ITNEXT November 2013

8/13/2019 ITNEXT November 2013

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ART OFVIRTUALDEPLOYMENTIT decision makers bring in innovative best practices in deploying

desktop virtualisation technology to enhance productivity Pg12

Ashish KhannaAVP-IT, EIH Ltd

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

November 2013 | `100 | Volume 04 | Issue 10 | A 9.9 Media Publication

www.itnext.com | facebook.com/itnext | @itnext_magazine

ITDMs should collaborate & strategizeINTERVIEW |HU YOSHIDA, VP AND CTO, HITACHI DATA SYSTEMS|Pg36

BossTalk

5 laws and 5corollaries

Pg 06

Plus

Big Data:RightApproach,

Right SolutionPg 26


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EDITORIAL

1N O V 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

Productivityat its PeakWhats that?

Senior IT managers arecognizant of the fact thatit is critical to enhanceagility in the business withenhanced productivity anddesktop virtualisation is

most suited to this

With the industry constantly resonating

with the refrain increase your agility,

enhance productivity, align with business

and contribute to the growth of the organization, the senior

IT decision makers have laid out a plan.They are not influenced anymore by the footprints or increased adoptionof any technology per se. IT managers are looking at addressing business

needs and are ready to absorb any technology that caters to the need. So

whats new now? Senior IT decision makers have bought themselves into

the positive factors that desktop virtualisation has brought in, irrespective

of whether the technology has become all pervasive or not.

Senior IT managers are cognizant of the fact that it is critical to enhance

the agility in the business with enhanced productivity and reduction in

cost, and that appropriate technology such as desktop virtualisation is

most suited to this. However, the idea is to find effective ways to deploy the

technology and leverage the innovations around it.

IT Nexts cover feature on Art of Virtual Deployment in the current

edition provides insights into how senior IT decision makers have evolved

effective mechanisms to deploy desktop virtualisation tools and found easy

ways to deploy them.

The most heartening aspect is that unlike the run of the mill technologies

that get deployed resulting in not so many benefits, deploying desktop

virtualisation was a well thought out plan. It was embarked upon in a

phased manner taking all the business stakeholders into account to ensure

that nothing went wrong.

IT managers were aware that the acquisition cost was high with regard

to desktop virtualisation, but that did not deter them from absorbing it as

the end effect was about enhancing employee productivity which, in turn,

impacted business growth positively.

2014 - The Year of DaaS

ttp://www.brianmadden.

com/blogs/gabeknuth/

archive/2013/10/30/vmware-

citrix-microsoft-desktops-as-

a-service-solutions-will-make-

2014-quot-the-year-of-daas-quot.

aspx

How to avoid the 7 pitfalls ofdesktop virtualisation

http://blogs.citrix.com/2013/04/18/how-to-

avoid-the-7-pitfalls-of-desktop-

virtualization/

Attacking the high costs ofdesktop Virtualisation

http://blogs.gartner.com/

gunnar-berger/attacking-

the-high-costs-of-desktop-

virtualization-part-1/

Microsoft Enterprise DesktopVirtualisation (MED-V)

http://www.microsoft.com/

en-us/windows/enterprise/

products-and-technologies/

mdop/med-v.aspx


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2 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3

CONTENTNOVEMBER 2013

V O L U M E 0 4 | I S S U E 1 0

12Page

FOR THE LA TEST TEC HNOLOG Y UPDA TES G O TO ITNEXT.IN

COVER STORY

12Virtually RightIT decision makers bring in innovative best practices to make desktopvirtualisation easy to deploy so as to enhance productivity and reduce cost

15Easy Steps to Virtual DeploymentIT Managers are making conscious efforts to evolve an effective mechanismto access desktop virtualization and deployment methods

19BYOD and VDI : Harmoniously AlignedVDI has become the primary enabler of BYOD due to its core ability tostream data to mobile devices in an encrypted and containerised manner

21DaaS is Taking Baby StepsDesktop as a Service is on the anvil as most IT managers areoptimistic about its uptake with new platforms like Android and Macin enterprise scenario

06Dr Hugh Thompson, Senior

VP, Blue Coat on enabling

business with security and 5

laws and 5 corollaries

BOSS TALK

36 Hu Yoshida, VP& CTO, Hita-

chi Data Systems, emphasises

the need for CIOs to collaborate

with vendors in strategising

INTERVIEW

Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=195675030582

Twitter:http://twitter.com/itnext

LinkedInhttp://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=2261770&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

COVER

Design: SHIGIL NARAYANANPhoto: SUBHOJIT PAULART OFVIRTUAL

DEPLOYMENTITdecision makersbringin innovative bestpracticesin deploying

desktopvirtualisation technologyto enhance productivity Pg12

AshishKhannaAVP-IT,EIHLtd

F OR T HE NE X T GENERATION OF C I Os

Nov ember 201 3| `1 00 |Volume04|I s s ue1 0 |A 9 .9 M ediaPublic ation

www.itnex t.c om| fac ebook .c om/itnex t| @itnex t_ magazine

ITDMsshouldcollaborate&strategizeINTERVIEW|HUYOSHIDA,VPANDCTO,HITACHIDATASYSTEMS | Pg36

BossTalk

5lawsand5corollaries

Pg06

Plus

BigData:RightApproach,

RightSolutionPg26

IT decision makers bring in innovative best practicesin deploying desktop virtualization technology to

enhance productivity

ART OF

VIRTUALDEPLOYMENT


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15 MINUTEMANAGER41 Countering Botnets IK J

Latesh, IT Security Professional

and Research Scholar, throws

light on challenges for IT

managers to identify bots across

their network and defuse them

from action

UPDATE08 Converged Networking

to Create Revenue I Cisco

has launched Network

Convergence System (NCS)

to help telcos in India in

monetization

CUBE CHAT46Do What You Love, |Feroz

Shaikh, Vice President-IT, Prime

Focus quotes Aristotle to express

his hunger to learn new things

RIGHTSOLUTION, RIGHTAPPROACH26 Big Data Solutions |As big

data goes bigger, IT managers

are challenged with the task of

identifying data that qualifies for

big data and finding appropriate

solutions to process it

OPEN DEBATE45 Three Expert Panel |

Is Software Defined Networking

(SDN) different from Virtualisation

and Cloud?

48Page

SIMPLIFYING IT TODRIVE PURE VALUE|IT Managers leverage

converged IBM PureSystems

to radically transform and

simplify the IT lifecycle so as

to drive value

REGULARSEditorial __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 01

Letters __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ 04

Update __ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ _ 08

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PLEASERECYCLE

THISMAGAZINE

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RECYCLING

ADVERTISER INDEX

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Emerson 07

Lenovo IBC

Microsoft 30-31, BC

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INBOX


I have identified 5 such areas

of imbalance - social imbalance,

technology imbalance, change

imbalance and role-shifts imbalance.

Understanding these imbalances

can help the CIO to become aware

of and do something about the

problems on the surface. All

these imbalances also are highly

interdependent on each other i.e.

they feed into each other and do

not exist in isolation. Hence, to do

something about them, one needs

to adopt a whole systems approach.

Though these imbalances

need to be noticed, understood

and acted upon by the entire top

management (CEO, CXOs and the

CIO), I am urging the CIOs here totake a special note.

The following questions the CIOs

must continuously ponder upon.

1. How are these five imbalances

manifesting in my organization?

2. What is the explanation for

the imbalances and the related

manifestations? What are the

consequences?

3. What needs to be done to handle

such imbalances?

4. How can IT help manage such

imbalances?

5. What is the preparedness of IT to

be able to handle the imbalances?

6. What needs to be done to

enhance the preparedness of

IT? How can SMAC help?

KAPIL DEV SINGH, Founder, Coeus Age

OCTOBER 2013

www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=

2261770&trk=myg_ugrp_ovr

300 members

Why Open Source

Congratulations to the IT Next team for publishing a

superb stream of articles analyzing the Open Source

segment in the Open Source Challenge Edition. The

issue features experts representing a cross section of the

industry ranging from IT companies to the Government toactivists, each providing meaningful insights that matter

the most in their respective segment.

IT users have long been grappling with the definition of

Open Source as opposed to Free Software and the question

if Free Software is really free. The interview with Richard

Stallman debunks a lot of myths and gives you a fresh

perspective.

The issue also covers all topical hot buttons or trends

in todays IT scenario ranging from Cloud to Big Data to

Enterprise Security to BYOD. The presentation, the copyand the design complement one another while assisting in

easy reading and comprehension.

DC PRIYAN, Managing Partner, Ogilvy Public Relations

IT NEXT VALUES YOUR FEEDBACK

We want to know what you think about the magazine, and how we can make it a

better read. Your comments will go a long way in making IT NEXTthe preferredpublication for the community. Send your comments, compliments, complaints

or questions about the magazine [email protected].

PHOTO/ILLUSTRATION/IMAGINGC

REDIT

PHOTO/ILLUSTRATION/IMAGINGC

REDIT

IS RECESSION

RINGING THE

OPEN SOURCBELLS?

Now,withtherecessionalarmbangingtheearsof economy,

seniorITmanagersacrossindustriesaretakingare-look

atITbudgets.Forthesecondtimein lastfiveyears,theIT

industryiswitnessingaslowdown.The buzzamongIT

managersseemstobehowaboutopensource?

Whatisdrivingthistrend?Themajorfactorsare risingsoftware

licensingfees,CIOsoperating underconstrainedbudgets,internet

makingwayfornew deliverymodelsandevolvingdesignarchitecture

consideringBYOD.

Inthe currentbusinessenvironment,opensourcesoftware and

technologiesbeyondsoftwareare becominganintegral partof theIT

landscape.Thisis particularlytrue inthe internetage, wherecontent

INSIDE

16 | Innovating withanOpen mind

19|Commercial Viability: AProvenFact

20 | AnOpen Challenge?

25 | Setting up anOpenCulture

Open Source has come a long way since i ts inceptionto armour IT managers against recessionBY SUBHANKAR KUNDU

DESIGN BY HARIDAS BALAN ILLUSTRATION BY ANIL T

1 5O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3 | ITNEXT1 4 ITNEXT | O C T O B E R 2 0 1 3

OPEN SOURCE CHALLENGE|COVER STORY

IT NEXTTHANKSITS READERSFOR THE WARM

RESPONSE

http://www.itnext.in/resources/

magazine

READ THISISSUE ONLINE

ITNEXT

and send it to

567678*Special rates apply

F O R T H E N E X T GENERATION O F C I O s

October 2013| `100| Volume04| Issue09|A 9.9 MediaPublicationwww.itnext.com| facebook.com/itnext| @itnext_magazine

SharatAiraniCTO,IntellinetDatasys

DhananjayCRokdeGlobalHead,InformationSecurity,

Cox&KingsGroup

OPENCHALLENGE

THEECONOMIC SLOWDOWNISCO MPELLINGSENIOR

ITDECISIONMAKERSTOGOOPENONTHEOPEN

SOURCEASA COSTSAVINGSTRATEG YACROSS

STRATUMS Pg14

Freedomis allthatmattersforusersINTERVIEW|RICHARD STALLMAN, SOFTWAREFREEDOMACTIVISTANDCOMPUTERPROGRAMMER| Pg34

BossTalk

BusinessfacetoIT

Pg08

Insight

RightMixto SecureBetter:Embracing

BYODPg30

5 Organization-Market Imbalances a

CIO Must Understand

Today, the hierarchies are eroding, boundaries are becoming more

porous and unclear, roles are fuzzy and evolving, strategies are fluid

and short term, power is distributed and goal is to become change ready.

Open Letter

I really liked the latest issue

(Open Challenge) of IT Next,

particularly the cover story

on open source. The industry

leaders views on this topic were

very insightful. Im infact a

regular reader of the magazine

and it keeps me up to date with the

current trends and happenings

in the IT sector in India. Id like

to congratulate the team for

constantly releasing such great

issues one after the other.

ALTAF HA LDE, Managing Director -

South Asia, Kaspersky Lab India


7/52


8/52


BOSS TALK | DR HUGH THOMPSON

A social science concerned withanalysis of attacker motivations and businessrisk, hackernomics is characterised by 5fundamental laws and 4 corollaries

Where is the transforma-tion happening? IT is being

aligned with business to

enable security officers to

rope in more security measures.

Security Perception Changes

Before evolving the laws and relevant cor-

ollaries, it is also essential to look back as

to why the field of information security is

evolving faster than ever. Now, senior leader-

ship across enterprises are taking interest.

Shift in Attackers

Attackers are after much more than tradi-

tional monetizable data drive hacktivism, state-

sponsored attacks and IP attacks breaches.

Change in User Expectations

Security is being woven into service level agree-

ments and price, process maturity and scale can

only go so far--assurance is also key.

Todays Social Concern: Hackernomics

A social science concerned chiefly with descrip-

tion and analysis of attacker motivations, eco-

nomics, and business risk, hackernomics is

characterised by 5 fun damental immutable laws

and 4 corollaries.

5 Laws:

Most attackers arent evil or insane; they just

want something.

Security isnt about security. Its about mitigating

risk at some cost

Most costly breaches come from simple failures,

not from attacker ingenuity

5 Laws, 4Corollariesof Security

ENABLING BUSINESS WITH SECURITY

In the absence of security education, people

make poor security decisions with technology

Attackers usually dont get in by crack-

ing some impenetrable security control, they

look for weak points like trusting employees

Corollary

No budget to protect against evil people but

against them who are looking for weaker targets

In the absence of metrics, we tend to over focus on

risks that are either familiar or recent

Bad guys can, however, be very creative if prop-

erly incentivised

Systems need to be easy to use securely and dif-

ficult to use insecurely

Business teams and users are already consum-

ing the best technology at will

The Plateau Effect:

How enterprise is evolving

The three steps to business assurance are about

having continuity, agility and governance.

Dr Hugh Thompson, Senior VP& Chief Security Strategist, Blue Coat

This book helps

you understand

how to think

in multiple

dimensions and

its a great bridge

between science

and business.

SUGGESTION BOX

WRITER: DOUGLA S HOFSTA DTER

PUBLISHER: PENGUIN BOOKS


9/52


10/52


TRENDS

DEALS

PRODUCTS

SERVICES

PEOPLEUPDATEI N D U S T R Y

TRENDS | With Internet of Everything (IoE) being the buzzword around

the networking world, telecom service providers in India have been

constantly looking at solutions that could create the highly flexible and

manageable networking ecosystem to enhance their end users. Cisco

has launched Network Convergence System (NCS) to power it.

The Cisco NCS family consists of three key components that can

be managed as a single integrated system for business agility and

simplified operations - NCS 6000, NCS 4000 and NCS 2000.

ConvergedNetworking

to Create Revenue

With the launch of NCS, Cisco

is trying to help service providers

to have the opportunity to play a

central role in enabling new and

unique experiences by building

on their current infrastructure

with NCS. Also, NCS adds

a dimension to networking,

allowing operators to leverage

network intelligence for greater

monetization pavements.

In India, Cisco is in talkswith leading telcos but no

announcement has been made.

Sanjay Rohatgi, Managing

Director, Service Provider Sales,

Cisco India and SAARC says, Its

a powerful solution for service

providers who are looking to

create robust networks, data

centers and applications that

have advanced capabilities in

areas such as programmability,

performance, resiliency and scale

in order to drive business growth.

We are bullish about the adoption

and success of NCS in India.

Among the global service

providers BSkyB (Sky), KDDI

and Telstra are deploying the Cisco

NCS to create new revenue streams,

simplify operations and deliver

exciting personalized experiences

to their customers.

NCSs capabilities enable service

providers to not only accommodate

growing network traffic but alsoseize the opportunity created by

trillions of programmable device-

driven events generated by the

IoE, the networked connection

of people, data, processes and

things. Cisco claims that NCS has

been designed to facilitate such

IoE events, which can be ongoing

conversations creating strings

of interactivity between people,

applications and devices.

With more

than 100 pat-

ents, it joins

Cisco Carrier

Routing (CRS)

and Aggrega-

tion Services

Router (ASR)

families

SOURCE: GIGASPACES

According to a report, most companies

are using or planning to use dedicated

big data tools in their production

environment to cope up with the influx

of massive amounts of data. 56% of

respondents are planning to move

from RDBMS to a NoSQL data store.

30% of those using dedicated tools are

planning to combine NoSQL data store

with a Hadoop processing platform.

An overwhelming majority of organizations view their BigData processing as mission critical.BigData

Recent trends in big data tools and architecture

NoSQL Data store...

60.0%

50.0%

40.0%

30.0%

20.0%

10.0%

0.0%Hadoop Distro... jReal-Time Event... Other products...


11/52


TRENDS | In its annual Predicts

research on industry trends

titled Top Industries Predicts

2014, it has featured strategic

planning assumptions that CIOs,

senior business executives and

IT leaders should factor intotheir enterprise planning and

strategy-setting initiatives.

Top industry predictions:

By 2016, poor return on equity

will drive more than 60 per cent

of banks worldwide to process

transactions on cloud

By 2017, more than 60 per cent

of government organizations with

a CIO and a chief digital officer

will eliminate one of these roles.

By 2017, 40 per cent of utilities

with smart metering solutions

TopVertical Predictions for ITin 2014 and Beyond: Gartner

medical data banks, with market

penetration exceeding three per

cent by 2016

By 2016, 60 per cent of U.S.

health insurers will know the

procedure price and provider

quality rating of shoppable

medical services in advance

Through 2017, K-12 online

education spending will increase

25 per cent

By 2018, 3D printing will resultin the loss of at least $100 billion

per year in intellectual property

globally

By 2017, 15 per cent of

consumers will respond to

context-aware offers based on

their individual demographics

and shopper profiles

By 2015, 80 per cent of life

science organizations will be

crushed by elements of big data,

exposing poor ROI on IT

investments

Many industries

face accelerat-

ing pressure for

fundamental

business trans-

formation

Salesforce.com has launched Salesforce Identity to

provide integrated identity services to connect every

employee, customer and partner to any app, on anydevice. It eliminates complex identity silosenabling

CIOs to deliver a simple, productive and customized

user experience across every web, mobile and on-

premise app. IT administrators can now simplify

the process of provisioning and managing their

companies collection of mobile, cloud and on-

premises applications.

AROUND THE WORLD

SalesforceIdentity to enableCIOs deliver better identity

JORMA OLLILA,ex-chairman of Nokia

Apple concentratedexclusively on expensivetelephones. At Nokia, wehad thought of doing thesame, but the operatorswanted inexpensivemodels instead

will use cloud-based big data

analytics

By year-end 2015, inadequate

ROI will drive insurers to aban-

don 40 per cent of their current

customer-facing mobile apps

Full-genome sequencing will

stimulate a new market for

QUICK BYTE

LOGITECH Z600

SPEAKERS

This allows multi-pairing

with three devices at

once, making it easy to

play music on smartphone, pc and tab-

let. It can be cou pled with Bluetooth

A2DP-enabled device.

PANASONIC T31

Its a budget Android

4.2 based smartphone

that runs on 4.2.2

Jelly Bean with a 4-inch

display with 800 x 480 pixels. It has a

1.3GHz dual-core processor, 512MB of

RAM, 4GB of inbuilt storage.

NIKON D5300

Nikon India has launched the

compact and lightweight en-

try-level DSLR the D5300.

It is Nikons first digital SLR

camera to offer built-in Wi-Fi and GPS func-

tions. It packs in 24.2 megapixels along with a

new EXPEED 4 image processing engine.


12/52

DOSSIERAmodRanadeGeneral Manager,

Datacenter Busi-

ness Development,

Schneider Electric

IT Business brings

to light challenges

faced by IT manag-

ers in changing the

IT landscape

Challengesin theChanging IT

LandscapeLack of on-site resources,resources deployed indistributed environmentsand emerging BYOD trendpose a challenge for ITmanagers. Here are some

tips on how to conquer themajor challenges

ASK THE EXPERT

1 0 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3

WAYS TO EVOLVE NEW STRATEGIESWITH CHANGING IT LANDSCAPE

How do you help IT managers face the

challenges in the changing IT landscape?

Preparing for the future of the companys IT infra-

structure is key. Managers today are struggling to

do more with less space, money and time. Besides

network threats and the ever-changing IT, they

worry about equipment failure and lack of on-site

resources. Increasing demand for constant avail-ability and changes in the way IT is deployed have

also heightened day-to-day challenges and pres-

sures. We provide the backbone of physical IT

infrastructure by offering the most manageable and

most adaptable solutions, while at the same time

keeping them simple to configure, order and install.

Integrated infrastructure solutions include backup

power and power distribution, cooling, enclosures,

and management software. Adaptable solutions

scale from the smallest IT spaces up to multi-mega-

watt data centres.

IT deployments are becoming more complex

with technology changes such as cloud and

virtualisation. How can IT managers align their

strategy with a solution to cope up with this?

Technologies like cloud computing and virtualisation,

have a promise for improving asset utilization on the IT

side, and thus reducing costs for the organization. But,

many of the benefits of Cloud and Virtualisation can getlost, if the physical infrastructure for the data center

is unable to cope with this new architecture on the IT

side. The new technologies create workloads that are

not static in time and space, as a result it becomes very

difficult to channel the Power/Cooling to these dynamic

workloads, while ensuring right sizing of the infrastruc-

ture. IT managers need to design their data centers in

a modular fashion, and deploy management suites that

help them visualize the supply and demand of Power/

Cooling/Space/etc. Over 70 per cent of reported data

center outages are attributed to human error, and a


13/52

62%increase in

DC efficiencyis ensuredby deploy-ing servervirtualisationand optimizedpower/coolingtechniques

ASK THE EXPERTC U S T O M P U B L I S H I N G

1 1N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3 | ITNEXT

strong management and monitoring platform can go a

long way in preventing these.

Unlike space-filling, energy inefficient servers in

house, cloud computing allows you to pay only for the

services that you use.

By simply moving to cloud computing, a company

seeking to reduce energy consumption and energy

expenses can also cut its carbon emissions drasti-

cally. Companies are turning to energy efficient

strategies to minimise the energy needed to manage

all their data. But, there are gaps to fill. For example,Greenpeace International reports that companies not

only need to measure how efficiently they are using

electricity, but also ensure that the electricity chosen

to manage their cloud is clean.

How do you see the IT Manager tackling BYOD?

The demand for 24/7 availability is ever increasing.

About 700 million WiFi technology users worldwide have

to be catered to. When the market for corporate mobile

phones was experiencing its first explosive period of

growth, the handsets were basic and functionality

restricted. So you pretty much used what you were giv-en--the phones still had novelty value. But today, people

want to express themselves; add their own apps, social

sites and media--music, video and photos. At Schneider

Electric, we see an increasing number of people want-

ing to add their own laptops, tablets and smartphones

to the company network. It shows that the consum-

erisation of IT is driving corporates to move beyond

challenges of compliance, regulation, management and

security, to a point where half of all businesses might

be making BYOD available by 2017 as there is a busi-

ness benefit. BYOD is transforming the economics of

corporate network computing. Against this backdrop,

IT managers should opt for modular IT infrastructureto prepare themselves for increased dependence on IT.

Besides, maintaining constant uptime becomes critical

for which they should opt for monitoring and manage-

ment solutions to track the health of IT which can

enable them to predict and prevent future problems.

How should IT managers tackle IT spaceutilisation issues?We believe that the tips below would help in resolving

the IT space challenges

Space optimisation

Optimise open spaces through better organisation. Utilise

solutions that incorporate open frame racks, cable man-

agement, and wall-mounted enclosures to make the most

of available space in a cost-effective way.

Every building undergoes changes over time., resulting in

negative impact on building performance, lower produc-

tivity and higher energy and building maintenance costs.

To address this problem, many companies are recommis-

sioning their buildings as a way to fine-tune and update

building performance.

Increased density and heat load

Ensure that you use proper cooling to manage the added

heat from the increased density in your space. Utilise row/

rack based cooling to provide proper air flow and ventilation

for an ideal IT environment. Row/Rack-based cooling is

also much more efficient while handling higher densities.

Remote site management

Remote sites can be easily managed with monitoring

software that allows you to manage and control all of your

environments from a single location or device. Having asingle centralised dashboard allows you to proactively

manage your IT environments and avoid potential down-

time disasters.

Energy efficiency

Save energy by implementing energy efficient UPS systems

and provide clean power while simplifying the IT space.

Also, make sure your power and cooling are best designed

for your needs by rightsizing and implementing modular

designs to maximise efficiency.

Availability for Transition to the Cloud

Transitioning to the cloud can be a beneficial businesspractice, but brings a greater need for constant availabil-

ity. Ensure that you have a rightsized UPS solution which

provides enough runtime to get you through a blackout.

Consider an extended runtime UPS if you do not have a

generator, which will allow your equipment to ride through

longer blackouts.

IT is driving corporates to move beyond challenges ofcompliance, regulation, management and security

THE SECTION BROUGHT YOU BY


14/52

1 2 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 31 2 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3


15/52


INSIDEPAGES

15| Easy Steps to Virtual Deployment

19| BYOD & VDI: Harmoniously aligned

21| DaaS is taking Baby Steps

24| VDIs Licensing cost justification

DESIGN BY HARIDAS BALAN | ILLUSTRATION BY SHIGIL NARAYANAN

ART OF VIRUALISING DESKTOP | COVER STORYART OF VIRUALISING DESKTOP | COVER STORY

INNOVATIONS IN DESKTOPvirtualisation are being increasingly leveraged by

business functions and units to make the processes effective and efficient, which in

turn results in enhanced productivity. Senior IT managers at large are working onuse cases around quick IT infrastructure delivery time for service centres in order

to put business-critical plans in place. Manufacturing plant users are hopping on

to the desktop virtualisation platform over WAN to enable cost saving through

procurement of thin clients rather than desktops or laptops.

There is little doubt that desktop virtualisation is making inroads across

enterprises and IT heads are ready to embrace the technology so as to drive down

cost and enhance productivity; this, despite the fact that the acquisition cost on the

desktop virtualisation is considered to be high.

However, the key difference here is to find out if IT managers are taking the right

approach to meeting their business demands and boosting productivity.

IT decision makers bring in innovativebest practices to make desktopvirtualisation easy to deploy so as toenhance productivity and reduce cost

BY SUBHANKAR KUNDU & N GE ETHA


ART OF VIRUALISING DESKTOP | COVER STORYART OF VIRUALISING DESKTOP | COVER STORY


16/52

RIGHT VIRTUAL STRATEGY

Team IT Next embarked on a study to

find how desktop virtualisation is being

perceived and the effective mechanismsof deploying the same. Interestingly, IT

managers are making concerted efforts

to build the right virtual environment in

terms of choosing the right virtualisation

hypervisor, choosing the right security

to make the virtual environment secure,

the right monitoring tools to evolve a

monitoring mechanism to ensure relevant

alerts, the perfect backup strategy for

valid backup and educating and docu-menting, which is a crucial step.

Srikanth Karnakota, Director Server

and Cloud Business, Microsoft, says,

The roots of desktop virtualisation

technology is not in desktop but in server

technology which is the backbone. If we

Having effectivemanagement capabilities,IT managers now neednot worry about howto provision thesedesktops or the appsto be consumed on a

different device,but thinkof effective ways of managingthe virtual desktops

Srikanth Karnakota

Director Server and Cloud Business, Microsoft.

look at Windows Server 2012, the latest

we launched a week back, we have taken

desktop virtualisation to a whole new

level altogether; because now, within the

server, IT managers can do different kinds

of activities--host desktop, pool desktop

or a hosted session. Having the server

platform, IT managers dont need to buy

additional infrastructure, or any addition-

al capabilities. Having effective manage-

ment capabilities , IT managers now need

not worry about how to provision these

desktops or the apps be consumed on a

different device, but think of effective

ways of managing the virtual desktops

and ensure that the cost does not spiral

up on both storage and networking on adifferent device, says Karnakota.

CLEAR STRATEGY IN PLACE

IT managers are taking a 360 degree

approach in evaluating various functions

which could be impacted with desktop

virtualisation deployment. For instance,

they are evaluating desktop as a service

model in working out a cloud model,

observing the BYOD trends to bring in

necessary interfaces.

Enhanced productivity and efficiency

Improved management and maintenance, helpdesk tickets down

Power savings compared to traditional PCs

Optimum storage utilisation

Desktop virtualisation has enabled faster booting time of desktops, which earlier

used to run into minutes

Security and governance have improved. Antivirus, patch update etc., now

happen on the virtual layer/master image rather than on physical machines and

impacting its performance. Audit of end user systems has become much

simpler and consumes less time as compared to set-up with physical machines

WHY DESKTOP VIRTUALISATION?

IMAGINGB

Y

PETERSONP

J

1 4 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3


17/52

EASY STEPS

TO VIRTUALDEPLOYMENTIT decision makers are making conscious

efforts to evolve an effective mechanism to

assess the desktop virtualisation environment

and deployment methods

IS VIRTUALDeployment an Art?

Deploying virtualisation methodology

is an art, as deployment of desktop

virtualisation requires detailed

asessment of ones IT environment, and

implementation strategy differs from one

organisation to another.

Anoop Handa, EVP & CIO, Fullerton

India says, Deployment of end-

point infrastructure and embracing

new technology such as desktop

virtualisation for end-user computing

comes with its own challenges due to

its inherent impact on the end-users

across the organisation. Desktop

virtualisation deployment can be

termed an organisation-wide IT enabled

Transformation/Change initiative.

To streamline deployment of

desktop virtualisation and make

it easier, the following key steps

are recommended:

Detailed assessment of current

desktop computing environment

Compilation of users and

categorisation of users basis

function, geography, data

requirements, data volume and need

for availability of local data

Appreciation and awareness of a

variety of end-user peripherals--

printers, biometric devices,

scanners, etc

Review of bandwidth

availability at various locations

that access centralised data

centre environment

Evaluation of technology and final

selection of the most relevant and

most effective technology in

consideration of longer term vision

and organisational fitment

Selection of the right

implementation partner

Building up a comprehensive ROI/

business case and listing down all

The very first step is todo the profiling of usersafter a successful proof of

concept of technology atyour organisation which

will further help in getting thesizing right

Sachin Jain

CIO, Evalueserve


ART OF VIRTUALISING DESKTOP | COVER STORY


18/52

benefits both IT benefits as well

as beyond

Testing the waters through a pilot test

/ proof-of-concept

Evaluation of test results and

resolution of identified concerns/issues

And only once you are confident

and the test results positive, should

you embark upon this journey on a

wider scale and progress with complete

deployment, says Handa.

Nilesh Goradia, Head Pre-Sales, India

Subcontinent-Citrix, emphasises that the

first step of desktop virtualisation be to

identify user groups or user types in an

organisation.

Areas to look at what are the user

groups? What kind of things do you do

using a physical desktop? What kind ofapplications do you use on it?

Within that, we also try to test the

compatibility of the application such

as a newer environment where the

application will run, he says.

Goradia further adds, The second

part would be the design of the solution.

Design is important because DV does

not work on a stand-alone mode as it

involves a lot of components such as

blade, servers, storage, applications,

networking; if tried on the Internet, there

will be critical security components

which will be involved.

So, all these components have to work

in sync if one has to deliver a particular

solution effectively. The hard disk

components need to talk to each

other. A wrong design can lead to

wrong implementation. It leads to a

dissatisfied user.

According to HPs Vikram K, Director,

ISS, HP India, some easy steps to deploy

virtual desktop are:

1. Understanding users application

and workload

2.Doing a proof of concept for a small

number of users with actual intended

deployment to test all use cases

3.Designing the solution which includes

choosing the right virtualisation

platform and methodology

4.Sizing virtualisation hosts (servers),

storage and networking infrastructure

for the requirement5.Deploying the full solution in

production to enable users to have

access from their client devices like

tablet, smart phones etc

Sachin Jain, CIO, Evalueserve,

recommends that one should always

look for used cases from his/her

organisation to build a case of desktop

virtualisation. The very first step

is to do the profiling of users after a

successful proof of concept of technology

at your organisation which will further

help in getting the sizing right.

These users should then be taken

through a test phase to further filter

or add more users on the basis of

Deployment of desktopvirtualisation comes withits own challenges due

to its inherent impact onthe end-usersacross the

organisation

Anoop Handa

EVP & CIO, Fullerton India

performance and user acceptance. Post

that, the team should focus on execution

in a phased manner without disturbing

the entire organisation at the same

time. This approach will also help in

discovering and handling unexpected

challenges/issues, adds Jain.

Best Practices to Sustain the

Strategy

Besides putting their best foot forward

to deploy effective methods, IT decision

makers are learning their best lessons by

way of putting in place the best practices.

Jayantha Prabhu, CTO, Essar

Services India, drives high availability,

security and backup recovery and

retention as the best practices in the

desktop virtualisation environment.He adds, High availability in the

VDI set-up is configured to provide

availability to end users and flexibility

to work without disruption.

This also enables the end user to be

connected to his workplace without any

disruption even when he is travelling.

Prabhu ensured taking adequate

steps to keep the VDI set-up

intrusion-free as the company was

publishing VDI on the internet.

1 6 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3

COVER STORY | ART OF VIRTUALISING DESKTOP


19/52

Communication happens through the SSL VPN solution,

which is integrated with dual factor token-based

authentication.

As a best practice, all backup of shared storage should

configure with retention time. Disaster recovery for virtual

desktop infrastructure (VDI) requires many of the same

measures one would take for conventional PCs: backup

methods and careful planning. In fact, VDI can make it

even easier to recover data because information is not

stored on end-user devices.

However, the lessons that Prabhu and his team learned

by way of applying best practices was to make sure the

reasons for the project were well-defined. In addition,

these were important:

Senior management support to address change management

How to support heavy users

Making sure the network infrastructure is up to the task

You cannot have all users covered by a single vendor

Integration with the surrounding ecosystem

Program management and organisational structure for

the implementation

Ramesh Vantipalli (Head EUC India & South Systems

Engineering & Technology), VMware, says the real value in

converting to a virtual desktop environment is realised only

when a variety of seemingly conflicting requirements are met:

a) the end users are happy, b) the corporations needs forsecurity and compliance are met, c) the IT organisation

has the control it needs without having to add costly

resources, and d) the overall system performance and cost

of ownership are improved.

Some of the best practices are given below for

reference:

1. Achieving the best end user experience

An important consideration for selecting host rendering versus

client rendering is the quality of the end user experience. End

users care about the image display quality and experiencing no

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Deploying virtualisationmethodology is an art,

as deployment of

desktop virtualisationrequires detailedassessment of onesIT environment and

implementation plan


20/52

perceptible delay in image rendering.

They also care about the response

time or latency of the system they

are using. They expect their desk-

top to provide nearly instantaneous

responses for any query regardless

of the type of information being

retrieved--just like a laptop.

Host rendering and client rendering

can both provide users with quality

experience and reasonable response

times for most environments.

The difference lies in which can

provide the best experience for the

changing network conditions. This

will help to determine which approach

is more suitable for your environment.

2.Making your organisation securand compliant

Many corporations have made

security and compliance their top

requirements when deploying a server

hosted virtual desktop environment.

The need for better security has been

demonstrated numerous times with

theft of laptops containing customer

account information and other mis-

sion critical data.

The risk of corporate confidential

information getting into the wrong

hands has never been higher.

3.Making your organisation secure

and compliant

Managing operating system

updates, application updates, firm-

ware changes and more at the end

users desktop is a full time job for

most IT administrators.

In an environment that relies on

full laptop and desktop support,

organisations can spend $2,000 or

more per year on maintaining each

device. The IT organisation typically

has to have someone assigned to be

physically onsite in case one of the

users has an issue. Centralised man-

agement is an option only for a well-managed PC environment and the

restrictions that this implies are not

practical for most organisations. The

inefficiencies and escalating costs of

managing PCs at the endpoint are well

documented.

Most CIOs agree that zero manage-

ment at the client is the most efficient,

easiest, the lowest cost-wise and the

most secure implementation for virtu-

alising desktops.

4.Gaining Freedom from Application

and Video Format Dependence

Desktop virtualisation doesnt tie the

user to a specific version of an applica-

tion or a specific video format. It frees

the user and the IT organisation from

specific hardware and operating system

requirements and concerns that impact

application versions.

In this type of environment, future

applications just work since specific

hardware is not needed at the client.

Host side rendering allows desktop

virtualisation to accomplish.

For client-side rendering, this flex-

ibility is lost because client side render-

ing requires specific CODECs at the

endpoint for video. Future video for-

mats are not guaranteed to work withclient side rendering without IT inter-

vention and upgrade at the endpoint.

Host-side rendering is completely

application and video format inde-

pendent, which provides a virtualised

environment with no dependence on

any additional software or hardware.

Client side rendered environments

struggle to keep up with the latest

application user interfaces.

To future-proof ones investment and

have a low maintenance solution, a solid,

host-rendered environment makes for an

excellent investment choice.

5.Optimising network bandwidth

consumption

Network bandwidth is at a premium

during peak hours in most organisa-

tions. Network administrators need

devices accessing the network to use the

available bandwidth wisely.

Peak hours dont happen 100 per

cent of the time and, in fact, account

for less than half of daily operations.

During non-peak hours, adminis-trators desire network devices to use

bandwidth optimally while still pro-

viding the best user experience.

The real goal of an IT organisa-

tion is to use network bandwidth and

resources intelligently, i.e., during

peak hours use less and exhibit a fair

share policy, and during non-peak

hours, use as much bandwidth as

needed and expand to provide the best

possible end user experience.

Evaluation of Technologies

Approach document to Senior

Management with Executive

Summary

POC of Comparative Technologies

Detailed Business case with

Business, Quantitative and

Qualitative benefits

Finalisation of Solution in CIO

Council

Techno Commercial comparison

and Procurement.

Detailed Information Gathering:

(User and Application Profiling)

Architecture Finalisation: (On

Inputs of Detailed Information

Gathering)

Project Plan Finalisation

BOM Finalisation

Procurement

Installation and Configuration

Testing Phase: (Application testing

and ecosystem Integration)

GO-LIVE

Architecture and Configuration

Audit

Project Handover and Sustenance

Technical Support to the

Operations Team

EFFECTIVE STEPS IN DEPLOYMENT

1 8 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3



21/52

BYOD AND VDI:

HARMONIOUSLYALIGNEDIT managers concur that VDI has become the primary

enabler of BYOD due to its core ability to stream data to

mobile devices in an encrypted and containerised manner

MOST INDUSTRYplayers, vendors

and senior IT managers agree that

desktop virtualisation and Bring Your

Own Device (BYOD) complement each

other as the former is imperative to

provide a robust and effective framework

and foundation for BYOD adoption.


India, who has deployed desktop

virtualisation, though, believes that

desktop virtualisation technology is

necessary to enable BYOD adoption.

He argues that they are two distinct

initiatives, which need to be dealt with

exclusively. Handa says, While the initial

phase of implementation looks similar,

the extent of investments and the IT

infrastructure deployment at the back-

end differ from one to the other.

In the case of Essar,

Jayantha Prabhu Chief Technology

Officer, Essar Services India says, In our

case, desktop virtualisation has become

one of the primary enablers of BYOD

due to its core ability to stream data to

mobile devices in an encrypted and

containerised manner.

Due to containerisation, the

existing applications continue

to run without modification

due to their decoupling from the

Local OS of the mobile device.

It is critical to createseparate environment forcorporateapplicationsand data and this can becompletely isolated, securedand customised by the enterpriseIT adminRameshVantipalli

Head EUC India & South-Systems

Engineering & Technology, VMware

Prabhu says that the ability to restrict

the data flow from the VDI to the

local device also means that malware

protection resides on the server

rather than on individual devices,

making device security in a BYOD

environment far easier to maintain.

Another advantage that BYOD

would see, as per Ashish Khanna,

AVP-IT, EIH L td, is that with the

latest virtualisation technologies, it

is very imperative that organisations

devise their BYOD strategy along with

desktop virtualisation as both these

technologies provide benefit to the

mobile user force for connecting their

devices with the enterprise systems

while they are on the move.

Sachin Jain, CIO, Evalueserve,

looks at desktop virtualisation as an

infrastructure layer which is needed




22/52

to build a secure and successful BYOD

strategy. Our objective is to give people

complete desktop experience anywhere

and on any device. which helps them

maintain their efficiency level, he says.

Desktop virtualisation helps in

extending a restricted shell on a users

personal device which does not require

a two-way communication between the

user PC and virtual desktop, says Jain.

Virtualisation Vendors

Take on BYOD

Desktop virtualisation vendors are keen

to know what IT managers are trying to

do and the outcome of their task when the

primary challenge is security.

Srikanth Karnakota, Director Server

and Cloud Business, Microsoft, lists outthree key challenges for IT managers with

regard to aligning VDI with BYOD.

According to Karnakota, it is critical

to find how IT managers are providing

secure access to devices which are not

necessarily IT enabled or IT managed.

The second problem, according to

him, is deployment and provisioning of

different kind of apps running within

the firewall of the enterprise. The third

challenge is management: getting the

corporate data managed, as IT managers

dont want any remote swip and putting

in place a concrete policy.

To address these challenges, a vendor

like Microsoft puts forth its system centre

(management tool) and windows server

together. The technology we have built

around the second challenge is appstore

which has provisioning capability and is

built on top of the windows server. There

are certain apps which you can mark out,

like corporate apps that can be marked

out outside the firewall. They could be

consumed on the go, he says.Nilesh Goradia, Head Pre-Sales, India

Subcontinent-Citrix, relates an instance

of how its customer faced the challenge

of dissemination on iPad. We enabled

the user to deploy the application on

the desktop virtualisation tool to enable

seamless access of information on iPad.

Goradia says that the communication

between devices and servers that host

OS and apps pave the way for effective

control. Ramesh Vantipalli (Head EUC

India & South--Systems Engineering

& Technology), VMware believes that a

majority of workers bringing in so many

of their personal devices, (and apps) into

organisations has ushered in trends such

as bring your own device (BYOD) andcorporate-owned, personally enabled

(COPE), which have become mainstay

essentials to delivering IT scale and

end-user choice. Vantipalli explains that

the VMware Horizon Suites solutions

enable users to access all their files

and applications at any time, across

devices. It is critical to create a separate

environment for corporate applications

and data and this can be completely

isolated, secured and customised by

It is imperative thatorganisations devise theirBYOD strategy along withdesktop virtualisation asthese technologies benefitthe mobile user forceAshish Khanna, AVP-IT, EIH Ltd

the enterprise IT admin; it can prevent

corporate data leakage and preserve

the privacy of employees personal

information, he says. Vikram K, director,

ISS, HP India, considers it a big deal for

CIOs as they try to transform their ITdepartments from asset management

outfits to service delivery organisations.

An agile, scalable, and cost-effective

desktop virtualisation infrastructure

helps CIOs achieve this metamorphosis

and provides measurable ROI, he

avers. They need to align their clients

virtualisation strategy to deliver both VDI

and BYOD, as todays IT infrastructure

helps IT heads to achieve this seamlessly

from a single infrastructure.

2 0 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3



23/52

Desktop as a Service is on the anvil, as most IT

managers are optimistic about its uptake with new

platforms like Android and Mac fuelling the growth

DaaS IS TAKINGBABY STEPS

WHILE THE INDUSTRYmay not

find many instances or use cases

around Desktop as a Service to enable

cloud model around this technology,

there have been a lot of positive trends

towards this.

It is critical to discuss under what

circumstances DaaS can take off and

what factors can fuel this to the

maturity curve.

Anoop Handa, EVP & CIO,

Fullerton India, is confident that

DaaS (Desktop as a Service) is very

much on the anvil and its adoption

will increase over time.

As we centralise end-user

computing environment in data

centres and make it accessible to end-

users over a private cloud, we are

actually paving the way for adoption

of desktop as a service to end

users, emphasises Handa.

Handa reiterates the fact

that several IT services

organisations are focusing

The future is very bright.Last year, we saw manycustomers demandingDaaS, as desktop hostinghas come a long wayNilesh Goradia

Head Pre-Sales, India Subcontinent-Citrix

on this domain of provisioning and

supporting Desktop as a Service by

assuring Application Delivery as a

Service (AdaaS) model on a variety of

end-user devices.

IT teams today need to move from

application deployment to application

delivery and from monitoring

managing devices to delivering end-

user performance.

ADaaS deploys this approach to

break IT silos and deliver lowered

costs, greater productivity and IT

efficiency to businesses and thats

what we have gone ahead within our

organisation, says Handa.

Jayantha Prabhu, CTO, Essar




24/52

Services India Limited, avers that it will

take some time to mature due to the

over dependency on Microsoft as the

primary solution provider.

However, the penetration of Android

and MAC into the environment will see

DaaS progressing more quickly. Future

desktop architectures have a variety

of attributes in common--for example,

the ability to separate the system image

(OS, apps etc.) from the underlying

hardware, the ability to implement

disaster recovery, high availability,

mobility, Prabhu adds.

The penetration ofAndroid and MAC intothe environment willsee DaaS progressingmore quicklyJayantha Prabhu

CTO, Essar Services India Limited

When delivered over the cloud,

desktops will combine capabilities

like mobility, ubiquitous access and

platform independence and will allow

emerging, lightweight ARM-based

tablets to access powerhouse x86

applications and vice-versa.

CASE STUDY 1EIH LTD (OBEROI GROUP)

WITH DESKTOPVirtualisation, EIH has

experienced flexibility, improved IT agility

to enable a new user and ensure data

always remained secure and safe within a

data centre, says Ashish Khanna, AVP-IT,

EIH Ltd (Oberoi Group). As a best practice,

EIH Ltd has enabled users who travel to

work on their machines in offline mode and

to sync automatically with the server data

as soon as they plug back into the network.

This approach has given a huge edge to

users of virtualisation; even in the event

of a disaster or a machine crash, they

are provided with a new machine to work

without any disruption to the data and

virtually no downtime, resulting in higher

productivity, says Khanna. EIH started to

implement desktop virtualisation way back

in 2009 when its flagship hotel, The Oberoi

Gurgaon opened. After meeting with suc-

cess in terms of accruing higher productiv-

ity of its team and functions, the IT team

followed the same strategy and deployed

virtualisation tools across all new hotels,

which opened afterwards; these included

Trident Hyderabad and Oberoi Dubai. The

organisation has virtualised 150 desktops

spread across three locations.

Phased Approach

As the on-boarding or acquisition cost of the

desktop virtualisation technology was very high,

we decided to deploy desktop virtualisation in

the event of a new property or where a large

refresh of desktops/laptops was required,

says Khanna. Khanna and team went in for a

PDCA (Plan, do, check and act) strategy with

regard to VDI and looked at specific needs

of laying thrust on the right profiling of users

and the right sizing of these profiles cutting

across sales, marketing, front office etc. After

evaluating several solutions, EIH deployed

VMwares Horizon Mirage to provide centralised

image management for Windows desktops with

enhanced levels of backup and OS migration ca-

pabilities. Mirage helped in categorisation of the

data, so that the IT staff could perform more

granular management of the endpoint.

Enabled OfflineMode for Users on Travel

2 2 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3


25/52

unique capabilities, such as multi-

tenancy, Self-Service and Grid-based

architecture for elastic scalability.

Multi-tenancy A must for cloud

delivery. Each customer gets a

separate virtual environment to

ensure security while cloud

providers are able to manage

multiple customers under

one platform.

Self-service of virtual desktops

Simple provisioning from the cloud

enables self-service for IT of full

VDI, shared session remote desktop

service (RDS) desktops and

applications without the need to

procure hardware or software.

Grid-based architecture for elastic

scalability Advanced architectureenables unlimited scalability across

multiple geographies and data centres.

Low cost of delivery Open source

based technology eliminates

Microsoft licensing fees and third-

party software management,

resulting in cost savings over

competitive desktop

virtualisation offerings.

In short, DaaS gives enterprises the

ability to manage costs, extend capacity

on-demand and reduce the time required

when desktop loads change.

While Srikanth Karnakota,

Director Server and Cloud Business,

Microsoft, does not see a significant

uptake on DaaS, he does not rule out

the possibility of SMBs and branch

offices of large enterprises opting to

host it on third party cloud.

In order to support DaaS,

Microsoft has enabled Windows

licensing for thi rd party.

HPs Vikram K, director, ISS, HP

India, emphasises that the next stage ofthe desktop virtualisation is Desktop-as-

a-service (DaaS) which is easier to deploy,

less expensive to manage and maintain

and is more flexible.

However, due to higher network

bandwidth requirement for DaaS,

this is still in the early stages. With

application virtualisation and

hosted applications, a few selected

applications like Office365 are already

being hosted on the Cloud, he says.

EVALUESERVEs business model

involved providing a variety of services

to clients while delivering the highest

possible levels of security and avail-

ability. With four data centres spread

across India, catering to the growing

demands of both employees and

clients, and managing the data cen-

tres was a challenge. Consequently,

Sachin Jain, CIO of Evalueserve, was

given the task of finding a solution toaddress the manageability, scalability,

and security of Evalueserves servers

and desktops. To address their chal-

lenges, Sachin and his team evaluated

a number of solutions. Multiple ven-

dors were evaluated on a number of

criteria to determine if they would be

able to meet the exacting standards

of a company that prides itself on the

highest level of service to its clients.

After running a month-long proof

of- concept from multiple vendors,

VMware vSphere and VMware View

were decided upon as the only viable

choices. Features such as vMotion,

thin provisioning and high availability

were tested extensively with each of

Evalueserves critical applications,

says Jain. VMware View was also

thoroughly tested in a number of

scenarios to ensure that the IT team

would have the best possible solution

for their desktop environment.

VMware View was leveraged to

deploy virtual desktops for employ-

ees throughout the organisation. The

additional security and manageability

of the virtual desktops has allowed

the IT team to focus on what it does

best--support the business. VMware

View enabled Evalueserve to maintain

the highest standards of compliance

and security, and IT team to provide

employees with flexi-seating.

He sees MAC, Android, Linux or

Windows virtual machines hosted on

servers in the cloud made accessible to

users over a wide area network.

DaaS and Cloud go Hand in Glove

Most players argue that capex is the

biggest challenge now as CIOs

report to CFOs and cash outflow

is a major concern.

Nilesh Goradia, Head Pre-Sales,

India Subcontinent-Citrix, believes

cost effectiveness to be one of the major

factors why people are looking at DaaS

and getting onto an opex kind of a model.

The future is very bright. Last year,

we saw many customers demanding

DaaS, as desktop hosting has come a

long way, enabling managed serviceproviders to explore new opportunities

to develop higher-value cloud-based

offers, says Goradia.

Virtualisation vendors argue that the

explosion of mobile devices, mobile and

web applications, and enhanced interest

in the cloud is driving businesses to

re-evaluate their desktop strategy.

VMware recently announced the

acquisition of Desktone , in desktop-as-a-

service (DaaS) with an advanced multi-

tenant desktop virtualisation platform

for delivering Windows desktops and

applications as a cloud service.

According to Ramesh Vantipalli

(Head EUC India & South Systems

Engineering & Technology), VMware,

the combination of VMware and

Desktones global partner network

will allow customers in all regions to

benefit from the economies of scale

provided by DaaS. The addition of

the Desktone platform further extends

the benefits of desktop virtualisation

by offering an additional choice toorganisations looking for predictable

economics, flexibility of cloud

deployment or simple deployment

and management due to the lack of

resources or in-house VDI expertise,

says Vantipalli.

The benefits of the DaaS platform,

as Vantipalli explains, were purpose-

built for service providers to

deliver windows applications and

desktops as a cloud service with

CASE STUDY 2EVALUESERVE

Easy-to-Manageinfrastructure

for Desktop andServers




26/52

While licensing for desktop virtualisation is high, reduction

in the cost of application rollout, provisioning, updates,

maintenance and training can justify the investment

WHAT CAN JUSTIFY

THE LICENSING

COST IN VDI?

IT HEADS ARE AWAREof the

fact that the licensing cost on the

deployment of desktop virtualisation

is relatively high, given that it is still

not ubiquitous. However, virtualisation

vendors do formulate certain theories

around how to perceive the licensing

cost to make it more cost effective and

justify the investment to drive RoI.

Ramesh Vantipalli (Head EUC India

& South Systems Engineering &

Technology), VMware, recommends

IT managers to consider key aspects

when it comes to desktop virtualisation

software licensing:

OS and software licensing needs to be

strongly analysed, especially when

making the move to a VDI structure

Customers and organisations alike

need to follow the solution providers

licensing structure, and necessarycontrols need to be put in place to

ensure access to confidential

information for designated users

within enterprises

Misinformation is evil. Organisations

and users alike need to take

appropriate actions to ensure they

have all the necessary information

from the provider directly.

VMware allows organisations to choose

named-user licensing or concurrent-

user licensing for the product suite. A

benefit of concurrent-user licensing

is that one can rotate in users and not

have to pay for licenses for users not on

the system. Concurrent-user licensing

is especially suited to call centre

environments with shift workers and

to educational environments where not

every individual is using the system at

one time, says Vantipalli. The benefit

of named-user licensing for the suite is

that one named user can use as many

devices as he wishes at once, on any or

all of the products.

In a desktop virtualisation

phenomenon, the licensing models

existing are either per device, per

user or per concurrent. The challenge,

as Nilesh Goradia, Head Pre-Sales,

India Subcontinent-Citrix, observes

INNOVATIONS

3D engineering - Virtual delivery of

3D professional graphics

applications and workstations

Support to hardware-based GPU

sharing of OpenGL and DirectX -

Provisioning many users to share

a GPU

Hosted shared desktops (HSD)

Thin Clients

End-point devices and middleware

to multiple device

Active Directory integration for

dynamic desktop sessions

Enhanced security with support

for two-factor authentication

Citrixs AppDNA Software

- Simplified overall installation,

setup and user environment to

accommodate a broader range of

enterprises, the channel and

global SIs.

Enabling offline mode for select

users

Secured access of desktop/laptop

of users on mobile platforms

Thin provisioning of applications

Printing with Universal Print

Server

Personalized VDI

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27/52

is not primarily from a desktop

virtualisation perspective, its more of

an affiliated licensing, an application

licensing challenge.

Most CIOs are unable to give clarity

on how applications are going to work.

That could make the licensing even

more complex, says Goradia.

Many vendors licensing model

revolves around per concurrent and

per user modules, which is considered

to be complex.

Srikanth Karnakota, Director

Server and Cloud Business,

Microsoft, says, Moving away

from the concurrent user base, we

have introduced licenses based on a

particular machine or device. Its perdevice model. With this model, cost

reduction is ensured.

Microsoft sees the reduction in cost

with the OS coming free along with the

windows server; there is no additional

cost, the cost is only around VDI.

Vikram K, Director, ISS, HP

India, observes, Virtual Desktop

infrastructure environment does not

reduce the licenses required. Rather, it

helps in reducing operational expenses

by simplifying desktops patching,

OS and application updates and

infrastructure cost.

IT heads can consider solutions

like application virtualisation,

session virtualisation or presentation

virtualisation for better TCO, he says.

Higher Cost, Higher Benefit?


India, believes that not all licensing

models have fully matured/aligned

to the changing environment for

end-user computing using desktop

virtualisation. In addition, this area

continues to be a challenge and has to

be checked, verified and included in

the business case.Jayantha Prabhu, CTO, Essar

Services India Limited, says that to

accrue greater benefits from desktop

virtualisation licenses, we need to be

very clear with the licensing models of

the Desktop VDI solutions providers

and the Desktop OS vendor before

we choose to implement VDI. It is

imperative that we have a detailed and

joint discussion with the Desktop VDI

solutions providers and the Desktop

VDI does not reduce

the licenses required.Rather, it helps inreducing operational

expenses by simplifyingdesktops patching, OS and

application updatesVikram K

Director, ISS, HP India

OS vendor and have their sign off on

the Licensing Understanding, avers

Prabhu. Organisations that have

Enterprise Agreements tend to benefit

in this case as compared to those

having Select Agreements for specific

products only, explains Prabhu.

Ashish Khanna, AVP-IT, EIH Ltd.,

agrees that currently the licensing

of virtualisation is very costly and

hence the on-boarding cost of desktop

virtualisation is very high. If the

number of users deployed is lesser, then

the ROI for the investment comes after

a long period, which doesnt justify

the initial high capex. In order to have

more penetration in the market, this

technology has to come at a lower cost.Sachin Jain, CIO, Evalueserve,

finds this not an easy puzzle to solve.

Different virtualisation solutions

will lead to different licensing models

which are usually complicated and at

times do not sound logical. One has

to examine the model, and find a best

fit for the solution he/she settles for,

based on other important factors such

as ROI, recurring cost, support cost,

etc, he says.



28/52

ILUSTRATION

:AN

ILT

As big data goes bigger, IT managers are challengedwith the task of identifying data that qualifies for big data

and finding appropriate solutions to process it

BY SUNIL RANKA

RightApproach,

Right Solution

But there is an end of life which weoften overlook. Its pertinent to reviewthe policies as IT managers might needto redefine what part of data they shouldretain, delete and archive

Sunil Ranka

BI Professional and Consultant

Every decade or every five years, the hype around one technological

innovation or trend creates a buzz in the IT community. It was

big cloud till the recent past. Not that people have stopped

talking about it. But big data is the new hero. The purpose of big

data is still multi-layered, multi-defined. Gartners 3Vs--Volume,

Variety and Velocity--focused more on the overall management

of data. Not all IT managers agree about 3Vs. It all depends on the organisational

need and what kind of big data solutions they plan to implement. There is another

V that IT managers like to add-- Value.

Why big data bothers?

Everyone has been pondering over the need of big data, but there is a tire kicking. The

confusion among IT managers and CIOs is around the alignment of these 4Vs in the real

need. It has been observed that the client may not have a need of big data solution as a

traditional data warehouse solution is good enough to meet the requirement.

2 6 ITNEXT | N O V E M B E R 2 0 1 3

INSIGHT | RIGHT APPROACH, RIGHT SOLUTION


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Its easier to qualify a use case but

convincing some IT managers about

the adoption of a big data solution

is a daunting task, especially if the

organisation is coming from a pure

play data warehousing background. To

get to the right approach or solution, it

is critical for them to understand the

big data life cycle and take into account

its inherent challenges, changes in

approach to big data, taking cues from

big players, understand potential

issues with packaged solutions,

besides the changes required in the IT

thought leadership, and work out an

effective implementation plan.

BIG DATA LIFE CYCLE

The data life cycle in big data environments

has four stages acquire, organise,

analyse and decide large amounts of data

from both new data formats, as well as

traditional formats, in real time.

Big data grows incredibly fast. Each day,

we create 2.5 exabytes of data. Most big

data is fleeting by nature as the data mined

from timely sources such as sensor data,

social media and web logs, when used in

real time, is outdated before one knows it.

So, in the big data life cycle, acquiring

data from different sources and

organising them, paving the way for

intelligent analysis for better decision

making is what defines the entire lifecycle

of big data. As one scales the big data

environment, it is important to ensure that

life cycle requirements can be supported

within your current constraints of

storage capacity, bandwidth, processor

and memory speeds and metadata depth

which covers all the 3Vs.

But there is an end of life which we

often overlook. With the excitement

around big data, its normal practice not

to foresee the ephemeral nature of data

that no longer is necessary or to determine

what should happen when that day comes.

CHALLENGES IN APPROACH

A typical data warehousing project

approaches a traditional waterfall

methodology, where in requirements,

design, implementation, verifications and

maintenance follows a serial approach.

In most of the cases, the only

thing that comes out at the end of

implementation is the solution. Dueto the tight deadline and serialisation,

there is always a rush to complete

all the individual states before the

final goal could be met, resulting in

rejecting key change requests and

delivering invaluable in the past and

may not count towards key decision

making in future.

Big Data projects have been

a new kid on the block; right

from the concept and project

execution. A different mindset and

methodologies are needed to drive this.

HADOOP AND THE BIG PLAYERS

The Apache Hadoop project develops

open-source software for reliable,

scalable, distributed computing. It

has been designed to scale across

thousands of machines with fewer

setups with reduced latency and

high fault tolerance. Hadoop helps

enable a computing solution that is

scalable, cost effective, flexible, and

fault tolerant.

CHANGE IN APPROACH

Look at Solution from Top Down

rather than Bottom UpTraditionally, IT tackles data problems

from the bottom up, as in after-the-

fact data analysis. But with big data,

the solution approach needs to be

top down, where in the power of the

solution is more on pro-active or

predictive analysis.



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TOP 10 VENDORS FOR BIG DATA SOLUTIONS

Splunk Turns machine data into valuable insights

Opera Solutions Data-Science-as-a-Service

Mu Sigma Data-Science-as-a-Service

Palantir Big data software

Cloudera Apache Hadoop-based software, services and training

Actian Big data applications, analytics engine, and Ingres database

1010data Cloud-based analytics

10gen MongoDB (open-source, document database)

Alteryx Big data analytics platform

Guavus Big data analytics solutions

Build Solution for Unknown

Unknown

With limited storage space and shrinking

budget, IT pulls in only that data which

is the need of the hour. But with big

data, the approach needs to be more

on pulling in as much as data possible

for better predictability and analysis.

Build Now and Show NowIT needs to build in big data application

with Build Now and Show Now attitude.

A New Job Role: Data Science

Big data is the emergence of a new stream

of Data Science. It is a combination of

mathematics, computer programming

and computer science.

Newer Data Governance PoliciesWith big data, governance policies

need to be relaxed and should be

more favourable for data access. A

favourable and relaxed policy doesnt

mean Access To All. Rather, it means it

needs to be relaxed compared to history.

POTENTIAL ISSUES WITH

PACKAGED SOLUTIONS

Big data, being a newer technology,

packaged solutions may not work as

anticipated for the companies whose

business model is unique. Having worked

with cloudera and Hortonworks, these

two packaged distribution of Apache

Hadoop-based solution have provided

immediate value to customers from

the technology stack. With vendor

locking, recurring support cost and

vendor uncertainty becomes an issue.

The Key to Success for any Big

Data project involves these:

Data identification

Ingesting and cleaning

Hardware and platform selection

Machine learning

Data storage

Sharing and acting

DESIRED CHANGES IN IT THOUGHT

LEADERSHIP

Its not all about huge infrastructure. Big

data experts consistently report that 80

per cent of the effort involved in dealing

with data is cleansing. Because of the high

cost of data acquisition and cleansing, its

worth considering what you actually need

to source yourself.

Remember that big data is not a

Nirvana. You can find patterns and clues

in your data, but then what? Like any

investment, a tangible goal for big data

would always benefit.

Discovery Analysis

Interviewing Key Business Users

Confirming Problem StatementConfirming Key Objective & Goal

Defining Data Sources and

Correlation

Build a Sandbox

Iterative feedback

Correlation

Guided Navigation Attributes

Defining Security Needs: User

Roles, Security Groups, etc

Defining Technical

Architecture and Design

Defining Release Plan

WHAT GOES INTO BIG DATA IMPLEMENTATION PLAN?

Discovery Analysis

Project Kick Start

Iteration (1)

KPI and Attributes

ETL/ MapReduce Data Pull

Application User Interface

Data Correlation

Test Case

Designing & Developing

Developing Test Case and Unit Testing

Business Acceptance Testing

System Integration Testing

Implementing Security

Production Readiness

Go Live

Iterations

4-6 weeks 12-1

ITNEXT November 2013

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Transcript of ITNEXT November 2013