Uncertainty in timelines is a major hurdle in execution of government projects: Shibu Paul, Array Networks

Dataquest interacted with Shibu Paul, Regional Sales Director – India, ME and SEA at Array Networks on how the company is foraying into government projects and  how does he see the vision of Digital India going. Excerpts

How do you see the vision of Digital India going and what is Array Networks involvement in it?

Digital India is a framework to bridge the digital gap across the country. This vision will not only help in bridging the urban and rural digital divide, but will also help the country present itself as a competitive player in the global economy. Array Networks offers a variety of products which can play very critical role in enabling this framework. As more people get digitally connected, ensuring IT security will become important; hence our solutions like Reverse Proxy, Web Application Firewall, and SSL Encryption are very essential. At the network level we have WAN Optimization solutions, which will be required for connecting remote locations in an optimal and efficient way. Along with this, application delivery controllers ensure fast, secure & 100% availability of applications to make the overall customer experience more delightful.

How is Array Networks foraying into government projects like UIDAI, Treasury, Income Tax, CCTNS, State datacenters, etc?

Array Networks has always had a focus on government projects and we will continue to participate in such key projects whenever there is an opportunity. It has been our privilege to work closely with the Indian government on many such initiatives. We have a large team that is completely focused on this sector and we aim to intensify our coverage in government projects by recruiting more members in the sales & pre-sales department. Our performance in the current projects has been exemplary and we are receiving positive responses for all our implementations.

What kind of solutions are you providing for e-governance projects?

As I mentioned above, for digital initiatives and e-governance projects our security and networking solutions can play an important part. Solutions like Application Delivery Networking solutions can help overcome challenges like scalability, performance and security related issues. In fact, e-governance initiatives can benefit immensely from all our solutions including Application Delivery Controllers, WAN Optimizations, Secure Access Gateways, Web Application Firewall and IPV6 Gateways.

What steps do you think the government should take to make Digital India a successful initiative?

Well, I believe we can achieve greater success if the government can increase the field force to cover more cities, particularly the tier-2 cities. These cities have a much larger scope for digitization and the government should focus on them in a big way to make this initiative more successful. The other thing is to develop our channel presence nationally and not just limit ourselves to metros and some particular cities only.



What challenges or hiccups have you faced while implementing solutions in government projects?

It’s not that we faced major implementation challenges, but yes one can say that the uncertainty in timelines is a major hurdle in execution of government projects. Usually it takes around six to nine months for implementation or getting clearance which can be reduced by effective evaluation methods and faster decision making processes.