on the network · rakesh singh on the role of cios changing from influenc-ers to being innovators...

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September 2013 | `100 | Volume 04 | issue 08 | A 9.9 Media Publicationwww.itnext.com | facebook.com/itnext | @itnext_magazine

New KidSenior it decision makers are learning the nuances of simplifying network orchestration with Software Defined Network, a newphrase in the industry Pg 10

on the Network

BossTalk

Influencer to Innovator Pg 06

PLUS

The Next Dark Horse: Tackling BYOA Pg 28

Weigh your security investments interVieW | Ravi ChaUhan, Managing Director, inDia anD Saarc, Juniper networkS | Pg 32

Editorial

1s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 3 | itnext

Blogs To Watch!

G e e t h a N a N d i k o t k u r

The New Chant“While there have been varied connotations about the SDN concept, what’s interesting is that each one is revelling in its own understanding and trying to apply to the scenario in the best possible way”

Change! it is here all over again. the it industry is subject to changes and every now and then, new jargon emerges to

keep the market busy and players on their toes.So, now what? Well, it’s the new mantra being chanted by one and all—

Software Defined Network. This new chant is getting IT decision makers attuned to the new offering and influencing them to adopt it to make their network agile and efficient.

Obviously, all vendors, whether it’s storage, server, networking, virtualisation, hardware and software, are equally excited and forming their own groups to evangelise this concept. Whether it is utopian or a reality, the buzz word is creating a huge noise in the industry making it imperative for IT heads to tag along and not miss the bus.

While there have been varied connotations about the software defined networks concept, what’s interesting is that each one is revelling in its own understanding and trying to apply to the scenario in the best possible way.

The cover feature on ‘Software Defined Networks’ in the current edition of IT Next attempts at addressing what SDN is all about, how it can make IT managers’ lives easy and more fulfilling.

However, there are a few aspects which need more focus and one must not take SDN as some tool to help in automation. The study helps IT managers get insights into how SDN needs to be understood, dealt with, and how it should be differentiated from virtualisation technologies or cloud.

It is said that SDN is now in a phase where virtualisation was a few years ago. There is always a first mover advantage, if one doesn’t really bother about the acquisition cost and, instead, drools over the benefits SDN can bring in.

It is heartening to find that the senior IT managers find this technology or concept to be empowering them to drive new IT innovations and architectural best practices within their enterprise.

Nuances of software defined data centre http://www.vmware.com/files/pdf/VMW_13Q1_BB_SDDC_020813_FINAL_LTR.pdf

What is SDN and what are its offerings? http://www.itc23.com/fileadmin/ITC23_files/slides/K1_McKeown-ITC_Keynote_Sept_2011.pdf

Genesis of Software Defined Networking http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software-defined_networking

Software-Defined Networks (SDN) Providing the agility needed to simplify, scale and automate the network http://h17007.www1.hp.com/us/en/networking/solutions/technology/sdn/index.aspx#.Uh8qEtLddrE

2 itnext | s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 3

Contentseptember 2013 V o l u m e 0 4 | I s s u e 0 8

10Page

For the l atest technology upDates go to itnext.in

cover story13 SDN Makes Network Management Simple Panacea lies in the intelligence of a network controlled by software

18 Why is SDN IT Managers’ Best Bet? IT Managers’ network investments are in tune with business

21SDN Vs Virtualisation: Synergy? SDN is an enabler of virtualisation and cloud to build agile networks

26 What is Innovative about SDN? Automated non-strategic menial tasks will free time for administrators to seek opportunities in driving IT innovation

06 vP & GM of citrix India, rakesh singh on the role of cIos changing from influenc-ers to being innovators

boss talk

32 ravi chauhan, MD, India & saarc, Juniper on the impor-tanc e of weighing security investment to assess risks

IntervIew

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F O R T H E N E X T G E N E R AT I O N O F C I O s

September 2013 | `100 | Volume 04 | Issue 08 | A 9.9 Media Publicationwww.itnext.com | facebook.com/itnext | @itnext_magazine

New KidSenior IT decision makers are learning the nuances of simplifying network orchestration with Software Defined Network, a newphrase in the industry Pg 10

on the Network

BossTalk

Influencer to Innovator Pg 06

PLUS

The Next Dark Horse: Tackling BYOA Pg 28

Weigh your security investments INTERVIEW | RAVI CHAUHAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR, INDIA AND SAARC, JUNIPER NETWORKS | Pg 32

new Kid on the

networKSenior IT decision makers are learning the nuances of simplifying network orchestration with Software

Defined Network, a new phrase in the industry

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15 MInute ManaGer 37 resolve the Dc Puzzle I

B S Nagarajan, Director Systems

Engineering, India & SAARC,

VMware emphasises how IT

decision makers are leveraging

the software defined

data centre trend

uPDate

08 Questions to consider

while choosing a security

saas soluiton I McAfee’s Rakesh

Kharwal, Director-Government

Business says Security SaaS

model is best suited for businesses

cube chat

42 change excites Me|

Subhomoy Chakraborti, GM-IT,

Projects, Magma Fincorp says it

is important to innovate to meet

business expectations

InsIGht

30 accelerate to Perform|

Riverbed’s Technology

Evangelist, Robert Healey

on how the innovation and

technological advancements

in WAN optimisation space

are transforming IT Managers’

environment

oPen Debate

45three expert panel

debate on the question of

IT innovation helping the IT

Managers’ to have a competitive

edge among their peer groups

48Page

The NexT Dark horse| Building an enterprise app store or deploying mobile application management software, a better approach to tackle BYOA, says Vijay Saradhi, Marketing Analyst of Manage Engine

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qualify for a NEXT100 award, win one (or more) IT NEXT Technology awards.

tanmoy mukhopadhyay, Chief technical officer, a2Z news Channel

Managing IT Projects on timeIt is important consider a few vital aspects while managing IT projects on time. 1. Write down a list of all the things you will need to do in your project. Then take a look at the list you made and break each of those steps down into smaller steps. 2. Set a date for when you would like your project to be completed and work backwards to calculate your timeline. Give yourself a deadline for when each major step needs to be completed 3. You should know what needs to get done and you need to figure out when to do it. If possible, try to set a time each day to work on your project. 4. Take an honest look at your schedule. It may seem as though every minute is accounted for: be honest with yourself and you will most likely find some extra time. If your project is portable, take it with you wherever you go. 5. No matter how great you are at holding yourself accountable and staying on track with your deadlines, it’s always helpful to have a partner. Having one specific person who knows your deadlines and asks if you met them is even better. 6. Working towards finishing a project is a lot of hard work. Write down a list of every reason you want to accomplish your project and how it will feel when you’re done. 7. As you continue finishing your project, you will learn a lot more about it. You might find that you left out a lot of steps or some were not necessary at all. Review the work you’ve done and the work that still needs to be done.

rajkumar nair manager - it at kana-kia spaces pvt Ltd

august 2013

www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=

2261770&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

300 members

Why Projects FailA project is considered a failure when it has not delivered what was required in line with expectations. Therefore, in order to succeed, a project must deliver to cost, to quality, and on time; and it must deliver the benefits presented in the business case. Here are some of the main reasons why projects fail: the wrong business requirements were addressed; it was not possible to deliver the business case; governance was poor, or the implementation was poor; people lose focus of the project’s benefits and the environment changes; making timely decisions, considering smaller projects and managing expectations. tanmoy mukhopadhyay,Chief technical officer, a2Z news Channel

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ENTERPRISE SECURITY CHIEFS ARE ON A MISSION TO SECURE THE ENTERPRISE ADOPTING

BEST SECURITY PRACTICES AS DEFENSE AGAINST GROWING THREATS

BY N GEETHA DESIGN BY RAJ VERMA IMAGING BY ANIL T

Nandkishor Dhomne Vishal Salvi Parag Deodhar

Amit Pradhan Sunil Varkey Amit Kaul

Satish Das Dr K Harsha Upasna Saluja

ata breaches can be an expensive proposition for any organisation. Worse still, industry players echo the fact that organisations in India are not confident about detecting and preventing security threats, which result in huge data breaches. The testimony to this fact is Sony paying a fine of £250K for its 2011 PSN data breach, when its network was hit by an attack that forced PSN offline for an extended period of time. UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) levied a

hefty fine against Sony for what it called ‘a serious breach’ of the UK’s Data Protection Act. Against this backdrop, every enterprise information security chief has to evolve a defense mechanism against detecting and preventing security threats and data breaches. The reasons to secure get even more compelling as new emerging trends such as cloud computing, BYOD (bring your own device), BYOA (bring your own application), Mobile Applications, QR codes, etc., contribute to the security risks, now increasing in geometrical progression. One of the reasons for a lackadaisical approach towards information security may be that corporate security consumes a huge chunk of time, money, complexity and human resources. Thus, there is little awareness among the business functions and users at large about the adverse implications of data breach or data leakage on the entire organisation.

INSIDE 13 | Access via Mobile Made Secure14 | Banking & Insurance-Secure on Cloud17 | BYOD’s Security Conundrum 22 | Data Breaches viz-a-viz DLP25 | Assess Security Risks in a Scientific way28 | QR Code, newest way to leak information

1 1A U G U S T 2 0 1 3 | ITNEXT

COVER STORY | BEST SECURITY TECHNIQUES

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August 2013 | `100 | Volume 04 | Issue 07 | A 9.9 Media Publicationwww.itnext.com | facebook.com/itnext | @itnext_magazine

Parag DeodharChief Risk Officer & VP-PE, Bharti AXA General

Insurance Co Ltd

Nandkishor DhomneVP-IT & CIO, Manipal Health Enterprises,

Manipal Group

Sunil VarkeyChief Information Security Officer,

Wipro Technologies

ENTERPRISE SECURITY CHIEFS AREON A MISSION TO SECURE THE ENTERPRISE WITH INNOVATIVE

TECHNOLOGIES AND NEW PRACTICES AS DEFENSE AGAINST

GROWING THREATS AND DATA BREACHES Pg 10

“COBOL on an Integration Spree”INTERVIEW | NITIN DANG, COUNTRY GENERAL MANAGER, MICRO FOCUS INDIA AND SAARC | Pg 32

BossTalk

Take Risk to Innovate

Pg 06

Plus

TransformBusiness,in a Flash

Pg 36

needed: Pocket CIo programmes The CIO post is becoming more important than ever before; it is no longer only about managing the information technology infrastructure, but rather about architecting the business strategy and organisation for the information age. It is essential that CIOs understand the fundamental link between IT functions and the overall functions of the organisation.

The Pocket CIO programme examines the best practices of top global companies and their successes in creating value through information systems. Areas of concentration can include: Business Strategy and Information Technology; Impact of Wireless Technology; IT Enabled Business Transformation; Network Innovations, and Strategic Alignment. By attending the Pocket CIO programme, we also gain the opportunity to get trained in the latest technology and managerial skills, receive a Pocket CIO certificate, secure an interview with the jury, and

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Boss talk | Rakesh singh


“Leadership and innovation are keyingredients to any growth. This is especially true for senior IT managers who are on their way up the career ladder”

The role of CIOs is changing, from being mere consumers of the product to being influencers in taking it to the right destination. Innovation is the key ingredient of any trend, and having a

clear technological vision is most important if one has to align it with customer needs.

Technological VisionAny R&D vision should revolve around people, with a common theme underlying the products and technologies that can impact customers and employees equally. The prevailing trend has been that most customers are big believers in BYOD, flexible working hours and allowing employees to work remotely. Cloud computing is one core theme that supports the trend. The key aspect is to map between cloud and mobility to facilitate social collaboration, data sharing, mobility platforms--thus allowing people to work from anywhere. Irrespective of any vision that customers carry, a CIO or a senior IT manager has to work around three tenets: a) Work is not a place; it is something you do; hence, enable employees to work from anywhere, at any time and on any device. b) Simplicity--the simpler the better. c) Anyness--being open to different platforms and supporting different devices and operating systems.

Focus on InnovationWith over 150 patents to its credit, the R&D head believes that employees should be involved and aligned with the strategic objectives of the company and that core functions are executed here.

Innovation is the right path for senior IT managers to move ahead; it will empower them to scale up faster. Product management is an area which has undergone tremendous change. Earlier, interactions were limited to sales, focussed only on designing the road map and presenting the company pitch to customers. Now, interactions are based on the requirements of customers. There are more interactions with customers around product architecture and re-defining product capabilities. Earlier, when I was in the US, we’d spend hours just talking about the business and technology

Influencer to Innovator

leadershIp ManageMenT

and without using the sales approach of pitching the product. It was more about trying to fit the product with the need. With the evolution of product management, the kind of interaction with technology companies is changing.

route to InnovationIt is critical to have insights into global trends, perhaps a little earlier than some customers or CIOs. The time lag for these has been decreasing. It’s also important not to be shy of India-specific requirements. India was once a slow market on the global map. Now, India has been recognised as a high-growth market, though cost sensitivity could be higher here. What’s important is to understand trends in consumerisation, executive mobility, work shifting, bring your own device (BYOD) and eventually to understand that these trends are not going away. We must adapt to not only IT technologies and processes, or IT training or hiring. Desktop managers have to work from data centres and must deal with businesses which are big strategic projects. In IT, it is not about controlling employees, it’s about enabling them.

The book that focuses on the specifics of marketing high tech products during the early start up period.

suggestion boX

Writer: Geoffrey Moore Publisher: harPerCollins PublishersPriCe: ` 520 rakesh singh, Vp and gm of Citrix india

trendsdealsproductsservicespeopleUpdate

I n d u s t r y


teCH treNDs | Security Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) is security con-trols that are available by subscription and are managed and delivered via the Internetby a software vendor.The Security SaaS model is gener-ally well suited for businesses that either have few IT resources or none at all in-house, no desire to invest in security hardware, little time for managing security or a large number of remote users. For most CIOs around the world, taking on SaaS based software services is not an option anymore, it is a necessity. Enterprise CIOs have realized that for them to remain competitive they need to optimize their IT budgets and leverage

5 questions to ask in choosing a security SaaS solution

the cloud for greater security in the ever-changing threat land-scape. The relinquishing of control for the IT administrator is a tough pill to swallow even though it is for a smaller population of the employee base. The optimal way to look at this situation is to do a total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) analy-sis, factoring in the risk of remote employees not keeping their sys-tems up to date with security. Con-sider the offerings of security SaaS software vendors:

Can you reduce or eliminate the on-premise hardware and soft-ware costs, deployment and maintenance by offloading the server management to a third party ?Does the vendor offer a hybrid solution with a single manage-ment view of security across the enterprise?Does the SaaS management plat-form hosted by the vendor on their infrastructure off site, offer centralized deployments, report-ing and management online?With an Internet connection, regardless of connection to cor-porate network, are all users constantly protected with a “version-less” solution – with transparent updates and upgrades, and policy manage-ment?From a longer-term investment perspective, does this software vendor have the breadth of secu-rity portfolio so that you can get all security SaaS solutions, with a single, centralized manage-ment console from the same vendor for greater ROI?

Rakesh Kharwal, Director – Government Business - India, McAfee

Security Saas model is well

suited for businesses

that have few or none IT resources

Source: Qlik

big data strategy for Obama’s election campaign involved hiring of analytics experts that was 5 times larger than the earlier campaign. merging of all data bases and addition of social media polls, democratic voter files for servign states. Detail model to analyse and swinging state voters, help predict who will give and volunteer and target results.

Obama campaign around big dataCLOUD

Mobile app users give 4x more; expand program

Run election 66,000 times every night; allocate resources based on results

Test and place ads based on results

Detailed models for swing state voters, help predict who will give and volunteer

Hire analytics team 5x larger than 2008 campaign

Crunch

Expand

Experts

Model

Target

Merge all databases and add social media, polls or swing states

How the Obama Campaign Leveraged Big Data

g p

Consolidate

Measure Everything


teCH treNDs | After years of tactical cost-cutting, many organ-isations now face the challenge of continuous IT cost optimisation after the realisation that optimisa-tion practices are never finished, according to Gartner, Inc. Accord-ing to a worldwide survey of 2,053 CIOs, 65 per cent of those surveyed stated that the main barrier preventing organisations from achieving continuous opti-misation of IT costs was related to mindset. CIOs felt that, if organ-isations were properly motivated and moving to achieve the same goal, they would make a greater impact on savings.“Organizations don’t often achieve the desired results from their optimisation initiatives,

Focus on Continuous IT Cost Optimisation: Gartner

toward avoiding the danger of tactical cost initiatives, which may seem to generate savings in the short term, but can mean costs returning into the business in the long term.”

Transparency: Higher matu-rity IT transparency practices are seen as a prerequisite for better supply and demand deci-sions, and they enable many enterprises to optimise costs and cut costs the right way, while preserving what is most impor-tant to the enterprise. Others are agility, accountability, simplica-tion and discipline.

The challenge of optimising IT costs isn’t just about trying to reduce the unit cost of IT, but trying to keep a balance between lower unit costs and sourcing IT in a flexible way so that the organisation is able to remove or add resources/costs in response to any changes.

Gartner recom-mends 5 key principles of organisation’s cost optimiza-tion practices to form a basis for continual optimisation

Icertis, providers of enterprise solutions in the Microsoft cloud, announced that it will collaborate with Microsoft as part of Microsoft’s global CityNext initiative. CityNext helps cities take advantage of existing resources to build a sustainable model of innovation and support for eight critical functions: government administration, public safety, healthcare, buildings, tourism, education, transportation, and energy. CityNext initiative aimed at empowering cities and its citizens.

Around The World

Icertis and Microsoft team up to empower governments

Larry eLLisOn, ceo, oracle corp

“Oracle is doing way better than competitors SAP and Workday.Oracle’s got 100+ enterprise applications living in the cloud today, while SAP has got nothing but Success-Factors until 2020”

and costs end up returning into the business,” said Sanil Solanki, Research Director at Gartner. “CIOs should consider incorporating five key principles into their organisation’s cost optimisation practices to form a basis for continual optimisa-tion. These principles are geared

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New Kid oN the

NetworKSenior IT decision makers are learning the

nuances of simplifying network orchestration with Software Defined Network, a new phrase

in the industry

While the industry comes up with new buzzwords from time to time, the latest on the go is Software Defined Networks (SDN). IT leaders and practitioners, and vendors, in particular, are looking at ways to influence senior IT managers to capitalise

on this evolution called Software Defined Network.

is sdn a new concept?SDN is an architectural approach to networking that separates the data, control and application planes that enable the intelligence of the device to be split from the packet-forwarding engine and be controlled centrally, while data transport is distributed. Most IT practitioners argue that while the concept of is not new; the approach should be new as it provides networks with more real-time intelligence, deep application integration and high levels of automation to prepare networking technology for the rigorous demands of the cloud era.

There is been sudden hype and aura created around SDN which definitely is no passing fad. Most vendors including, HP, Juniper, VMware, Cisco, Citrix, EMC, Netapp etc., have invested huge resources in SDN. Amandeep Singh Dang, Country Head-Networking, Dell India, claims that the new approach to networking was forged within some of

InsIde 13 | SDN Makes Network Management Simple18 | Why is SDN IT Managers’ Best Bet?21 | SDN Vs Virtualisation: Synergy? 26| What is Innovative About SDN?

SDN | cover story

1 1s e p t e M b e r 2 0 1 3 | Itnext

the largest data centres in the world where the leading innovators in cloud computing have been working to deliver a new breed of highly automated and elastic networking technologies.

Nilesh Goradia, Head - Pre-Sales – India Subcontinent, Citrix, says that SDN is bringing a paradigm shift in the way networks function. “Implementing an application delivery solution as part of the SDN strategy at the user layer, IT managers can bring the user to the virtual network. With SDN, the controller plays a major role in defining the network components and its efficiency, as the basic switch is replaced by the controller,” says Goradia. He argues that the acquisition cost of SDN is also very high and says, “While the application delivery solution would cost between $100,000 to $500,000 as a ball park figure depending upon the user base, the advantages derived are immense with scalability, reduction in operational cost of the data centre, efficiency of the data centre and reduction in terms of infrastructure.”

Aligning with the SDN trend, virtualisation vendor VMware launched VMware NSX, the platform for network virtualisation that will deliver the entire networking and security model from Layer 2-Layer 7 in software, decoupled from underlying networking hardware. VMware’s approach to network virtualisation will enable data centre operators to treat their physical network as a pool of transport capacity that can be consumed and repurposed on demand.

suggested approach to sdnMurtaza E Bhatia, National Manager (Security), Dimension Data, believes that there should be no doubt that programmable networks and SDN represent important paradigm shifts that will enable future networks to be more flexible; however, they must be approached with care. These technology breakthroughs are still nascent and haven’t yet reached any

sort of mass recognition or adoption which would lead to further maturity. Bhatia believes that organisations should:

Start to understand what SDN can offer them, but keep an open mind about the different approaches to SDN and not limit thinking to a single approach .

Do the upfront planning to get an understanding of what devices and applications live on your network, what you need the network to do in the next 2, 5 and 7 years and what you might need to add on top of it. Use this information to explore different use cases and options.

Look before you leap: Network equipment vendors are doing significant new development to ensure their products remain relevant in the new paradigm, while many start-ups are pushing innovation to new levels. Because of its marketing value however, SDN is being applied to many existing technologies to give them fresh appeal; these technologies need to be sifted through and understood for what they are. We can expect to see further consolidation in the market as some start-ups are acquired, which we believe could introduce additional organisational risk. Additionally, there’s much work to be done regarding SDN standards and many standards bodies have working groups looking at various aspects of the technology.

Understand the operational impact: Think about the need to support your network on an ongoing basis. SDN will impact your support models as the environment changes and evolves.

Work with a vendor-independent partner with a thorough understanding of networking, network architectures and protocols. Additionally, the partner should have a solid grasp of virtualised infrastructures and the nature of cloud computing workloads, and how these impact the network. This combined knowledge will guide pragmatic and practical SDN choices that fit the overarching network architecture, and ensuring that the network platform continues to support ICT and business objectives.

“While the application delivery tool would cost between $100,000 to $500,000 as a ball park figure, depending upon the user base, the advantages are huge”nilesh goradia, Head - Pre-Sales – India Subcontinent, Citrix,

1 2 Itnext | s e p t e M b e r 2 0 1 3

The panacea lies in the intelligence of a network system controlled centrally by software to make the network agile

M ost agree with the popular belief that Software Defined Networking (SDN) is all about controlling/automating many diverse elements within the network stack from a control plane rather than at the component

level. The main concept in SDN is the separation of a network device’s control plane from its data plane.

sdn’s Modus OperandiIn simple terms, says Vijay Sethi, VP-Information Systems & CIO of HeroMoto Corp Ltd., SDN provides a new network architecture in which the part of network system that makes decisions about where traffic is sent (the control plane) is separated from the systems that forwards traffic to the selected destination (the data plane). This ensures that intelligence of a network system can be controlled centrally by software. “With this, the amount of automation and scalability in networks can increase tremendously. This also helps increase the flexibility of network utilisation, thus making the entire system much more cost-effective,” says Sethi. According to Nilesh Goradia, Head - Pre-Sales – India Subcontinent, Citrix, “In the SDN concept, the network simplification is brought about by making changes in the basic architecture where the user switch is replaced by a controller to create a virtual network.”

Kamal Matta, Head-IT& Telecom, Sonic Biochem Ext. Ltd., believes that the IT managers’ task will be made easy as their control over the network will drastically increase due to network optimisation, and their purchasing power will increase due to cost reduction in networking components. “Using SDN, a network administrator will be able to plan the traffic from a centralised control console without

having to touch individual switches. He can change any network switch’s rules as and when needed--prioritising, de-prioritising or even blocking specific types of packets with a very granular level of control,” says Matta. He adds, “This is especially helpful in a cloud computing architecture because it allows the administrator to manage traffic loads in a flexible and more efficient manner.”

Ashish Khanna, AVP-IT, EIH Ltd, argues that in the case of SDN, unlike traditional networks, the logical control plane is decoupled with the hardware which is used only for data forwarding. This decoupling allows the control plane to be implemented using a different distribution model rather than the data plane. “The Network administrators who used to take days to perform a particular change across the network, that is, shaping the traffic for a new application, defining a new VLAN scheme etc., will be able to perform the same task in few hours,” he says.

The primary reason for adopting software defined network solution by most IT managers, as Anand Tirunagiri, Business Development Manager-India & SriLanka, Allied Telesis, observes, are for optimal utilisation of network resources and achieving better scalability of data centres. Tirunagiri says that the proponents of SDN aim to solve three problems: a) Simplify network management b) Optimise network performance through centralised flow management and c) Overlay virtual networks over a shared physical infrastructure.

SDN solution, which is a controller, aims to simplify the network management process.

Treating the network as a single unified entity, configured and maintained from one central location, can greatly reduce the cost of network management. Central management can

MaKes NetworKMaNageMeNt siMple

sdN


also reduce disruption when major upgrades or policy changes are being implemented.

To ensure centralised flow management to optimise network performance, a set of switches are configured with rules that map out a network structure: which ports belong to which VLANs; which subnets are attached to which VLANs; a loop-protection mechanism to block redundant links; a routing protocol to distribute subnet information; possibly even dynamic VLAN allocation rules at the edge. “The switches are connected together; each applies its rules independently, and shares appropriate information with its neighbors and a system that can reliably transport data between thousands of individual end-points comes to life,” says Tirunagiri.

Such networks are resilient to failures of links and switching nodes—the loop protection and routing protocols re-converge onto a new forwarding topology, and data continues to flow.

Tirunagiri further says, “The networks share a common set of hardware, and they are provisioned and updated frequently. Manually configuring dozens of switches to implement these regularly changing virtual networks is unfeasible.” SDN solutions are being developed that implement the virtual networks. Such solutions use a centralised controller to directly update switch forwarding tables,” he adds.

Amandeep Singh Dang, Country Manager, Networking, Dell India, points out that from a monolithic system (such as the networks are today, with each element having its own control and data plane), communication has been more of a democratic setup with 5000 + RFC standards of command and control for devices to collaborate, interconnect, inter-operate and form networks.SDN decouples the control plane into a centralised control

Kamal Matta, Head-IT & telecom, Sonic Biochem

“Using SDN, a network administrator will be able

to plan the traffic from a centralised control

console without having to touch individual

switches”

sdn architecture approach

applicationPlane

Control Plane

data Plane

vswitch

Orchestration applications

Controller

hardware hypervisor

Os switch

pswitch

leaving the data plane on commoditised switch hardware. “Centrality of control plane will completely eliminate inter device convergence protocols and associated issues, enable network splicing, bring around capabilities to port network services overlay as well as open the framework to build any kind of custom or stand network orchestration build-outs to deploy, manage, control, provision or analyse networks,” says Dang.

Joe Green, CTO, Systems Engineering, APAC, Juniper, clearly articulates that inside every networking and security device--every switch, router, and firewall--you can separate

cover story | SDN


“The switches are connected together; each applies its rules independently, and shares appropriate information with its neighbors and system”

the software into four layers or planes. As we move to SDN, these planes need to be clearly understood and cleanly separated. This is absolutely essential in order to build the next generation, highly scalable network.

“Centralisation is powerful; it is a key principle for SDN and it’s very appropriate to apply centralisation to networking software. Centralisation only makes sense within a highly-connected, contained geographic area--for example, within a data center, throughout a campus, or in the case of a service provider, across a city,” says Green.

Even with this centralisation, network devices themselves will remain distributed and they must have local intelligence.

When you add the concept of centralisation to networking software, the four planes move around a bit. Regardless of the number of distributed devices, you’d like to manage the network as a system and centralised management does that job. When you centralise management, it becomes the configuration master; all of the devices keep just a copy. Services have historically been implemented within each networking and security device but with SDN, services can move to the centre and are performed on behalf of all devices and there are four steps:

Step 1: Management is the best place to start as this provides the biggest bang for the buck. The key is to centralise network management, analytics, and configuration functionality to provide a single master that configures all networking devices. This lowers operating cost and allows customers to gain business insight from their networks.

Step 2: Extracting Services from network and security devices by creating service VM’s is a great next step because

Services is an area that is terribly underserved by networking. This enables network and security services to scale

independently using industry-standard, x86 hardware based on the needs of the solution.

Step 3: Creating a Centralised Controller is a big step forward. The Centralised Controller enables multiple network and security services to connect in series across devices within the network. This is called “SDN Service Chaining”--using software to virtually insert services into the flow of network traffic. Service chaining functionality is physically accomplished today using separate network and security devices.

Today’s physical approach to service chaining is quite crude; separate devices are physically connected by Ethernet cables; each device must be individually configured to establish the service chain. With SDN Service Chaining, networks can be reconfigured on the fly, allowing them to dynamically respond to the needs of the business. SDN Service Chaining will dramatically reduce the time, cost and risk for customers to design, test and deliver new network and security services.

Step 4: The final step of optimising network and security hardware can proceed in parallel with the other three.

As services are disaggregated from devices and SDN Service Chains are established, network and security hardware can be used to optimise performance based on the needs of the solution.

Network and security hardware will continue to deliver 10x or better Forwarding performance than can be accomplished in software alone. The combination of optimized hardware together with SDN Service Chaining allows customers to build the best possible networks.

anand tirunagiri, Business Development Manager, Allied Telesis


IT managers are making their networking investments more in tune with business today

it MaNagers’ Best Bet?

An IT manager can expect a long of simplification, playfulness, orchestration and convergence from SDN. This change will allow him to accelerate in cloud, converged infrastructure and workload awareness around his IT

systems. IT managers will be able to gear their networking investments more in tune with the business, rather than just seen as speed-and-feed universal connectivity components as networks are deemed by business today.

why is sdN

What is going to Change for it Managers?Amandeep Singh Dang, Country Manager, Networking, Dell India, reiterates that SDN enables a new type of network virtualisation, providing the last piece of the puzzle required to deliver low-lost, all-inclusive private cloud solutions to the enterprise data centre. “SDN is the key to enabling significant technologies from the all-inclusive elastic private-cloud to secure mobile access, BYOD and beyond, all with a highly automated model that can give enterprise IT never-before-seen levels of agility while reducing both capital and operational overhead to the lowest levels ever delivered in enterprise solutions,” he says. dang candidly says that it managers can

“If you plan to build an SDN, you don’t need to hold off your investments today for fear of protecting those investments down the road. None wants to rip and replace network”Joe green, CTO, Systems Engineering, APAC, Juniper


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Leverage cloud technology to the fullest. Enable a new type of network virtualisation Do network simplification with more real-time intelligence, deep application integration and high levels of automation to prepare networking technology for the rigorous business demands Allow competitive multi-vendor play bringing down overall cost of ownershipDo network consolidation and IT unification (server + Storage

+ Networking + App’s awareness)Networking as a service to the internal enterpriseDang says that as the cloud era takes shape, technology

continues to play an increasing role in all aspects of business; this role is shifting from operational support to becoming core to product and service delivery and customer interaction. “Business investment in technology is the question of who will get the budget and control over technology investments in the new growth areas in business innovation. This is where SDN can be of tremendous benefit. Not only in mere operational streamlining, but rather through providing robust tools that empower administrators to drive operational innovation,” adds Dang.

SDN does not turn the network into a template to pass on to server administrators; rather, it provides a deep and dynamic application and network integration driving an end to silos through greater collaboration, enabling network architects to take a more proactive role in delivering cloud services, applications and driving the next-generation user experience. And that is the real value of SDN. It is not a specific killer feature or use case, but rather, it is a platform with the clear potential of solving many of the most critical challenges in the traditional networking model, and it is a platform that creates entirely

new possibilities for the future of networking, says Dang.Vijay Sethi, VP-IT & CIO, HeroMoto Corp, finds various

benefits: ease of management of networks because of automation, elimination of the need to configure individual devices as central configuration would be possible, increased network reliability and security because of centralised and automated management of network devices, uniform policy enforcement and fewer configuration errors and better experience to end-users and be more cost effective. He says that not many IT leaders and network managers are considering SDN in corporate India, as of today, as awareness about the SDN concept and capabilities is very low. “I feel we are experiencing the cycle we underwent during virtualisation and cloud--where there were some early adopters; --but it took a few years to have those concepts universally understood. SDN will follow a similar route, and in time to come, SDN would be a much more frequently used term in corporate IT departments. Standards about SDN and the application and partner eco system will also evolve as there are more adopters. “Also, for going in for SDN, IT departments would need to go through a lot of change management as the role and skill sets of network managers would undergo a lot of change,” says Sethi.

According to LuiSimonetti and Gates Zeng – Networking Systems Engineering Specialists, Avaya, “Senior IT managers should expect SDN solutions to require a certain amount of customisation (which can be very involved). So they need to ensure enough of the right type of specialised technical resources are available to handle it. These resources may be hard to come by.” “The IT organisation typically relies on the standard control

“Standards about SDN and the application and partner eco system will

also evolve as there are more adopters. Requires

change management”Vijay sethi, VP-IS & CIO,

HeroMoto Corp

cover story | SDN


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“SDN is the key to enabling significant technologies from the all-inclusive elastic private-cloud to secure mobile access, BYOD and beyond”

plane protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSFP) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) for topology discovery and to establish routing/ forwarding databases,” remarks LuiSimonetti, Networking Systems Engineering Specialist, Avaya. Now the IT organisation has more freedom and control, but necessary resources are required to understand and handle different situations. For example, early adopters of SDN (Google for instance) have a sizeable development team working on SDN, programming and writing code. In a nutshell, if you want the network to be programmable, you need to program it.

Gates Zeng – Networking Systems Engineering Specialists, Avaya, believes that today there is little interaction between the platform and network side, and that both sides are controlled by different management system. “Through SDN, however, the chance of integrating platform and network management becomes a reality. For example, through OpenStack, the open cloud computing platform, data centre administrators will be able to use a single graphical user interface to do everything from deploying virtual machines to assigning storage to configuring networks,” says Zeng.

how to Map the sdn strategy:Software Defined Networking represents the biggest change to the network in many years. According to Joe Green, CTO/Systems Engineering, Asia Pacific, Juniper, what makes SDN interesting is the transformation that it can enable. With SDN,

the network becomes more efficient and agile, and an enabler for delivering on business goals for application performance. A few points for IT Managers / CIOs to consider while they map their SDN strategy:

1. the buyer’s JourneyIf an organisation plans to build an SDN now, or plans a future implementation, you don’t need to hold off your net-work investments today for fear of protecting those invest-ments down the road. Nobody wants to rip and replace their network. For a successful implementation, there are three key factors to consider: investing in the right architecture, open interfaces, and flexible programmability.

2. invest in the architectureThe network buying decisions that an IT Manager / CIO makes today are driven by specific projects such as adding scale and capacity, building new applications and services, bringing new facilities online, retiring end-of-life equipment, and network consolidation. One should base their decision on differentiated network architectures that deliver the features and capabilities you are looking for with an added focus towards simplicity of management; nobody wants to deal with a network that’s diffi-cult to install and use. This will reduce OPEX for managing the physical network while delivering the key features and applica-tion performance that’s reliable and predictable.

amandeep singh dang, Country Head-Networking, Dell India

cover story | SDN


SDN is an enabler of virtualisation and cloud to build agile networks and drive business efficiency

As an industry trend, Software Defined Networking (SDN) is as potent, vital and impactful as Virtualisation and cloud in IT space. Amandeep Singh Dang, Country Head-Networking, Dell India, says, “Virtualisation is a technology to

splice physical IT assets into virtual need based assets. Cloud is commercial/non-commercial business process modelling using Virtualisation as the technology, while SDN is the technology enabler that will allow virtualisation of networks or for cloud business modelling.” All three are not the same; but they are inter-related and concurrent to the overall IT virtualisation wave that we are experiencing whether from a business process standpoint, or from a technology standpoint or from network as an IT element standpoint.

Sajan Paul, Director, Systems Engineering, India & SAARC, Juniper, points out that if IT managers are ready to jump aboard the SDN bandwagon, they might wonder where to begin. The answer

is to start with virtualisation. “Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) is a key part of a service provider’s broader SDN strategy. While NFV and SDN are often seen as separate technologies, the reality is that the two are highly complementary and it is in combination that they deliver the most value. NFV allows for the deployment of network components as software via virtual machines,” says Paul.There are already early implementations of network functions

“SDN abstracts the traditional networking hardwayre layers into

software and hardware for efficient management of hardware and data flow”

ashish Khanna, AVP-IT, EIH Ltd

syNergy?sdN vs virtualisatioN:

SDN | cover story


virtualisation that are resulting in more cost-effective operations and faster, more efficient deployment.

Paul reiterates that virtualising network functions is the first step towards building an agile network and truly leveraging SDN. Virtualisation not only provides quantifiable benefits, it allows providers to easily and quickly add capacity while dramatically lowering the operating costs associated with running their networks. With an agile network, providers can deliver more data more efficiently, and pioneer new revenue streams while increasing customer satisfaction along the way.

Ashish Khanna, AVP-IT, EIH Ltd, admits that since the SDN concept is still evolving, a lot of people are confused between SDN and network virtualisation, although in functionality, there is a thin line of difference between both technologies. “The major difference is that network virtualisation focuses on combining a few hardware resources (from one vendor) and presenting them to the application and administrators as one common resource, while SDN abstracts the traditional networking hardware layers into software and hardware for efficient management of hardware and data flow,” says Khanna.

LuiSimonetti and Gates Zeng – Networking Systems Engineering Specialists, Avaya, maintain that virtualisation and Cloud are terms typically used to describe the decoupling of applications from the server environment which would normally host them. SDN is a “big umbrella” term which is mostly used to described the decoupling of the network infrastructure which would support such applications and server environments into two core components: the control side (Control Plane) and the network side (data forwarding).

For Avaya, the Shortest Path Bridging (SPB) standard is the fabric that helps enable network virtualisation. With SPB, you can fluidly build network connectivity for an application and scale it to tens of thousands of virtualised networks. On the control side, it’s all about being able to manage the network assets and communicate to applications running on the network. Bimal Raj, CEO of Smart Link Network Systems Ltd., believes that having seen ups and downs in the economy for the last one decade, one of the priorities for most organisations is infrastructure cost control, both in terms of CAPEX and OPEX. CIOs and CTOs are also under the scanner by auditors or independent agencies to check how effectively they drive the show. However, the challenge for these CIOs is even more, since IT requirements are more demanding due to the increasing use of the web world today. Thankfully, the Applications and Operating systems have moved beyond proprietary hardware based approach and are free to move from one platform to other seamlessly. “Both private and public cloud service providers enjoy the benefits of the virtualisation which not only provided agility but also 100 per cent redundancy,” he says. However, when coming to network infrastructure, most of the data centre deployments today end up with standard driven protocols/codes written by most hardware vendors which leave no space for innovation and experimentation. According to Raj, although standards are beneficial for seamless operations, the standardisation itself takes years which may not be required for internal implementations but still organisations need to depend

“However, SDN has paved way for innovation in DCs

using the open platform approach. SDN leaves

only forwarding jobs to switch ASICs”

bimal raj, CEO, Smartlink Networks Ltd.

on hardware vendors. Unfortunately, there was no way to work in the “Open” manner when it came to Switching Hardware and Switch Control System which had to be from the same OEM till a few years ago. “However, SDN has paved way for innovation and experimentation in DCs using the open platform approach. SDN basically allows to control network traffic using a centralised controller (mostly different from Switching Hardware vendor) and leaves only forwarding jobs to switch ASICs.

This allows controlling network traffic behavior in a more flexible manner even without using protocols like STP, RSTP etc. Customers can use SDN capable that is, open flow based switches from different vendors,” he remarks.

cover story | SDN



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On the one hand, Software Defined Networking (SDN) will commoditise switching hardware from the current proprietary or rather monopolistic block it is today. On the other, it will give rise to a new industry with Software,

Apps platforms, and orchestration tools and/or optimised hardware for controllers.

The nature of this innovation is such that every enterprise will see a very different use case for it. To highlight just a few, SDN will enable Multi-tenant DC with network slicing, L4-7 network services and traffic steering, Cloud bursting, Network monitoring—analytics and visibility, WAN bandwidth optimisation, and more. Relevant analogy that can provide clarity around the impact of SDN is an examination of modern wireless architectures which have recently undergone a transition very similar to the changes facing wired networks today. Prior to 2005, the vast majority of wireless implementations utilised “fat” access points which functioned essentially the same way that wired switches do today. And then the lightweight access points swept the industry almost overnight, moving intelligence away from edge devices towards a centralised controller, just as OpenFlow architecture does. This transition did not commoditise enterprise wireless networks but rather empowered them.

The nature of this architecture itself provided 3 significant impacts:

It automated non-strategic menial tasks, freeing time for administrators to spend on more strategic opportunities

to drive IT innovation. It enabled a new generation of more intelligent and robust tools, creating a platform to enable technologists to drive operational innovation and architectural best practices. The centralisation of user and application data facilitated deeper application integration creating a platform to empower entirely new IT innovations.

On demand network PlaySDN will bring about the capability for applications to control their networking environment, on demand and with no delay. In the process, SDN will bring forward innovation both in the networking hardware and software arenas.

New chipsets will be designed to support the SDN model. Greater integration with applications will require development of APIs and programmable interfaces from a software perspective. And at the same time, existing network equipment will adapt to support the SDN model to gain the benefit of the new architecture.

spotting intelligence in the network Innovation lies in making the network an intelligent, pro-grammable entity that uses information from within the network as well as that from applications and systems on top to make informed decisions to enable greater respon-siveness to dynamic events, facilitate intelligent applica-tions and allow optimal use of network resources.

Understand the fundamental attributes of programmability and start laying the foundation through

Automated non-strategic menial tasks will free time for administrators to spend on strategic opportunities in driving IT

what is iNNovativeaBout sdN?


cover story | SDN

network abstractions, automation schemes and programmatic interfaces. Creating the decoupling of the control and data planes allowing the control plane to be run on an x86 server is critical Creation of multi-layered workflow automations to allow workflows to interact with the network at different levels to accommodate the rate of change, and to enable customers to innovate independently, and published north- and south-bound APIs. Adopting a philosophy of hybrid intelligence recognising that the decision to centralise or distribute network functions is based on the domain. So, for example, what gets centralised in a physically compact environment like the data centre may be quite different from the optimal approach for a global IP network run by a major service provider.

true network Value The true value of networking comes from enabling dynamic awareness and control of the underlying topology by higher level applications, where applications can direct the network about their needs and the network can be re-configured and re-provisioned accordingly. Simply put, SDN can provide better alignment between the network and the applications and systems that use them. In many ways, we have approached the network as a vast sensor array with visibility into traffic flows, security events, counters, usage data, etc., and have focused on exposing this network intelligence to OSS/BSS systems, management systems and other applications. Enabling this closed loop, bi-directional interaction makes the network more robust and agile and the application and user experience more consistent.

self serving networksEnriching existing connectivity services with self service custom-isation, optimising video delivery with a centralised management, virtualised intelligent traffic and dynamically customising the delivery of applications from the cloud.

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23 August

The NexTDark horse

A better approach to tackle BYOA is to either build an enterprise app store or deploy mobile application

management software

by Vijay Saradhi

When it comes to consumerisation, no concept has come under more scrutiny than BYOD (Bring Your Own Device). However, there is

yet another emerging dark horse: BYOA (Bring Your Own Application). Mobile applications, whose roles have grown by leaps and bounds, have transformed themselves into significant tools for business productivity. The most important cause for an increase of such mobile applications is the increase in the use of smart phones and tablets in the market.

Factors Fuelling BYOA MomentumMobile applications have become intelligent receptors that help accomplish tasks. From Evernote (utility) to sophisticated apps such as Adobe photoshop, most tasks, which were once performed using laptops and computers, are now accomplished using mobile devices in the form of mobile apps.

These apps are reshaping the way employees work and are shifting users’ preferences, making them use applications for personal or official tasks.

insight | BYOA

2 8 itnext | s e p t e m B e r 2 0 1 3

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For instance, the health care industry is benefiting from an app restriction policy that enables employees to use their device only for the app that has been provided by the organisation; thereby, it enables employees to achieve work-related tasks by using their own devices, which include personal apps, too.

Another aspect in the growth of BYOA has to do with the in-store/enterprise apps that are built by organisations for specific purposes.

Mobile vendors are inclined towards building security for enterprises; one such leading vendor, Apple, has introduced the app lock policy in its iOS 6: this is ample evidence of the growth of apps in the enterprise.

According to a Gartner research report, by 2017, 25 per cent of enterprises will have an enterprise app store for managing corporate-sanctioned apps on PCs and mobile devices. Ian Finley, Vice-President, Research, at Gartner, says, “Bring your own application (BYOA) has become as important as bring your own device (BYOD) in the development of a comprehensive mobile strategy, and the trend towards BYOA has begun to affect desktop and web applications as well”.

C o m m e r c i a l o r e nt e r p r i s e applications come with a certain set of advantages like ease of use to perform tasks, reduction in IT enterprise costs and platform agnostic that help employees work on multiple platforms.

Is the scenario all that black and white? BYOA has its own set of concerns; such as the use of certain commercial applications that would enable official data to be stored on these third party apps; these apps can be vulnerable to malware attacks

from mobile apps, it can possibly cause data leakage, thus creating complications for IT staff while managing applications.

How to tackle BYOAA better approach to tackle BYOA is to either build an enterprise app store or deploy mobile application management software. The advantage of building an enterprise app stores is that it secures data and the usage of those apps would be more or less enterprise specific. But the disadvantage lies in a less number of options being available to employees, which might lead to users downloading commercial apps.

On the other hand, these mobile application management best practices can help manage apps, whether commercial or in-house:

It can help in defining IT mobile poli-

cies by creating a black or white list-

ing of apps

It enables or disables access to com-

mercial app stores such as iTunes or

Play store

It also streamlines the process by dis-

tributing and managing applications

Mobile application management also

proactively secures data by enforcing

stringent security measures such as

automatic un installation of apps

when the device is under threat

Data containerization helps in

restricting sharing or editing of

the document

Looking at the current trend, one can foresee a substantial growth in apps reflecting on enterprises. Before in-corporating BYOA in the enterprise IT policy, it is advisable to weigh the pros and cons of options for tackling BYOA and to ensure consistent and secured business productivity.

Vijay Saradhi, Marketing Analyst, Manage Engine

“health care industry is benefiting

from an app restriction policy

that enables employees to

use their device only for the app that has been

provided by the organisation;

it enables employees to achieve work-related tasks”

putting the company’s information at risk. Accessing mail from mobile devices is common among employees; but if they try to access official mail

BYOA | insight

2 9s e p t e m B e r 2 0 1 3 | itnext

Innovation and technological advancements in WAN Optimisation space

that are being leveraged by the IT managers

by RobeRt Healey

AccelerAte to Perform

We at Riverbed have been working on several innovations which are most relevant to the current demand. This is a continuous process. In just the last 12 months, there have been major

innovations in the WAN optimisation arena which is impacting enterprise customers. They include:

New service models extending WAN optimisation to accelerate cloud-based SaaS applications like Microsoft Office 365, Google Apps and Salesforce.comExtension of WAN optimisation technology to support storage

traffic acceleration across WAN via the Granite – this was previously considered impossible – allowing 100 per cent consolidation of branch office IT infrastructure and many new architectural models for IT service delivery

Massive improvements in QoS and throughput, with WAN Optimisation systems scaling into tens of Gbps Other imminent innovations include extension of WAN optimisation client software to non-PC mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones, to better support BYOD environments.

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Cutting-edge technologies being leveraged by IT managersToday’s modern enterprise IT environment is incredibly complex, with users and IT resources highly distributed, multiple sources of applications and data and users connecting a variety of devices both across the corporate WAN and the public internet. After more than 10 years in business, solution providers now offer not only WAN optimisation but an entire “Performance Platform” – a suite of products and technology designed to help today’s IT manager diagnose performance issues with their distributed infrastructure and cure them all, resulting in optimum performance and the best possible return on their IT investments.

WAN Optimisation transforming the working and performance of the enterpriseBy implementing the “Performance Platform” approach to diagnose and cure performance issues that impact business, IT mana gers can proactively address the business application performance needs of their entire distributed workforce – allowing everyone, everywhere, on any device, over any type of connection to collaborate in real time as though they’re all in the same place. The boost in user satisfaction and business productivity is dramatic, and directly affects the company’s bottom line.

Which Verticals on WAN OptimisationThis technology works for any enterprise that has a distributed IT infrastructure, and does not restrict itself to any specific vertical or industry, though the adoption ratio might vary. This has resulted in very impressive business performance and growth for technology vendors, even during the global economic downturn. The larger Indian domestic and international service providers and systems integrators have been very proactive in both using this technology internally themselves, as well as selling it on to their own customers.

RoI and PaybacksThe IT industry analyst firm IDC wrote a report in 2012 that analysed the typical ROI from a deployment of WAN optimisation. In this study, as in previous studies conducted in 2007 and 2010, IDC found that customers were able to reduce IT costs, improve IT staff efficiency, increase availability for users, and trim time to market with new revenue-generating opportunities.

Business and Technology BenefitsThe benefits to the business of using WAN optimisation are many, and include both “hard” and “soft” costs – i.e., those directly visible, and those perhaps somewhat less so, but undoubtedly significant. As an example, consider just one benefit: WAN optimisation enables consolidation of branch office IT infrastructure back to the corporate data centre. This not only reduces or eliminates the “hard” costs or hardware and software from remote sites, but also the “soft” costs of IT support for those

remote sites, including staff time, travel costs, management burden, power bills and so on.

Reaping the BenefitsThe best way for organisations to understand the benefits of this technology is to try it themselves in their own production network environment. They will immediately see a drastic reduction in WAN

bandwidth and improvement in business application performance delivered

by this technology, making it very obvious how they can save their

networking costs and boost user business productivity. One point to note though – this technology is quite addictive, and anyone who tests it usually never wants to go back to the “bad old days” of

un-accelerated performance. In most cases, a purchase

order is included with the trial equipment sent for customer

evaluation which will eventually compel him to go in for deployment..

Changes that IT Managers Need to Bring it to make it work BetterThe true beauty of this technology is its ease of integration into existing IT environments. Rather than the typical “Rip and Replace” approach recommended by major IT suppliers, performance solutions are extremely easy to integrate into an enterprise’s existing IT infrastructure, with minimal to no changes necessary during implementation. No changes are needed to an organisation’s existing routing, switching, security or servers – they all just work better, faster and with an extended service lifetime with the addition of the performance boost.

Key ingredients to address business issues The key items are the speedy and accurate diagnosis and resolution of corporate application performance problems, as delivered by the performance management solution set, which identifies issues with both network infrastructure as well as the actual software applications themselves. Most WAN Optimisation tools enable network visibility, proactive monitoring, detection and redirection.

“After more than 10 years in business,

solution providers now offer not only WAN

optimisation but an entire “Performance Platform” –

Robert Healey, Technology Evangelist,

APAC and Japan

3 1s e p T e m b e r 2 0 1 3 | itnext

WAN OPTIMISATION | insight

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Ravi Chauhan | interview

3 3s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 3 | itnext

Weigh Your SecuritY inveStmentS

Why do you think the efficacy of emerging

network security technologies is questioned?One of our studies along with Ponemon Institute indicated that a majority of the respondents, who include senior IT practitioners, agreed that emerging network security technologies are not as effective as they should be and do not minimise attacks that bring down web applications or block unwarranted internet traffic. The security chiefs argue that emerging security technologies only address a part of the cyber security threats facing their organisation. The primary reason is that the emerging security technologies fall short of vendor promises; also, organisations focus on the inside-out threat and, hence, do not take a more holistic approach to managing cyber security risks. Their experience indicates that the new technologies are most effective

Ravi Chauhan, Managing Director, India and sAArC, juniper networks, says that companies need to review their security investment weighting to assess whether the areas of greatest risk are receiving adequate attention and how they can address serious security threats. In conversation with N Geetha, Chauhan reiterates the need to align security with business functions to make the environment truly secure

in minimising general malware, advanced malware and botnet attacks. What is considered less effective is minimising hacktivism

One of my concerns is also about how much the existing tools are safe--which could address new sophisticated risks. Companies remain focused on the inside-out threat. However, the rise of external attacks suggests security technology investments need to be more comprehensive and holistic.

What are perceived as the greatest risks to network security and threaten their network security posture?These are a lack of system connectivity/visibility, malicious insider risk and mobile devices (such as smartphones and tablets). What’s considered to pose the least risk are the network server environment, data centres and lack of organisational alignment.

Users believe their organisations should raise awareness about

emerging threats, increase visibility to web traffic and expedite the move from on-premise to cloud environments. Minimising false positives is of less priority. Efficacy of emerging network security technologies securing web traffic and increasing visibility to applications and the cloud are important. A majority believe that securing web traffic is by far the biggest network security concern for their organisations. Just half of the respondents say their organisations use emerging network security technologies to heighten visibility to applications and the use of cloud services. NGFW (Next generation fire wall) offers pluses and minuses. Fifty-seven per cent of respondents say their organisation’s NGFW suffers performance degradation when deploying the IPS feature while 14 per cent are unsure. Intrusion prevention systems (IPS) and firewalls are considered the most effective features in the control of the security of

interview | Ravi Chauhan


the organisation’s network. The application control feature in NGFW is most often configured for corporate usage enforcement (53%) and monitoring and reporting only (47% of respondents).

For many organisations, the reasons for not having granularly configured application controls is that concerns about settings that are too granular and management set the level.

Concerns about false positives curtail use of WAF. Most say their organisation deploys WAF in block mode. The biggest concern is that its use will affect revenues. Sixty-one per cent of respondents say that if they don’t use WAF(web application firewall), it is because of the high false positives that sometimes block real customers. This is followed by the difficulty in setting and updating blocking rules or policies.

A significant amount of time is spent setting up, configuring and updating rules or policies for WAF. Only 21 (9 + 12) percent of respondents say they can immediately (or within a few hours) set up and configure their organisation’s WAF. The majority of respondents say that it can take at least a few weeks to accomplish these tasks. It is said that technicians spend less than four hours each month to update rules or policies for each WAF. It can also take days each month to update rules or policies for each WAF.

Many believe blocking of IP addresses is an effective security measure. Does the blocking of IP addresses make users uncomfortable? A majority believe such actions make their organisations uncomfortable because of possible false positives which could block legitimate traffic and the need for a more granular identification method than simply IP addresses.

By far, the two most serious types of cyber attacks are web-based and

denial of service attacks. The least are viruses and hacking.

What are your thoughts on projecting data centres against global attacks?Today, companies are struggling to keep pace with the increasing volume and sophistication of cyber attacks, particularly those aimed at web applications and servers, which deal in high-value traffic and typically reside in data centers.

This leaves significant exposure to the most concerning attacks, and protecting against these attacks requires security systems that incorporate real-time, definitive and actionable intelligence about attackers.

To effectively secure data centres, Juniper believes companies must possess knowledge of the attacking devices, not just the IP address, and

quickly disseminate that intelligence across the data centre and into the network. Juniper Networks can deliver this intelligence through its Junos Spotlight Secure global attacker intelligence service, which acts as the consolidation point for attacker and threat information, feeding real-time intelligence to Juniper’s security solutions. The first products to leverage Spotlight Secure security intelligence are Junos WebApp Secure and Juniper Networks® SRX Series Services Gateways.Juniper Networks security solutions

“The emerging network security technologies are most effective in minimising general malware, advanced malware and botnet attacks, but not in hacktivism”

Ravi Chauhan | interview


will also be incorporated into security service chains, as outlined in the company’s recent Software Defined Networking (SDN) vision and strategy announcement. This approach will allow additional intelligence to be shared across network layers and enable the quick deployment of security services as part of the SDN service chains. Juniper’s vision for implementing SDN includes four steps, beginning with centralised management, which is available today with Juniper Networks Junos Space Security Director.

Where do the emerging network security technologies work best?The emerging network security technologies are most effective in minimising general malware, advanced malware and botnet

attacks. What is considered less effective is minimising hacktivism. Most argue that the organisations should raise awareness about emerging threats, increase visibility to web traffic and expedite the move from on-premise to cloud environments. Of less priority is minimising false positives.

CISOs need to periodically evaluate and assess the age of firewalls which are largely static and rope in dynamic tools, as it is found that 60 per cent of the current IP related security tools are not fit to prevent new threats. The volumetric attacks are easy to detect, but sometimes the flow rate/size of attack can be hard to manage. L7 or application attacks can be very difficult to detect and if you can’t detect them, you certainly cannot manage or mitigate them. This hinders security professionals from preventing attacks and wastes resources as they chase false-positives. So while the industry has, for some time, had data about potentially dangerous IP addresses through reputation block-lists, this simply isn’t enough. In fact, it’s a very ineffective way to identify and deal with attackers in the datacentre.

Juniper’s first-of-its-kind Spotlight attacker intelligence service doesn’t rely on IP addresses. It is capable of uniquely identifying attackers even if they are NATed or proxied on the same IP address or if attackers change their IP. Using Intrusion Deception, a technique that uses fake code to trick attackers into exposing themselves, we are able to detect attackers when they are in the process of attacking. After preventing the attacker from getting to any sensitive information, the system gathers various non-personally-identifiable device attributes as part of the standard interaction with Web applications to create a fingerprint.

The attacker fingerprints are then shared with the Spotlight attacker intelligence service so they

can then be propagated to all other subscribers of the service. This means if an identified attacker visits another site, they can immediately be tracked and prevented from forging subsequent attacks.

how do you create business value out of security?IT is important for security officers to bring in innovation and sell security differently within the organisation. Selling IT security is often seen as an insurance policy. Things can go really bad in your network, with your assets, devices, applications and so forth. All the bad guys are out to get you. At the same time, organisations need to be more agile, increase their speed of innovation to be competitive in their respective industry without losing productivity and control of their security. It is critical to align the IT capabilities to business needs and then security can make much sense. To establish credibility within the enterprise, CISOs must focus on understanding his or her world. What is their business value focus? What is our strategy in context of their agenda? Can we demonstrate what similar organisations are doing in the industry? What did they learn?

The same principle applies to the vendors to make the technologies that they represent effective. We at Juniper believe that security is as much about prevention, defending and compliance as it is about being a business enabler. By demonstrating the breadth and strength in the security capabilities, it is also possible to visualise the real business benefits for the customer by understanding their world and their needs. Basically, what capabilities are we enabling for the customer by leveraging our technology? Too many times, I see sales guys approach a customer by starting to sell without really listening to the customer before talking.

Find other inter-views online on

the website www.itnext.

in/resources/interviews


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IT vendors are always creating new jargon, and now the target seems to be data centres. Which is why, while most vendors are developing software that can

help manage the data centre and power cooling efficiently, the industry resounds with the latest jargon, SDDC, short for Software-Defined Data Centre. It is all about driving agility, performance, simplified architecture and an efficient orchestration of various components.

SDDC is the phrase used to refer to a data centre where all infrastructure is virtualised and delivered as a service. The control of the data centre is fully automated by software, meaning the hardware configuration is maintained through intelligent software systems.

This is in contrast to traditional data centres where hardware and devices typically define the infrastructure.

Most often, technical architects are asked, “What is SDN anyways?” While the work for SDN began at Stanford and the term caught on and created the entire SDN revolution, no one is clear as to what the term really means.

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VMware’s chief technology architect says, “Now it is just being used as a general term for networking; it is now just an umbrella term for cool stuff in networking.”

next step in VirtualisationSDDC is considered to be the next step in the evolution of virtualisation and cloud computing, as it provides a solution to support both legacy enterprise applications and new cloud computing services.

The trend appears to be that all IT hardware is now being defined by software and everything is virtualised.

While networking and storage is joining this league, the new term SDDC is emerging to denote the convergence of all these things into something much bigger. It is said that the former CTO of VMware, Dr. Steve Herrod, coined SDDC. And he was talking about the convergence of networking, storage and server virtualisation, and how it would affect engineers and architects and change their vision of the data centre.

Dc challengesDave Cappuccio, Member of the Gartner Blog, says that the industry just loves new catch phrases--and when a new one catches on, the vendors and press can get amazingly creative in assigning that phrase roles and responsibilities that go far beyond its original concept. However, he says, spin forward to today, and the buzz word du jour is “Software Defined X”. “Leading the pack is Software Defined Networks and Software Defined Storage, which intuitively make sense, but lately the variation game has begun and I’ve heard about Software Defined Organisations, Software Defined Staffing, Software Defined Power, and Software Defined Radio Receivers (really).” The interesting one to come out of the pack, according to Cappucccio, though, is Software Defined Data Centres.

While originally he was skeptical about any SDx assignation, he thinks the concept of SDDC resonates well. He says that this obviously is mostly conceptual right now, but it is the way

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the industry is heading, and astute IT managers today are thinking not necessarily about the bells and whistles vendors promise,-- but about the organisational impact these environments are going to cause.

VMware believes that the current network architectures are rigid, complex and create a costly barrier to realising the full agility organisations expect from Private Cloud.

Limitations of physical networks tie an increasingly pooled dynamic virtual world back to inflexible, dedicated hardware, creating artificial barriers to optimising network architecture and capacity utilisation. While a virtual machine can be provisioned in a matter of minutes, “surrounding” that VM with all the necessary network and security services still takes days.

This is because the current network and security operations remain dependent on manual provisioning of VLANS and dedicated physical appliances with fragmented management interfaces. As a result, current network and security architectures not only reduce efficiency, but also limit the ability of enterprises to rapidly deploy, move,

scale and protect applications and data based on business needs.

While the benefits of SDDC are well articulated, and the idea might sound good, many were dismissive of the term because VMware started using SDDC as a marketing tool for its own products, including vCloud Director and its various components.

solving the Dc complexity with sDDcVMware as a company is pursuing its broad vision of the Software Defined Data Centre. It’s a vision that is about untethering workload mobility from hardware infrastructure.

VMware’s technology architect says that the Software Defined Data Centre is not necessarily about replacing humans with some form of autonomic intelligence.

“The goal is, how you make networking have the properties of software systems as far as innovation, provisioning speed, and upgrade speed?” he says.

“You want networks to be as flexible and as agile as compute is. That’s not the case today, but that’s where we’re going.”

But the SDDC concept works well. The vendor has been helping customers convert servers into software compute

and extend the principles to other components of the data center.

With this process, it gets easy to virtualise the components of the data centre.

VMware is offering a full suite of systems--vSPhere, vCloud, VFabric, vCenter--all designed to provide a coordinated, integrated approach to software-based everything.

Since it already owns much of the virtual server action within most data centres, it is in a position to simplify infrastructure, not merely camouflage its complexities the way OS does for the PC. “We are formulating the vision into reality and about 50 to 60 per cent of the enterprise data centres will be under the spell of SDDC,” says B S Nagarajan, Director - Systems Engineering, India & SAARC at VMware.

“We are trying to solve the data centre challenges in an unconventional manner,” adds Nagarajan.

“We are formulating the vision into reality and about 50 to 60 per cent of the enterprise data centres will be under the spell of SDDC”

sofwAre DefineD DAtA center* Data center where all infrastructure is

virtualized and delivered as a service. Control

of the data center is fully automated by

software, meaning hardware configuration

is maintained through intelligent software

systems. this is in contrast to traditional

data centers where the infrastructure is

typically defined by hardware and devices.

* sDDC is a next step in the evolution of

virtualisation and cloud computing

* sDDC provides a solution to support both

legacy enterprise applications and new cloud

computing services

* there are three components of the

software-defined data center. It includes,

network virtualisation, server virtualisationa

and storage virtualisation.

* A business logic lyaer is also required to

translate application requirements, sLAs,

policies and cost considerations.

* software-defined data centre is a relatively

new enterprise computing phrase, but a

number of vendors have rolled out their

products around it.

— b s nagarajan, Director-systems engineering, India & sAArC at Vmware

15-MINUTE MANAGER


the youtube app keeps appearing and disappearing from the Windows phone

store, leaving users with no option but to resort to third party apps, but hope-

fully, that will change from today.

microsoft has finally released an official Youtube app for Windows phone 7 and

Windows phone 8. It is common knowledge that microsoft and Google have

been battling over the Windows phone platform for quite some time, with the

latter company refusing to provide open support for redmond’s mobile Os.

the Youtube app in particular has been a key area of focus, with the app being

plagued by many issues.

Initially, the Youtube app was nothing but a web interface packaged into an app

as microsoft tried to work out a deal with Google to give it access to the Youtube

ApIs. microsoft maintained that Google was intentionally holding back access

from microsoft to its Youtube ApIs. the redmond Company later released

an updated Youtube app, complete with the ability to upload videos, download

videos of offline viewing, but most of all, the videos played without any adver-

tisements. Google did not take very kindly to the downloading of videos and

the ad-free experience, citing that the move was causing the company to lose

ad-revenue. the app was promptly pulled from the Windows phone store at

Google’s request, leaving users high and dry.

microsoft has now come back with another official Youtube app, which is identi-

cal to the one they had released earlier, save for two changes. You cannot down-

load videos for offline viewing and when you do view videos on the apps, there’s

a pre-roll of an advertisement, just like on Youtube. Here is a list of features

according to the description of the Youtube app in the Windows phone store:

* pin any video, playlist, channel, and search queries to Live tiles

• manage your Youtube profile with your unique my Youtube page

• manage your playlists, uploads, and video lists

• Find channels, videos, and playlists with the quick access search bar

• share videos to your social networks, e-mail, and text messages

• Let your kids watch safe videos in Kid’s Corner and keep their own profile

Source: Thinkdigit.com

Ms rolls out youtube App for win phone 7&8

pROdUcT RevIewAs IT organisations move to a

converged infrastructure and service-oriented model, many find that current data centre networking architectures are a limiting factor.

VLAN-based switching models have a long history, but suffer from the following challenges in the data centre:

Inflexibility: VLAN and switching boundaries are not flexible nor are easily extensible. As requirements grow or shrink, compute and storage resources need to be allocated without major operational overhead. Operationally Inefficient Fault To l e r a n c e : Hi gh- ava i l ab i l i t y technologies such as VMware Fault Tolerance work best with “flat” Layer 2 networks, but creating and managing this architecture can be operationally difficult, especially at scale. VLAN and IP Address Management Limitations: IP address maintenance and VLAN limits become challenges as the data centre scales, particularly when strong isolation is required or in service provider environments.

VMware and Cisco Systems have created the VXLAN technology. VXLAN is a method for “floating” virtual domains on top of a common networking and virtualisation infrastructure.

By leveraging industry-standard Ethernet technology, large numbers of virtual domains can be created above an existing network, with complete isolation from each other and the underlying network.

benefits to Data centres Flexibility: Datacentre server and

storage utilisation and flexibility is maximised through the support of “stretched clusters” that cross switching and pod boundaries

Streamlined Network Operations: VXLAN runs on standard Layer 3 IP networks, eliminating the need to build and manage a large Layer 2 underlying transport layer. Investment Protection: VXLAN runs over standard switching hardware, with no need for software upgrades or special code versions on the switches.

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cube chat | Subhomoy Chakraborti


“the constant dynamics of providing a solution within the said time and cost is a challenge that inspires me,” says Subhomoy Chakraborti, GM-IT Projects, Magma Fincorp Ltd

Excites Me

Change is what excites Subhomoy Chakraborti, GM-IT Projects on a day-to-day basis and the constant changes in business and technology offer him immense scope for learning

and motivate him. That apart, he enjoys leveraging innovation to meet business expectations at the low-est ever cost. “The constant dynamics of providing a solution within the said time and cost is a challenge that inspires me,” says Chakraborti.

The scene today, however, is that tech guys are interested in the “how” or the nuts and bolts of a solution, while the business guys wait for the final solution. “Instead of over-emphasising on the “how,” IT guys should primarily focus on the ‘what’ of solving business problems. That would be a win-win situation for both IT and Business,” he says. After a Bachelor’s in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University in 2001, he had two jobs

Constantly innovate

to meet business

expecttations

My sucessMantra

By N Geetha

in hand, but went against the regular trend and pursued his M.Tech in Computer Science from ISI.

Says Chakraborti, “After M.Tech in 2003, I worked briefly for Cognizant Technology Solutions, for a European financial giant, before joining Oracle Applications product development at Oracle India. After some years, I found mobile technology was the next big thing. So, I joined the Mobile Devices group in Wipro Technologies in 2006. Working for around 6 years with various tier 1 OEMs across the world with international customers, naturally, Chakraborti was picked up by the current company, based on his track record, and was part of its new initiatives such as Gold Loan, Housing Finance, Insurance (a Joint Venture with HDI). Now the GM, he and his team have implemented a Collection field force automation system using POS handheld devices and a web solution. Built on an open source stack, it has become one of the most

Change

cube chat


critical applications driving the organisation. Further, “We are doing a strategic initiative in building a completely custom developed ERP system, which will cover all business and support functions. It will also integrate with a couple of external credit and lead generation systems. A multi-year project, we are working with the best of vendors in application and infrastructure development along with process reengineering. I am part of the PMO team of the project, and involved in daily governance and project management. “

Vendor management is also part of the job; he works with multiple vendors in application development and Mobile OEMs towards building a workable ecosystem.

What inspires him? Google as an innovating hub--“It delivers new things almost every day. I am waiting to get hold of

a Google Glass.” Steve Jobs as a perfectionist--“I became a Steve Jobs fan after reading his biography; he is the best marketer I have seen so far.” Jack Welch as the management guru--“I have read Jack Welch since my early career days; that, to some extent, has shaped how I see “management”.” I have been closely tracking social media trends and technologies and have a huge interest in social media as a science. I try to figure out how it can help turn around businesses or how ROI can be calculated for a social media investment in an Indian context,” especially in the SMB sector.Photography is my passion. I have an old Canon 350D DSLR and some lenses. Another dream for him is to drive a huge project (like UIDAI), a real test of management skills and technology knowledge, involving diverse stakeholders.

Favourite quote: “Heaven is not a place, and it is not a time. Heaven is being perFect” From “JonatHan livingston seagull” by ricHard bacH.

Favourite book: some oF my all-time Favourites are “tHe art oF tHe start” by guy kawasaki, “steve Jobs” by walter isaacson,

Favourite Food: mexican and continental, but tHat doesn’t stop me From gorging on mugHlai or tHai.

Favourite destination: dream destinations are : switzerland & ladakHFavourite gadget For work: recently i Have moved completely From ipHone to android platForm. engrossed witH android nexus

Favourite gadget For personal use: nexus 7 tablet.

work experience: working in mobilit y areas since tHe last 7 years Has Helped me gain Formidable experience. gained exposure in developing it strategy For an organisation.

FaCt FilE

Full name: subHamoy cHakraborti

current designation: general manager (it proJects)

current role: Head oF mobilit y vertical and tecHnical proJect manager oF core proJect

“Instead of over-emphasising on the “how,” IT guys should primarily focus on the ‘what’ of

solving business problems, which would be a win- win for both IT and Business”

update


PH

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A platform to air your views on the latest developments and issues that impact you

Ritesh sRivastava PrOGrAMMe MANAGer, rOyAl BANk Of scOTlANdHow many projects do you

know in your career history

which completed on original

timelines under original

cost with absolutely zero

production incidents (within

6 months)? I know what

you are thinking...change

requests, unclear require-

ment, agile, environments,

test data not available, etc.

Hold on to your rCA (root

Cause Analysis) engine! Let’s

confront the reality, these

constraints will be there. For

me, competitive advantage is

“the capabilities - managerial,

technical, functional, busi-

ness - that the It provider

brings to the table to help

me deliver expected results

(product / software / solution)

to my business customers.

MakaRand sawant GeNerAl MANAGer - IT AT dfPcla) today’s competitive sce-

nario is more volatile and

unpredictable. there is a de-

clining emphasis on single

domestic markets and an in-

creasing emphasis on global

markets as more industries

globalise. Companies find

that they must compete dif-

ferently to achieve strategic

competitiveness and earn

above-average or supe-

rior returns. New ways of

competing may include the

following:

a)bringing new goods and

services to market more

quickly

b)Diversifying the product

c)shifting product emphasis

d) Consolidate and com-

bine on-line selling with

physical stores

PRakash kuMaRdIrecTOr IT AT delTA INdIAthe concept of competitive

edge has not changed ever

since porter’s Famous ma-

trix was propounded. How-

ever, the underlying enabler

has shifted towards in-

novation and it has become

more pronounced with It

becoming the center force.

this is impacting the nature

of competition. Innovation

is not a vertical process;

it is more horizontal than

vertical and horizontal pro-

cesses are better enabled

through It. today, more

than the product innova-

tion, process innovation has

become more important

because it is more sustain-

able and difficult to copy.

And more often than not It

can help in innovating the

processes.

Is innovation vital to have a competitive edge?

oPen debate

Your views and opinion matter to us. send us your feedback on stories and the magazine to the editor at [email protected]

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A combination of e-textile, a snap-

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update

4 6 iTneXT | S E p T E M B E r 2 0 1 3

Here is a preview of the latest tech toys on the block to add to your arsenal. Take your pick and then go splurging!

Like something? Want to share your objects of desire? Send us your wish-list or feedback to [email protected]

inDulge The hottest, the coolest and the funkiest next generation gadgets and devices for you

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my log Sangita thakur varma managing Editor, india now


This overcast skies put a damper on Inde-pendence Day in Delhi. The rains played ducks and drakes with our great histori-cal city and roused citizens’ ire against our monolithic municipality. Too much is happening in the country that calls us to tickle our funny bone unless we want to be drowned in the floods of depression (pun intended) sweeping across the economy. Onion tears or crocodile ones notwith-standing, all is certainly not well with our Mother. As we cross swords and pass the parcel of blame, time we did some intro-spection to analyse where we, as individu-als, have faulted?

What I found myself doing this Day of Liberty—introspecting on my role as a citizen, manager and mother. Yes, each of us plays multiple roles in our lives. None cut and dried, each overlapping in duties and hours. As managers in a connected world, we are on call 24x7. We carry our laptops home and are wired to the office. When at work we have our smartphones, tablets and the world of social media connecting us to friends, family and everyone else outside our work sphere. Gone are the days when advice such as don’t carry work home or family to work was heeded. You carry your baggage in the back of your mind much as you lug your laptop bag on your shoulders. We have become fabled citizens of Panchtantra—Vikram & Betal—the King and the ghost.

Our wired existence suddenly evoked visions of chains and brought me out of my

The knots that bindOur liberty is very much in our hands, just break free

IllustratIon: manav sachdev

Ravi Chauhan, MD, India& SAARC, Juniper shares the importance of weighing the security investments

BYOA: The Next Dark Horse and the best approach to tackle it

Magma's Subhomoy Chakraborti on how changes and challenges excite him and how to meet business expectations

meandering reverie. As a mother, can I dissociate myself from work when my nine-year-old has something of obvious importance plaguing her mind? Can I for once, put aside my laptop, to listen and not just hear and nod, at her little problems? I found myself shaking my head a wee bit sadly. How often, I have brushed her aside, with an imperious, “I am working, can’t you see?”

At work, can we revert to the age of no social media? I know it has its uses. But trawling the internet, checking out Facebook updates, checking mail, and tweeting every half-an-hour not only destroys our concentration, lowers productivity but the time wasted away from work adds up to the backlog that you carry back home. As a corollary, it ties you to your work 24x7.

When at home unable to pay attention to pressing personal matters, you carry the backlog to work with you.

There are bills to be paid, so you log on in office to do that. There are instructions to be relayed to workers at home or family members need some urgent guidance that you were unable to share as you were working at home to complete that urgent report. Result: You walk out of office to attend that personal call that takes at least half an hour every one hour or so. It’s a vicious circle and we have tied ourselves into knots. I have resolved to undo some this August 15. So can you.

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