Nipuna Services: Streamlining the Backbone

Nipuna Services, the BPO arm of Satyam, provides end-to-end
services from five centers, three in Hyderabad and one each in Bangalore and
Chennai. Its service offerings include IT help desk, engineering services,
finance and accounts, animation, customer contact, KPO and data management.

Nipuna's IT services for its 2,000 employees ran on a mixture
of platforms which included Linux and Sun Solaris. Due to increased WAN traffic,
unorganized directory objects and centers without directory servers, this
existing IT infrastructure failed to provide the systems necessary to establish
the framework for cementing best practices. Hence, Nipuna decided to migrate to
a single-platform infrastructure. "We were keen to operate on just one
platform across the business and therefore decided to restructure our IT
infrastructure. This included careful consideration of the cost of upgrading the
existing systems management product versus switching products altogether,"
says Debashis Singh, vice president, Network & Systems.

After extensive evaluation, Nipuna decided to install a new
technology environment based on the Microsoft platform. "Microsoft is
strong on information management, collaborations and solutions for
geographically dispersed companies," explains Singh, about choosing the
Microsoft platform.

For implementation, Nipuna chose Microland, an IT infrastructure
management and technical support services outsourcing firm, after assessing
various implementation partners.

As part of the new solution, several Microsoft products and
technologies were identified. This included Active Directory Service (component
of Windows Server 2003), Exchange Server 2003, Systems Management Server (SMS)
2003, Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) Server 2004 and Internet
Information Services (IIS) 6. Active Directory, SMS 2003 and ISA 2004 were
implemented at Nipuna's Hyderabad and Bangalore offices. Deployment happened
in three phases.

Phase I saw Active Directory migration at Hyderabad and
Bangalore. Active Directory technology provides a central location for managing
and securing user accounts, computers and applications. In the second part of
Phase I, Microsoft Exchange Server 2000 was upgraded to 2003 at Hyderabad
enabling laptop users to access mail from anywhere.

Under Phase II, SMS 2003 was deployed for effectively
administering patch management, software and hardware inventory management, OS
deployment and remote administration.

In Phase III, ISA 2000 and IIS 5 were upgraded to ISA 2004 and
IIS 6 respectively. "The new solution was implemented in four months with
zero down time," says Singh.

"The Microsoft solution was more scalable and cost
effective than other similar solutions. It helped Nipuna control costs, improve
security, optimize bandwidth and enhance productivity," adds Singh.
Standardized, integrated components gave Nipuna a more centralized and
simpler-to-manage IT infrastructure. Data security improved with the use of
Active Directory Service to manage permissions for users on the network,
password protection at the application and document level, etc.

Most importantly, Nipuna saw a significant reduction in costs,
from initial purchase of licenses to cost of ownership and management.

Stuti Das

stutid@cybermedia.co.in