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CAN BIG DATA LEAD TO BIG BENEFITS! A

THE POLITICAL GROUPS ARE USING BIG DATA BECAUSE THEY CAN REAP BIG BENEFITS FROM IT. THE ENTERPRISES ARE YET TO FIND WAYS OF DERIVING BIG BENEFITS FROM BIG DATA.

t industry events you generally find it hard to avoid the talk about Big Data analytics and its prospective uses. Despite the buzz that you may have caught, or may wish to believe, most companies in India are yet to start using Big Data analytics. The CIO community sounds bullish on Big Data, but if you ask them if Big Data is being used in their organisations, they will almost certainly tell you that the actual implementation is not going to happen until the organisations can streamline their existing data ecosystems.

It is the political organisations, rather than the enterprises, that are the the early adopters of Big Data analytics in India. In last Lok Sabha elections, the BJP’s election campaign went beyond using the social media to woo the voters; they took recourse to Big Data analytics for identifying trends and developing information for improving the image of their organisation. It is generally believed that such high-tech approach to contesting elections has helped the party accumulate more votes. The AAP and few other political groups also made use of Big Data analytics to send messages to targeted groups of supporters.

The political groups are using Big Data because they can reap big benefits from it. The enterprises are yet to find ways of deriving big benefits from Big Data. However, the lack of implementation in the enterprise segment does not mean that the enterprises here are not making use of the data sets that they own.

Enterprises in India have been making use of data sets, some of which are extremely large, for decades. The major enterprises routinely comb through mountains of data to find hidden patterns and other insights that can be used to drive efficiency. Big Data analytics is not being used as its architecture is still evolving. The CIOs have no alternative except to wait for the technology to mature and become future proof. Once the technology has matured, it can be deployed over a period of time without any significant risks.

As far as the concept is concerned, Big Data need not be the Titanic of data sets — the size of data doesn’t matter. This concept is about deriving meaningful information or knowledge from the data sets of whatever size that you hold. People are excited about Big Data analytics because it holds the promise of enabling the organisation to make predictions. Once analytics has been run on the data sets, trends can be revealed, connections can be established and the knowledge that is necessary for efficient running of the enterprise can be developed.

The ultimate value of Big Data is linked to the knowledge that can be derived form it. Most CIOs are right in taking a realistic approach in their Big Data strategy — they aim to manage and leverage their data sets in ways that will ensure big benefits for their company. After all, any initiative in Big Data analytics must essentially aim to translate the information or knowledge that is implicit in the data sets into explicit decisions. Currently Big Data is nothing more than a big promise, it is yet to reach the stage where it can guarantee big benefits.

anoop.verma@expressindia.com

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NOVEMBER, 2014

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DIGITALINDIA: GOVERNMENTPULLS OUTALLTHE STOPS “Digital India will be the game-changer for eGovernance, e-commerce and Electronics Manufacturing,” says Ravi Shankar Prasad, in an exclusive interview with Express Computer Team

Column

feature

TECHNOLOGY SPARKS INNOVATION AND BUSINESS GROWTH IN INDIA

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By Kevin Taylor, BT Global Services

SETUP,SELL& SUSTAIN

THE CIO MUSTBE WIRED TO BUSINESS

The Make in India initiative announced by the Prime Minister has stirred hopes of high investments in electronics.

“Learning new technology, business skills and leadership abilities are not only important but critical now,” says Mukund Prasad.

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CREATING EFFECTIVE CAPACITY FOR EGOVERNANCE

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By Anoop Kumar Agrawal, Departments of Electronics & IT

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NOVEMBER, 2014

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feature 26

ENEMYINSIDE THE GATES ANALYSING & NEUTRALISING THREATS

interviews 33

With increase in the number and sophistication of attacks, CISOs face the complex task of choosing the most appropriate security solution.

MOBILE APPS THE NEW SECURITY FRONTIER FOR CIOS With the trend of BYOD , cyber criminals are seeing mobile apps as a way of gaining access to critical information.

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Mother Dairy turns to Ramco for IT solutions that could streamline the system.

ADELICIOUS BITE OFCLOUD Being on AW S has enabled Nilgai Foods to garner multi-layered returns in terms of savings, performance and more.

event 44

AMD BANKS ON FIREPRO CHIPS TO EXPAND PRESENCE IN INDIA

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DELLINDIA AIMS TO BE A SOLUTION PROVIDER Dell India has come up with a new go-to-market plan for letting the potential customers know that, it is now an end-to-end solutions provider.

AMD launched its new graphics card series FirePro W8100 and W9100 along with Radeon R9 285 ,during the first AMD Technology Showcase 2014 in Goa.

» Govt employees’ attendance surveillance system goes online » Govt to launch first of its kind national portal for job search

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» India's Enterprise Software market to reach $4.2 bn in 2014: Gartner » IBM and SAP partner to accelerate enterprise cloud adoption

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» Over 65% employees in India want a Mobile work place: Oracle

CA Technologies

K.L.DHINGRA Chairman and MD, ITI Limited

ITI - On Path of Growth 35

DR U D CHOUBEY Director General, SCOPE

“All PSUs have good ITsystem” 36

VIMALWAKHLU Chairman and Managing Director, TCIL

“Technology for Inclusive Development” 40

ERIC HENNESSEY Symantec Corporation,

“The biggest challenge is to replicate the data” 41

MANDAR MARULKAR V P-IT and CISO, KPIT,

“Policy,process and people are must to support SAM initiatives”

in the news 50

PETER SHARPLES

“Value of DCIM is linked to the business model ” 34

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Joint Secretary, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & IT, Govt of India.

“The Push for Electronics Manufacturing

Case study RAMCO PUTS FLAVOUR OFITIN MOTHER DAIRY’S ICE-CREAM

DR AJAY KUMAR

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RAJA KODURI Corporate VP– AMD Visual Computing

“Enterprise is a big growth opportunity for AMD”

» Google to enable faster search on slow mobile network in India

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VISHAL DHUPAR MD, South Asia, NVIDIA

“Gaming revenue will reach $100 billion” NOVEMBER, 2014

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EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2014

FEATURE

MAKE IN INDIA

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SET UP, SELL & SUSTAIN The Make in India initiative announced by the Prime Minister has stirred hopes of high investments in electronics, but the Electronics Manufacturing industry in India is of the view that achhe din will come only when there is a clear policy to facilitate the creation of an ecosystem in which electronics companies are free to set-up, sell and sustain.

BY HEENA JHINGAN

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hile the government was formulating the first steps that could lead to a fulfillment of the grand vision of “Make in India” campaign, the work at Nokia’s manufacturing plant at Sriperumbudur had already come to a standstill. Why did Nokia fail to successfully run a mobile manufacturing unit in India, a country that boasts of close to a billion mobile phone subscriptions?

The closur e of Nokia’s plant in Sriperumbudur is linked mostly to the legal and tax related issues that the plant had been facing for many years. But the electronics industry in general is optimistic about the future of Electronics Manufacturing in the country.

Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director, MAIT, says that such plant closures definitely bring the industry’s morale down, but the industry's interests are best served by looking towards the future, rather than the past. “It is not in the industry’s interest to be bogged down by such events. We should look towards the new opportunities that the government’s Digital India programme is presenting.”

The Information, Communication, Technology and Electronics (ICTE) industry is ranked amongst the world’s fastest growing sectors. The products and services developed by this industry are being used by every other section of the economy. It is now widely accepted that ICTE industry is a key enabler of development. While India is doing well in software and telecom, its electronics manufacturing sector is a laggard. It is estimated that the country produces just 5% of its total electronics consumption.

The demand-supply mismatch According to a MAIT-KPMG report, Indian electronics hardware production constitutes around 1.31% of the global production. At the current rate of growth, the domestic production can cater to a demand of $104 billion in 2020 and the remaining would have to be met by imports. Reports from Department of Electronics & Information Technology estimates that the demand for electronics to reach $400 billion by 2020, and at that point of time our electronics import bill will overtake

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NOVEMBER, 2014

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FEATURE

MAKE IN INDIA

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The market prefers to buy cheap Chinese products as compared to products made in India.

Indrajit Sabharwal, MD,Simmtronics

All the OEMs that we have been in talks with want to manufacture in India,but the government needs to clear the regulatory roadblocks.

Anwar Shirpurwala, Executive Director,MAIT

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the petroleum import bill.

Now that the government is planning to build several Smart Cities in the country, and there is the massive Digital India programme, it is possible that that the demand for electronics goods could surpass the estimated $400 billion by 2020.

Sunil Padmanabh, an Independent IT Advisor, feels that the timing of ‘Make in India’ initiative is perfect and it is the logical next step to the ‘Digital India’ programme launched earlier by the Modi Government. “This is a great opportunity to revive electronics/IT manufacturing at a time when China has started losing its low cost manufacturer advantage due to rising wage costs. This initiative will be critical for boosting economy by enhancing domestic production and taking on the competition from China and other nations. The success of this initiative will lead to a dramatic change in the way the products manufactured in India are perceived.”

“The government in the past it have also made efforts to bring a change with new policies, but this time the Government seems to be working in a more focused manner,” says NK Goyal, President Telecom Equipment Manufacturers Association of

India (TEMA).

“Single window clearance and better communication between the state governments as promised by the new government will lead to a positive change,” Goyal says. “The Digital India programme is not only about big spending by the government, it also involves new ideas and restructured schemes. The implementation will be closely monitored by a committee, chaired by the Prime Minister himself.”

So why is the electronics industry in India in a poor shape today? According to Padmanabh, a combination of factors are to blame for the state of affairs. He points out to factors like the non-existence of business friendly ecosystem, poor infrastructure, complex multi-tier tax structures. He points out, “It is time for the stakeholders to learn from the past experiences and introduce the necessary changes.”

Identify and rectify Many electronics manufacturers who choose to set up production facilities in India have been plagued by problems.

Indrajit Sabharwal, MD, Simmtronics, says that it has been a challenging experience for his company to manufacture in India. Headquartered in Delhi, Simmtronics has four NOVEMBER, 2014

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$104 Bn

$400 Bn

At the current rate of growth, the domestic production can cater to a demand of $104 billion in 2020 and the remaining would have to be met by imports

Government estimates that the demand for electronics to reach $400 billion by 2020

manufacturing facilities, two of which are in Roorkee and Bhiwadi.

Sabharwal notes that the cost of production in India is higher as compared to China. The lower costs in China is primarily due to the numerous subsidies from the government. Such subsidies are not being provided by the Indian government.

“Also the market prefers to buy cheap Chinese products as compared to products made in India. That is why we are now exploring international markets like Dubai and Singapore for export of made in India products,” he adds.

Padmanabh’s view on this is in-line with what Sabharwal says. Padmanabh says that it is the higher cost of production that is the root cause of the lack of investments in electronics manufacturing in India despite the fact that we are the world’s largest consumer of electronics products.

If you speak to the senior officials in telecom equipment manufacturing companies, they will tell you that instead of promoting domestic products as per PMA (preferential market access) policies, many government tenders include highly restrictive eligibility related requirements, which make the Indian product companies ineligible to bid.

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While India is doing well in software and telecom,its electronics manufacturing sector is a laggard.It is estimated that the country produces just 5% of its total electronics consumption

The domestic players also suffer because they fail to get the pricing support from component suppliers, which increases the cost of their production. But they still have to compete on L-1 price against large foreign companies It gets worse for domestic players as due to high-volumes they don’t get the required pricing support from component suppliers, but they still have to compete on L-1 price against much larger foreign companies, which have been lobbying hard in the country. It then becomes a vicious circle, and the companies are not able to get business and thus they fail to survive.

The government should not only think of creating an ecosystem to make in India, it should also enable the companies to sell in India. Both, creating and selling, are equally important for driving the ecosystem.

Also, there is a need for a stringent PMA mandate for all government IT/telecom procurement,as in the current socio-political environment, India cannot afford to be dependent on foreign players alone. The country will not reap benefits of local manufacturing till there is significant domestic value-addition NOVEMBER, 2014

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FEATURE

MAKE IN INDIA

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New areas of growth

The governments in the past have also made efforts to bring a change with new policies, but the current government seems to be working in a more focused manner.

NK Goyal,

Rajiv Mahajan, Senior Vice President, Tejas Networks feels that the telecom will be a crucial sector in the entire digitisation plan. He says that Tejas has been working with almost all leading telecom operators in the country. His company is looking at the 4G networks with interest, as they feel that 4G will open several new opportunities for domestic players like Tejas.

“The government plan looks promising, but its success will depend on the way it is implemented,” says Mahajan.

Agrees, Shirpurwala of MAIT. He says, “All the OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) that we have been in talks with want to manufacture in India, but the government needs to clear the basic operational roadblocks. The reason why many companies are hesitant to manufacture in India is due to lack of stringent IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) regulation in the country.”

Yolynd Lobo, India Director, BSA, the trade organisation working with

international governments to advance the goals of the software industry and their hardware partners, says, “Innovation is key for making the Indian Government’s “Make in India” initiative a success. Hence we need strong IPR Law and Trade Secret legislation. Trade Secret is any information that derives economic value from not being generally known to the public. Protecting a company’s trade secrets is critical to encourage innovation and thereby, IT manufacturing in India.”

Also since most domestic manufacturers are start-ups, they need lot of hand holding and guidance to survive in the market. This, Shirpurwala says, is the key reason behind the creation of the SME chapter under MAIT. “It is our initiative to bring SMEs from across the country onto a single platform and give them an opportunity to update their knowledge about various business opportunities, latest technologies, and investment opportunities available in India and abroad.”

President TEMA

Trade Secret is any information that derives economic value from not being generally known to the public.Protecting a company’s trade secrets is critical to encourage innovation and thereby, ITmanufacturing in India Innovation is the key for making the Indian Government’s Make in India initiative a success.Hence we need strong IPR Law and Trade Secret legislation.

Yolynd Lobo, India Director,BSA 12

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This is a great opportunity to revive electronics/IT manufacturing at a time when China has started losing its low cost manufacturer advantage due to rising wage costs.

Sunil Padmanabh, Independent ITAdvisor

Look for new trends in electronics “As the world of technology is fast changing, it is imperative that the government and the industry should have a futuristic approach,” says Shirpurwala.

“Electronics Manufacturing is a business that typically witnesses long periods of gestation. The development of the production facility itself is a time consuming exercise. The initial investment is also fairly high. Hence the Indian manufacturers who aspire to be a part of the Make in India campaign should look beyond the areas that are already crowded. Be on the look out of the trends,” he advises.

Padmanabh states that set top boxes, wearable electronics, medical electronics, telecom equipment , infrastructure (for bridge monitoring systems, disaster warning systems), smart energy metering systems and infrastructure for Smart Cities, are the EXPRESS COMPUTER

key segments in which we should watch out for. These are the areas where the new investors will lay down their money.

Up to 40% FDI is now permitted in the defence sector, and about 60% of defence products consist of electronics. The electronics manufacturing industries sees light in the area defence. It is believed that India might soon have global electronics giants participating in the creation of defence related products.

As of now India does not have a single Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication (Fab) Manufacturing unit, even though the consumption of FAB in the country is more than $10 billion. But now the government has started working on this crucial area. Two consortiums have been given the permission to set up their FAB units in the country and land where the units are to be set up has also been identified. heena.jhingan@expressindia.com

Up to 40% FDI is now permitted in the defence sector,and about 60% of defence products consist of electronics.

The electronics manufacturing industry sees light in the area of defence.

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INTERVIEW RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

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DIGITAL INDIA: GOVERNMENT PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS “Digital India will be the game-changer for eGovernance, e-commerce and Electronics Manufacturing. By bringing broadband connectivity to every nook and corner of the country, it will empower people and lead to spurt in the demand for digital goods and services,” says Ravi Shankar Prasad, in an exclusive interview with Express Computer Team

You are handling telecom and IT departments.What are your priorities in these two sectors?

My first priority is to set right the legacy issues. By legacy issues, I mean the way the departments had been functioning during the last few years at a political level. For too long the ministry has been in the news for wrong reasons. My first priority is to change the image. My instruction to the officials in my ministry is very clear — they must take decisions on merits. We have to be reasonable, fair and work with the aim of safeguarding consumer interest and ensuring high growth in telecom and IT sectors. Telecom and IT are the two areas of high-growth for our country. I am grateful to the Prime Minister that he has entrusted me with these two crucial departments.

What is the government trying to achieve with the Digital India initiative? What is in it for the common man?

Today India sits on the cusp of an IT revolution. The Prime Minister has raised a very important slogan — IT + IT = IT (India’s talent + Information Technology = India Tomorrow). Digital India is a gamechanger. Its three basic objectives are citizen empowerment, governance improvement, and changing the IT profile of India. This initiative will connect smaller towns and remote villages, ensuring that they too have high-speed EXPRESS COMPUTER

Internet services. We have set a target for providing broadband to 50000 panchayts this year, one lakh next year, and another one lakh next year. Rs 30000 crore is planned to be spent on this initiative for expanding the reach of broadband. Digital India will lead to an explosion of ecommerce in rural India. Companies can build their warehouse in convenient locations to supply goods and services to the people, who can order by the click of

the mouse. In the Digital India initiative, we will address the issue of digital literacy by providing 10 to 40 hours of courses for digital literacy. The central government is working with various state governments to ensure the speedy implementation of the Digital India initiatives.

The Prime Minister struck a chord with every Indian when he spoke of his vision of Digital India from the ramparts of the Red Fort.

The promotion of electronics manufacturing is high on the agenda of the government.What is your view on the electronics sector in the country?

The demand of electronics products in the country is already quite high, and with an initiative like Digital India the demand will go up further. Today India has close to a billion mobile phone subscriptions, but the

The Digital India initiative will require a lot of bandwidth.Today the average holding of spectrum by operators is much less than what we have globally.How do you plan to improve the situation?

It is not only about the availability of spectrum or the holding of spectrum, it is also about the effective use of spectrum.

The operators have to ensure that there is optimal usage of spectrum. My department is working to develop the guidelines under which the telcos can do spectrum trading and spectrum sharing.

We are also in dialogue with the defence ministry to get them to release some spectrum. Once we have the spectrum, it will be auctioned.

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INTERVIEW

www.expresscomputeronline.com

RAVI SHANKAR PRASAD MINISTER OF COMMUNICATIONS AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

crucial question is why are mobile phones not being manufactured here. In fact, current trends indicate that by the year 2020 the total electronics import bill for the country can go up to $400 billion. This is the stage at which the electronics import bill will surpass our petroleum import bill. We are now trying to energise the entire country about the critical need for having electronics manufacturing industry in India. I have communicated with many Chief Ministers on this subject. I have also called a meeting of the IT Ministers and IT Secretaries. Many Chief Ministers in the country are now interested in having electronics manufacturing clusters in their state. I am grateful for their support.

Recently the Prime Minister launched the Make in India campaign.What steps are being taken to put the country on the world map as a favourable business destination for ITand electronics manufacturing companies?

As the Prime Minister has pointed out, there are three distinct advantages that India has. These are — Democracy, Demography and Demand.

There is no dearth of human resource in India. We have a large pool of technically qualified and young population. When I learned that 70% of Google traffic outside USA is from India, I felt very proud.

Almost every major MNC has R&D and development centres here. If we can do well in software, we can also excel in electronics. The electronics manufacturing companies will come to India to take advantage of the high domestic demand and they can also export from India. The Smart Cities that the government is planning to have along the industrial corridor will lead to a further explosion in the demand for electronics products. We have already opened up the defence sector to private investments. Up to 40% FDI is now permitted in the defence sector, but the thing is that 60% of defence products consists of electronics.

The Digital India initiative would require the participation of private sector ITcompanies.But the past experience of private sector participation in eGovernance projects has not been good.Many projects get delayed and there have been other problems.What steps can be taken to ensure that there is enthusiastic participation of the private sector in eGovernance projects?

Post May 26, 2014, we have a new government in the country. This is a different India. This is an India where everyone is enthused about the way the new government looks at the process of 16

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The Department of Electronics and Information Technology has started the MyGov website. Please tell us about this project?

Within a fortnight of its launching, we got close to 2 lakh suggestions. Many of these are concrete case studies on the good work that people have done in areas of social importance. For the Independence Day, we asked the MyGov people to provide suggestions for the greetings that can be sent by the Prime Minister. Out of 3000 suggestions, 3 were selected and the Prime Minister sent close to 35 lakh greetings on Independence Day. The name of the Jan Dhan Yojana, which is aimed at opening at least one bank account for every family in the country, has been suggested by the MyGov people. It is about fostering participatory governance.

digitisation in the country. The Prime Minister struck a chord with every Indian when he spoke of his vision of Digital India from the ramparts of the Red Fort. The citizens of this country, the government departments and the private sector, all are equally enthused about this initiative.

Many private sector companies are in talks with us for taking care of various projects. The Make in India campaign is also generating a lot of interest. The private sector companies understand very well that this government is serious about driving eGovernance and IT industry in the country.

Do you think that the bulk of the work in Digital India initiative will have to be done by the private sector?

When there is demand for certain kinds of goods and services, the private sector is surely going to come in. Government can’t do everything.

Private sector will have ample opportunities in Digital India - e-commerce is there, e-education is there, ehealth is there, there is broadband retailing. The government is there to create an enabling atmosphere in which the private sector finds ample room to grow. One of the directions that I have given to my department is to create an enabling atmosphere for the opening of BPOs in the smaller towns. Currently, every IT organisation is going to the big towns to set up their centres, but if they know that there is an incentive for opening a BPO in small towns, then they will go there. This will lead to proliferation of IT in all parts of the country.

One area where India is unable to make much of a headway is Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication (FAB).What can be done to start FAB manufacturing in the country?

We are pushing two agencies for setting up FAB units in the country. Currently the agencies are developing their own revenue models and we are hopeful that they will soon start working on their projects. But apart from FAB there are many other kinds of electronics manufacturing that we have to look at. Mobile phones are being sold in here. Then there are the set-top boxes, smart cards, etc. There is the emerging field of medical electronics. When the electronics companies start manufacturing in India, they make not only for Indians but for export also.

Look at television industry, look at mobile telephony — if we can succeed in these areas, we can also succeed in electronics manufacturing.

NOVEMBER, 2014

INTERVIEW

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DR AJAY KUMAR IAS

“28 million new jobs can be created in the electronics manufacturing sector in the country,” says Dr Ajay Kumar, Joint Secretary, Department of Electronics & Information Technology, DeitY, Ministry of Communications & IT, Government of India. In conversation with Express Computer Team

The Push for Electronics Manufacturing India produces less than 5% of its electronics needs. What steps is the government taking to ensure that the nation’s electronics requirements can be met through domestic manufacturing?

The demand for electronics goods is very high today. India is one of the few countries in the world where the demand for electronics products is rising at a very high pace.

A number of steps have been taken to encourage electronics manufacturing. Today 100 percent FDI is permitted under automatic route in Semiconductor Fabrication Plants.

Government will also provide assistance for setting up of world-class infrastructure for the semiconductor fabs and its ecosystem units.

The government has identified many electronics manufacturing hubs, where the companies will be eligible for incentives, including subsidy for setting up such facilities.

Electronics manufacturing has a significant strategic implications. In defence, 49% FDI has been allowed by the government. But the thing is that about 60% of all defence goods is electronics.

Why is India lagging behind in the setting up of Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication Manufacturing Facilities?

The government has already approved the setting up of two Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication Manufacturing Facilities (FAB) in the country. Two business consortia are involved in setting these up. Once these FABs become operational they can create direct job opportunities for more than 20000 people. The number of indirect jobs generated could be much more, as the two FABs could lead to development of an entire ecosystem for electronics manufacturing. We have been facing the difficulty of having FAB units in India because the cost of a FAB is quite high. It can cost up to $5 billion. The technology is also very advanced. Very few companies in the world have the expertise to set up a FAB. The consumption of mobile phones, set top boxes and other electronics products in the EXPRESS COMPUTER

country is skyrocketing. Why are the electronics manufacturers refraining from manufacturing in India?

There are many factors. One of them could be the high cost of power and finance. The poor state of supply chain can also be a reason. All these problems are being looked at by the government. The demand for electronics products is expected to reach $400 billion by year 2020. The government is working with the aim of correcting the situation so that we don't have to import our electronics needs from outside.

It is also being said that electronics manufacturing can lead to generation of millions of jobs in India. What kind of job creation can be expect in this sector?

Our estimates show that an electronics manufacturing industry of $400 billion can provide direct jobs to 28 million people in India.

Unless we revive manufacturing in the country, the so called demographic dividend, of young Indians, will never be realised.

Thatis why the government is now making an all out effort to promote electronics manufacturing.

The government has already approved the setting up of two Semiconductor Wafer Fabrication Manufacturing Facilities (FAB) in the country

Recently you took over as the Director General of National Informatics Centre. What is your vision for the organisation?

NIC is india’s premier eGovernance body.

The organisation has been responsible for the creation and security of many of the important websites with the central government, state governments, various departments and PSUs. Most of the officials in the country use email system developed by NIC. The government has come up with the Digital India Initiative for taking eGovernance and the electronics and IT sectors to the next level of development.

NIC is working in a very focussed way for ensuring the success of the Digital India initiative. My vision for the organisation would be to ensure that NIC is able to contribute its mite in the speedy and efficient implementation of the eGovernance projects in the country.

NOVEMBER, 2014

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COLUMN

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KEVIN TAYLOR

TECHNOLOGYSPARKS INNOVATION AND BUSINESS GROWTH IN INDIA I Indian investment in the US has recently touched $11 billion and in 2012 India was the European Union’s eighth largest trading partner. What’s more, the UK attracted just under half (47%) of India’s Greenfield investments in Europe and 63% of new jobs

Statistics show that more than 2,200 Indian companies are expected to invest overseas in the next 15 years 18

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ndia’s economic development has spiked in recent years, as has its reputation for being a fertile ground for growth and innovation. But to dive into the next stage and remain competitive, the country’s CIOs need to create, innovate and revolutionise the way they do things — especially when it comes to technology.

This year’s International Festival for Business in Liverpool brought together organisations from 125 countries to celebrate and encourage sustainable growth. Joining BT at the event was Horasis, the Global Visions Community who celebrate entrepreneurship and economic growth and in particular, India’s emerging markets. Collectively they looked at ways UK and Indian organisations can work and grow together. Ahead of the IFB, BT Global Services commissioned research on business attitudes to global expansion.

It found that 88% of Indian business decision makers felt that international expansion is essential for future success.

Technology helps to bridge the gap between regional and global organisations, and so far the Indian economy has really taken advantage of this opportunity.

Statistics show that more than 2,200 Indian companies are expected to invest overseas in the next 15 years. Indian investment in the US has recently touched $11 billion and in 2012 India was the European Union’s eighth largest trading partner. What’s more, the UK attracted just under half (47%) of India’s Greenfield investments in Europe and 63% of new jobs.

Globalisation has had a profound impact in shaping the Indian IT industry.

The industry was one of the first to globalise, and understand the challenges of cross-border M&A or organic expansion into new geographies.

New challenges

In the last few years the economic environment has been challenging, customer needs are becoming complex, competition is increasing, and technology trends are changing the rules of the game. Thus, the Indian IT industry needs to innovate to stay competitive.

On top of this, India is one of the fastest growing countries in the world.

The number of English speaking graduates and skilled engineers makes the country a powerhouse of talent. In addition, BT’s research has shown that foreign companies rank the IT skills of the local workforce as the second most attractive reason to invest in India (28% of respondents), behind only the potential customer base (36%).

Technology provides solutions A solution to these challenges is to enhance collaboration through new communications technologies.

Better communications can improve collaboration by allowing employees to communicate in real time through a variety of mediums. This requires a partner that can blend disparate technologies, old and new platforms, across all different devices. Globally 76% of BT’s customers say ‘better communications make a big difference to business success’ and 77% say ‘Unified Communications would make employees more productive.’

The future looks positive. The combination of powerful new devices and better connectivity is enabling people to be more efficient, improve decision making and give them more flexibility on how and where they work.

By Kevin Taylor, President,Asia Pacific, Middle East & Africa (AMEA), BT Global Services

NOVEMBER, 2014

INTERVIEW PETER SHARPLES APJ, CA TECHNOLOGIES

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The complex Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) market is set to rise in the coming year. Peter Sharples, Senior Director, Solution Sales, Energy and Sustainability, APJ, CA Technologies, explains the intricacies of DCIM market to Jasmine Desai.

“Value of a DCIM product is linked to the business model being employed” Why is the demand for DCIM products muted in the market? Is there lack of awareness about the benefits that can can come from DCIMs? For last three years, the DCIM space is witnessing an uptake and currently there are over 47 acknowledged providers of DCIM solutions. The broad range of solution capability leads to misunderstanding of what a DCIM solution is. This trend is changing and according to Gartner, within APJ 40% of enterprises are considering DCIM purchases this year. As a result, the DCIM market is expected to grow by 13% in 2015. Market demand is being largely driven by two critical events - firstly clients that have experienced impact on their critical systems due to power outages, and secondly clients that are undergoing data centre expansion or reconfiguration activities.

How do you demonstrate DCIM’s value in a simple way?

The value for a DCIM product is linked to the business model being employed by our clients.

For example, a co-location provider will look to use DCIM as a revenue generation vehicle to secure and retain clients and provide valueadded services. For larger enterprises, application availability will be the key focus.

For clients that want to expand, the ability to centrally monitor and manage remote data centres will be at the fore-front of their thinking.

The key is understanding the clients business and how DCIM solution can improve value for them.

DCIM implementation requires lot of changes.

So how do you simplify DCIM implementation for your customers?

CA Technologies takes a completely hardware independent view of the market. So from a client side, typically we make only the hardware modifications that drive value. The largest degree of change that we see for a DCIM solution are process and culture related.

Typically clients need to re-examine their Change, Asset and Incident Management processes as part of a DCIM deployment to gain maximum benefit. From a cultural level, we EXPRESS COMPUTER

often see IT and Facilities working together and collaborating on shared processes and tools for the first time.

Can you elaborate on the visualisation feature in your DCIM product?

Visualisation is one of the marquee features of most DCIM solutions. The ability to interact in 3-D, drag and drop infrastructure and examine down to port-level IT equipment that is located around the world is a great efficiency enabler for data centre operators. Over-laying this, analysis of temperature and humidity creates a near-real time understanding of the temperature distribution. Lets say you have created a hot spot in the data centre through configuration changes, or you are running the data centre too cold and over-spending on power! These issues can be quickly analysed and acted upon. The temperature data can be played back over time to show the historic changes and movement of temperature around the data centre as infrastructure is placed or moved. Also predictive analytics allows analysis of whatif impact on temperature for proposed infrastructure placement.

The broad range of solution capability leads to misunderstanding of what a DCIM solution is.This trend is changing and according to Gartner, within APJ 40% of enterprises are considering DCIM purchases this year.

In converged infrastructure offering, how are you different from your competitors when it comes to next-gen analytics and modules?

Converged infrastructure looks at the efficiency and optimisation of data centres beyond PUE measurement. CA Technologies capability allows our clients to examine the compute layer of resource as a function of data centre efficiency – we call this the “Resource Score”. For example, a client is running a data centre at a PUE of 1.6 – yet only has a server utilisation of 12%, suddenly what appeared to be a very efficiently run data centre from an energy perspective, is now very inefficient from a utilisation point of view. The combination of this intelligence is a major gamechanger for business in terms of asset utilisation, predictive capacity and performance optimisation. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

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FEATURE

WELSPUN

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THE

CIO MUSTBE WIRED TO

BUSINESS

“Learning new technology, business skills and leadership abilities are not only important but critical now. With the changing business and IT scenario, I must say that the CIO’s role has been changing very fast and it will be more complex in coming years,” says Mukund Prasad.

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NOVEMBER, 2014

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CIO with more than 33 years of experience, Mukund Prasad has seen the evolution of computerisation from the very beginning. “The rise in awareness about the benefits of Information Technology,” says Prasad, “is the major catalyst in the growth of the sector. In the earlier era, any computerisation activity used to be preceded by lengthy discussion on ROI, but as the IT ecosystem matured, the businesses became aware of the benefits.”

“In fact, we have been able to provide a competitive edge to our organisations, as compared to others in the industry, by being one of the early adapters,” he adds.

Overcoming challenges The area of Information Technology is evolving constantly; new hardware and software solutions arrive at regular intervals and shake up the market. Prasad says, “It is important for companies to continuously upgrade their technological systems by help of their solution providers, vendors, etc. The people in the field of technology must always keep abreast of what is being talked about in academia, mass media and various CIO forums.”

“The challenges we, the CIOs, face are mostly related to handling multi-cultural, multi-geographical environments and communicating personal differences, values and vision, managing expectations, ambitions and even the incompetence related to weaknesses and global alignment,” Mukund Prasad says.

In his current job at Welspun, he is responsible for creation of shared services, program and portfolio management capabilities. He is also responsible for development of systems for process improvement and automation and corporate governance in the group companies.

Prasad says that he draws inspiration from the life of Russi Mody and J. J. Irani (both were former MD’s of Tata Steel). He is also inspired by Ajai Chowdhry, Founder and Ex-Chairman, HCL Infosystems, under whom Prasad has also had the chance to work. “In these people I have seen exceptional leadership qualities. There is a lot that I have learnt from them.”

Innovations implemented The Welspun Group has used Information Technology Strategic Outsourcing for managing business growth, productivity and regular operations. This is an outside-in approach for understanding and integrating business and automation.

Generally IT outsourcing deals are meant to take care of IT operations (Infrastructure and Application) and their regular day-to-day maintenance.

To assess the benefits of the optimisation of costs along with the challenges of technology obsolescence, it was decided to conduct an ISP study within the group across the seven different industry segments. It was observed that there are too many things required to be done for bringing about

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synchronisation between the opportunities for standardising the business processes and automating the same as far as possible.

“Our in-house resources were not adequate to implement the various technology and business transformation projects that were needed to meet the business objectives of the group,” Mukund Prasad explains. Welspun took this step as an exercise for initiating the qualitative leap that the group aims to take in the next few years.

“It is not only about centralising IT operations, rather it is about using the amazing power of Information Technology as a tool to usher transformation in different segments of the business,” says Prasad.

The requirements of outsourcing were classified into the areas of Run, Grow and Transform the businesses. All these were basically designed to take care of the day-to-day operations, maintenance of infrastructure and application and the basic hygiene factors which are required to be taken care of by Information Technology.

It would have taken 7-8 years to do all these at a group level with internal resources and with the help of implementation partners.

We did not have this kind of time.

Benefits of innovation The implementation began in August 2012 and it has already started giving the expected benefits. We no longer have to incur huge CAPEX on IT operations, be it hardware or software. Nor do we face the challenge of retaining IT related talent, or reorganising teams, to ensure that all ongoing projects get adequate attention.

Sufficient numbers of skilled personnel have now been shifted or are shared with our new IT partner.

This enables us to deliver better business value, especially since we have integrated Service Level Agreement (SLA) driven delivery with a single window for managing all SLAs. This process based approach to IT enhances the quality of service received from the vendor in comparison to what can be delivered under a project based approach.

This also has an inherent element of change management involved that must be driven judiciously to reap the benefits.

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ACIO has to spend 60% of his time with the business and 30-40% with the ITmatters.

Implementation of the ITSO has already begun with the realignment of Welspun’s existing IT resources, and the first few business projects are now under way.

The impact of the change will be seen immediately by those employees directly involved in these new projects, but it will not be long before the entire group begins to reap the benefits.

Big Data & Cloud Prasad is of the opinion that the adoption of cloud technology is at an initial stage in India. In the current scenario, the most companies are skeptical about having

cloud-based solutions. Most end-user organisations in India are typically conservative when it comes to the adoption of new technology or services, because they like to understand the financial benefits and returns from such investments.

Cloud is still known more for Software as a Service (SaaS) in India, but now there is also evolution and adoption of Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). The adoption of virtualisation for production workloads in Indian organisations has been very low, as compared to what we have in similar organisations in countries like USA and UK. So what are the factors that are slowing down the pace of cloud adoption in India? “Legal and security aspects are the main factors,” says Prasad. “But these are not the only factors. The cloud adoption in the country is also stymied by several cultural issues and the typical resistance to change.”

NOVEMBER, 2014

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There is lot of talk about Big Data analytics, but hardly any enterprise in India has actually deployed Big Data.

Why are CIOs shying away from actually implementing Big Data? Prasad feels that the failure of Big Data to takeoff in India is basically due to the lack of talent for managing cultural challenges and doubts over quantifiable benefits. It is an exhaustive, time-consuming journey, and most of the organisations are not yet ready to undertake this journey, as the nature of the benefits that they will derive in the end is not clear.

They are still struggling with the management of structured data and the need of moving towards unstructured data does not get that attention.

Coaching the new leaders and the CIOs A Senior Certified Power Coach by CLI International Canada, Mukund Prasad has over 500 client coaching hours. He has coached 15 CEO level executives during the last two years on the subject of what steps can be taken to tackle various challenges that business and life may throw. He says that a CIO has to think not only in terms of having the right technology and right execution, he must also project a quality of leadership by believing in his gut, karma and life and mastering his body, mind and spirit.

Many CIOs in the country and abroad have benefitted from the coaching that Mukund has been providing since last few years. “Mukund knows that every leader’s job is to create more leaders. He is a cheerleader for leadership excellence as he focuses his entire thought processes on how to encourage leaders to reach higher in their competencies – to never be complacent. He is a serious student of PCMK (Power coaching with mind kinetics) Coaching methodologies from Coaching and Leadership International Inc. Within six months he achieved his Certified Power Coach designation which is a feat difficult to obtain in such a short time frame,” says Betska K-Burr, an International Executive Business and Life Coach.

What would Mukund like to tell the young man who today dreams of becoming a CIO? He says, “The need to have a good EXPRESS COMPUTER

MUKUND PRASAD Current Designation Current Role

: :

Work Experience Favourite quote

: :

Favourite books

:

Favourite destination Favourite gadget for work Favourite gadget for personal use What inspires you in your work Why did you choose IT as a career

: : : : :

Coaching Qualification

:

Director & Group CIO Managing Information Technology for the Welspun Group across the industry verticals.

33+ Years “Do not let the behaviour of others destroy your inner peace”.

1) Rashmirathi by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar 2) The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand Kailash Manasarovar Blackberry iPad Trust and empowerment IT provides me with immense opportunities for doing new things.

Senior Certified Power Coach by CLI International Canada. Over 500 Client coaching hours.

Mukund Prasad has coached 15 CEO level Executives over the last two years.

The skills that a successful CIO must have is understanding of the business,understanding of the technology and the ability to convince people grasp of technical knowledge, while also having the skill of a business analyst, will be a sine qua non for the CIOs. This is because all the major companies will expect such talents from their technology officials. The application development and IT infrastructure management will happen more or less in the outsourced model. Hence, the CIO’s role will also evolve in business strategy and owning more than technology. Developing commercial skills, Contracting and Legal knowledge are also very much required.”

“The skills that a successful CIO must have is understanding of the business, understanding of the technology and the

ability to convince people,” says Prasad.

“A CIO has to spend 60% of his time with the business and 30-40% with the IT matters.” Developing collaborative skills will be very essential.

“Focus must shift from merely automating operations and processes to using the power of new IT systems for driving strategic business growth,” says Prasad. “Learning new technology, business skills and leadership abilities are not only important but critical now.

With the changing business and IT scenario, I must say that CIO’s role has been changing very fast and it will be more complex in coming years.”

NOVEMBER, 2014

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COLUMN ANOOP KUMAR AGRAWAL IAS

CREATING EFFECTIVE CAPACITYFOR eGOVERNANCE A NeGD has worked for the formation of core policies on a number of issues including cyber security and cloud hosting

NeGD highlights the need for hosting the infrastructure in cloud environment as it results in lowering of the overall TCO of the infrastructure.

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central agency for effective implementation of Capacity Building Scheme for State Governments and Union Territories, the National eGovernance Division (NeGD) has been tasked to provide training and Capacity Building programmes on continual basis and to interact with States and Union Territories for promoting knowledge transfer and sharing best practices.

The State eGovernance Mission Team (SeMT) has been established by Government of India though NeGD as a part of the Capacity Building (CB) Scheme. When the CB Scheme was formulated in 2006, most States were inadequately equipped in terms of personnel and the skill-sets needed to handle the challenges that were likely to be faced in the implementation of NeGP (National eGovernance Plan). Through the setting up of the SeMTs and training initiatives undertaken under the scheme for a large number of officials, there has been a considerable improvement in building of internal capacities in the State and Union Territory Governments.

The SeMTs function as full-time internal advisory body in undertaking eGovernance projects and advising high level committees on IT/eGovernance projects. The teams are responsible for providing an overall direction, standardisation, consistency through programme management of the eGovernance initiatives in the State and alignment with the overall objectives of NeGP. The SeMTs have expertise in the areas/functions of Programme Management, Financial Management, Technology Management and Change Management.

Capacity Building Programme An evaluation of Capacity Building

Scheme and its implementation was conducted and many of the States have reported that SeMTs have added immense value to the state’s IT endeavours. It has also been reported that they are involved in most of the key eGovernance projects in the state, contributing to the best practices from the industry and sharing the vision of the Central Government for the NeGP. NeGD is in process of developing an ICT based system for effective coordination and monitoring of the working of SeMTs. For achieving the objective of the Capacity Building of officials of state and central government and SeMT members and in the implementation of NeGP, sharing of best practices and to creation of a platform for cross-learning, NeGD has been conducting domain specific thematic workshops. Four successful workshops have been conducted so far – Capacity Building & Change Management, Technology Management, RFP Toolkit and Detailed Project Report (DPR) preparation & evaluation. All four workshops were well appreciated for their coverage, content, depth and methodology.

Under the national roll out of training programme for Chief Information Officers, eight training programmes were approved by Department of Electronics & Information Technology (DeitY).

These programmes are of three categories: eGovernance Leadership Programme (eGLP)- a two week programme for officers at the senior management level; eGovernance Champions Programme (eGCP) – a four week programme for officers at the middle management level; and eGovernance Executive Programme (eGEP) – a six week programme for officers at the operational level. NeGD designed the CIOs’ Training Programme NOVEMBER, 2014

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with the help of NISG and the implementation of these programmes is now complete.

Guidelines for eGovernance NeGD has worked for the formation of core policies on a number of issues including cyber security and cloud hosting. A set of standard operating procedures for ensuring the security of eGovernance information systems have been published by NeGD. The organisation has been responsible for designing the Integration Architectural framework to harmonise the various ICT initiatives such as National and State Portal, National/State Service Delivery Gateway, National Payment Gateway, UID, Mobile Service Delivery Gateway under taken by DeitY. This framework has enabled delivery of services of different departments under the edistrict project.

NeGD has also published guidelines for preparation of Detailed Project Report for eGovernance applications.

Guidelines for maintaining strategic control over the forms, business processes, data, security, ICT infrastructure and manpower have been published and shared with line ministries and state departments. It is an important safeguard that all departments should adhere to, especially in the cases where the departments have outsourced their eGovernance projects, for sake of maintaining their overall control.

NeGD evaluates the various R&D project proposals received in DeitY for funding. NeGD monitors and provides guidance to the sanctioned R&D proposals. NeGD also identifies areas where potential for carrying out R&D exists. Benchmarks for designing product line based applications which can be replicated and reused rapidly have been defined to enable faster delivery of services to citizens. NeGD conducts regular workshops to provide hands on training and awareness for DPR preparation and training on implementation of cyber security standard operating procedures. NeGD is also in process of finalising the Open API policy for government departments.

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Technical Appraisal of NeGP projects NeGD has created an appraisal framework wherein an evaluation is done to ensure that the critical components such as services and service level agreements, assessment of cost and benefits to be accrued by the project implementation, soundness of solution architecture by evaluating the functional architecture including use cases, deployment architecture, training needs and change management, testing including auditing and certifications, post implementation assessment for measuring that the envisaged benefits have been realised, are included.

The proposals are evaluated to ensure that the effort estimation for software development are done using the standard effort estimation techniques, hardware sizing is done using the internationally accepted benchmarks such as TPM-C for database and number of concurrent users for web servers. NeGD also highlights the need for hosting the infrastructure in cloud environment as it results in lowering the overall TCO of the infrastructure. In order to provide guidance regarding secure application development practices, NeGD has developed a cyber security policy and standard operating procedures for secure coding, securing by hardening the ICT infrastructure. We advise departments to adhere to these policies and also include them in their RFP’s while engaging software developers.

NeGD has developed architectural design principles to assist the departments in ensuring that their applications are capable of scaling in and scaling out, provide open API’s in the form of web service interfaces or dll’s to provide horizontal scalability to the application. To ensure standards based development and vendor neutrality, technical, data and metadata standards for eGovernance projects have been notified. As part of appraisal departments are advised to adhere to these principles.

NEGD PROJECTS List of tasks being performed by NeGD include the following :

1

Facilitation of the implementation of NeGP by various Ministries and State Governments

2

Providing technical assistance to Central Ministries and State Line Departments

3 4 5

Serving as a secretariat to the Apex Committee

6

Framing core policies, technical assistance, R&D, awareness and assessment and creation of organisation structure

7

Acting as a Central Agency for an effective implementation of Capacity Building Scheme

8

Positioning of a Capacity Building Management Cell for effective management of manpower

Undertaking technical appraisal of all NeGP projects Human Resource Development,Training and Awareness Building

Anoop Kumar Agrawal, President & CEO, NEGD, Departments of Electronics & IT

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY

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ENEMYINSIDE THE GATES -

ANALYSING & NEUTRALISING THREATS 26

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With increase in the number and sophistication of attacks, CISOs face the complex task of choosing the most appropriate security solution to protect their critically important systems and data. The strategies and solutions that are being deployed are evolving along with the nature of the threats companies are facing…

BY PUPUL DUTTA

NOVEMBER, 2014

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O

n June 25 this year, hackers broke into the cyber infrastructure of National Informatics Centre (NIC), which runs the nation’s eGovernance framework. After breaching NIC’s security, the hackers accessed the root directory that hosts the most sensitive data. They issued several fake digital certificates, which NIC failed to detect for several days. According to NIC sources, the breach was the handiwork of hackers from outside India.

The hacking of NIC shows that ensuring the security, availability and reliability of important data has never been tougher than what it is today.

Targeted attacks and advanced persistent threats (APTs) are on the rise as our dependence on Internet of things and an interconnected environment expands.

Those with malicious intent spend most of their time in identifying the weak links through which attacks can be launched.

The Symantec Internet Security Threat Report (ISTR), Volume 19, reveals that attackers prefer to focus on large organisations. Over 69% of the targeted attacks in India are carried out on large organisations. But this does not mean that the SMBs are safe. The security threat landscape for SMBs is no different, with attackers often targeting smaller businesses that have a relationship with a larger company, using them like pawns in a larger plot. According to the ISTR 19, small businesses in India have received maximum phishing and virus-bearing emails - almost three times as much as the larger targets.

Recent trends like hacktivism, heartbleed etc., have caused significant damage to organisations that are ill prepared to meet the challenge. This pervasiveness and maturity of the cyber attacks is contributing to the growth of the enterprise security market.

According to McAfee, “The total enterprise security market in India is expected to be $234 million in 2014. This contributes the highest growth for APAC region at 16.3% CAGR. Next generation firewall, endpoint, web gateway, email gateway, among others constitutes the biggest growth drivers in this market.”

Enterprises across the board, especially sectors such as BFSI, EXPRESS COMPUTER

Cyber criminals pretend they are from tech support to convince targets to open emails or run malicious programs.

Such approaches are a sign that attackers are customising strategies and sharpening their social engineering skills.

Tarun Kaura, Director – Technology Sales,India, Symantec.

government etc., are readily investing in security solutions. According to a report

by KPMG, the information security market in India is expected to grow by 50% in the next three years. The market, including hardware, software and services, will be of nearly Rs 1,200 crore this year.

Worrying trends With digitisation and popularity of smartphones, information access is at the click of the mouse or by a swipe of the finger. The ease of access to information has led to a corresponding rise in the threat of data breaches.

“In the backdrop of changing mobility landscape, enterprises are looking for a highly secure, reliable yet flexible mobile architecture to manage the complex needs of a highly dynamic workforce. The new age enterprise CIO needs to map IT to business in a manner where it is able to contribute to the productivity and help grow revenues. CIOs are therefore looking at increasing end-user productivity while reducing TCO,” says Manoj Khilnani, Country Marketing Head – Enterprise, BlackBerry India.

While BYOD is considered to be the ideal way of achieving this outcome, it can also increase the risk of security breeches. BYOD brings with it the complexities of securing a varied set of devices, managing access controls to mission critical apps as well as compartmentalising the corporate data from the personal data. However, the growth of workplace mobility has increased the demand for business applications and this provides a great opportunity for developers.

“Often the biggest threat for any organisation is internal - from its employees, contractors, temps, etc., who actually have the control of the information on which the business runs.

When we calculate the risk of internal and external sources of business damage, we arrive at an interesting proportion of 80 (internal): 20 (external) and surprisingly we spend heavy amount to safe guard that 20% of the risks, leaving 80% internal ones,” notes Suneel Aradhye, Group CIO, RPG Enterprises.

“What is most dangerous here, is the psychological aspect of the attacker.

Identify theft, identity fraud, information leakage, system compromising, privilege escalations etc., are common outcomes from the 80% threat class, which comes from inside the organisation,” Suneel adds.

Thomson Thomas, Senior Vice President -Business Systems & Technology, HDFC Life, explains, “As per recent EY Global Security Survey, nearly one-third of organisations still do not have a threat intelligence program, and slightly more than one-third have an informal program. In terms of vulnerability identification, nearly one in four have no program. Financial services are the most mature of the industries and invest diligently in security programs. However, organisations, regardless of industry or size; should be concerned by the overall lack of maturity and rigour in a number of security areas. In many cases, organisations will need to urgently invest more to improve, innovate and mitigate.

After all, the cost of a breach can be far more costly.”

If the evolution in Internet-enabled devices, the popularity of social media, the NOVEMBER, 2014

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trend of BYOD, and the virtualisation of data centres are leading to a host of new opportunities for the organisations, then they are also creating challenges by development of more opportunities for those with malicious intent.

Hacktivism

Heartbleed proved an important point that the traditional,static, cyber-security paradigm no longer works.

Thomson Thomas, Senior Vice President -Business Systems & Technology,HDFC Life

The new age enterprise CIO needs to map ITto business in a manner where it can contribute to the productivity and help grow revenues.

Manoj Khilnani, Country Marketing Head – Enterprise, BlackBerry India.

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Hacktivism is the act of hacking, or breaking into a network, in the name of a political or social cause. In most cases the hacktivist does not intend to steal private information, for him hacking is a way of achieving certain political ends. The typical acts of hacktivism include website defacement, denial-of-service attacks (DoS), redirects, website parodies, information theft, virtual sabotage and virtual sit-ins.

The term hacktivism might have gained notoriety fairly recently, but it is quite an old phenomenon. The first hacktivist attack happened in October 1989 when DOE, HEPNET and SPAN (NASA) connected VMS machines world wide were penetrated by the anti-nuclear WANK worm. Today many hacktivists are using highly sophisticated and socially engineered spear-phishing techniques to penetrate the network that they want to target.

“In some cases cyber criminals have pretended that they are from tech support to convince targets to open emails or run malicious programs. Such approaches are a sign that attackers are customising strategies and sharpening their social engineering skills,” explains Tarun Kaura, Director – Technology Sales, India, Symantec.

Making the heart-bleed One of the most talked about security breaches this year was the heartbleed bug. A simple virus that attacked open SSLs, it allowed attackers to intercept secure communications and steal sensitive information such as login credentials, personal data, or even decryption keys. The bug affected organisations as well as consumers.

Thomas of HDFC Life says, “Heartbleed proved an important point that the traditional, static, cyber-security paradigm no longer works; signaturebased defences and trying to build bigger

firewalls are strategies of the past. With so many potential vulnerabilities, companies cannot simply try to keep all the hackers out. Organisations must quickly detect hackers or a threat and neutralise their capabilities, also there is a need to have networks and systems that are resilient in the face of a cyber-attack.”

“To be resilient, companies must be aware of how their systems are vulnerable and be aware of how the systems, their partners, sub-contractors, and clients use, are vulnerable. A fully integrated cyber-intelligence capability enables this kind of resiliency. Also, instead of waiting for hackers to show up on the network, reputation management and intelligence team should actively monitor known threats and seek out and proactively neutralise threats before they can attack the network,” he adds.

The heartbleed vulnerability will continue to be a problem for some time, as many organisations are still not fully prepared to tackle the threat.

Tackling social media In many enterprises, the usage of social media has served as an entry point for cyber attacks. “BYOD is rooted in the fact that the mobility of these devices introduces security management issues around access control, data protection and compliance. Additionally, employeeowned devices used for work introduces added IT complexity as it isn’t always clear who owns the device, and furthermore, who owns what data on the device. With the introduction of these new, unsecured and possibly noncompliant devices easily coming inside the walls and leaving with business sensitive information, a security and compliance hole is forcing a re-think of how to best secure the organisation and its business data,” says Jagdish Mahapatra, MD India & SAARC McAfee.

“The rise of BYOD is often perceived as bad news for the IT department but smart CIOs and CISOs see it as an opportunity, not a threat. However, the rapid adoption of these trends and the current business environment puts the onus on the CISOs to use new ideas for safeguarding the organisation’s critical data and giving employees freedom to work the way they NOVEMBER, 2014

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want - while achieving this end they must also reduce IT complexity,” says Pravin Srinivasan, Lead, Security Sales, Cisco India & SAARC. Dhananjay Rokde, Global Head – Information Security, Cox and Kings Group, says, “One must remember that there is no silver bullet for addressing concerns / issues. Although, there are a lot of products that advertise themselves as ‘complete protect and data privacy solutions’; they can only address a few point-problems. Addressing privacy issues needs attention from the management and process levels. These issues are typically addressed by extensive training, management sensitisation and rigorous governance.”

Since there is no plug and play solution for privacy issues – data classification, customer information tagging / flagging and role-based segregation of information are the core steps towards ensuring a successful privacy program. CISOs need to clearly understand and distinguish between data protection and data privacy, and they must run independent programs for addressing each of these issues.

“While spear-phishing attacks have traditionally only targeted emails, we saw last year that a growing number of attackers are using rather aggressive offline tactics. In addition to sending emails, attackers use assertive follow up phone calls to the target for convincing him/her to open the email,” explains Kaura of Symantec.

Best practices An organisation’s security standards are dependent on the hardware and the software that has been deployed and also the policies that govern the security related issues. The threats are constantly evolving, which makes it impossible to predict the kind of security scenario that the enterprise will face in future.

“The best way for enterprises to deal with threats is to ensure that they put in place the following - infrastructure that is flexible enough to withstand the widest possible range of attacks, monitoring systems that can detect any attack, and then back it up with policies that will help react to the severity of the attack in the most effective manner. Policies that tackle EXPRESS COMPUTER

access restrictions - both physical and network based are the most critical components of this mix,” says Shridhar Luthria - General Manager & Business Head, ResellerClub, Directi.

While we discuss the right mix for a security policy and the approach for securing an enterprise's networks, there is an even more daunting task of deciding what percentage of the net IT budget should go procurement or development of security solutions. The budget varies from company to company, and is often linked to the size of the organisation and the kind of work that it is doing. According to Gartner, the information security budgets should be around 8-10% of IT budgets. Companies located in Asian countries face more risks as their IT budgets are often inadequate.

According to Thomas of HDFC Life, “Organisations are investing more in information security. BFSI and small businesses with a turnover of less than $10 million or businesses located in rapidgrowth markets report the highest increases as a percentage of their budgets. Although budgets are on the rise, information security functions continue to feel that budget constraints are their biggest obstacle to delivering value to the business. CIO’s/CISO’s need to do a better job of articulating and demonstrating the value of investments in security.”

Ajay Srivastava, Head – IT, Spice Retail (Handset Business) on the other hand says that about 2-4% of the total IT budget is spent on security. “IT threats are becoming more sophisticated all over the world and organisations are demanding new, robust, affordable and upgraded security solutions in order to protect their confidential data.

Organisations are spending generously on it, of an average IT spend of 10-12%, 2-4% goes towards security.”

“Today most companies implement security controls for preventative purposes. Most of the companies spend approximately 70% of their security budgets on preventative measures, with monitoring (detective) and remediation (response) forming the remaining 30%,” adds Srivastava.

Often the biggest threat for any organisation is internal - from its employees,who actually have the control of the information on which the business runs.

Suneel Aradhye, RPG

BYOD is rooted in the fact that the mobility of these devices introduces security management issues.

Jagdish Mahapatra,

Pupul.Dutta@expressindia.com

MD India & SAARC McAfee NOVEMBER, 2014

29

FEATURE

MOBILE APPS

Âť

MOBILE APPS THE NEWSECURITY FRONTIER FOR CIOs

With the trend of BYOD taking root in the corporate environment, cyber criminals are seeing mobile apps as a way of gaining access to critical information. The CIO community is generally supportive of BYOD, but they advise a cautious approach in view of the security risks that are inherent in the mobile apps ecosystem

BY PANKAJ MARU

30

EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2014

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O

ver 75 percent of mobile applications will fail basic security tests by 2015, reveals a new study done by Gartner. Even if the app is from a reputable company, and it has been downloaded from the original app store, or directly from the employer, a lot can go wrong.

The Gartner study proves that the mobile infrastructure is complicated, connected and convenient target for cyber criminals.

For most enterprises it may not be possible to place a blanket ban on the usage of mobile apps by their employees, as the apps can bring efficiency and cut costs.

When they design the overall cyber security framework for their enterprise, the CIOs have to keep in mind the issue of the potential security problems that the mobile apps can lead to.

Customised apps for the enterprise Most apps are designed for consumers, but apps like Skype, Yammer, Triplt, WorkFlowy, Evernote and DropBox are popular with both the end users and the enterprises. Then there are the apps that allow certain level of customisation to suit the enterprise environment.

Srinivas Anappindi, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer - CSS Corp, says “Apps like GHRMS (Global Human Resource Management System), GEMS (Global Expense Management System), Safe Travel, Time Sheet Management, are used internally. These apps are important as they are used by our staffs at various stages of their tenure at CSS Corp, and are helpful in processing functions like HR, admin, finance, travels and expense claims, hiring, salary payout, etc., in a faster, paperless and automated way from central location.”

Parag Deodhar, Chief Risk Officer & Vice President – Program Management & Process Excellence, Bharti AXA General Insurance, expresses similar opinion. He says, “We are using an customised app (name withheld) for employees to access emails and few internal applications on their smart devices. We are in the process of creating EXPRESS COMPUTER

Apps like Safe Travel,Time Sheet Management,are used internally.

These apps are important as they are used by our staffs at various stages of their tenure at CSS Corp.

Srinivas Anappindi, Senior Vice President & Chief Information Officer - CSS Corp

NOVEMBER, 2014

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FEATURE

MOBILE APPS

We take security seriously,we have built world-class malware protection into the Google Play Store for scanning every application.

Ricky Kapur, Managing Director – Google Enterprise Asia

The broader question is the extent to which corporate applications can be made available outside the corporate firewall.

Aniruddha Paul, Chief Information Officer ING Vysya Bank 32

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few more apps for the employees. This will improve their productivity when they are on the move.”

“More importantly such apps, help service our customers and partners faster as it can improve turnaround time of various processes,” adds Deodhar. Even when the enterprise is using customised apps, the IT managers cannot afford to let down their guard. They have to define clearly which app can access what part of the corporate information. “The broader question is the extent to which corporate applications can be made available outside the corporate firewall,” says Aniruddha Paul, Chief Information Officer - ING Vysya Bank.

Choosing the right app With so many mobile apps available in the modern app stores, it is a daunting task for the CIOs to choose one that will be best suited for meeting the needs of the enterprise.

“If the app is found to be suitable, then the next task is to deploy it in a safe and secure manner through MDM (Mobile Device Management) software,” says Paul.

Deodhar of Bharti AXA agrees with Paul. “It is important for us to have a process in place to erase the confidential data in the app if the device is lost or stolen,” says Deodhar.

In Paul's view, the MDM software allows the IT department to retain control over the app in the event of loss or theft of mobile device. With MDM it is possible to remotely erase the information stored in the device.

“As a CRO (Chief Risk Officer), I need to ensure that the apps are secure and confidential data is protected at all times.

We conduct a thorough risk assessment of apps including a process review and security testing of the app and the backend infrastructure / application with which the app communicates,” says Deodhar of Bharti AXA General Insurances.

From security aspect, most CIOs and IT managers advise that access to apps and devices should have separate passwords and those devices shouldn't be jail broken or rooted in nature.

Dealing with the dangers of apps Over 90% of enterprises use third-party

mobile apps, which are commercial in nature, according to Gartner study. But it is from the third-party mobile apps that the organisations face maximum amount of security risks.

In recent years mobile applications are scrutinised through testing processes like SAST (Static Application Security Testing) and DAST (Dynamic Application Security Testing). Gartner points out that a new type of test, known as Behavioural Analysis, which facilitates the detection of malicious or risk symptoms when another app is running in the background on the device.

Also, depending on operating system (OS) or platforms, most of these thirdparty apps reach out to end users or consumers by going through applications or app stores like Google Play, Amazon Appstore, Apple's App Store and others.

Beside the technical aspect, most third-party apps developers fail to reveal their background details such as server and data centres locations, country of origin and jurisdiction, ownership and privacy policy of user data and so forth.

So there is a high possibility that any of these apps can go-off the internet or those app stores. This is where corporates and businesses face risks of data leakages, malware attacks, spams, hacking, cyber threats and others.

“This is a major risk not just from a data confidentiality and privacy perspective, but also from a regulatory compliance perspective. If third party and consumer apps are used in the enterprise, then the enterprise data is at risk,” points out Deodhar of Bharti AXA General Insurance.

Anappindi of CSS agrees to Deodhar's concern. He says, “We are aware of the risks related to mobile apps and cloud storage, but we have hosted several apps on the cloud and made them accessible through mobile devices with necessary security controls to enhance the enterprise productivity and the work-life balance of our employees.”

Ricky Kapur, Managing Director – Google Enterprise Asia, says, “We take security seriously, and Android is built from the ground up to be very secure. We have built world-class malware protection into the Google Play store and NOVEMBER, 2014

www.expresscomputeronline.com

scan every application. And if users enable it, we also scan apps that are downloaded from outside the store.”

“Less than 0.5% of Android users have installed an application with malware. We are also starting to use Play Services to deliver security updates for critical software libraries, starting with OpenSSL which is used to secure application communications including Google server communications,” adds Kapur.

In terms of user data security, Kapur emphasises that Google is focused on protecting customers’ data from all unauthorised access. Google is offering its customers the facility of security tools like free two-step verification and encrypted connections between browser and servers.

Like Google, Amazon too is strictly committed to protecting the users privacy. Parag Gupta, Country Head Amazon App Store, says, “From the time when an developer submits application to the app store to the time of its downloads, we monitor the apps from the point of view of appropriateness of content, social and political acceptance and security related issues.”

“In case any inappropriate content is noticed in the app, it will be promptly removed from the market,” says Gupta.

While the reputed app stores have strict security mechanisms to curb the distribution of suspicious, malicious or rogue apps, it is still possible for an app infected with risk elements to get through. After all, the cyber criminals only have to register with the mobile ecosystem operator to write and publish EXPRESS COMPUTER

a rogue mobile app. However, in most cases the infected apps get downloaded through unauthorised vendors.

Apart from the submission procedures, Amazon thoroughly check apps on the aspects of quality, content and creation and in case of its violation like content inappropriateness either it asks the developer or will directly removes that particular app.

While these app stores have certain practices and security mechanism to curb down any suspicious, malicious or rogue apps, it doesn't actually wipe out the risk elements linked with apps. Being a CRO, Deodhar of Bharti AXA General Insurance comments that ideally enterprise must not use consumer apps, but should use proprietary or business apps that has a contract / SLA (servicelevel agreement) and the provider should be subject to audit.

The server location must be known and comply with the regulations for data storage. Again, it is important to ensure encryption of any data stored in the cloud and also for data in motion. Data destruction process for such data stored with third-party must be agreed in case the company decides to terminate the contract, suggests Deodhar.

While most CIOs and IT heads agree to risks linked with mobile apps, but the fact is that BYOD, work from anywhere or mobile workforce concepts are here to stay and at the same will continue to pose unwarranted threats to enterprise security.

Pankaj.Maru@expressindia.com

We monitor the apps from the point of view of appropriateness of content,social and political acceptance and security related issues.

Parag Gupta, Country Head - Amazon App Store

We are using an customised app for employees to access emails and few internal applications on their smart devices.

Parag Deodhar, Chief Risk Officer & Vice President – Program Management & Process Excellence,Bharti AXAGeneral Insurance NOVEMBER, 2014

33

INTERVIEW K.L.DHINGRA ITI LIMITED

www.expresscomputeronline.com

K.L.Dhingra, Chairman and Managing Director, ITI Limited, spoke to Express Computer about the work that the organisation is doing for various wings of the government.

ITI - On Path of Growth What kind of ICT implementation has ITI done to ensure a smooth running of the organisation?

ITI has now transformed from a typical government office and a typewriter-based system to a modern-day office with seamless connectivity and total process integration. All our activities are IT enabled. The different units of ITI limited are connected to each other through Wide Area Network and the communication is through ITI mail server. ITI webmail can also be accessed from anywhere anytime. In addition to LAN, WAN and messaging system, we have implemented Electronic Attendance System, Financial Accounting Software and other applications software which are required for the smooth running of the organisation.

ITI is playing a key role in several eGovernance projects. Provide us with an overview of the work that you are doing in this area?

ITI is providing comprehensive solutions in IT and Telecom as a System Integrator. ITI limited has implemented several eGovernance projects for customers like Registrar General of India, Ministry of Urban Development and Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). We have also executed projects for state governments and electricity boards. We have been involved in the projects like National Population Register, Social Economic Caste Census, State Wide Area Network (SWAN) and Restructured Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme(RAPDRP). We are also providing eProcurement solutions. The ITI Data centre provides customer-centric services to several government organisations and corporate entities. ITI has set up tier 3+ Data centre at its premises in Bangalore. The services offered are Co-location Services , Hosting Services, Security Services, Application Services, Value Added Services, Managed IT Services.

What kind of products and services are you providing for the Indian defence sector?

ITI R&D has been developing equipments for Indian Defence sector for the last three 34

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Our R&D has started the development of Multi Channel Encryption Unit for different bit rates ranging from few kilobits to 10 Gbits with different interfaces like V.35 / G.703 / Optical interfaces for higher bit rates with multiple channels in a single shelf.This development will take care of requirements of various commands of Indian Army

decades. In fact, we are the pioneer in developing encryption equipments with unique algorithms meant for securing the links / networks of Indian Defence forces. ITI has got the maximum number of Cypher Policy Committee (CPC) Approvals of highest grading for these encryption equipments in India. Recently, ITI R&D has developed NGN BEU (Next Generation Network Bulk Encryption Unit) for 2 Mbps / 34 Mbps / 155 Mbps / 622 Mbps in a single shelf, Flexi BEU (Flexi Rate Bulk Encryption Unit), 10 / 100 Mbps Ethernet Encryptor and Terminal End Secrecy Device (TESD) for securing Analog Voice / IP Voice / IP Data of Defence Communication Network (DCN) and the same were tried out in the Testbed. Bangalore Plant of ITI is going to produce these 3 Encryption Equipments based on In-house R&D technology. Encryption System for Project DCN will be commissioned in 2015 to serve all the three Indian defence forces (Army, Navy & Airforce), covering all regions of India. ITI is also addressing / supplying the 10 / 100 Mbps Ethernet Encryptor requirements of various commands of Indian Army, NSG and paramilitary forces like Assam Rifles for securing their networks.

Tell us about the new products that ITI is developing for the defence sector?

Presently our R&D is developing Gigabit Ethernet Encryptors, which are required by various commands of Indian Army in large numbers. Our R&D has started the development of Multi Channel Encryption Unit for different bit rates ranging from few kilobits to 10 Gbits with different interfaces like V.35 / G.703 / Optical interfaces for higher bit rates with multiple channels in a single shelf. This development will take care of requirements of various commands of Indian Army; Encryption for ASCON Phase IV & Encryption for NFS Projects is based on the specifications finalised by Army. Apart from development in Encryption field, ITI has participated in RFI / EoI requirements of ASCON Phase IV Network & Battle Field Management System for Indian Army and is now waiting for getting shortlisted.

NOVEMBER, 2014

INTERVIEW DR U D CHOUBEY SCOPE

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Dr U D Choubey, Director General, Standing Conference of Public Enterprises (SCOPE), talks to Heena Jhingan about the role IT can play in helping PSEs improve employee efficiency. He highlights the reforms needed to revive ailing organisations. Excerpts…

“All Public Sector Enterprises have good IT system” Tell us about the work that SCOPE is doing for safeguarding the interests of the Public Sector Enterprises.

SCOPE is an apex body under the societies act.

This gives us an independent status for interfacing with government for policy advocacy, in the form of reforms, which are in the larger interest of Public Sector. The organisation also interacts with several other agencies, particularly to take care of the interest of Public Sector enterprises. SCOPE is part of global organisations like ILO, and is in touch with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Union and few other governments. From time to time, we have been organising programmes that are in the interest of the sector. In a nutshell, SCOPE pursues reforms and we are here to help the PSU sector grow.

IT is one of the key factors for an enterprise’s growth, especially in the current context where the government has a dream for Digital India.

What kind of contribution can SCOPE make in promoting IT in PSEs? All Public Sector Enterprises have good IT system. Today all the PSEs are using some form of computer-aided communication system.

There is a limitation to the role that SCOPE can play in promotion of IT. It is up to the individual body to implement the change. We cannot mandate IT adoption, but we hold programmes where PSUs participate. This has worked very well for the PSUs. From time to time, we also expose our members to experiences from other countries.

In your opinion what is the key area where IT can be beneficial for PSEs? IT can play a key role is documentation of ownership policy. In public sector environment, communication usually happens downwards from the board level, and also from board levels to upwards. In a government system, the administrative ministry plays the role of the owner and they have different ways of communicating from either side. There are various accountability checks. However, there is EXPRESS COMPUTER

no well documented ownership policy. The owner is required to have a ownership policy, defining role of the owner and the board and what support it will provide to the unit. This policy document should be in hands of all stakeholders. This is the reform we are currently pursuing.

What are the areas where the government needs to work on?

The government needs to work on is the consolidation of sovereign holding.

In case of a PSEs, the government share is about 51% in government,but the disinvestment exercise in PSUs is leading to some concerns.Post recession,there has been a trend of consolidation of sovereign holding in PSUs.In India,we are diluting it,by disinvesting to meet the fiscal deficit.So,there is a need for rethinking on the disinvestment policy and find out if there is any other way of reviving the PSEs.

What do you think can be the impact of Modi government’s mantra of ‘Minimum Government and Maximum Governance’on the performance of PSEs? This is a great slogan that we have heard from the Prime Minister. In the the present system of the PSUs there is a functional board, which is selected by the organisation (I don’t want to cast any aspersion on the selection of this board).

There are some independent directors, and some are appointed by the government.

However, there is a communication gap between the Independent Directors and general employees of the company. Similarly, the government nominated Directors are occupying positions of privilege in the ministry. They have two basic agendas to pursue - social and political.

There should be a synergy between all the members of the board so that the best outcomes can be achieved by the PSE. BSNL and MTNL have been making losses for many years. No headway has been made on recovery plans that have been proposed over the years.Why? MTNL and BSNL are the same organisations that had once clocked profits as a high as Rs 26,000 cr, and now they are financially stressed.

When digitalisation came they could not change.

These organisations did not get the permission for implementing new technologies in time. But the government has made efforts to revive lossmaking units, as a result of which the number of sick enterprises has come down from 70-75 to about 65. There are some chronically sick companies that government has decided to close. The rest are on the verge of getting back to making operational profits. heena.jhingan@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

35

INTERVIEW VIMAL WAKHLU TCIL

TECHNOLOGY FOR INCLUSIVE DEVELOPMENT A company with 36 years of expertise in engineering and consultancy, Telecommunications India Ltd (TCIL) is a key provider of telecommunications and IT services for government projects. In a conversation with Heena Jhingan, Vimal Wakhlu, Chairman and Managing Director, TCIL, shares his views on the contribution that TCIL can make in realising the vision of Digital India.

Provide us with an overview of the key projects that TCIL is engaged in?

One of the major projects that we are currently involved in is the defence project NFS (Network for Spectrum). We have been awarded package C, which involves the states of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. The project has a budget of close to Rs 2,000 Cr, spread over next ten years. Another project that we are handling is for Department of Post. This project is worth Rs 1,361 Cr and it involves provisioning of hand-held devices for the postmen in rural and remote areas to completely digitise the operations. Our role in the project is to provide devices, maintain them and ensure smooth operations. The telecom network services shall be leased from the exiting service providers.

We are also working on several global projects, including the Pan-Africa eNetwork. We rolled out the network in 48 countries of African continent in a record time of less than 18 months. For the past five years we had been involved in managing the operations of the project.

More than 15,000 students from about 40 countries of Africa have benefited from various programmes, which come under this project. In Kuwait, we recently bagged new projects worth Rs 200 Cr. In Saudi Arabia, we have undertaken a large FTTH (Fibre To The Home) project. In the last fiscal our turnover from there was about Rs 175 Cr. In Mauritius, we are doing a FTTH project worth about Rs 20 Cr. 36

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The government has started the Digital India initiative.What kind of role can TCIL play here?

TCIL can make valuable contributions to the Digital India project. We are the first company to enter the eGovernance domain. We have provided consultancy for SWAN (State Wide Area Network) to a number of states. Starting point of Digital India has to be an effective ICT infrastructure. In fact, the idea behind the National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is that once all the villages are connected on the network, all other services including eGovernance, entertainment, information, health, education, etc., will ride on it. TCIL formulated the basic concept of this project implementation for the Government of India. The Prime Minister has declared it to be one of his top priority projects. We have built the East-West optical highway for Nepal to connect remote areas of the country by optical fibre. Also, we are the ones to have laid the first GSM based mobile network in Bhutan. We were the first to start FTTH (Fibre To The Home) networks in the Middle East. We have done a consultancy for Automated Gate Control for the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Project in Gujarat.

Starting point of Digital India has to be an effective ICT infrastructure.

TCIL has been an active player in the area of education and healthcare.What is your view of these sectors in India?

There are a lot of challenges in education and healthcare. Of about 1.25 billion NOVEMBER, 2014

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people in the country, nearly 70% are living in the villages, so there aren’t enough doctors, teachers or schools for all the 6.5 lakh villages. Even if the government constructs schools, there aren’t enough skilled teachers to meet the requirement.

But if there is a network to connect all the villages the classes can happen remotely. In a regular class the lecture is done once, but in case of virtual recorded classes, lessons can be repeated over and over again.

In urban India there are challenges in higher education. Some universities have a cutoff at 100%. Bright students, for no fault of theirs, fail to get admission for want of sufficient educational infrastructure available with the universities. We have executed some projects to mitigate this challenge. For instance, there is our project at University of Madras, in which we have helped them multiply their infrastructure at the Marina Beach campus ten fold by establishing virtual classrooms in ten locations in Chennai. It is a win-win for both students and teachers. I believe there is no reason why this model cannot be replicated in other universities in the country.

Similar challenges exist in health segment as well. We have gained a good experience by virtue of our e-health networks - Pan Africa, SAARC, etc. Model for rural India has been evolved. Some pilots are already being conducted in states like Odisha in the rural areas, wherein a village local acts as a paramedic, after undergoing some training. He has a basic medical kit and laptop, and can be contacted on a toll free by the sick person. He visits the patient and establishes a contact with the central call centre in the State medical hospital, which is manned by doctors round the clock. The doctor can guide the paramedic in conducting tests on the patient and can see the results for himself, and even take in a specialist online if needed, as the equipments are all DICOM compatible. This programme is run in a PPP Model- Private enterprise invests in the basic medical kit, salary of the paramedic, and gets paid on a regular basis to ensure a decent return on his investment, by the Government, in accordance with an SLA agreement.

Government pays for the call centre and the doctors. with this arrangement it is possible to cater to a large number of villages from a single location. Thus the challenge of lack of doctors and dispensaries in rural India can be mitigated.

What is the idea behind selling the stakes in Bharti Hexagon? Have you received approvals from DoT? We proposed this disinvestment with the idea of pumping money back into the business. TCIL needs a lot of funds for capex, as the government EXPRESS COMPUTER

India has moved away from the traditional telecom approach. Now we are inching towards the new trends like M2M and Internet of Things. Please throw some light on company’s initiatives in these areas?

If you look at examples of some of the projects that I talked about, for example, the Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam, there has to be use of machine to machine communications, for the Automated Gate Control.

Similarly, the Ganga Cleaning Project that I mentioned also involves M2M and IoT.Going forward, these technologies are set to proliferate.

There will be more machines and IP addresses, than humans and thus there will be more M2M communication.

We already are members of various groups that are working on the standards, and technologies in this area.

projects are increasingly in BOOT (build, own, operate, transfer) model. You don’t get paid for the work upfront, you need to invest and then you get paid in instalments. For that kind of work you need investment, which in some cases might come from the government, but the government would not like to invest in TCIL. So far, the government has invested a total of about Rs 30 lakh in the company, and got a dividend Rs 178 Cr. over the years. We have to fund our projects ourselves. It however, has its own challenges.

The processes of disinvestment in BHL is on, and we are not sure when that would materialise, as in the past the efforts in this direction did not finally materialise due to the environmental factors. At one point of time there were rumours in the market that TCIL was selling it cheap!

Hence the process came to a naught.

Which is better for mobile broadband - Wimax or LTE? This has been a subject of debate for quite some time.What is your take on this? Which system should be used for rural connectivity?

The fundamental requirement for connectivity to the rural India is the backhaul- from Taluka level to the village level, and for that you need the Optical Fibre Network. Only this can provide you with decent amount of Bandwidth. This task is being accomplished through NOFN ( National Optical Fibre Network) project. For access within the village, there has to be a wireless network to reach each villager. Coming to the wireless access network, my take is that LTE Advanced is going to be the future. The reason being that the LTE base stations are very small, with input power of just about 25 Watts. The output RF power is about 2 Watt or so, and with this it can offer a connectivity range of about 500 m radius. To provide connectivity in villages, this base station can simply be mounted on rooftops on poles, and there would be no need to install towers. In fact solar panels can be used to power those base stations. The only challenges still in the ecosystem is the cost of the end terminal devices, and voice over LTE. Since India has the potential of having a billion connections, I am confident that no company will like to miss this opportunity. VoLTE (Voice over LTE) can be deployed in villages for predominantly voice market. Currently, we can notice trend of sharp fall in the prices of smart phones, and even the data usage charges have come down drastically. There is no reason why LTE devices should not become affordable.

After all, telecom is a game of numbers, and the numbers are in our favour! heena.jhingan@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

37

CASE STUDY

MOTHER DAIRY

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RAMCO PUTS FLAVOUR OF IT

IN MOTHER DAIRY’S ICE-CREAM

When Mother Dairy was finding it difficult to coordinate the operations of all its sub-contractors who are involved in manufacture of ice-cream, it turned to Ramco for IT solutions that could streamline the system

BY PUPUL DUTTA

S

et up in 1974 under the programme called Operation Flood, Mother Dairy is one of India’s most famous milk brands. With a wide variety of products in its kitty, the company today enjoys a significant market share in the areas of its operations.

Mother Dairy has traditionally subcontracted the production of its ice-creams.

But as the sub-contractors were using disparate systems, it led to a situation where Mother Dairy was having very little control over the processes that the subcontractors used. The milk major found it increasingly difficult to manage and track operations of these subcontractors.

To safeguard the reputation of the brand, it was important that the ice-cream, which is mostly manufactured by sub-contractors, was carefully procured and distributed with strict quality control. The Mother Dairy management soon realised that this job could not be done without IT. But an IT setup with disparate systems can be equally nightmarish, as Mother Dairy soon found out.

It was then that the company turned to Ramco for implementing an integrated system for connecting Mother Dairy’s ecosystem of sub-contractors with an end-toend ERP for seamless flow of information.

The problem Mother Dairy, a diversified food and beverage business group with multi-company setup, having manufacturing plants across regions, wanted to connect its sub-contractor 38

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network. “Before the company adopted Ramco ERP on cloud, it faced issues with managing their in-ward quality, in-process quality, multi-company production, standard versus actual cost, MRP for advance rolling plan, dairy specific utility, etc. Secondly, Mother Dairy also wanted an application that could integrate with their existing parent application, SAP,” says Annie Mathew, CIO, Mother Dairy Fruit & Vegetable.

Also, the company found it increasingly difficult to track and manage raw materials lying with the subcontractors, finished goods inventory at the subcontractor's end, expected date of delivery of finished goods, nonstandard production processes, and subcontractor database and billing.

The sub-contractors too were having a tough time in tracking and managing raw materials, and the customer outstanding, etc. Since there were independent systems being used by all the sub-contractors, they often could not sync their own systems with that of Mother Dairy. This led to lot of challenges. ’ “Therefore, in order to overcome the challenges faced by the company and the sub-contractors, Mother Dairy wanted to implement an ERP solution to standardise and track the masters and production activities of different sub-contractors. The company also wanted to monitor the purchases by sub-contractors in order to maintain the quality,” adds Mathew.

The answer To deal with the ongoing crisis, Mother Dairy selected Ramco to implement its ERP solution.

Ramco helped Mother Dairy improve the efficiency of its multi-company setup by the implementation of enhanced quality inspection and traceability, MRP, and few other solutions.

“The initial implementation includes 10+ subcontractors. During the five-year contract, it is expected to scale up and cover all 30+ subcontractors,” says Ramesh Babu K M, Chief EXPRESS COMPUTER

Delivery Officer & Business Head – ERP on Cloud, Ramco Systems.

The solution that Ramco offered to Mother Dairy had detailed quality module spanning Inward as well as In-process. Then there was a multicompany setup, with each vendor being regarded as a separate company. Also, a separate production process in each company was set up.

Ramco also helped Mother Dairy by implementing Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) and a homogeneous Bill of Materials (BOM) across all the vendors.

SAP was brought in for better control.

“One interesting aspect of the implementation is its neat coexistence with the existing SAP module. Ramco’s system generates an Advance Shipping Note (ASN) at the time of invoicing, which creates an Inbound Delivery Note (IDN) in the SAP module, thereby reducing manual intervention in Finished Batch entry,” notes Babu.

According to Mathew, the phase one of the implementation process was completed in 90 days.

“The implementation was carried under the supervision and the guidance of the in-house staff and Ramco’s consultants,” she says.

On the subject of issues faced during the implementation of the process, Mathew says, “The greatest challenge faced during the implementation was the acceptance of the change. We overcame this by involving vendor’s shop floor staff and other appropriate authorities, to ensure there were no challenges of acceptance.”

Babu on the other hand while explaining the various challenges that they faced during implementation says, “The biggest roadblock for us was to prove the ability of the solution and its functionalities as the scope of customisation was minimal. Secondly, educating the Mother Dairy vendors about the features and benefits of the offering was again quite a task. Lastly, Mother Dairy is the first user of our new module – Time Quality. Hence, the testing and implementation of a new module as a part of the offering was challenging.”

Moving on

Ramco also helped Mother Dairy by implementing Manufacturing Resource Planning (MRP) and a homogeneous Bill of Materials (BOM) across all the vendors.

Ramco managed to implement most of the solutions during the winter season when the demand for ice creams is much lower. With the timely execution of the project, Mother Dairy was in position to offer the best ice-cream during the next summer season.

Some of the benefits that the dairy major immediately noticed was reduction in manual interventions.

Greater transparency and accountability was achieved in the processes by which the company interacts with its subcontractors. Mother Dairy now has complete visibility of the work that the subcontractors are doing. Better monitoring and control using dashboards/ MIS reports has been achieved. Also, now the company is in a position to maintain online financial reports in excel, and it has full control over manufacturing costs. pupul.dutta@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

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INTERVIEW ERIC HENNESSEY SYMANTEC CORPORATION

www.expresscomputeronline.com

Data centre infrastructure is increasingly being used by organisations to bring a certain degree of agility in their operations. Eric Hennessey, Business Continuity Solutions Evangelist, Symantec Corporation, shares his perspective on current and future trends in this interview to Jasmine Desai.

“The biggest challenge in business continuity is to replicate the data�

In your view,what are the main challenges in business continuity that organisations are facing?

The biggest challenge in business continuity is to replicate the data. For some IT shops, replicating the data from primary workload site to the recovery site seems to be the biggest cost factor.

For large enterprises, which operate multiple data centres, their DR piece is fairly easy to them. For example, if an organisation has data centres in both Mumbai and Delhi, then the workload in Mumbai can fail-over to Delhi and vice-versa. For a smaller organisation, it would be utilising third party services fail-over to the cloud. One of the technologies we are collaborating with Microsoft is on DR-as-aservice, where Microsoft Windows customers can easily fail-over to Microsoft Azure cloud services. How CIOs optimise the cost of the business continuity plan is going to be driven largely by how much real-estate they own.

application components.

There are a lot of standards in BCP.How can organisations decide which is the best one for them?

It depends on the nature of the business. If it is a financial services company, it will fall under the financial regulation. Regardless of what standards an organisation is going to use, it must meet the requirements of the federal regulations.

From there they can choose a standard according to their specific business need or unique to their applications. But regulatory requirements will always trump any industry standard that exists.

What are the ways in which BCP is affecting the way data centres are architected?

In data centres prior to virtualisation, every application was on different servers and prioritised applications were protected by some sort of clustering solution. But now, data centres are architected around continuous availability.

These days every company is an IT company. The emphasis is on fail-overing applications if a system fails, or if the load changes then moving them around, or in a more dynamic environment one can move CPU or memory to that application.

Designing for availability right at the beginning is becoming very critical for organisations.

There is lack of clarity when it comes to DR-as-aservice on how secure is the data in such a set-up, and ultimately whose job is it to ensure safety of the data.Your comments?

A lot of it depends on the nature of the contract with the hosting provider, but ultimately it is the owner of the data who maintains the responsibility.

From the legal perspective, the provider has to be careful in case any data is leaked from the hosting site to the public. For example, a retailer who has a bunch of customer records that are located in a cloud service, in case of a data leak, will definitely point out the cloud provider.

How can organisations leverage social media as part of their crisis communications plan?

Crisis communication is not a part of IT disaster recovery planning. However, a lot of infrastructure that crisis communication depends upon, falls under DR. It is very critical where the infrastructure will be hosted. If the main focus of the crisis communication is outage communication and notifying people of IT system outage, then that should not be hosted in internal IT systems. It is very critical to understand interdependency between different 40

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It is important not to subject both primary and secondary site to the same problem, and keep in mind that both these sites should not be affected by the most likely disaster

What is one thing that I/O professionals need to remember while preparing DR from a natural disaster perspective?

It does not matter if the outage is caused by an earthquake or a flood. An outage is an outage, and data centres have to be designed to protect against those. Organisations do not know what they have to protect against all the time. It is important not to subject both primary and secondary site to the same problem, and keep in mind that both these sites should not be affected by the most likely disaster. For example, a company in New York when hit by Hurricane Sandy, fail-overed its applications to its recovery site in New Jersey, and New Jersey was hit by it after 45 minutes. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

INTERVIEW MANDAR MARULKAR KPIT

www.expresscomputeronline.com

Mandar Marulkar, Vice President-IT and CISO, KPIT, spoke to Heena Jhingan on the relevance of Software Asset Management (SAM) certification in current scenario. He also shed light on what it takes to be Verafirm certified.

“Policy, process and people are must to support SAM initiatives” Why did KPITchoose to get Verafirm certification?

Verafirm certification is the only certification to demonstrate the maturity of an enterprise in the Software Asset Management (SAM) area. There are several other certifications in information security, business continuity and quality. But when it comes to Software Asset Management space, we have a standard called ISO 19770, which provides the guidelines on how to equalise processes and technologies in the enterprises in order to support the SAM initiative.

To prepare for SAM, there are many inputs required - the enterprise must have the right organisation structure related to SAM. It must have the skill-set and and understanding about different licensing models. It must have the tools to help figure out what is the installed base on a machine and how it is getting used. It must have visibility of processes right from procurement to retirement. Once you have all these in place, the Verafirm certification is easy to attain. For us, getting a Verafirm certification was a proactive effort. This is a kind of self declaration that the enterprise is compliant, and now we don’t need to spend energy in demonstrating our compliance to the third party auditors.

When it comes to compliance certification, how does India fare?

Most organisations want to have such certifications because it is in their interest to be 100% compliant. No organisation wants to be in a situation where it is intentionally non-compliant.

However, to achieve complete compliance, the level of effort and thought leadership that is required in the organisation is not something that can be developed overnight. This is because most software publishers during the last few years have got aggressive with conducting compliance audits and a large number of companies are getting penalised. The good thing is that now we are having lot of awareness across the industry on issues of licence compliance.

Does Verafirm certification have financial benefits as well?

Verafirm certification has huge financial implication, as SAM is not just about compliance.

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This certification is actually a mark of an organisation’s maturity in Software Asset Management. When enterprises are talking of the entire life-cycle of their assets there are some milestones that are important to achieve. The enterprises need to have the policies and processes to find out what they have procured and if the quality and time of procurement is in line with the licensing structure. For instance, an enterprise might need the software for six months, but ends up buying the perpetual licences, or if they need something six months after, they might buy the software in advance. So, enterprises need the right mix of all the three things - right licensing model, quantity and time.

Also, monitoring the utilisation of the IT that has been deployed is critical. This can help an enterprise in refraining from renewing an AMC that is not being used. Such visibility helps avoiding the opex in software assurance. There are assets that the company has already invested into, but the resources are not aware of. The enterprises can get visibility in that too.

Verafirm certification has huge financial implication, as SAM is not just about compliance.

This certification is actually a mark of an organisation’s maturity in Software Asset Management.

Tell us about the challenges that you faced in getting the certification?

Audit is not a tedious process, what is really required is the basic hygiene in the organisation.

The organisation must ensure that they have policy, process and people in place to support the SAM initiative. Once these three things are there certification is not a complicated. However, reaching this level of maturity requires commitment, discipline, pro-activity and support.

In your opinion what kind of skills are required for effective SAM? There are no formal training programmes from almost all software publishers. They talk about licensing only to the enterprises that are discussing procurements and they need to understand the’ requirements. They are not bothered about the optimisation and utilisation of the software. But software optimisation is not rocket science, it only requires the conscious effort by the IT teams. heena.jhingan@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

41

CASE STUDY

NILGAI FOODS

»

Adelicious bite of

Cloud Being on Amazon Web Services has enabled Nilgai Foods to garner multi-layered returns in terms of savings, performance and much else.

BY JASMINE DESAI

“T

he FnB (Food and Beverage) industry is a major user of modern technological systems,” says Vaibhav Singhal, CTO, Nilgai Foods. “At Nilgai Foods we keep in mind that this is a

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technology driven business.” Cloud is at the centre of the operations being conducted at Nilgai Foods. The company operates over 10 cafes in Mumbai and they also have shelf products like jams, which sell through retail outlets and e-commerce

websites. Running operations for last two years, Nilgai has already implemented an ERP system (SAP). Now the need was felt for an efficient cloud system.

It was clear to the team at Nilgai that cloud technology was not their area of NOVEMBER, 2014

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expertise. Lot of time and special skills are required for deploying and managing cloud. So the unanimous decision was taken to be on a cloud managed service platform.

“The ultimate decision was driven by the desire to reduce capex and save the trouble of hiring manpower to manage in-house IT,” explains Singhal. “The cost of getting the work done by data centre provider within the country was much cheaper, as compared to having our own cloud setup. Amazon services are very cheap as per our analysis.” They found that the cost of some local data centre service providers would have proved to be very low, but in the long run it could have proved costlier as the upgrades, management of infrastructure and manpower would have necessitated further expenses.

Apart from Amazon, Nilgai considered few other providers. “We ran a POC to see that the connectivity was secure enough, and data recovery and disaster management was doable. By the analysis that we made, we realised that it was a nobrainer that we had to go in for Amazon.”

Being on cloud is so easy!

When Nilgai decided to go in for Amazon cloud services they did so with full conviction and they did not bring with them any baggage or inhibition. In the beginning Nilgai was hosted on Amazon’s establishment in US. During those days the Amazon’s Singapore infrastructure was yet to come up.

“Latency has never been an issue for us,” asserts Singhal. “From BFSI perspective where they have to comply with lots of RBI regulations it is a different scenario, but for us it worked perfectly well. I think even the security issue in cloud is really exaggerated. They have concerns of the safety and integrity of the cloud systems, but to my mind this is due to their lack of understanding.”

Nilgai is utilising Amazon EC2, S3, CloudFront, Route53, VPC, SES, IAM to run their SAP servers (SAP AIO ECC 6.0), PoS servers. This infrastructure is powering Nilgai’s retail outlets, website and e-commerce engine. Payments for ecommerce happen via integration with EXPRESS COMPUTER

the CCAvenue payment gateway. At the time of payment, the customer is taken to the CCAvenue’s website, where the transaction takes place and once the payment cycle is completed, the customer is returned to the e-commerce website to complete the order and back onto AWS. For POS, Nilgai uses Microsoft server that uses SQL server for its database. It is integrated with AWS logical instance. There are around 25-30 users within the organisation.

The most unique aspect of Nilgai’s implementation was its decision to put SAP on cloud right from the beginning.

Nilgai’s investors had concerns regarding the organisation deciding to go for SAP and hosting it. The investors feared that the whole undertaking would lead to Nilgai spending crores of rupees, but through cloud adoption they made sure that they spent only fraction of it.

Mentions Singhal, “When we had implemented SAP on cloud, they did not have a proper guidelines for how to implement SAP on AWS, now they do. So this was a bit of challenge for us.”

Advantages of cloud Today Nilgai reaps the benefits of being on the cloud. One of the biggest advantages of moving to cloud is that this has led to the reduction of the cost of operations. The manpower deployment is

also minimal.

He says, “It is really easy to scale up and down in cloud. Also, with onpremise data centres all our hardware would have been out of date.

With cloud we do not have to worry about that. Right now, apart from me, there is only one other IT personnel.” He maintains that as far as business efficiency is concerned there is hardly any difference between having operations running on an on-premise data centre or on cloud. The only difference is that one cannot walk into a data centre and plug into a machine.

According to him, organisations that are already considering cloud option right from the start should have their expectations right. One of the unmistakable benefits that they will get is very little capital expenditure.

The best thing is that Nilgai can hive off specific server maintenance jobs to the respective application vendors by using AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM), which restricts access to each vendor to the sections of cloud that are relevant to their application only. This has resulted in Nilgai being able to get a turnkey maintenance and deployment service from application vendors while keeping their data within the organisation. “I doubt we could have done this easily with an on-premise or a traditional data centre,” says Singhal.

Presently, Nilgai Foods has chain of cafes around Mumbai. In another two years the number of these cafes is expected to increase to hundred. To take care of the needs of their expanding business, they are now planning to deploy analytics. They have a single kitchen from where delivery is done to cafes few times a day. It is very important for the organisation to analyse what kind of demand they will be expecting not only through the week or month, but through the day. In order to have the ability for processing such information, they need systems for analysing data that they gather through their stores.

“With the analytics tools that Amazon has we will be able to process information,” says Singhal. jasmine.desai@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

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EVENT AMD

Raja Koduri, Corporate Vice President - Visual Computing,AMD, TV celebrity Mandira Bedi, and Richard Huddy, Chief Gaming Scientist - AMD, unveiling the new range of FirePro graphics card - W8100 and W9100, during the AMD Technology Showcase 2014 in Goa.

AMD BANKS ON FIREPRO CHIPS TO EXPAND PRESENCE IN INDIA B AMD launched its new graphics card series FirePro W8100 and W9100 along with Radeon R9 285 in India, during the first AMD Technology Showcase 2014 hosted in Goa.

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uoyed by the rapid growth of the IT and electronics sectors in India, the global chip maker AMD hosted the first AMD Technology Showcase from 24th to 26th September, 2014, in Goa. During the event, AMD unveiled new range of its flagship FirePro and Radeon graphics cards for the Indian market. The FirePro W9100 and W8100 and the Radeon R9 285 graphics cards are built on company’s Graphics Core Next (GCN) architecture. They are designed to deliver superior performance for

workstations, professionals as well as personal computing. With this product the company is eyeing the growing opportunities in M&E (Media & Entertainment), gaming and education verticals.

According to Raja Koduri, Corporate Vice President – AMD Visual Computing, these new graphics cards have been designed and built keeping in mind the technology factors like bandwidth, memory size and compute. “Today everyone is a content creator,” said Koduri. “People are capturing videos on devices, editing NOVEMBER, 2014

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and uploading it on YouTube and this is just the start.”

AMD is looking to work directly with large animation and visual effects studios, providing them rendering and graphics technology in a cost effective manner.

In fact, AMD already has been working with film directors and studios from South India on some mega film and animation projects. The company has collaborated with Hyderabad based film maker SS Raja Mouli for various visual projects including Magadheera (2009), Eega (2012) and other upcoming films Baahubali and Mahaabali – which are claimed as the largest visual effect movies ever made in India.

More so, it has close ties with Hyderabad based VFX studio Makuta over past few years. Makuta, which has played key role in visual effects for film Eega, has appointed Koduri as its Chief Technical Advisor. After this successful

Raja Koduri - Corporate Vice President - Visual Computing,AMD

partnership, AMD is now looking at other studios both in Bollywood and Hollywood.

AMD is keeping a close eye on the evolving concept of cloud gaming. “Cloud

gaming allows gamers to access high computing power and superior gaming experience. If there is enough bandwidth available ,then there will be lesser latency in the gaming experience,” said Richard Huddy, Chief Gaming Scientist – AMD. “In next few years there will be better solutions in the market to deal with latency and cloud gaming,” added Huddy.

Though the game development scene in India is nascent, it poses as an exciting opportunity for AMD. MAAC (Maya Academy of Advanced Cinematics), a division of Aptech Computer Education, is among the largest customer for AMD in the education space. “When the graphics card is good in the machine the output and productivity happens faster and better. So our experience with AMD by far has been pretty satisfactory, very good,” said Ram Warrier, Business Head – MAAC. pankaj.maru@expressindia.com

(L-R) - Raja Koduri, Corporate Vice President - Visual Computing,AMD, TV celebrity, Mandira Bedi, and Richard Huddy, Chief Gaming Scientist - AMD, launching the new AMD Radeon R9 285 graphics card, during the AMD Technology Showcase 2014 in Goa. EXPRESS COMPUTER

NOVEMBER, 2014

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INTERVIEW RAJA KODURI AMD VISUAL COMPUTING

www.expresscomputeronline.com

On the sidelines of the AMD Technology Showcase 2014, Raja Koduri, Corporate Vice President – AMD Visual Computing, spoke to Pankaj Maru about company’s new product line for Indian market, and shared shared insight on how AMD is looking at the enterprise segment for growth. Excerpts...

“Enterprise is a big growth opportunity for AMD” What are the key challenges that AMD faces in the modern business environment?

The big challenge we, and rest of the industry, face is related to the fact that the consumer demand for mobiles is very high. Everybody wants to carry a more powerful device, one that can offer rich visual experiences. To develop a technology that fits within the small form factor, we have to evolve systems that are more power efficient. That is where the challenge is. That is what we are doing. We are developing new architectures that are very power efficient. On the other hand we have things like virtual reality, which requires graphics to be even more real. Just like the world that we are looking at right now. You want the world to look that real in your computers. And that requires tremendous processing power – lots of performance, its like having a rendering farm in your hand. So both of these are driving – high energy efficiency and high rendering performance needs.

consumer side, a small percentage is on the enterprise side. However, we would like to grow our enterprise business to the same level as our consumer business. This will be a huge growth for us.

For past 30 years, AMD has been dominating the consumer segment with a range of graphic and processor products, but the company has not made any major move into the enterprise segment. What is your view of enterprise space?

Enterprise is definitely a huge growth opportunity for AMD. We have lot of opportunities to grow in this area. In fact, we are now beginning to focus on growing on enterprise segment. One of things that we are focusing on is virtualisation and even graphics virtualisation and GPU virtualisation, which is huge in the enterprise. We are the first company to have hardware architecture for virtualisation. We demonstrated that at VM World – the VMware conference - and got a lot of traction there. We have a good partnership with VMware and few others. I expect significant growth in AMD’s enterprise business over next the 12 months.

What can industry expect from AMD over the next year or so?

We have a great pipeline of enterprise products that are in the works. As of now, we are not ready to make a public announcement regarding the enterprise portfolio that we are creating, but in the next 6 to 12 months, you will get to know.

What kind of growth are you hoping to have in your enterprise business?

Currently much of our business is on the 46

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Can you throw some light on the technologies that you already have in the market?

We have lot presence in data centres, gaming PCs and we are increasing our presence in enterprise desktop PCs and notebook computers. These are the areas where we are seeing a fair amount of traction. In the area of gaming we are a force to reckon with as we are in the Xbox One and PlayStation 4, two of the bestselling gaming systems of the world.

Do you expect cloud gaming to catch up in India?

I expect cloud gaming to grow rapidly in India.

Currently many areas in India face issues related to connectivity, but with better technology things will improve.

We have lot presence in data centres, gaming PCs and we are increasing our presence in enterprise desktop PCs and notebook computers.These are the areas where we are seeing a fair amount of traction.

AMD has announced its new FirePro graphics cards for the Indian market. Where does this product-line fit in the market in terms of usage?

From my stand point, I am super excited about getting FirePro graphics cards into the hands of the content creation folks in India.

These cards will be appreciated by the studios, on both the entertainment side and also on the CAD side. There is lots of work going on in India and there is a lot of creative talent here. Being able to help them is super exciting. pankaj.maru @expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

INTERVIEW VISHAL DHUPAR MD, SOUTH ASIA, NVIDIA

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With a tablet aimed solely for gaming and contract from world-class automakers for installing chips in cars, Nvidia seems to be the flavour for all vendors.

Vishal Dhupar, Managing Director, South Asia, NVIDIA, talks to Pupul Dutta

“Gaming revenue will reach $100 billion in a couple of years” How big is the global gaming market? What are Nvidia’s plans for the gaming market in India?

The total turnover of gaming industry for 2013 was around $70 billion. In a couple of years, the revenue will reach $100 billion. Gaming is now a massive spectator sport. Nvidia has been the market leader in gaming for quite some time. In India, we see immense potential for this e-sport. We have about 75 million serious gamers here and their number is growing by the day. According to our survey, most gamers in India are not from big cities, they are from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. We work closely with our partners, to ensure the latest and the best gaming technology is brought to India, as soon as it is launched. We also conduct awareness initiatives for popularising gaming. Recently we launched the Battle Box program in which we work with a set of partners to design and build gaming PCs featuring a variety of configurations and catering to varied budget categories.

Computing Module (VCM), Nvidia is working with automakers to build applications that unlock everything from digital dashboards to next-generation safety systems, and even semi-autonomous driving.

What contribution is Nvidia making in the Open Automotive Alliance?

The Open Automotive Alliance aims to plug cars into the same mobile ecosystem that powers Android smartphone, tablet and television. Nvidia is the only technology company, so far, that is joining Audi, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai and Google as founding members of the OAA. Our aim is to help create cars that give drivers and passengers access to new and existing services in ways that don’t distract drivers. We are trying to take advantage of voice recognition technology and creating a framework for the incorporation of commonly used services into controls that drivers are already familiar with.

What is your view of Android as a gaming platform?

The Google Play Android market generated roughly $250 million in revenues in the first quarter, this represents a 2.5 times growth from a year earlier. 90% of those revenues came from games. So far Android gaming has largely been confined to casual games, we expect this to change. Mobile gaming will follow the same trend as PC gaming. We are committed to turning Android into a vibrant platform. The launch of Nvidia’s Shield tablet is part of this vision of the company to turbocharge Android gaming. The tablet’s gaming capabilities are powered by its Tegra K1 mobile processor, which taps into the same Kepler architecture that drives the most extreme gaming PCs. Nvidia is now planning to provide chips for cars.

Can you share details about the company’s plans in this area?

Nvidia Tegra mobile processors power infotainment and navigation systems in a wide variety of cars, including Audi, BMW, MINI, Tesla Motors and VW. With the Tegra K1 Visual EXPRESS COMPUTER

We have about 75 million serious gamers in India and their number is growing by the day

What are the company’s plans with respect to supercomputing?

Today we see GPUs everywhere from gaming to smart cars to smart cities to scientific research.

Scientific simulations require quadrillions of parallel computations per second and GPUs are the apt tool for offering superior technical computing capability for the same. Also, it’s worthy to note that in the last few years, the most energy-efficient systems are being built with our GPU accelerators. In fact, the top 15 systems on the latest Green500 list use GPU accelerators at their heart.

In India too, this ability of GPUs has caught the attention of scientists and engineers, and premier scientific and research centers such as Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Department of Atomic Energy, ICAR, NCRA and the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research are already using them. Over the last few years, India’s share in the top supercomputers of the world has increased, as has Nvidia’s share in the computing architecture deployed in such supercomputers. pupul.dutta@expressindia.com

NOVEMBER, 2014

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EVENT DELL

Alok Ohrie, President & Managing Director - Dell India

DELLINDIAAIMS TO BE ASOLUTION PROVIDER D Dell India has come up with a new go-to-market plan for letting the potential customers know that the company is not just a PC maker, it is now an end-to-end solutions provider.

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ell India hosted the fourth edition of Dell India IT Executive Summit 2014 in Dubai. The event happened at a time, when the global tech giant has undergone a major transformation, and is now gearing to make a seminal impact in the global IT industry.

For Dell Global, the year gone by was chock-a-block with pathbreaking transformations. After being a listed company for many years, last year it become one of the largest privately held companies in the world. The company also took the decision to go

into the market as a solution provider of impressive technological capabilities and not just a well-know PC brand.

“It is our strategy that we would like to be a leading solutions provider in the end-to-end scalable solutions space. We are doing whole lot of things - aligning our solutions, resources and investments to get there,” said Alok Ohrie, President & Managing Director – Dell India.

The transformation that Dell has undergone has been widely credited to the company’s founder and CEO, NOVEMBER, 2014

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Micheal Dell, who prefers to see Dell as "World's largest startup."

Currently India is the eighth largest market for Dell. The impact of the changes that the company has brought into its business model can lead to further growth in the business that the company does in India. Dell India has also put forward its new go-to-market strategy for the Indian market.

With the new GTM, the company has changed its route-to-market (RTM) with a strong focus on customer engagement and wider reach. Unlike the direct approach in the past, Dell India has come up with three RTMs that include Dell Led for direct sales engagement, Partner Led for business accounts with special pricing and products; and Distribution Led for consumer IT products.

The company was directly serving some 40,000 - 50,000 customers in the past 6-8 years. About 30,000 accounts are expected to get shifted from direct to channel model by the end of this year.

Large enterprises, small and midsize businesses, government organisations, Public Sector Undertaking (PSUs) and consumers are among Dell's customer base in India.

The company is now emphasising on collaborating with channel partners and distributors to take their solutions and technology products to customers in remote areas. They are planning to leverage their relationships and engagements with existing customers as well as their technology skills and knowledge.

“This new GTM will lead to improvements in coverage and reach and also ensure better engagement with partners. We will be able to get closer to customers and also be more accountable in areas where it counts,” says Ohrie. He is convinced that the three RTMs will help Dell expand its customer reach in India.

“First and foremost – customer is critical and centre point for us. Customer centricity is very important to us. Its all about culture - we need to slow things down, while we engage with customers, listen to them and build long term relationships,” said Amit Midha, President – Dell APJ & Chairman – Dell Global Emerging Markets.

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Amit Midha, President - APJ & Chairman - Dell Global Emerging Markets

Dell wants technology to be more flexible and agile to suit businesses “Our vision of world is where you have to walk with every body which is interoperable. There will be smart phones of Apple, Samsung and others – all are going to feed data into data centres and all have to work well with each other,” commented Midha on Dell's software technology vision.

Unlike in the past, where tech vendors have pushed their proprietary software and technology to lock-in customers, Dell wants technology to be more flexible and agile to suit businesses.

“In the past we had large technology companies, which had different visions –

they wanted to make sure that everything is about them -- them first, customer second. However, we say customer first, technology second. That's our business model, technology has to be flexible and agile enough to support the business,” says Midha.

According to Midha the general perception of Dell being a PC company is quite strong, but now it is important to ensure that the new line of products and solutions that Dell has developed are better understood by the market.

“The perception part I can't fix quickly. I have to take my time to get it done and that's the way the problem will get solved. However, for any body who moves into adjacent opportunities in business, there will always be gaps. So instead of saying its a hurdle, we should expect it to be a business problem,” observed Midha. pankaj.maru@expressindia.com

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Govt to launch first of its kind national portal for job search

Govt employees’ attendance surveillance system goes online AN ELECTRONIC SURVEILLANCE system to keep track of punctuality of government officials will become fully operational by the month end as part of Narendra Modi Government’s efforts to discipline employees.

Online trial run of the live biometric attendance system (BAS) have begun and attendance of over 50,000 employees from 148 departments can be viewed online. The system uses fingerprints to ensure that employees physically turn up and do not use proxies.

“BAS for central employees will be fully functional by the end of this month,” DeitY Secretary Ram Sevak Sharma informed.

Despite govt order,education depts have not set up biometric system Now,biometric attendance makes officials systematic The website, attendance.gov.in, is hooked up to computers in government offices that will 50

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identify employees through their fingerprint and unique identity number (Aadhaar).

The programme is currently being implemented in the central government offices located in the national capital and will eventually expand to all central Government employees across the country.

Wall mounted bio-metric attendance terminals have been installed in government buildings. So far, over 50,000 employees have registered on the site, he said, adding that around 10,000 more are expected to join this month.

According to the information available on the attendance web portal, as many as 148 central government organisations have registered themselves for the same.

So far, about 50,027 employees have registered on the portal, of the total 66,353 employees. Out of the registered users, 47,644 employees are Aadhaar verified.

THE LABOUR MINISTRY is set to launch the National Career Service Portal, which is on the lines of a similar service provided by the UK government.

The website is a part of the ministry’s plan to modernise employment exchanges and revamp them into Career Centres that will provide information on jobs and also facilities such as career counselling.

“The portal will be implemented in phases but the first phase is likely to be launched later this year,” said an official close to the development.

To provide accurate and relevant information to employers, the labour ministry plans to introduce reliable jobseeker data that would include personal details, address, skills and qualifications as well as past work experience.

With over 12 million youth expected to join the workforce annually, the labour ministry is hopeful that it will help fill the demand-supply gap on jobs and skilling by connecting workers and employers across the country. The project was originally sanctioned by the UPA government late last year with an allocation of Rs 150 crore but has got a boost with the NDA’s focus on job creation and skilling.

By Surabhi

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India’s Enterprise Software market to reach $4.2 bn in 2014: Gartner THE ENTERPRISE SOFTWARE market in India is projected to reach $4.2 billion in 2014, a 13 % increase over 2013 revenue of $3.7 billion, according to Gartner, Inc. The market is projected to total $4.7 billion in 2015. Compounding the demand for enterprise software is the ongoing tendency for greater customer services along with the continued drive for IT cost savings.

The incorporation of emerging technologies into solutions, such as mobility, social, cloud andBPM is also driving growth.“India enjoys the rich presence of international software and hardware vendors, backed by a very strong ecosystem of system integrators, service providers and business partners,” said Bhavish Sood, research director at Gartner.

“The combination of sustainable domestic demand, presence of global vendors, entry of new small vendors and the Nexus of Forces (as Gartner defines it as the convergence of new mobile, social,

cloud and information computing environments) are the key drivers for high sustainable growth for India.”

In 2014, India is expected to be the fourth largest enterprise software market in Asia/Pacific. By 2018, India’s share of the software market in Asia/Pacific is expected to reach $6.8 billion.

“The penetration of IT infrastructure has been growing rapidly during the past decade, fueled by the adoption of technology by a larger percentage of the domestic population, the growing maturity of users and incremental enhancements in technology, “said Sood.

IBM and SAPpartner to accelerate enterprise cloud adoption SAP AND IBM has announced that SAP has selected IBM as a premier strategic provider of cloud infrastructure services for its business-critical applications, accelerating customers’ ability to run core business in the cloud.

The SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud service is now available through IBM’s highly scalable, open and secure cloud.

According to the release issued by the companies, SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud will expand to major markets with the addition of the IBM cloud data centers.

This is expected to enable customers to deploy their SAP software around the globe in a faster and more secure environment that is backed by IBM’s 52

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proven cloud capabilities.

With this partnership, customers will benefit from the technology and services from both companies that offer industryspecific best practices, enabling

customers to transform their organisations. SAP and IBM customers of all sizes will benefit from this joint collaboration of two of the most trusted companies in the industry.

Customers can also take advantage of SAP HANA Enterprise Cloud with the global footprint of IBM Cloud. This enables customers to put data to work with SAP HANA and business applications in the IBM Cloud. Further, SAP HANA will run on IBM Cloud to provide an open-standards-based approach that will help create the foundation to more easily integrate existing technology investments with new workloads.

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Google to enable faster search on slowmobile network in India

Over 65% employees in India want a Mobile work place: Oracle THE STUDY FINDS that 68% of respondents stated they are happier working in a more mobile and flexible way.

In India, the figure is almost the same at 67%. Over half (53%) think mobile and flexible working makes them more productive, rising slightly to 55% in India.

Less than a quarter (24%) of respondents stated that their employer actively encourages mobile working. In India, this figure rises to 31%. About 21% of respondents overall and the same percentage respondents in India say their employer actively tries to limit the applications and data employees can access on their mobile phones, the study finds.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm from employers, the research also reveals that restrictions on mobile working are often ineffective and employees are taking it on themselves to use mobile solutions at work:Only 18% of respondents believe their company effectively controls what can be done on a mobile device. In India, this figure is higher at 29%.

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Nearly, 15% of those surveyed said they had found a way to use their mobile for work without any help or intervention from their employer, rising to 17% in India. 40% over all and in India believe mobility will become even more integral to their work in the next two years.

Suhas Uliyar, VP Mobile Strategy, Product Management, Oracle, “The current situation where employees are taking it upon themselves to go mobile is simply not tenable and insecure; without a strong partnership with IT, it will be very challenging for businesses to secure the mission-critical data being accessed by mobile workers.

Businesses need to deploy effective mobile applications for their end users in a way that is simple, mobile contextual and cost-effective. Preserving userexperience without compromising on security can be achieved through innovative mobile security techniques like ‘containerization’ enabling businesses to adopt a secure BYOD strategy,” Uliyar said.

AIMED AT STRENGTHENING its foothold in the Indian mobile Internet space, tech giant Google will enable a faster search capability for mobile phones with slower network connections.

Using a new streamlined version of its search results page, the US-based company will automatically check if a user has a slow wireless connection and deliver a fast loading version of Search.

“Increasingly, people in India are accessing the Internet through mobile devices such as their smartphones.

However, not all of these devices come with fast, cheap connections,” Google Distinguished Software Engineer Bharat Mediratta said in a blogpost.

“Google’s high-quality results will remain the same, but elements such as images and maps will only show up when they are an essential part of the result,” he said..

Google has been increasing its focus on the Indian market. Last month, it launched its Android One initiative in the country first, saying it was originally conceived with India in mind. Under the Android One initiative, Google had initially partnered with three handset makers — Micromax, Karbonn and Spice — to bring out handsets priced Rs Rs 6,399, aimed at making affordable smartphones available to a larger number of people.

The US-based firm is also working to adding more options for searches in more local languages in India. Google, which offers voice-based search in 47 languages globally, also expects to roll out services in Indian regional languages in the future.

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REGD.NO.MH/MR/SOUTH/132/2012-14, PUBLISHED ON 28TH OF EVERY P E RVIOUS MONTH & POSTED AT MUMBAI PATRIKA CHANNEL