'Waking up to IT miracles, I thank CIOL'

He was facing the usual IT challenges. Wishing to reduce dependence on UNIX infrastructure, an ambition to up cost-efficiency ratio, an effort to wriggle out of vendor-lock-in and a resolve to free his company from risky downtimes, Pertisth Mankotia was looking for an answer for quite some time. And when we spotted one, he took the leap with all the time, turnaround and tenacity it took. Today, his IT engines are of the stuff dreams are made of, says this CIO of Sheela Foam. This gutsy and path-breaking CIO also forebodes that IT may some day merge many business functions into itself. Here’s more.

Moving from proprietary UNIX to Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 and to Xeon-based Dell servers, why? Must have been a big migration?

The decision actually triggered long back, when once I faced a downtime of 16 hours with the earlier partner. I respect all my partners and also the time spent in that scenario, but the downtime started giving me headaches. More so with the global flavour of our operations. That day I started thinking of alternatives. In fact I would thank CIOL. It was at one of your events at Katmandu that I got to meet some seasoned people who had hands-on experience with some options. It was great to have some expert support with the new stuff. I first wanted to take it a bit at a time but sooner I was spreading its scale and was amazed at the wonderful performance. It was at just an expense of Rsfour lakhs, and not Rs40 lakhs, with all servers consolidated in this Rsfour lakh box. All this between April 2009 to February 2010 and the performance has been excellent. It’s beyond my hope. I am amazed and in a lot of comfort than ever.

And now your issues about vendor-lock-in have evaporated?

Yes. I am not that sort of a person who can work with barriers. But I was not sure of what will happen if the scenario is tweaked. Yet I didn’t want to be constrained with support and dependency.  Now to build a stand-by server or doing something with storage doesn’t require me to stay locked in. Plus, I have a stand-by that can fuel my virtualization plans.

But it must have taken some guts on your part?

The 16 hour pain had told me I had to do it. It started as a trial as I said, with a small time horizon at the onset. When I gave my proposal, I told them- we would be spending just Rsfour lakhs, but if it succeeds, it will be a completely new road. And that’s exactly how it turned out to be. Life is simpler now. Yes it takes a bit of attitude, courage, thinking orientation and support.

Has it changed the typical outlook towards open source solutions?

I guess open source is not about the cost part that is mostly talked about. It’s more about the freedom part. The point that Linux is not as mature as other options is definitely a myth. It’s all about the mindset.

What else has this change churned out?

Running costs have become almost negligible and I am not hassled about managing infrastructure. I can do more. I can spend 95 per cent time on understanding business and strategy factors, which is what I prefer.

Could you elaborate? How does IT sync in with business?

In most companies IT is not at front line. But in our organization, we are in the front line always. We want to touch and impact every function. So far we have seen how IT can make the distance between manufacturing and distribution shorter and the reach faster. Now we want to touch the next level of distance, between distribution and the end-customer. This year we plan to do that. It would include area distribution network, better business reach, improving dealer efficiency and accelerating time-to-market parts.

Would IT always remain a catalyst or a support component?

Not really. In my estimate, in ten to fifteen years you will find that worldwide lot of functions will merge with IT and will vanish.