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Given the rate at which IBM Daksh has grown over the years, there can be little doubt regarding the problems or issues that came in the way of the organization. Of these issues, perhaps the most significant one was that of achieving some sort of network synchronization across various locations. According to S Gopalakrishnan, vice president, Technology, IBM Daksh Business Process Services, As IBM Daksh grew significantly over the years, the organization required scalability and flexibility in its technology platform across all delivery centers so that it would enable easy and seamless implementation of any type of customer contract or technology solution, regardless of the geographic location.

There were a few things in this case that posed a huge challenge to the company. The primary one was something called the network habits of customers. Every customer operates and accesses his network in a different way. Thus a synchronization had to be achieved between the customers technology and the companys technology, observes Gopalakrishnan.

Thus IBM Daksh sought to find the most apt way by which the company could standardize the way every customer connects to the network. The solution was a fully virtualized network service delivery across all service delivery locations. The virtualization drive has yielded tremendous results, though it was not devoid of challenges.

What existed earlier was a point to point delivery network. This complex implementation changed that and connected various delivery locations in a cloud. This helped them not only in strengthening their delivery processes but also in transmitting real time services. Says Gopalakrishnan, Unlike other industries, such as manufacturing or FMCG, the ITeS industry has the unique requirement that networks need to transmit voice and data in real time. Furthermore, the industrys unique delivery SLAs imply that there is a very low tolerance for even momentary glitches. The system also needs to be resilient and robust enough to support the on-boarding of a multitude of customers and their unique individual requirements for connectivity and SLAs. Moreover, the high volume of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of end customers that the industry handles on a regular basis necessitates the integration of high-end, and impregnable security mechanisms.

All these standards are not only complex but also require tremendous effort to be inculcated in one system. But that is what the ATM network has managed to achieve for IBM Daksh. The fully-meshed Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) network developed at IBM Daksh provides virtual voice and data connectivity for each client while simultaneously meeting all unique security, interoperability, and SLA requirements for different clients. This single virtualized network also meets all business requirements to service the flexibility required by both the end customer as well as IBM across all geographies. In addition, the virtual network provides built-in business continuity empowerment through seamless availability of all services at an alternate location via no more than managed configuration changes.

The network is also designed with built-in scalability and interoperability with other ATM networks, data networking devices, different versions of Private Branch Exchange (PBX). It also takes into account technology developments, such as Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS), without making further investments. According to Gopalakrishnan, this network solution has helped them on various fronts and added key differentiators to their business like flexibility, adaptability, reliabilitym, security and speed of deployment.

The network also delivered some tangible results like achievement of high up-time for all clients, SLA commitments on packet loss and latency parameters, flexibility in ramp-up and ramp-down, etal. And all this was made possible within a span of eleven months.

Mehak Chawla
mehakc@cybermedia.co.in

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