Virtually Yours

As virtualization goes mainstream and becomes an integral part of the IT
infrastructure, there are increasing opportunities for IT services to help
customers implement and support this expanding technology. According to a recent
research from IDC, the virtualization services market will grow from $5.5 bn in
2006 to $11.7 bn in 2011, as CIOs struggle to address power and cooling issues
and the need for increased capacity. India is no exception. Currently, the
market for virtualization services is nascent in comparison to the overall
market for IT services. However, as the market evolves, CIOs feel that service
providers will need to be able to demonstrate virtualization capabilities to be
considered for larger services engagements.

With the growing need to improve efficiency and availability of resources
in an organization, businesses are rapidly adopting virtualization as the next
level technology. The capability to run multiple applications based on both
Windows and Linux platforms simultaneously in a virtualized environment is the
biggest power a CIO can have. The virtual architecture not only endows maximum
utilization of all hardware, reduces server and storage requirements; but it
also helps in optimal usage of available resources, and cost optimization.
However, it is suggested to draw a clear business vision; and identify the needs
before opting for a virtualization strategy. It is also important to establish a
flexible and scalable architecture, that can support future growth and
upgradation effortlessly.

While many may think of the virtualization exercise as another overhead
for a company, it may not necessarily be so. At least thats what most CIOs of
India Inc feel today. The four CIOs Dataquest spoke to advocated a
hardware-independent approach that complements server and desktop virtualization
without compromising availability, speed, or project schedules. The consensus
seems to be that virtualization can significantly lower capex and opex for
physical and virtual environments alike, making such transitional initiatives
viable.

Do It with Caution

Venkitachalam Babu, head, shared networks, Fidelity National
Information Services (FIS)

Venkitachalam Babu, head, shared networks, Fidelity National Information Services (FIS)

Virtualization, according to Venkitachalam Babu, is still in its nascent
stage in India. However, it is fast becoming a trend, he says. The primary
reason, he says, for virtualization increasingly capturing the imagination of
CIOs is the need to optimize the underutilized hardware like servers, etc, to
the maximum, and to take advantage of the significant reduction in costs. The
major areas, he thinks where virtualization is being tried out are consolidating
servers, storage, and networks.

According to Babu, every CIO before embarking on the virtualization path must
look into and analyze his needs. According to me it is very important for CIOs
to go through their existing system and to formulate policy for changing their
computer architecture through virtualization, he says.

Like most other CIOs, Babu doesnt dispute the apparent benefits of
virtualization, but he thinks that Nobody should jump into the bandwagon just
because others are doing it. In his views an overall analysis of the plausible
results of virtualization is very important.

They (CIOs) should conduct a study and analyze the areas where they can
implement and where it will result in cost-reduction before venturing into it,
he says. At the most basic level, as per Babu, every CIO should take his unique
requirements into account before investing in any technology.

The other problem with virtualization according to him is that cost-saving
may not happen immediately. It may occur over a period of time. Another point to
kept in mindin Babus viewis that in a non-virtual scenario, failure of one
server will not affect the functioning of others. But in the case of
virtualization, there is a failure risk if one/few of the machines come to a
standstill. This has to be kept in mind, and necessary fall-back mechanism is
to be worked out by alternative methods to take care of exigencies, he
concludes.

Key to Success

Akshaya Gaur, executive VP and head, software solutions, Scope
International

Virtualization has gained increased popularity over the last few years. It
has been deployed by most of the Fortune 500 companies, especially in managing
test, development, and low critical applications in production. However, very
few organizations have adopted virtualization for critical applications in
production.

Akshaya Gaur, executive VP and head, software solutions, Scope International

With technology advancement, companies are gradually moving away from
physical servers towards cloud computing infrastructure. Many large enterprises
are setting up their own internal clouds, while SMEs are using public clouds.
Reduction in bandwidth cost and the existence of an interconnected world will
act as catalysts.

Additionally, organizations will move towards buying capacity through unit
pricing as against paying for an entire server. This pricing model is not new to
the industry, it is similar to the model used in most mainframe environments.

At Scope International, consolidation of servers has helped in increasing the
server density in data centers. As the company is engaged in several large
projects simultaneously, managing server requirements for these projects is a
huge challenge. Unlike production, in a test and development environment, the
demand for servers is not the same throughout the project lifecycle. The
dynamic provisioning feature helps us allocate new servers in a short-time to
meet project requirements. We are now in a better position to manage any
increase in demand, whether planned or unplanned, explains Akshaya Gaur,
executive vice president and head, software solutions, Scope International.

Scope has also introduced a server on demand model, specifically for small
projects. This caters to projects that need server space for a short duration.
In the past, the only option was to procure or rent a server, not really a
justifiable investment for a small project. Virtualization has helped Gaur to
build capacity that can be allocated to projects for a period of time based on
the need.

The key challenge in the virtualization space is storage management and
planning, to keep the cost low. In order to take advantage of the mobility of
virtual machines offered by enterprise virtualization solutions, organizations
would have to place these machines on storage networks that are expensivean
aspect, if not considered, would make virtualization an expensive proposition.
Also, it calls for people with relevant skills to manage and support it, says
Gaur. We have taken an opportunistic approach to virtualize the test and
development environment, focusing on new server requirements by projects, he
adds. Gaur has virtualized a large portion of Scopes servers and is now
focusing on virtualizing servers in the production environment. This means, all
new requirements will be hosted in a virtual environment.

Taking Off Smoothly

PJ Koul, deputy GM, IT, Air India

Those who have been familiar with the services rendered by Air India,
probably will agree that over a couple of years, service standards of Indias
largest domestic carrier has enhanced profusely. By service, I am not talking
about on board, but overall process efficiency that is automated through the use
of information technology.

PJ Koul, deputy GM, IT, Air India

Thanks to the in-house IT team, Air India has of late consolidated its data
center; as a result of which it has successfully enhanced its overall business
operations. The next major step taken by the organization has been its
switchover to a virtual environment. As per its IT policy, Air India thrives to
get an infrastructure that is synonymous to reliability, availability, and
service ability. Its virtualization strategies therefore, is based on these
objectives only. According to P J Koul, DGM IT, Air India, it is very
important to identify the core business requirements; and design a solution
accordingly. The idea should be cost optimization, and not just reduction; that
will not only save money, but enhance operational excellence.

Air India is running all its core applications related to passenger services,
as well as internal operations on IBM mainframe platform. The DNA of this latest
technology inherently supports virtualization to the maximum. The architecture
supports several Linux servers to be run simultaneously, and also allows
multiple partitioning if required. This further allows Koul to logically
partition the hardware accrediting effective utilization of power of the machine
for various workloads. This architecture enables to obtain higher utilization
capacity of machines; as well as simplify our IT designing and framework. This
also supports all types of latest available technology like IT-on-demand, says
Koul. This system has been deployed as the building block of our virtualization
strategies, that can give us maximum benefits of virtualization. Under normal
circumstances, utilization rate of hardware is pretty poor; whereas the same is
significantly higher in case of a virtual environment, he adds. Apart from
running its core applications on this architecture, the organization has
recently merged its email sever into this as well. Virtualization has further
helped the organization achieve other significant benefits like easy
manageability, enhanced security, and optimum resource and cost utilization.

For a Greener Cause

Sanjay Jain, CIO, WNS Global Services

Virtualization proved to be the ultimate solution for WNS Global Services to
control its spiralling costs of running separate dedicated storage for its
200-plus clients. The companys Rs 2,700 crore award-winning virtualization
initiative involved consolidating and virtualizing all its infrastructure
components into a centralized environment. This required a great deal of
persuasion on the part of the CIO, Sanjay Jain to ensure complete client buy-in
on the security aspects, compliance, and control within the new virtualized
environment.

Sanjay Jain, CIO, WNS Global Services

Maintaining separate servers for each client resulted in huge operational
costs and managing issues. To tackle this, WNS focused on three broad aspects,
namelystorage virtualization, shared server environment through domain
consolidation, and desktop virtualization.

Under storage virtualization, WNS implemented a combination of SAN and NAS
infrastructure. The NAS infrastructure supports the shared file storage, while
the SAN supports the corporate databases and email. The SAN and NAS
infrastructure has also helped reallocate additional storage space, as per the
client requirements. This, in turn, has translated into huge cost savings and
also addressed the scalability and manageability issues to a great extent. Apart
from storage virtualization, WNS also carried out server virtualization, where
it moved to shared services domains, removing the need for 200-plus domain
controllers. This is when WNS decided to focus on domain consolidation and to
move clients to a shared services domain. The move to a shared domain
environment reduced the calls to the help desk by about 30% and improved the
quality of service, hence, resulting in higher customer satisfaction levels. The
third area that WNS has started work on is desktop virtualization in partnership
with VMWare to improve seat utilization in its BPO set-up. It is still in its
initial stage of deployment and will be completed in the next twelve to eighteen
months.

These virtualization initiatives have helped WNS in freeing up unused storage
boxes and server capacity, and re-deploying them for new programs. According to
Jain, The reduced number of servers and storage devices have also helped WNS
significantly bring down its maintenance costs, power consumption, and reduce
its carbon footprint. This forms a critical part of its corporate Green Six
Sigma program to make WNS a carbon neutral organization. The centralized
infrastructure has also helped WNS extend its network to newer geographies such
as Costa Rica, Romania, and the Philippines.

Mehak Chawla, Shrikanth G,
Piyali Guha & Priya Kekre

mehakc@cybermedia.co.in

shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in

piyalig@cybermedia.co.in &

priyak@cybermedia.co.in