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The Chennai edition of Dataquest CIO meet debated on the multi-pronged infrastructure issues in mid-sized enterprises and for most of the companies managing the data center space is a big challenge |
| Shrikanth G |
| Monday, February 08, 2010 |
Managing the IT
infrastructure is not an easy task. Even while large enterprise IT
teams spend considerable time in managing the hardware and apps, the
scene at mid-size enterprise are no different. What are some of the
infrastructure pain points of mid-sized enterprise and how are they
managing and optimising on the IT spend? This is what the Chennai
edition of the DQ-CIO meet on ''Optimizing IT Infrastructure: Power of
Simplicity explored. A panel consisting of key verticals such as healthcare,
manufacturing, distribution and IT discussed the infrastructural
challenges and strategies they have adopted.
Challenges galore
The road to infrastructure management is full of challenges and the
common thread that unites them all is the need for more data center
space. Data center space and connectivity are some of the challenges
we face at Redington India said Clynton
Almeida, CIO of the company. This in fact set the tone for the
entire breadth of discussions as all the panelists seconded Clynton
when it comes to scaling the data center space which happens to be one
of the biggest infrastructure pain areas.
For organizations like
Sankara Nethralaya, one of leading Ophthalmic Hospitals in the
country and a research entity, consolidation of servers topped the IT
heads agenda. We have a large ERP and it calls for an enterprise wide
access to IT. Moreover the IT resources have to be available pan
organization and this is indeed a big challenge said M K Manavalan,
DGM-IT at Sankara Nethralaya.
When talking about challenges the panelists agreed that often times
some of the solutions become difficult as in some instances the
management has the perception that IT as a cost center. This poses some
budgetary constraints when it comes to scaling the infrastructure.
However the panelists also agreed that such a perception can be
addressed by putting in place a cost effective IT plan leading to
optimal utilization of resources. Reflecting on that Viswanathan,
manger IT at EBM Nadi International said that his key priority these
days is to bring down the IT costs and at the same time creating an
effective plan that will enable IT resources available to all the group
companies. A consolidated IT backbone will lead to greater
efficiency, observed Viswanathan.
Typically the mid-sized enterprises have also created a lot of silos
among themselves and the IT heads have started on consolidating these
disparate IT assets. Here many said integration as major challenge. For
instance N.Tamilvel, IT Head at Take
Solutions termed integration as his main challenge in addition to
data center space. He said that he is looking at a panacea by
consolidating all the data centers that will create a more robust and
agile infrastructure backbone.
But all IT infrastructures are made with the enterprises core business
demands. IT supports the business and it does not exist in
isolation. For N.Varadarajan, senior GM, IT at Madras Cements, aligning
IT with business is one key challenge. He says that as business demands
keep growing and the IT requirements also change. Scaling the
infrastructure during recessionary times when management puts a cap on
new purchases and when the things look up there is sudden pressures on
new IT purchases. Instances such as these put the CIO in dilemma.
Agreeing with Varadarajan the CTO of Mafoi Consulting Solutions
N.Visweswaran said that rationalizing the data center and expanding the
infrastructure as the business expands is a challenge and it needs to
be effectively countered by the IT staff. For companies like Real Image
Media Technologies there are some unique problems as well like managing
the access to internet and controlling the sites accessed by users
topped his list of challenges.
Combating the pain areas
While most of the IT heads averred that budgets allocated to IT needs
to be judiciously spent at the same time they were pretty honest in
accepting the fact that there is whole lot needs to be done when it
comes to entering in to SLAs with the vendors. Veteran IT heads like
Varadarajan suggested that SLAs can be better managed when the users
enter into short term agreements with vendors instead of long term
multi-year deals. He also suggested that multi-vendor contracts in the
areas of connectivity will greatly help in bringing down the costs and
also makes for proactive business continuity.
Many mid-sized enterprises also have problems in measuring the SLAs on
a day to day basis and panelists like Manavalan observed that measuring
SLAs on all IT services is difficult on daily basis. But companies can
create more measurement benchmarks by making the SLA document more
transparent and more tuned to managing the downtimes. Clynton Almeida
suggested that IT heads need to clearly communicate their service
expectations and must put in print both the cost and service
implications in the event of a downtime.
Some of the pain areas can also be managed by creating a fine balance
between outsourcing and in-sourcing. According to Visweswaran of Mafoi,
he said that mission critical areas needs to be managed in-house while
non-core IT functions can be outsourced. All the panelists agreed to
this thought and suggested that both have its merits and one of the
biggest challenges in insourcing happens to be managing the IT
departments skillsets.
At the end of the day, when we pick up the threads from the discussions
the panelists and the other mid-sized companies in their own enterprise
have adopted various strategies in managing the challenges -whether it
is data center space or managing SLAs or taking the call on
outsourcing-they have put in place a model that suits and works best
for them- given the budgetary constraints.
The key takeaways from the Chennai
event:
- Data center space is a big challenge- the solution lies in
consolidation and virtualization
- Creating a cost effective IT infrastructure architecture
- Creating more robust Internet security practices leading to
better access and control
- Aligning business with IT is a big challenge
- SLAs are pretty important but more can be achieved if the SLA
document is specific and matches the unique requirements and the
service expectations needed
- Cloud computing is major focus area and can solve some of
in-premise infrastructure issues by making IT as a service
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