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MUMBAI: Matthew Boon, managing vice president, Gartner and data centre expert, who was in India recently, takes us on a 360 degree spin around the epicenter of data industry, covering many angles like legal oversights, energy aspects, analytics buzz, big data reality and more.
How has the India glimpse been so far? What observations do you carry of the Indian CIO and his adoption curves? Do we leapfrog the right way in this area?
Western markets like US, UK etc have taken a staged approach be it data centre designs, virtualization or other areas. There is a huge degree of interest in virtualization as far as I can see here, but there is a demand for clarity in this aspect. Indian organizations are getting faster and catching up very rapidly. They have recognized virtualization and agility in the right way.
works best: a log term view of capacity and other planning angles? Or an incremental approach?
We see that typically it is a three-year cycle. The change as of now is on converging the infrastructure which is visible in what HP, Cisco etc are doing. It is an integrated approach that spans across servers to data centres. Data centre has become a more strategic component of organizations. Past was more projects-driven. There was a lot of cost-centre approach earlier. Now there is a shift in technology. Integrated approach is taking over. Financial crisis injected a lot of change around efficiency too.
Between HP, Cisco, Hitachi, IBM, Oracle etc, who is getting the game right?
All key data vendors have a different level of technology. HP, Oracle, Cisco, IBM etc are treading the integrated approach; Dell is at an open approach, while others have a different way to it. Hardware drives the data centre but applications, tools, monitoring, utilization etc would be key differentiators.
Why are so many vendors pumping up the pitch around analytics and big data? How does it translate into data centre areas?
Analytics is shaping up to be a need for organizations. There is a lot of Cloud-related talk also but my advice to CIOs is figuring out the real ‘why’. The cost factor is going to be an impactful one but one has to take some steps backward a bit and think about the business impact of it. Think about it the other way around.
Same for Big Data?
It can mean different things to different people — like storage or analytics. Yes, a lot of people are making a lot of noise. This one, in my opinion, is at a similar stage like Cloud Computing was, some years back.
Lot of interest and excitement surrounds it but one needs to figure out the actual aspects. It would have a big impact on compute environments.
That way, is the Green data centre still part of IT conversations?
In India, the cost of power exponentially rises. The cost of running the systems is also a part of IT Budgets. But more than that, it is about side benefits. What else can we do to bring energy efficiencies or change economics? It can be about ‘saving the money’ if not ‘saving the planet’.
Anything that CIOs are still missing out on while planning around data centres?
Vendors are not paying attention to how legislations are going to evolve. We might start seeing a great influence of that on how information is being carried. CIOs should ask — what is my objective in next five years? Which vendor’s strategy aligns with that as per a five year curve? It should echo similar priorities and vision.