Need for Space

That are some of the infrastructure pain points of mid-sized enterprises, and
how are they managing and optimizing on the IT spend? This is what the Chennai
edition of DQ-CIO meet on Optimizing IT Infrastructure: Power of Simplicity
explored. A panel consisting of key verticals such as healthcare, manufacturing,
distribution, and IT discussed the infrastructural challenges and strategies
they have adopted.

Challenges Galore

"Data center space and connectivity are some of the challenges we face at
Redington India" said Clynton Almeida, CIO of the company.

"We have a large ERP and it calls for an enterprise wide access to IT.
Moreover, the IT resources have to be available pan-organization, and this is
indeed a big challenge," said MK Manavalan, DGM, IT at Sankara Nethralaya.

In some instances the management has the perception about IT as a cost center.
This poses budgetary constraints when it comes to scaling the infrastructure.
However, the panelists also agreed that such a perception can be addressed by
putting in place a cost-effective IT. Reflecting on that Viswanathan, manger, IT
at EBM Nadi International said that his key priority these days is to bring down
IT costs and at the same time create an effective plan that will enable IT
resources available to all the group companies.

IT managers in Chennai debating on infrastructural pain points. Seated from left to right- M Visweswaran, CTO, Mafoi Consulting; Sairam Pasari, senior manager, IT, Real Image; N Varadarajan, senior GM, IT, Madras Cements; Rajneesh De, associate editor, Dataquest; Clynton Almeida, CIO, Redington India; MK Manavalan, DGM,technology, Sankara Nethralaya; M Viswanathan, senior manager, IT, EBM Nadi; N Tamilvel, head, IT, Take Solutions

N Tamilvel, IT head at Take Solutions termed integration as his main
challenge in addition to data center space. He said that he is looking at a
panacea by consolidating all data centers.

N Varadarajan, senior GM, IT at Madras Cements, says that as business demands
keep growing and the IT requirements also change.

N Visweswaran, CTO, Mafoi Consulting Solutions said that rationalizing the
data center and expanding the infrastructure as the business expands is a
challenge; and it needs to be effectively countered by an efficient IT staff.
Sairam Pasari, senior manger IT, pointed out that for companies like Real Image
Media Technologies, there are some unique problems as well like managing the
access to Internet and controlling the sites accessed by users.

MK Manavalan of Sankara Nethralaya talks about server consolidation and related challenges	N Varadarajan of India Cements makes a point

Combating the Pain Areas

Veteran IT heads, like Varadarajan suggested that SLAs can be better managed
when users enter into short-term agreements with vendors instead of long-term
multi-year deals. He also suggested that multi-vendor contracts in the areas of
connectivity will greatly help in bringing down costs and also make for
proactive business continuity.

Manavalan observed that measuring SLAs on all IT services is difficult on a
daily basis. But companies can create more measurement benchmarks by making the
SLA document more transparent, and more tuned to managing the downtime. Almeida
suggested that IT heads need to clearly communicate their service expectations
and must put in print both the cost and service implications in the event of a
downtime.

According to Visweswaran of Mafoi, mission critical areas need to be managed
in-house, while non-core IT functions can be outsourced. All the panelists
agreed to this thought and suggested that both have its merits, and that one of
the biggest challenges in in-sourcing happens to be managing the IT departments
skill-sets.

Takeaways

Whether it is managing data center space, or maintaining SLAs, or taking the
call on outsourcingthey have put in place a model that works best, given the
budgetary constraints. The key takeaways from the Chennai event include:

• Data center space is a big challenge; the solution lies in consolidation
  and virtualization.
• Creating a cost-effective IT infrastructure architecture
• Creating more robust Internet security practices, leading to better access
  and control
• Aligning business with IT is a big challenge
• SLAs are pretty important, but more can be achieved if the SLA document is
  specific and matches with the unique requirements and the service expectations
  needed
• Cloud computing is major focus area and can solve some of in-premise
  infrastructure issues by making IT as a service

Shrikanth G

shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in