKELY TO REGISTER AND MAKE PURCHASES. With intuitive tools, business people can quickly and effectively manage content and campaigns without having to wait for assistance from technical staff. Reduced time spent creating and editing content, finding and reusing content, and creating and launching online campaigns leads directly to greater business efficiency.

3. Higher customer service efficiency Using WEM to create and maintain an up-to-date customer support site with content targeted to individual customer needs can result in major savings. By enabling customer selfservice online (rather than calls to the customer service phone center), organizations can deliver high-quality customer service with limited resources. For example, one global technology company was able to cut support center

“WEM SOLUTIONS CAN CREATE DRAMATIC SAVINGS BY ALLOWING IT RESOURCES TO BE REDEPLOYED FROM ROUTINE SITE MAINTENANCE TO HIGHER-VALUE TECHNICAL TASKS”

call volume by 50 percent after implementing a new dynamic customer support site, saving millions of dollars per year. Once bottom-line cost savings have been calculated, they can then be added to topline revenue increases to produce the net benefit of implementing a WEM solution.

Calculating net benefit and ROI Once your organization has determined the projected net benefit of WEM based on the metrics most relevant to your goals and strategies, this number should be compared to the TCO for the WEM solution. The TCO is calculated by adding software license fees, professional services costs for implementation, and ongoing maintenance and support fees for the WEM project. The TCO of any preexisting Web content management system (CMS) should then be subtracted from this amount to calculate the true incremental TCO of the new system. Using projected net benefit and incremental TCO, you can then determine how quickly you can pay back the investment you make in WEM. Using these data points, you can calculate both payback time in months and the annual ROI payback percentage you expect to achieve. Loren Weinberg is Senior Vice President of Marketing and Product Management at FatWire Software

TECH TRENDS | INSIGHT

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE EXPERIENCE Success in the hospitality industry depends on those who create and maintain the hotel’s technology platforms. And upcoming transformational technologies are set to enhance the internal and external guest experience even further. BY RAVISH J H A L A

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INSIGHT | TECH TRENDS 3D Flat Panel TVs and Displays 4G Standard Activity Streams Cloud Computing Cloud/Web Platforms

expectations

he hospitality industry, the world over, is inexorably linked to the tourism industr. A growth or a lack thereof, in the tourism industry, influences the growth of the hospitality industry. However, those seeking business opportunities in India have helped room rates and occupancy levels in India to some extent. Hence during the recession, while profits in the hotel business waned to some extent, it certainly was not to the degree of heat the airline industry faced. Despite that, to promote growth and revive the industry, many major hotel chains began remodelling their websites, worked to streamline promotions, advertising, reservations and bookings. A leading provider of business development solutions for the hospitality industry in the US recently conducted a survey of hoteliers on how the hospitality industry performed in 2010 and how 2011 will be. The survey found that most hotels are optimistic about the future of the hospitality industry, with 88 per cent predicting growth in their group business in 2011. However, at the very core of any successes in the hotel industry are the individuals who create the hotel technology platforms and the Information Technology (IT) professionals who ensure that the platforms work properly when needed. While IT professionals are usually at remote locations in smaller hotels, in larger hotels, such as those with conference rooms and restaurants, the IT professionals are usually required to be onsite. Onsite IT professionals at major hotel locations are a vital part of the hotel staff. While some hotels have been inclined to assign IT duties to the hotel management and other key support staff, it is important to understand the role education plays, in this particular job. The best hotel IT team is made up of those with a background in hospitality management, coupled with an IT education or training,.

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Wireless Power Media Tablet Augmented Reality Private Cloud Computing Internet TV Speech-to-Speech Translation 3D Printing

TECHNOLOGY HYPE CYCLE

Gesture Recognition

Social Analytics Mobile Robots

Mesh Nerworks: sensor Pen-Centric Tablet PCs

Video Search Autonomous Vehicles

Microblogging

Technology Trigger

Speech Recognition Location-Aware Applications Predictive Analytics Interactive TV Internet Micropayment Systems Biometric Authentication Methods Mobile Application Stores Idea Management Consumer-Generated Media Public Virtual Worlds As of August 2010

E-Book Readers Video Telepresence

Extreme Transaction Processing Tangible User Interfaces Terahertz Waves Computer-Brain Interface Context Delivery Architecture Human Augmentation

Electronic Paper

Broadband over Power Lines Virtual Assistants

Peak of Inflated Expectation

Trough of Disillusionment

Slope of Enlightenment

Plateau of Productivity

Time Years to mainstream adoption: Less than 2 years

2 to 5 years

5 to 10 years

More than 10 years

Obsolete before plateau

Source: Gartner (August 2010)

The use of Information Technology in all hotel sectors—from deluxe to budget— reveal strategic differences and similarities. Overall, the findings suggest that the international lodging industry has focused on employing technologies that improve employee productivity and enhance revenue and now are giving strategic priority to technologies designed to improve guest services. The hotel sector, lodging type, size/complexity of the property, and independent versus chain affiliation, influence the number and type of technologies adopted. Luxury and upscale hotels adopt more IT practices than economy

THE INTERNATIONAL LODGING INDUSTRY HAS FOCUSED ON EMPLOYING TECHNOLOGIES THAT IMPROVE EMPLOYEE PRODUCTIVITY AND IMPROVE EFFICIENCIES

and budget hotels. Similarly, IT development has been the highest for certain lodging types such as convention hotels, conference centres, and casinos, and the lowest for other types, such as motels and bed-andbreakfasts. Chain-affiliated properties typically adopt more technologies than independent hotels. IT today influences all aspects of business, from corporate strategies to organisational structures to business processes; it is designed to support and for performance measurement. In a world where the ‘Customer is king’, IT must also deliver in two critical areas: sales and marketing and customer service. With regard to the organisational structure at Tridant bandra Kurla, we have combined both the technologies (Voice and Data) to be managed by a single support function head. Our objective is to ensure the optimum utilisation of resources and enhance the efficiency experienced by end-users. Save time, save space, save energy, save paper—you could also say that this is the first step towards creating a ‘Green IT environment’! Some of the new technology initiatives implemented at the Trident, Bandra-Kurla, Mumbai, which show that the industry has made a strategic move to enhance the internal and external guest experience: A real-time Visitor Management System;

TECH TRENDS | INSIGHT n ‘Go Concierge’ software at the front desk to handle all guest requests and information updates; n ‘Glitch process handling’ for the operations teams to be able to resolve issues and identify trends; n An RFID-based system for elevator and guest room access; n ‘SMS@Work’ for the security team; to ease the pressure during emergencies online bulk SMSes can be sent to inform our internal and external guests, and; n Online guest feedback systems. n Some of the future technology trends in the hospitality industry include: n RFID online and offline door lock technology; n Distributed Antenna Systems (DAS); a technology that can support multiple wireless applications, operating on different frequencies and protocols, with a single infrastructure; n Keyless room Near Field Communication technology where guests simply hold up their phone to the room door to open it; n The e-readers for books; where guests get access to new and bestselling titles which they can buy; n Guests can use their iPhones, laptops, etc., to print at a designated spot in the hotel without having to plug in a foreign device into the hotel computer; n Touch-screen interface, both on the plasma television screen and on the high-tech phones; n Interactive and IP TV, IP Telephones, Fibre to room, moving to convergence technologies; n Cloud services, Virtualisation or grind computing, business automation; 3G technology will change the outlook of hand-held device usage; n Business continuity planning will be on the agenda for business functions, and; n Building automation systems and green building technology. Besides all of the above, transformational technologies that will hit the mainstream in less than

TOP 5 TECH TRENDS SHAPING HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY DIGITAL MEDIA Television has become increasingly common in restaurants of all types, and the presence of that screen gives you the opportunity to communicate with customers in new ways. Specials and menus never looked as good as they do on an HD TV. RESTAURANT TELECONFERENCING Marriott Hotels have begun to change that with state-of-the-art teleconferencing suites in select locations across the country. The investment started to make a lot of sense when the recession hit last year and businesses started looking for ways to slash travel budgets. BECOME A HOTSPOT! More and more restaurants, especially fast casual, coffee shop, and quick service chains, are becoming WiFi internet hotspots, allowing customers to plug in to an internet network directly from their laptop computer at their table. COOL APPS iPhone apps are all the rage right now, and already there is an app for just about anything you can think of under the sun. ONLINE ORDERING On paper, the idea of introducing an online ordering service sounds exciting to restaurateurs. After all, who can complain about making sales before your customer ever steps through the door? Source: Adapted from technology Trends in food Service, etundra.com, a blog on hospitality

five years include media tablets, cloud computing and cloud/Web platforms. In the long-term, beyond the five-

THE HOSPITALI TY INDUSTRY HAS BEEN DEMANDING AND DELIVERING EVOLUTION EVER SINCE IT BEGAN. IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN QUICK TO ACT IN RESPONSE TO CHANGE WITH TECH INNOVATION

year horizon, 3D printing, context delivery architectures, mobile robots, autonomous vehicles, terahertz waves and human augmentation will play a transformational across a range of industries, according to Gartner. The hospitality industry has been demanding and implementing evolution ever since it began. It has always been quick to act in response to change with technological innovation and adaptation. And all of this augurs well and extends a positive outlook for the Indian hospitality industry. The industry will continue to grow and demand even more customer-centric technological advances to better meet its needs and the needs of consumers in an extremely competitive, global service market. As after all, when it comes to hospitality, it is all about the experience. . The author is a IT head for Trident Hotels, Mumbai

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INTERVIEW | PETER COFFEE

PRIVATE CLOUD IS A SEDUCTION, A DANGEROUS LABEL Peter Coffee, Head of Platform Research at salesforce.com describes to Geetaj Channana how the private cloud is like a private jet and the public cloud, a supermarket

You have strong views about the private cloud. Why do you think they are a bad idea? When someone says that they would rather have a private cloud, I believe I know what they mean. But I also believe that what they prefer is in some ways unnecessary and in other ways impossible. When someone says that they prefer a private cloud, after one or two questions, they say that they believe that the private cloud will be more secure. Then, I say let us discuss the nature of security. If you try to have security in your own operations you have complex technology and a rapidly evolving threat environment that becomes your problem to monitor and address. You are in an environment where the people that you trust with the information are really your greatest source of risk. Now if we turn the question around and ask, how is the true cloud a superior means of securing your assets? There are several

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answers for this. The first is that, the legacy of IT is that ownership is possession, and possession is control. There is a perimeter, and inside that perimeter is trust. Outside that perimeter is ‘not trust.’ The true cloud is designed to be a highly shared system. There is no perimeter. Now, we must say that not where you are, but who you are decides what you can see. So, instead of a boundary we have a representation of the right to interact with the data. Deep down in every piece of data, it knows what its ownership is and then we can say to any customer that there are members of your personnel who should be able to read certain things but not change them; others should be able to change them in a very precise way. Also, when someone uses their privilege, we can record that they have used their privilege. This turns the question around. When you are in your own data centre, can you rely completely on the trust that you have in your people?

When you are working with our systems you can manage their privileges in a much more accurate manner, and you can have a record of what they did with their privileges. If they, either by accident or malice, misused their privileges – you know who did it and when. The first reason, why people believe that they would rather have a private cloud, is because they think that it is more secure. I tell them that the public cloud can be more manageable or more secure than what they have today. The other belief that I encounter is when people believe they will have more power to build a customized business solution if they own and operate the resource, than they will if they are using a shared resource. For them I need to draw the picture and say that this the model that we have built, operate and maintain. When we improve the capacity, speed, accuracy or capability, it is for everybody. In the higher layer,

PETER COFFEE | INTERVIEW

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

INTERVIEW | PETER COFFEE there are things that are specific to the clients and their work flows. There are various ways to integrate what you do in the cloud with other resources. When I show them that any of the reputable partners of integration solutions have deep familiarity with integrating not only from the IBM database to an Oracle database but from an IBM or Oracle database to a Salesforce. com database, they discover very quickly that integration of the public cloud to their legacy system is not a barrier. Those are two main reasons that people think that they would rather have a private cloud. But turns out in practice not to be correct. Now, lets look at the other side of the coin, which is, when you say that you want to have a private cloud you mean that you want to continue investing in capital assets in infrastructure. That is what it means. You are going to buy hardware and license software, when you are doing capital expenditure it means that when you have a new business opportunity or a new initiative that you would like to undertake – the first question will not be what should we do, it will be do we have capital budget? If the answer is no, then it would be next quarter or next year, before you are able to do anything. This drastically slows the ability of the business to respond to its environment. And that is a serious cost. Also there is a point that if you want to operate the resource yourself, you will need many skilled staff members like database, security etc. who will not be fully occupied. Our security teams are the right size to handle 87,000 customers worth of security. They are fully engaged, and they are continuously monitoring the threat environment. They are

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

continually having interviews with regulators and policy makers. The cost of this world class security team is being spread across 87,000 customers. Which means that the cost of being safe with us is much less than the cost of being this safe on your own. When someone says that they want a private cloud. They also think that they can afford it and when I point out that how dramatic are the cost differences for sharing these functions of security, data backup and maintenance, they realize that the preference for the private cloud is not affordable. For instance, I would prefer to travel to India by a private jet. My company would find that there is no business case

“IF YOU WANT TO OPERATE THE RESOURCE YOURSELF, YOU WILL NEED MANY SKILLED STAFF MEMBERS IN THE AREA OF DATABASE, SECURITY WHO WILL NOT BE FULLY OCCUPIED”

Find other interviews online on the website www.itnext. in/resources/ interviews

in renting my own 747 link. If the conditions are nice I would get one of the better seats in the front of the public airline, but I would not get my own plane. Private cloud is like a private jet – if someone says that I will be more prudent and I would create less risk for my company by creating a private cloud – I am sorry we are not lowering your risk, you are not being prudent,

PETER COFFEE | INTERVIEW you are spending more money to undertake a more complex task with a greater chance of failure than you would have if you were to do a responsible job of understanding and using the best public cloud services today. This is why I believe that the private cloud is a seduction, a dangerous label, especially, for an emerging market. Here is what it is – if I have $5 billion dollars with me to build a new global brand based in India. What will give me greater success – spending 10 percent of those assets on cloud computing resources I write the cheque to Amazon and say that I need 1,000 virtual servers for research and testing; from Salesforce. com I would need 1,000 seats of support for my customer outreach and 100 seats for my sales team. Now, this is all done and I have spent only 10 percent of my fund. 90 percent is available to do the real work. This is an appealing idea. It is one week since we had the conversation about starting this company and all those services are already up and running. I am now focused on creating a global brand.

What is the other way of doing things? People who want to sell you a private cloud want you to spend not one week, but one month or a quarter purchasing hardware which is not made in India, license software which will be a cheque that you would be writing in USD to an American company and take up 60-70 percent of your start-up assets, send them out of the country, wait a few months, and then with the small fraction of your remaining resources, you starting building your global brand. That is what I see when I see somebody come to India and ask you to build a private cloud. They actually want you to pay tribute to an empire of infrastructure, and slow your ability to enter a new market. Also, they reduce the amount of resources that you have available for creating differentiation and brand power. This will also hold true for an established enterprise that wants to enter a new market.

This is why I think this label is a misrepresentation and I believe that it appeals to people’s ignorance and misunderstanding, instead of appealing to the intelligence and enterprise.

IT managers have a concern that it is easy to get into the cloud, but very difficult to get out of it. Is it true? Good IT Managers will understand that when they decide to build a Windows application in favour of a Linux application they are trading greater speed and capability of development against less freedom. Running it in the cloud means that I can have 100s or 1000s of servers for the day and then stop paying at the end of the day. But, if for some reason I decide that I want to run the code on a server right in front of me then its fine. This is important to know that we recognize the concern and we are addressing the concern by offering a greater variety of options. Clearly, I believe that once you are in the cloud you will start taking advantage of cloud capabilities. You will start using analytics, collaboration tools, and powerful work flow capability. Once you have done that and you decide that you want to run it somewhere else – well there will now be things that you will have to implement for yourself. I

“THE TRUE CLOUD IS DESIGNED TO BE A HIGHLY SHARED SYSTEM. REMEMBER IT IS NOT WHERE YOU ARE BUT WHO YOU ARE THAT DECIDES WHAT YOU CAN SEE ”

do not apologize for the fact that we offer great value, and wanting you to stay with us by offering things that would cost you more to do yourself. I do not regard that as lock-in, I regard that as a job that I am supposed to do. Lock-in is something that you continue to use something that does not work very well because switching away from it has become very expensive. I must tell you that for our customers, the only cause of switching away from us is needing to do for himself, what we have previously done. I do not consider that at lock-in. I do agree that it is a switching cost, not one that I feel that demands an apology.

What is the level of customization that can be done? Enormous. There are some people who use the word “platform” to mean, here is our application and you can modify it, we use this word to mean that if you do not want our applications ignore them and do not pay for them. Here is the database, build the data model that you need for your requirement. Here is the work-flow engine, build the work-flows you need. We have customers who have built applications in our platform to manage financial services, motion picture cinemas, pizza delivery, chemical sample delivery etc. The thing that is your distinctive asset and all of the things that you wrap around it – like billing your customers for their time, providing customer support, etc. – would it not make sense for you to take care of this by just adding cosmetics to something available online. Walk in a grocery store and you will find aisles with rice and beans. On the other side will be a section with delicatessen that has complete, ready to eat meals. Amazon which offers you the rice and the beans of cloud computing. Clearly, I would rather go to the supermarket than do what a private cloud will have be – which is to stick a shovel in the ground and begin to grow my dinner. That is what the private cloud is. Cloud is not one thing, but many ideas– all you pay for is the function.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING EDUCATION WORKPLACE COMPENSATION WORKFORCE TRENDS SKILLS DEVELOPMENT PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT

SAD BIT OF SWEET PAGE 52

Strategy How I communicate? THIS PAGE Healthy Habits Beware of Asthma PAGE 55 WiKileaks Top five astonishing revelations PAGE 52 Training Calendar Career booster courses PAGE 56

BY SATISH MAHAJAN

IL LUSTRATIO N: PHOTO S .CO M

o what does it take to be a successful team leader? A leader doesn’t dictate, he spearheads the actions the team takes. He establishes his authority; he’s not one of the boys or aloof and distant, he finds a balance between the two. He always leads by example. His performance exceeds that of his teams; he sets the benchmark. He encourages ‘symbiosis’ and ‘synergy’. He does right by them, and lets them do right by him. Everyone’s role complements the moves and actions of the others— that’s how a good team works. It makes everyone feel valued, and appreciative of the rest and him. Here are 10 fundamental leadership tips for leaders who manage knowledge workers and project managers in IT… #1: Focus on results and productivity, not the clock Never have rigid clock-in/clock-out times unless there is a coverage issue in relation to serving customers (e.g., maintaining adequate Help Desk coverage during call hours). Set clear goals that you know should take your employees X hours/ week to accomplish. Ensure they attend important meetings and are available during the team’s general working hours. Provide them with the tools to access their work remotely, when needed. Then let

LEADERSHIP

LEARN TO LEAD Managing people is not an easy task, but building a winning team is not impossible either… J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER them manage their own time; it says you trust your team.

#3: Align people with the projects they are passionate about Occasionally, that can mean putting someone in an area they don’t have much experience in. But if their work history shows that they could succeed in that role, it’s usually worth it, because their passion will fuel a strong desire to learn and grow. Once they’re up to speed, that passion can be a strong driver of innovation and growth. #4: Put your best performers on your biggest opportunities Besides talent for the work involved or a passion for the subject matter, you need to look at who has a track record of success. Big opportunities come around only occasionally, and are easily lost. #5: Find the balance between aggressive and realistic goals Set aggressive goals and hold the team accountable for regularly reporting on their progress. However, the goals can’t be so aggressive that they quickly fall behind and feel like they can never be realistically achieved. Otherwise, they’ll quit stretching themselves to reach the goals. Regularly re-evaluate the goals (at least on a quarterly basis) to decide whether they need to be scaled down or up. #6: Trust your people and let them know it Knowledge workers typically have jobs that require creative solutions and decision-making. They need to stay sharp to perform. The onus is on management

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HEALTHY HABITS

BEWARE OF ASTHMA

FACTS 25% of the population in India suffers from allergy, 5% of them are suffering from asthma. You have a 6% chance

of having asthma if neither parent has the condition, a 30%

chance if one parent has it, and a 70% chance if both parents have it.

‘Asthma’ is a condition that affects the airways – the small tubes that carry air in and out of the lungs. When a person with asthma comes into contact with an asthma trigger, the muscle around the walls of the airways tightens so that the airway becomes narrower. The lining of the airways becomes inflamed and starts to swell. Often sticky mucus or phlegm is produced. All these reactions cause the airways to become narrower and irritated – leading to the various symptoms of asthma, like coughing and sneezing.

Basic reasons for asthma: Smoking: Smoking has been associated with airway hyper-responsiveness in a number of surveys as well as in clinical studies. The association is stronger in the elderly or in those with a greater lifetime exposure to cigarettes, which is strongly correlated with age in smokers. Air pollution: There is much reason to believe that people in areas of high air pollution are more likely to suffer from asthma attacks. Hereditary: There is a strong correlation between diagnosis of asthma and the family history of the disease.

Research scientists for the National Heart and Lung Institute have concluded that regular intake of apple juice keep a check on asthma

Since asthma can only be managed not cured, there are a few steps that need to be taken to prevent an attack. Avoidance of triggers is a key component of improving control and preventing attacks. The most common triggers include allergens, smoke, air pollution, etc. Medications like pumps et all, are known to help. Ayurveda and homeopathy can also help various patients.

PHOTO GRAPHY: PHOTOS .CO M

#2: Align people with what they’re good at This is especially true if you take over managing a team that’s already in place. Take stock of all the talent and reshuffle the deck if it means the team has a better chance at success. Don’t retain job roles just because they’ve been doing it for ages, especially if their talent is better suited and they could make a bigger contribution in another role.

15-MINUTE MANAGER

“The programming model being used inside large corporations has to change. It is as much about behaviours as it is technology” —Jim Whitehurst President and CEO, Red Hat

“It is critical for an IT leader to become a part of the mainstream business, to be recognised as a key influence” —Chinar Deshpande CEO, Creative IT India

A LEADER DOESN’T DICTATE, HE SPEARHEADS THE ACTIONS THE TEAM TAKES. HIS PERFORMANCE EXCEEDS HIS TEAMS; HE SETS THE BENCHMARK to create an atmosphere that fosters and encourages that kind of creativity. Little beats letting them know that you trust them and have faith in their ability to do the job, solve the problem, or meet the deadline. #7: Avoid blame In any business, there are times when things simply don’t pan out the way

you’d hoped. Conduct a post-mortem (even if it’s informal) to figure out what went wrong, and learn from it. If there were egregious individual errors, deal with them privately. Let the person know how this should be handled in the future. Don’t publicly blame individuals—directly or indirectly—in meetings or team e-mails. Else you risk creating an atmosphere where people, afraid

7 MUST HAVES FOR LEADERS 1. Do What You Love. Think differently about your career. Jobs advises 2. Put a Dent in the Universe. Think differently about your vision. 3. Kick Start Your Brain. Think differently about how you think. Innovation does not exist without creativity. 4. Sell Dreams, Not Products. Think differently about your customers. To Jobs, people who by Apple products are not “consumers.” They are people with dreams, hopes, and ambitions. 5. Say No to 1,000 Things. Simplify. Think differently about design. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, according to Jobs. 6. Create Insanely Great Experiences. Think differently about your brand experience 7. Master the Message. Think differently about your story and market it. Source: Innovation Secret of Steve Jobs, by Carmine Gallo

to make mistakes, don’t spend enough time on proactive and creative work that’s necessary to avoid future problems or to drive new innovations. #8: Foster innovation by killing projects the right way Do this effectively and gracefully. There are times when failed initiatives will expose the weaknesses of certain team members. But, you may also have good people working on projects that simply don’t pan out. A good manager understands the difference. If it’s a good person on a bad project, that doesn’t make him any less talented because the project didn’t materialise. Let it be a learning experience, and reassign the person to something new, without excessive hand-wringing. Otherwise, the team will become overly risk-averse, and will be reluctant to take on the next big project or to make bold moves

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER

TOP FIVE ASTONISHING REVELATIONS

These cables were provided earlier under embargo to five international media outlets: the New York Times, The Guardian, El Pais, La Monde and Der Spiegel. For most readers, it made for a dizzying array of information NEARLY EVERY COUNTRY IN THE MIDDLE EAST WANTS US TO ATTACK IRAN: In 2007, when the then U.S. presidential candidate Sen. John McCain suggested that the best way to deal with the nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime was to “Bomb, bomb Iran,” most people -- including then-Sen. Barack Obama -- thought he was altogether too hawkish.

U.S. DIPLOMATS ORDERED TO SPY ON THEIR FOREIGN AND UN COUNTERPARTS: While creating a database of information contained on foreign diplobusiness cards might not seem so shady, the foreign press has been 2 mats’ especially focused on a series of directives in 2009 -- including one signed off on by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ordering Foreign Service officers to assemble dossiers on their counterparts that would clearly allow U.S. intelligence to do more than compile their cell phone numbers NORTH KOREA SUPPLIED IRAN WITH LONG-RANGE MISSILES: In 2008 2009, U.S. plans to build a missile shield in Eastern Europe had a 3 and deleterious impact on the U.S.-Russian diplomatic relationship. The cables released reveal that the U.S. State Department was in possession of intelligence that North Korea had provided Iran with missiles based on a Russian design that could carry nuclear warheads to Berlin or Moscow. IRAN USED THE AUSPICES OF THE RED CRESCENT TO SMUGGLE SPIES AND WEAPONS INTO WAR ZONES: As reported by, The Guardian, the 4 U.S. believes Iran used the organization “to smuggle intelligence agents and weapons into other countries during the 2006 war with Israel.” U.S. FOREIGN POLICY RELIES HEAVILY ON BLOG-READY GOSSIP ITEMS: To get into the U.S. Foreign Service (and thus write diplomatic cables), 5 applicants are required to pass an hours-long, highly competitive written examination, followed by an even more competitive oral examination and then go through months of intensive training.

when managing the project. That can quickly stifle progress. #9: Don’t provide all the answers. Make the team think You’re the manager. You’re the leader. But you don’t have a monopoly on all the good ideas. If the team is hesitant to make decisions, you haven’t properly empowered them. Change tactics; when they present you with information for your opinion or advice, toss the ball back into their court. Surprised at first, they’ll eventually start thinking it through before they come to you, and will be fully prepared to discuss the matter and make a recommendation. This is a good thing, because they’re usually closer to the customer and more familiar with the work details. You need their opinions; and you need them to make some of their own decisions. #10: Build consensus by letting people know ‘why’ The worst thing you can do is surprise your team with a fully formed idea about a new way to do something that will drastically alter their day-to-day work. When you spring it on them, naturally they’ll be defensive and sceptical. You might not agree fully, but the truth is its extremely crucial to understand the opinion of the team members before taking any strategic decisions. And I am not talking about just senior team members. remember ideas can bubble up from anywhere. Nevertheless, devising a framework, where you can speed up the decision making process is extremely important. In other ways, give your people an informal heads-up that a change is coming, and offer reasons. It might surprise few, but majority of them will be glad you kept them in the loop. Allow them to express their dissent; they might even bring up a caveat or a ‘gotcha’ that should be considered before solidifying the final plan. Better still, hold a brainstorming session when you’re still formulating a new idea or strategy change, so you get their ideas and feedback. The author is Head – Infrastructure, Raymonds Ltd.

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

IL LUSTRATIO N: PHOTO S .CO M

WIKILEAKS

15-MINUTE MANAGER

STRATEGY

HOW I COMMUNICATE Communications tools need to different for each silo and for personal lives of individuals BY A N D R E W GA R C I A

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n September 2010, headset and accessory maker Plantronics released a study called “How We Work: Communication Trends of Business Professionals.” It looked at the ways business users’ communications habits have changed over the last five years. I agree with the overall gist of Plantronics’ findings—that the old-guard tools are more important than ever—but I wonder if a lack of emphasis on new forms of communication is more related to corporate stricture or lack of vision rather than users’ willingness to try new things.

Plantronics unsurprisingly found that e-mail and the telephone remain the communications tools most often considered essential for business success and productivity. On the other hand, tools such as IM (Instant Messaging), video conferencing/ collaboration or social networking may have a time or a place in the users’ arsenals, but aren’t deemed critical. One area that I found lacking in the study was an evaluation of which tools had more importance for internal corporate communications versus external communications

with customers and partners. For me personally, I find the communications tool set to be drastically different for each silo as well as for my personal life, I suspect that would also be the case for the survey respondents. When I started working at eWEEK seven years ago, e-mail was by far my preferred mode of communications. But, over the years, I have found that preference has waned significantly. A quick examination of my mailbox yearover-year shows that my e-mail usage peaked in 2006 and has been declining since, down about 40 percent from peak for both inbound and outbound mail volume. As eWEEK Labs consolidated into a single office, e-mails among team members have been replaced by impromptu face-to-face meetings and instant messaging. And the adoption of self-service Web tools for our content management system has reduced the importance of e-mail for our editorial workflow. Howeve r, these i nt e r n a l developments wouldn’t affect external communications with our partners and customers—vendors with story pitches

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

15-MINUTE MANAGER

TRAINING CALENDAR

Career booster courses for you!

PROGRAMME

VENUE

DATES

Customer Relationship Management

IIM Ahmedabad

10 Jan- 13 Jan ‘11

Optimal Supply Chain Planning

IIM Lucknow

14 Jan-15 Jan’ 11

Strategic IT Management

IIM Ahmedabad

24 Jan-28 Jan ‘11

Effective Customer Service Management-

Fore School of Management

27 Jan-28 Jan’11

Operations Strategy

IIM Kozhikode

10 Feb-12 Feb’ 11

Advanced Analytics for Management

IIM Ahmedabad

07 Feb-11 Feb’ 11

Competitive Marketing Strategy

IIM Bangalore

07 Feb-09 Feb’ 11

Personal Growth through Self Exploration

IIM Lucknow

14 Feb-18 Feb’ 11

Managing IT Projects

IIM Ahmedabad

21 Feb-25 Feb’ 11

Effective Business Communication

Fore School Of Management

21 Feb-22 Feb’ 11

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

and readers—but the decline is almost as prominent there as well (around 25 percent). Much of that decline can be attributed to my re-energized appreciation for the phone for external communications, due largely to the switch to a hosted VOIP (voice over IP) system two years ago. Whereas I found our old TDM phone system pretty inflexible, our new system allowed me to set things up to have access to incoming calls, whether at my desk, in the lab or on the go. As a result, I’m much more likely to be able to answer a call now. Conversely, in my personal life, I never use the phone and prefer not to use e-mail at all. Instead, I find that Facebook, IM and SMS text messaging are by far the primary means of keeping in touch with my friends and loved ones. Companies that never formulate a cohesive strategy around those channels of communication used extensively for employees for personal reasons, but do passively encourage their use, will find adoption sporadic and ad hoc. If everyone within the company is not on board, the communication channel becomes fractured, with some employees left out of the loop because communication needs to be passed another way. For instance, if many people within the company use public Instant Messaging, but the employee base is splintered between AIM, Yahoo, GoogleChat, and nothing at all, while the corporation doesn’t maintain a directory of IM contact aliases anyway, how much value does the service have to the company as whole? Small teams will benefit from the flexibility provided by the channel, but it will be hard to extend that value further While there may be more ways to reach users and employees than ever before, it is incumbent upon the company to build a cohesive strategy to make use of those tools. Otherwise, their use will never translate to companywide cost savings or productivity gains.Small teams will benefit from the flexibility provided by the channel, but it will be hard to extend that value further.

15-MINUTE MANAGER

WATCH OUT IN 2011

ANDROID IN ENTERPRISE

Android smartphones battle with BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7 and Apple iPhone for acceptance in the workplace BY C A M E R O N ST U R D E VA N T

IL LUSTRATIO N: PC ANO OP

ndroid-based handsets and tablets are clearly set to be next up on the consumer-to-enterprise conveyor belt. With the Verizon Wireless largescale launch of its data-oriented, highspeed LTE (Long Term Evolution) 4G network in 38 mobile markets across the US—with scheduled coverage comparable to the company’s existing 3G network slated for 2013—the fat pipes needed for a host of mobile handsets are being put in place. The Android operating system and the handsets on which it runs is fast

changing in ways that make it more appealing to both consumers—who will then likely carry the devices into the workplace—and to enterprise managers. On the enterprise front, the Motorola-built, Verizon Wirelesssupported Droid Pro is among the first Android devices to offer Cisco IPsec VPN connectivity. At the other end of the spectrum, the Kyocera-built Zio that runs on the Sprint network, among others, is a price-busting Android handset that will likely increase the number of consumers carrying Android smartphones. Research In Motion and its

BlackBerry devices continue to be among the most popular enterprise-issued smartphones and communication devices. The Windows Phone 7 is certainly a contender for a successful push into the enterprise. Microsoft’s effort to build a developer base and the strategy of providing handset and carrier choice set the stage for enterprise uptake. But my interest over the next year is going to be focused on the Android OS, marketplace, handsets, carriers and enterprise-class features. In the battle royale with Apple and the iPhone and iPad, along with BlackBerry, Android-based systems stand a fighting chance. As the fastchanging OS continues to morph to meet consumer and enterprise needs, and as the handsets continue to shape-shift to accommodate and balance more cameras, microphones and connection ports while still maintaining decent battery life. Android apps will be a key part of my ongoing evaluation process. O’Reilly just released Building Android Apps, and the growing interest in the app developer community for the Android OS was clear at the confabs I attended. Here, Apple sets the gold standard for app compatibility and stability but falls short in providing enterprises the ability to create custom apps for competitive advantage accompanied by deployment choices outside of Apple’s App Store. Of course, integration with corporate messaging and security systems will be at the top of my watch list for Android devices. Aside from Microsoft Exchange mailbox support, which is table stakes for any mobile handset that hopes to be accepted in the enterprise, I’ll be looking at the fit and finish of e-mail, contacts and calendar integration. Exchange policies that enforce password complexity requirements will also be among the first features I look at in Android handsets to judge the suitability of these devices for use in the enterprise.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

ENTERPRISE SECURITY

THE BIG

HOW TO PROVIDE SECURE MOBILITY? EXPERT PANEL

ARUN GUPTA, GROUP CIO AT SHOPPERS STOP

THE SITUATION...

CUT IT FROM HERE

The office was closed for the weekend and the weekly IT maintenance had been completed on Friday evening. “We’ll go shopping this afternoon, and I’ll watch the T20 later,” Aakash told his wife. Aakash is the head of the IT Maintenance and Support team at Macro General Insurance Co., a fast growing company. When he finally surfaced on a lazy Saturday morning, he saw a couple of messages on his cell phone, but chose to ignore them. And then the phone rang. Asit Sinha, the National Sales Manager at Macro Insurance was on the line, “I’m sorry to call you on a Saturday morning, but there’s a problem. We’re having an offsite sales meet on the outskirts of Jaipur and we can’t get access to the enterprise network here; the data cards are not working. Also, we are unable to access the network through the Wi-Fi facility available here,” said Sinha. Your responses count. Log on to www.itnext.in/bigQ to submit your replies. The best entry will be published in the next print edition

SUDHAKAR SIDDEGOWDA SR. MGR - IT, FERMENTA BIOTECH LTD

SHIVA SHANKAR, VICE PRESIDENT AND HEAD-IT INFRASTRUCTURE, RELIANCE

“The local Wi-Fi will not work because it’s not part of the network’s remote access configuration. It’ll be treated as a rogue and insecure access point, and the network will block it,” Aakash clarified. “You should have told IT about this meeting in advance,” he added. “Too late for that; right now, we need to know if the problem can be resolved. I thought we had an ‘enterprise mobility’ solution in place and that’s why we chose this offsite location,” said Sinha, a little impatiently. To address the problem, Aakash will have to allow access to the enterprise network over the remote wi-fi network for each sales team member. But that would be a gross violation of the enterprise’s current security policy, and would risk enterprise data. Then again, several man-hours would be wasted if the sales meet had to be called off. And the reason cited would be the non-availability of the network, which would affect Aakash and his team’s performance rating.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | IT NEXT

THE BIG Q

THE BIG QUESTIONS... WHAT SHOULD AAKASH DO TO ADDRESS THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SALES

? ?

TEAM WITHOUT COMPROMISING ON ENTERPRISE SECURITY?

USERS SEEM TO MISUNDERSTAND THE ‘ENTERPRISE MOBILITY’ SOLUTION. WHAT MEASURES SHOULD AKASH TAKE TO ENSURE THAT SUCH SITUATIONS DON’T COME UP REGULARLY?

HERE ARE THE ANSWERS... ‘ CREATE AN ANYTIME ANYWHERE ANYHOW PARADIGM’ FIRST ANSWER

ARUN GUPTA Group CIO at Shoppers Stop, Business & IT leader with multiindustry experience About me: Winner and recipient of many awards and accolades for pioneering Business IT implementations

IT NEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

It’s a self-imposed problem with the security policy not recognising the need for employees to connect to the enterprise network, across different modes on demand, without having to configure every network or access method. To avoid the backlash of an aborted meeting due to reasons attributable to IT, Aakash has two solutions: 1. Invest the extra hours with his Network Admin to bring the external network into the remote access configuration, even if it means the weekend has to be sacrificed. He can temporarily restrict access to specific applications or data for the participants for the duration of the conference, to reduce the risk, should there be a network compromise. The sales head has to be advised of the stop-gap arrangement that provides limited access to the sales team to complete the outbound activities. Aakash should also communicate the potential risk this exception creates for the enterprise, and ideally take a sign-off. 2. Assess the data requirements with the sales head and extract the required information. Then, encrypt and transmit it to the sales head on unsecure email, which can then be used by the sales team. This is not a preferred option since the data is now out of secure boundaries, and hence a higher probability of misuse. It is to be used only if the first option is not working, for any reason.

SECOND ANSWER The definition of the term ‘enterprise mobility’ if not explicitly explained within the enterprise context is open to interpretation. Every technology has broad-based use cases depending on how it is deployed. The possibilities and limitations of every solution should be communicated to all stakeholders and users of the service in an unambiguous way. Prior to architecting any solution, it is important to understand the way it is likely to be used. Even if the possibility appears remote today, the future may make it a necessity. This is specifically applicable to enterprise mobility in the current environment, with consumer devices vying for attention and connectivity to the secure enterprise network which was designed to keep such devices away. Aakash has to accept the changing dynamics of the business, and factor-in access to information in an ‘anytime, anywhere, anyhow’ paradigm. The security policy and framework will have to adapt by using a mix of technology solutions, allowing the empowerment of employees with information. At the same time, the management has to be apprised of the possible threats in such a design, and the ‘acceptable risk’ and benefits thereof.

THE BIG Q

‘SET UP WEB-BASED APPLICATIONS’ FIRST ANSWER The situation can be handled in two ways. 1. Configure the enterprise network to give access to remote users using L2TP, IPSEC VPN connectivity. Create a group, and give access to specified resources only. Set pre-shared keys and passwords as required. Configure the remote user clients to access the enterprise network. Identify a member who is comparatively IT savvy and instruct this user to create a VPN connection, entering the required parameters. He can repeat the same steps for each user. 2. As the enterprise network blocks connections from this external network, access can be given based on the MAC address of the laptops used by the sales team. Identify a member who is comparatively IT savvy and instruct him to identify the MAC address of each laptop. Configure the enterprise network to accept clients from these MAC addresses from any network. After the meeting, this configuration can be undone. If these two methods don’t work, Aakash could allow the authenticated users from this particular network, by adding this network as a recognised network, for a limited period of time.

SUDHAKAR SIDDEGOWDA Sr. Manager - IT, Fermenta Biotech Ltd About me: Is a tech enthusiast at work and a marathon runner outside of it. In the past has been associated with companies like Jones Lang Lasalle, DIL Ltd in the past. He is also a Next 100 winner.

SECOND ANSWER It look like the company doesn’t have an Enterprise VPN solution in place. To increase mobility and also keep security in place the following should be considered: 1. An eight character complex password policy. 2. A Centralised Active Directory which grants access only to users’ folders on the network and a SSL-based VPN solution which allows users to connect to the network from any public system. 4. After authentication, the firewall will do a baseline security check on the remote system to check if the system OS patches are up-to-date and if the antivirus definitions are current. Only then is the system authorised to access the network resources. On the policy front, we need to educate users about the enterprise mobility solution.

ITY SECUR

Natural Disaster

27 Terrorism

Cyber Attacks

Brand Related Events

(NUMBER IN PERCENTAGE, SURVEYED ACROSS VERTICALS)

Traditional criminal activity

Most Significant Security Risks For Enterprises in year 2010 58 per cent of enterprises surveyed are extremely concerned about the loss of confidential/ proprietary data

SOURCE: SYMANTEC

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | IT NEXT

THE BIG Q

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;PLAN YOUR ENTERPRISE MOBILITYâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; FIRST ANSWER

SHIVA SHANKAR Vice President & Head - IT Infrastructure & Security Operations & Engineering, Reliance Communications About me: A tech enthusiast and strategic planner

The sales team from the remote work location wants access to the enterprise network. This can be achieved without violating the corporate security policies by granting them access to Internet through the local Wi-Fi network (Time-bound, specific port-based access), ensuring they do not get access to any local resources. They could have achieved this through the data card too if the network was not a problem. Once they are in Internet they can use the dial-up VPN to connect to enterprise network. They could also reach the enterprise network through site-to-site VPN if the number of concurrent users are going to be high, and we want individual managers to connect to VPN. For this, a secure (IPSEC) tunnel can be established between the edge routers / firewalls to allow a secured connectivity to the enterprise network. .

SECOND ANSWER In this case, we see that Asit Sinha, the National Sales Manager, is unaware of the scope of enterprise mobility and the services it offers. Better awareness and education could have avoided a lot of confusion and help develop the right perception. Secondly, there is a need for proper event management planning. If the proposal for conducting the off-site sales team meet in the outskirts of Jaipur had been shared with stake holders like Aakash, then necessary arrangements could have been made after evaluating the pros and cons. This could again avoid such last minute unplanned activities.

NOTES NOTES

MORE RESOURCES

IT NEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

2011 The Death of Security: http://techbuddha.wordpress.com/2010/11/16/2011-thedeath-of-security-as-we-know-it-or-operationalizing-security/

CUBE CHAT | AANCHAL MISHRA

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS “I aspire to acquire an overall understanding of customer needs, and thus be able to drive end-to-end solutions” says Aanchal Mishra, Program Manager, Hewlett Packard (HP) BY JATIN D E R S I N G H

MY SUCESS

MANTRA Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

n ardent admirer of Sonia Gandhi, Aanchal Mishra, Program Manager at Hewlett Packard trusts in a leadership style that is full of commitment and innovation. “I admire Sonia Gandhi for her relentless commitment, her strategic leadership abilities and longterm foresight. She is a real example of a woman of substance,” says this NEXT100 awardee who also relies on her unshakable faith in God. She finds that prayer is an effective and useful tool that keeps her grounded, composed and positive. Currently her work profile includes driving Business Transformation of Channel Partner repair space at a global level. It also involves consolidation of IT assets across business units and optimizing resources in alignment with organisation strategy, driving business

requirements and execution of project as per the SLDC Methodology. On what it takes to stay at the top in such a hectic workstyle, the aspiring entrepreneur is very clear. “Focusing on clients’ needs, speed and keeping pace with new technology trends are the three crucial traits that IT leaders must sharpen up for long-term sustainable growth.” Talking about her most challenging assignment yet, she recalls the CRM Upgrade 7.0 (SAP CRM Global Deployment) which was rolled out globally across 20 HP partner sites, 48 contact centres (excluding support sites), 16,000 agents/users, 132 supported countries and in 31 supported languages, for consumer-support operations. “The project was challenging as it required a global vision and a global platform for customer-support collaboration, across multiple

FACT FILE NAME: AANCHAL M I S H R A CURRENT DESIGNAT I O N : PROGRAM M A N AG E R , HEWLETT PAC K A R D EXPERTIS E : NET WORK S E R V I C ES AND DATA C E N T E R S CALL CENT E R INFRASTR U C T U R E SAPCRM W I T H SERVICES

PHOTO GRAPHY: RADHAKRIS HNA

“FOCUSING ON CLIENTS’ NEEDS, SPEED AND KEEPING PACE WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY TRENDS ARE THE TRAITS, IT LEADERS MUST SHARPEN FOR LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE GROWTH.” countries, cultures and time zones,” she says. While she is totally devoted to her job, when she’s not driving vital assignments forward, she loves to travel and go on long drives which she says widen her horizons and help her think innovatively. She is also a member of a runners club and loves participating in marathons organised for social causes. Pursuing happiness ranks high; more than anything else in life. And her strong family values and complete dedication towards work keep her going, even in challenging circumstances. “I find happiness and motivation in simple everyday moments like sharing a joke with my seven-year-old or achieving a deadline at work.” Mishra is also very particular about keeping the environment clean and people who carelessly litter really get her goat. “After all, it’s just a

matter of following a few best-practices in our day-to-day life. It’s really important for people to protect the beauty of Nature,” she emphasises. As far as work goes, she aspires to acquire an overall understanding of customer needs, and drive end-to-end solutions for them. “With so much happening in the Indian technology landscape, this can be achieved only through networking and knowledge-sharing in the various forums available today,” she states. And what does she think about growth within the organisation? “More than a designation, it is the complexity, the challenges, the ownership and the accountability at work that excites me. However, what is a well-known fact is that with designation comes the ability to drive your point easily through the organisational culture,” she observes.

REMEDY, H P O P E N VIEW, WFM MASTER DATA MANAGEM E N T WORK EXP E R I E N C E 2001-PRES E N T: PROGRAM M A N AG E R (GLOBAL C U STO M E R SUPPORT) H P I N D I A 200 -2001 MANAGER, P R ESA L ES SUPPORT, C O M PAQ COMPUTER S 1996 –2000 BUSINESS P L A N N I N G MANAGER, LU C E N T TECHNOLO G I ES 1994 – 199 6 FACTORY P L A N N E R , ERICSSON T E L EC O MMUNICATI O N S JAIPUR, I N D I A 1991- 1994 ENGINEER T R A I N E E ( PRODUCT M K TG ) , A B B KENT TAYLO R LT D. , FARIDABA D, I N D I A

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

UPDATE

OFF THE SHELF

A sneak preview of enterprise products, solutions and services

DIGISOL Launches USB Print Server DG-PS1010U integrated LAN using Ethernet or Fast Ethernet

Security Solution for Cloud SECURITY | Trend Micro has released

a new security software to provide protection for consumer data. Dubbed “smart protection network”, the Titanium 2011 claims to gather and analyse threat data, blocking viruses and other malware before they can reach the PC. The company says that its processing is done “in the cloud”, and hence it is quite light on the system resources and uses less of the PC’s memory. According to the company, the solution utilises a cloud-client strategy that combines cloud-based web, email, and file reputation services with smart scanning technology for real-time, up-to-date protection against today’s sophisticated threats. SERVER | DIGISOL has introduced a new

KEY FEATURES

USB print server DG-PS1010U that can * USB2.0 Compliant be integrated with LAN using Ethernet or * Easy to use Setup Wizard Fast Ethernet. The solution enables wired * Supports Email Alerts and wireless stations in enterprise LAN to * Supports DHCP (client) access and share a USB printer, irrespective * Supports Internet Printing Protoof where they reside on the LAN. col (IPP) The product has one USB 2.0 interface * Supports SNMP & Windows Print * and supports major network protocols like TCP/IP, IPX/SPX, NetBEUI, PRICE: DG-PS1010U IS AVAILABLE IN THE MARKET AT AN APPROXIAppleTalk, LPR, RAW TCP/IP and SMB MATE PRICE OF RS. 3000/over TCP/IP. The server can be managed with a windows-based configuration utility that can automatically discover print servers on the LAN and run a wizard for configuring it. It also supports web-based administration. by using a Web Browser on a PC. It can also configured using Telnet. The solution is intended to fulfil the needs for network based printing for small and home offices, educational institutions and businesses that need sharing of printers across a LAN.

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

The official release mentions that, a recently conducted set of tests by NSS Labs demonstrates the superior protection of Titanium. It further adds that the product is designed to be easy-to-use and understand with simple screens and graphical reports PRODUCT FEATURES Light on system resources so PCs can run faster Uses less than half the disk space and memory of other security products Supports Microsoft Windows 7 Family, Service Pack 1 or higher; Windows Vista, Service Pack 1 or higher; and Windows XP Family (32 bit or higher), Service Pack 3 or higher.

UPDATE

RAD Introduces Ethernet Solution for Carriers

Seagate Ships One Terabyte Enterprise Hard Disk

NETWORKING | RAD Data

Communications has introduced a simple, efficient and costeffective solution for providing inter-office connectivity. The new RIC-LC is a Fast Ethernet-over-E1 converter that provides Ethernet connectivity over up to 16 bonded E1 links. As an Ethernet converter for multiple PDH circuits, the RIC-LC enables service providers to supply high capacity Ethernet Private Line (EPL) and Ethernet Private LAN (EPLAN) services to remote locations over existing TDM infrastructure. “The RIC-LC is also ideal for backhauling IP DSLAM, IP NodeB and WiMAX base station traffic over PDH access networks,” notes Jayant Deo, President of RAD India.

STORAGE | Seagate has introduced Constellation.2,

the industry’s first 2.5-inch enterprise-class hard drive to reach 1TB capacity. The drive is designed for server storage applications and offers high FEATURES capacity, 6Gb/s performance, superior data integHigh speed, small form rity, low power consumption capability. factor drive with low power According to the company, the drive is suitable consumption for system builders and OEMs who want to offer competitive, feature-rich, bulk storage solutions for a sustainable future. It is fit for use in a range of applications in Directed Attached Storage (DAS), Network Attached Storage (NAS) and Storage Area Network (SAN) environments, from small-to-midsized businesses to the largest enterprise data centers “Data center managers continue to seek out more efficient storage technologies without sacrificing performance, while still meeting capacity growth requirements,” said John Rydning, research director for IDC. The Constellation.2 drive is offered in capacity choices of 250GB, 500GB, and 1TB, and with 6Gb/s SATA or 6Gb/s SAS interface options. Its advanced second-generation design provides improved data integrity with the new T10 Protection Information standard and an increase in reliability (1.4 million hours MTBF). With a Self Encrypting Drive (SED) option, data security is covered throughout the entire drive lifecycle. Dell expects to ship systems with this drive starting in late December.

HP Unveils Cloud Based Printing CLOUD| HP has introduced a new range of cloud based collaborative printers, which include the HP Designjet T2300 eMultifunction printer, the T7100 and the Z6200 photo printer, catering to various enterprises needs. The new range of printers enable mobility for customers with HP eprint & share technology that creates, prints, shares and manages project files from online using desktop and mobile devices. In India, over 200 units of LED (light-emitting diode) printers are sold every quarter The digital printing business in India is expected to grow 10 times to touch the $2.5-billion mark by 2012. Moreover, the new rage of printers enable mobility for customers with HP eprint & share technology that creates, prints, shares and manges project files from online using desktop and mobile. As per the company, the new suite of products will help design professionals in the architecture, engineering and construction industries.

KEY ADVANTAGES * * * *

Enables mobility for customers Helps streamline processes Reduces costs Offers enriched printing experience.

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

INDULGE

The hottest, the coolest and the funkiest next generation gadgets and devices for you

Now make your home your playground. If the Geneva Labs Home Theatre makes your house a movie hall, Criden’s Hexatech will let you zip across the world without leaving the comfort of your home. Have a look... NEW GENEVA LABS HOME THEATRE Elegant home furniture, decked up with a 7 channel home theatre, dock to connect ipod

BEOVISION10

PRICE: $3,999

Bang and O lufsen 32 inch edge lit HD LED TV, super thin, razor shape edges PRICE: $4707 AND ABOVE

CRUDEN’S HEXATECH

HOT

Racing Simulator, ability to accomodate upto three people

PHILIPS SOUNDSPHERE MCI900 Set of hi-fi speakers, soundsphere technology, touchscreen interface, 160GB storage PRICE: $1,445

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

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

UPDATE

OPEN DEBATE

BOOK FOR YOU A platform to air your views on latest developments and issues that impact you

Should you enable Facebook for staff?

SACHIN ARORA, HEAD DATACENTER OPERATIONS, VIDEOCON DTH In less than half a decade, Social Networking Sites have changed the way, we communicate with each other. With new features getting added to these networking sites including apps, mobility, social interactions, student reunions and collaboration, the addiction is bound to increase. Tools like Facebook are certainly helpful in engaging employees to communicate in a cost effective way. However, I would definitely recommend a cautious and sensible use of Facebook and ask IT heads to issuing guidelines before making it fully functional

JATINDER AGGARWAL, PROJECT MANAGER, HCL TECHNOLOGY Over the years, social networking sites have grown in stature and are being considered as “dynamic world of communication online”. It is more flexible and robust than any other in competition. I certainly believe that Facebook is the best way to communicate either personally or professionally in the modern work culture. Also, it depends upon which organization is utilising the tool. You can’t generalize this for every organization. There is no visible benefit for any organization to enable FB for all the employees.

ANITA TUTEJA, HR CONSULTANT I don’t think tools like Facebook should be promoted in an organisational work culture. These tools are still not evolved fully, and there are several security loopholes that make the deployment really impractical for organisations. I would not recommend, using the social networking tools for employee engagement in the enterprise. The space does offer some mouth watering benefits such as cost saving but what makes more sense is to measure the risk factor associated with it. Tthere have been numerous instances, where the data related to some important projects has been leaked through such sites

The Extra one Per cent Discover the critical mindset that allows high-achievers to generate creative ideas AUTHOR: DR BOB YEUNG PUBLISHER: MACMILLAN PRICE: RS 495

This one is a myth-breaker on what makes a successful man (or woman). And, the answer isn’t a rich dad. Dr Bob Yeung, the author of over a dozen self-help books, has a major idea on the subject and he has let the most wellkept secret out in his latest – The extra one per cent (How small changes make exceptional people). How did he get the secret? Dr Yeung, after interviewing hundreds of high-achievers from various walks of life, has defined subtle yet crucial differences that distinguish exceptional people from everyone else – something exceptional people weren’t themselves aware of. The author claims if you ask five random celebrities (only if you get to meet them) - what qualities make you so successful? They all may talk about vision, passion, confidence, creativity, luck, risks, and instincts. These are great qualities to possess but aren’t a sure shot success recipe. “I am sure you know people who think they are visionary, creative, determined, adaptable and all that. But they don’t get the same results as the people they’d like to emulate,” the book says. IT NEXT VERDICT

Your views and opinion matter to us. Send us your feedback on stories and the magazine to the Editor at editor@itnext.in

A thoughful episitle on how to attain such skills in case you lack them. Here’s your ticket to the excellence. STAR VALUE:

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

MY LOG

SHASHWAT DC

Associate Editor, ITNext

ILL

USTR

AT I O N : P H O T O S

.CO

Blow the Bugles... IT Next is a year old, and it is time to uncork the champagne

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

3 ESSENTIAL

READS

CUBE CHAT | AANCHAL MISHRA

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

FACT FILE NAME: AANCHAL MISHRA CURRENT DESIGNATION: PROGRAM MANAGER, HEWLETT PACKARD EXPERTISE: NET WORK SERVICES AND DATA CENTERS

“I aspire to acquire an overall understanding of customer needs, and thus be able to drive end-to-end solutions” says Aanchal Mishra, Program Manager, Hewlett Packard (HP)

CALL CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE SAPCRM WITH SERVICES

“FOCUSING ON CLIENTS’ NEEDS, SPEED AND KEEPING PACE WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY TRENDS ARE THE TRAITS, IT LEADERS MUST SHARPEN FOR LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE GROWTH.”

BY JATINDER SINGH

MY SUCESS

MANTRA Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm

PHOTOGRAPHY: RADHAKRISHNA

odd senior IT managers. Next, we had a special on Green, in which again more than 50 odd managers had participated. We also did a comprehensive report on the changing face of BI, and last up, we did a security special that had various security experts and CISOs sharing their opinions on various technologies, etc. In all these issues, there was one remarkable thing, namely, the community participation. Finally, magazine is not the be-all and end-all of our efforts. We have a burgeoning website, where with the loads of information, we also have a section for jobs. More recently, we launched the IT Next Forum. We also have a thriving community on LinkedIn and Facebook that has become a hotbed to discuss and debate various tech issues. And then, we have the events and conferences that have been specifically designed keeping the community in mind. Recently, we had the big daddy of all such conferences, namely the Next 100, where we presented before hundred IT managers that were ready to make the cut to the next level. In the end, it has just been a year and there are many more to come. But going by the way this one has gone, you can be sure of one thing. It is going to be an exciting and enthralling journey ahead. We are all buckled up and raring to go, and cordially invite you to join us on this journey.

countries, cultures and time zones,” she says. While she is totally devoted to her job, when she’s not driving vital assignments forward, she loves to travel and go on long drives which she says widen her horizons and help her think innovatively. She is also a member of a runners club and loves participating in marathons organised for social causes. Pursuing happiness ranks high; more than anything else in life. And her strong family values and complete dedication towards work keep her going, even in challenging circumstances. “I find happiness and motivation in simple everyday moments like sharing a joke with my seven-year-old or achieving a deadline at work.” Mishra is also very particular about keeping the environment clean and people who carelessly litter really get her goat. “After all, it’s just a

REMEDY, HP OPEN VIEW, WFM MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT WORK EXPERIENCE 2001-PRESENT: PROGRAM MANAGER (GLOBAL CUSTOMER SUPPORT) HP INDIA

ITNEXT | J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1

200 -2001 MANAGER, PRESALES SUPPORT, COMPAQ COMPUTERS 1996 –2000 BUSINESS PL ANNING MANAGER, LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES 1994 – 1996 FACTORY PL ANNER, ERICSSON TELECOMMUNICATIONS JAIPUR, INDIA 1991- 1994 ENGINEER TRAINEE ( PRODUCT MKTG), ABB KENT TAYLOR LTD., FARIDABAD, INDIA

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

Meet Aanchal Mishra, Program Manager, Hewlett Packard (HP) this month, in cube chat Pg 54 FORENSICS | INSIGHT

Catch FORENSICS

A CYBER THIEF Cybercrime is not perpetrated by simple hackers any more, it has become an organised crime. BY N I N A D N AWAG H A R E I L LU ST R AT I O N BY P C A N O O P

yber criminals can gain unauthorised access to systems or information to commit fraud, network intrusion, industrial espionage, identity theft, and even disrupt whole systems or networks. Typical targets include financial institutions, enterprises, the defence forces and government agencies. Let’s look at how they affect our lives, and at different levels:

On a personal level: Everyone who has an email account gets number of spams everyday, announcing that an indecent amount of dollars or pounds have been

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

What Type of Cases does a DEA Solve? DEAs are called in to solve different types of cases which involve recovery and analysis of digital evidence and cyber trails. Some of these cases include:  Divorce cases  Murder cases  Organised crime, terrorist operations,

extortion  Defamation, pornography  Online banking / share trading / credit

card fraud  Smuggling, tax evasion, money laun-

dering  Virus attacks, cyber sabotage, source

code theft  Phishing attacks, email hijacking,

denial of service  Counterfeit currency, stamp papers,

postage stamps

Digital Evidence Analysis Digital Evidence Analysis involves the

Cybercrime is not perpetrated by simple hackers any more Pg 23 UBUNTU REVIEW | INSIGHT

Ubuntu Linux Desktop Builds on App Store, Cloud Service Strengths

U P HOTOG RA P H Y: JAYA N K N A RAYA N A N

year usually passes away quickly, often in a few blinks. In a jiffy, the days turn into weeks and then into months and before you know it, a year has passed and then a few many. In the bigger scheme of things, these 365 odd days don't seem to be too much. And yet, going by the wuzzy haired Einstein's Theory of Relativity, a year is not all that small either; there are 365 days, 52 weeks, 8760 hours, 525600 minutes, and so on, but more importantly, a year has 12 months and for a magazine like IT Next, that comes out once in a month, that means 12 issues a year. So, much as we ring in 2011, we also happen to complete a small milestone at our end. Namely, IT Next is now a year-old In the one year that has gone by, not only have we created history, but also lived it ourselves. At the very start, we just had a simple target in our minds, a simple mantra that we repeated to ourselves daily - IT Next is the media for the Next CIO, everything we did, right from the way the magazine was designed to how the articles were structured to how the website was constructed to how the events and conferences were designed. In every act, we tried to stay true to that mantra. In fact, one can look at the past issues of the magazine to understand the same. The first one detailing the way to the top, to a special issue in March that was completely crafted by nearly 100

for Ubuntu, and the improved software tools that ship with the OS do a great job of showing off this resource. New Ubuntu releases drop about every six months, with so-called Long Term Support releases being spaced out every two years. Maverick follows April’s release of “Lucid Lynx,” the most recent LTS version. As one of Ubuntu’s fastermoving, shorter-lived releases, Maverick will best suit desktop users who are willing to upgrade their OS version at least once a year or so, and who are prepared to debug an issue if they hit one. Organizations running or considering running Ubuntu as a client OS would do best to stick with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, although the sharp new interface in Ubuntu’s netbook edition might make an earlier upgrade worthwhile for mobile users. Ubuntu 10.10 is freely downloadable and comes in 32-bit and 64-bit desktop editions, as well as a 32-bit netbook edition. Ubuntu 10.10 is also available 32 and 64-bit server editions. The download page includes very clear, OS-specific instructions for creating CDor USB-based installation media from a Windows, Mac or Ubuntu machine. Ubuntu installer discs include bootable OS environments, which are great for testing the system without modifying your machine’s hard drive.

Ubuntu 10.10, code-named Maverick Meerkat, brings a number of software updates and an overhauled user interface for its netbook edition.

Ubuntu 10.04, Lucid Lynx, is a desktop operating system for people who use Facebook. It is faster and secure compared to Windows

By using Shotwell, photos can be tagged and organised by tag, creating a new tool for managing the photo collection It can also help your pics published to Google’s Picasa Web Albums service.

BY JASON BROOKS

J A N U A R Y 2 0 1 1 | ITNEXT

Ubuntu Linux Desktop builds on App Store Pg 27