ITs an open marriage - CIOL Interviews

IT's an open marriage

The erstwhile Bharat Matrimony group, now Consim, has been trying to tie many knots in the portal world from online matrimony, job searches, buying and selling of property, automobiles, etc.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

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It's been an interesting journey so far for this suitor in the aisle called online matrimony. How much of this walk has been fuelled by IT and technology is another interesting story, more so with the emphatic open source directions it has taken, with LAMP, AJAX, Apache servers and data warehousing applications.

Manvendra Bangui, chief technology officer, Consim Group, details the journey to Pratima Harigunani of CyberMedia News. Excerpts:

Tell us something about your preference and investments towards open source-based technologies so far?
Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS) has risen to great prominence. At Consim Info Pvt. Ltd, all our mission critical applications are based on Open Source or use OSS in some way or the other. This has resulted in an incredible value by having the freedom to tinker (the freedom to understand, discuss, repair, and modify the technological devices we own). We have had innovations created just by combining pre-existing component in novel ways. By embracing OSS, Consim has total control on our applications and the way we deliver services to our users. To make it simple, most of our applications run on what is called the LAMP stack, which refers to a solution stack of software used to run dynamic Web Sites or Servers. All our web sites run on the LAMP stack be it www.BharatMatrimony.com, www.IndiaAutomobile.com, www.IndiaList.com, www.IndiaProperty.com, www.loanwala.com, or www.ClickJobs.com.

What's happening exactly with Apache?
We use Apache Lucene for our search engine. Apache Lucene is a high-performance, full-featured text search engine library written entirely in Java. It is a technology suitable for nearly any application that requires full-text search, especially cross-platform. For search engine optimization, we use apache module - mod rewrite as a translator. Hence or web servers put out clean URLs for a dynamic application and then by using mod rewrite translate those clean URLs back to it's dynamic form on the server. Consim has also been in the forefront in deploying Web 2.0. We use Ajax (asynchronous JavaScript and XML), a group of interrelated web development techniques used for creating interactive web applications.

We have voluminous data which moves daily from all our Linux Apache web servers and some disconnected sources. A meaningful analysis is provided by our own Data warehousing application. Our Data warehousing platform is also built using OSS and plays a key role in day-to-day business decisions, productivity, efficiency as well as formulating competitive strategy and market trend mapping.

What else are you deploying OSS into?
Our enterprise mailing application is also OSS based on qmail as the Mail Transfer Agent (MTA), Courier IMAP that provides the POP3 and IMAP protocol for mail retrieval. Apart from running on a security platform like Linux, deployment of OSS virus scanners, Spam Control software allows us to have the security needed by an Enterprise like ours.

What makes Consim so keen about OSS?
If you are not using OSS yet, you should consider. There are enough studies, which show that OSS is a superior alternative to proprietary software in many cases. At Consim, we truly believe that OSS is here to stay and no longer a fad with only the IT geeks. Also contrary to popular belief, the reason why corporates like Consim look at OSS is for having a total control on mission critical applications. Since OSS undergoes scrutiny by thousands of users and programmers, security is another area where OSS wins hands down over proprietary software.

What next with OSS?
Future plans at Consim envisages usage of OSS even at the Desktops. Currently the IT staff use Linux Desktops (GNOME/KDE + Thunderbird + Firefox + Open Office Suite + GIMP). Since OSS, Linux are not taught in schools and colleges, the non-IT staff typically use Proprietary OS, which gets bundled with the desktops we buy. However, with training we hope that some of the non-IT staff will also use an OSS desktop like Ubuntu or Fedora Core. Forrester Research concluded in September 2006 that "Firms should consider open source options for mission-critical applications".

So your IT strategy is mainly driven from inside?
At Consim, IT plays a key role in application design and development. Our vertical BharatMatrimony has been recognized as the Best Matrimony Website 2007 by PC WORLD for technology and performance and is also listed in the NASSCOM's Top 100 IT Innovators. All the awards we have won have encouraged us and we stand as the most preferred site for matrimonial search according to a study by JuxtConsult. We also came up with Matrimony 2.0 – A Open Framework for creating next generation of Online Matrimony Sites. Matrimony 2.0 is The Next Generation Matrimony Portal. We have the copyright for Matrimony 2.0. A Matrimony 2.0 portal focuses on user experience and behaviour keeping in mind that both parents and the younger generation use the portal. A Matrimony 2.0 portal is clutter free, simple and easy to use and engages the best of web 2.0 features. BharatMatrimony is the world's first ever matrimony portal with a fairly advanced and futuristic outlook. We have a Research team, which work on bleeding edge technological advances specifically in areas like System and Database Performance, Tuning of System, Web Server and Database. Scalable & Distributed Systems - Database Replication with multiple masters, Distributed File systems, Image Processing, Cloud Computing and Virtualization.

How has IT helped in making the group what it is today?
A sustained and a dedicated R&D team at Consim is in place to deliver the next generation of applications to cater to about ten million users across the globe. Started in 1997 BharatMatrimony pioneered online matrimony and single-handedly changed the way people approached matchmaking. It has remained true to the pioneering spirit of our founder and continued to innovate over the years. We were the first to offer features such as Verified Profiles, Assured Contacts, 15 region specific portals and Mobile Alerts in the online matrimony space.

Let me take one example where Database replication is a key technology for the long-term competitiveness of today's business. Consim is amongst the few companies in the world to have implemented the GORDA framework to deliver very high distributed and scalable database for our applications serving dynamic content for millions of our users. The European Community under the Sixth European Union Framework Programme supports GORDA for Research and Technological Development, thematic priority Information Society Technologies. Using GORDA gives us the ability to have multiple masters, which our competition is yet to acquire. The research team is keeping a close watch on technologies like Virtualization, Cloud Computing, and Grid Computing to retain technological edge over its competitors. Our R&D team has associates drawn from the most reputed institutes in India like the IITs and NITs.

Consim is also implementing a flexible, powerful, and easy to use enterprise wiki, enterprise collaboration platform and knowledge management system. We have built our own intranet to foster information flow within Consim and let distributed teams work together seamlessly and productively.

Anything visible happening on Green IT?
There are thoughts on using IT for reducing the consumption of electricity. Example we can deploy screen savers on all computers which can do some of the processing like mail transfer, image processing to utilize the idle desktops which are powered on but not being used. We plan to write this for all our Linux desktops and also release this as OSS on sourceforge.net.We look forward to work closely with other Corporates to come together and jointly work for the momentum on Green IT.

©CyberMedia News

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