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A full-service, full-spectrum communications software company, Aricent has its core infrastructures like LAN, WAN, Internet access, email system, active directory system and IP Key system, etc in place. The company also has the usual hardware stuff like routers, switches, firewalls and various types of servers like development servers and email servers.

Backbone Called IT
Being a software development company, Aricent's IT infrastructure assumes critical importance for its business. "In Aricent, all software product development is aligned with IT. As our business runs on IT, we need high quality infrastructure. Otherwise, if the development server is down, then a team sits idle leading to wastage of manpower," Rajeev Seoni, assistant vice president and head, IT, Aricent says.

It is this criticality of infrastructure that has coerced the company to use infrastructure management tools (IMT) that help in remotely monitoring the infrastructure and also inform the team about the overloading of a particular server by displaying a red dot on the central screen enabling requisite rectifications to be made. The IMT monitors desktops, servers and network equipments, etc.

-Rajeev Seoni (center, bottom row), assistant VP and head, IT, Aricent

Seoni adds that the importance of IT infrastructure can be gauged from the fact that even if you are adding 500 new employees, then the basic infrastructure has to be arranged before hand, so that work can be started.

Overall Infrastructure
The company attaches a lot of importance to information security and predictably has an excellent network security system like the firewalls, anti-spam and intrusion detection system in place. It also has a proper access control system based on a need-to-know basis that is anyone not authorized to access a particular project will not be able to access it.

"On the applications front, ERP is the heart of core functionality as it manages critical enterprise functions like the finance, HR, software project management efficiently. We have been using ERP from SAP for the last two years prior to using distributed type of applications built in-house," says Seoni. For providing good post-sales support of products and for sales force automation, it uses Siebel apart from in-house applications like the Time Sheet. The company also boasts of an intranet called Anthra, a communication tool used by the employees for their daily activities.

On being asked about the level of IT adoption in Aricent, Seoni says: "As far as IT adoption in the infrastructure and development environment goes, it is very high, may be even 100%, so I can say that our IT infrastructure is highly matured and well utilized. But as far as applications goes, there is no end to it."

Challenges
The challenges for IT infrastructure of any growing IT services firm is different from what any other organization would face. This is because the staff itself is up-to-date with the latest technology and predictably expects that the required IT systems would be made available quickly. "This in turn builds up the pressure on us," he says.

"Another challenge is, during the time of mergers and acquisitions since the expectation is that we will seamlessly merge with the entity and also start working together. And above all, all of this should be done at minimal costs," Seoni says.

Road Ahead
"We are planning to introduce mobility in our applications to provide information mainly for our sales staff for handling customer queries on the move. This would be introduced within next one year," Seoni says.

The company is also working on a pilot project of knowledge management system (KMS) and will be used as a strong collaboration tool. "The KMS will essentially focus on solving the attrition problem by capturing experience and knowledge gained of various people by working on various projects," says Seoni.

Stuti Das
stutid@cybermedia.co.in

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