Indian SMBs yet to benefit from Data Centers

BANGALORE, INDIA: Datacraft’s Data Center and Storage Solutions is helping organizations to manage their information lifecycle, while reducing the risk of IT disruptions, and minimizing cost and complexity. The company's partnership with leading technology vendors, coupled with in-depth familiarity with the products, has positioned Datacraft as a leading provider of data center and storage solutions.

Shailendra Badoni, Chief Operating Officer of Datacraft India, discusses some key trends in an interview with CIOL. Excerpts:

CIOL: Increased storage requirements also mean more hardware and power consumption. How do you plan to help enterprises go green?

Shailendra Badoni: IT departments are under increasing scrutiny and pressure to deliver environmentally-sound solutions. Large data centers are one of the most significant energy consumers in an organization’s IT infrastructure, so any measures that you can take to reduce this consumption (and therefore, also carbon dioxide emissions) will have a positive impact on your organization’s environmental footprint.

Green data center is defined as one in which the mechanical, lighting, electrical and computer systems are designed for maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact. The construction and operation of a green data center involve advanced technologies and strategies.

CIOL: What are the key factors that you considered while planning a green data center?

SB: There are seven design considerations for a Green Data Center:

1. Think green

2. Virtualize and consolidate: With appropriate analysis and consolidation, many of these low utilization devices can be combined into a single physical server, consuming only a fraction of the power of the original devices thus being economical and environment-friendly data center environment.

3. Design a best practice floor plan, e.g:

- Hot aisle/cold aisle layout

- The distribution of power across racks

- Minimize or eliminate under-floor cabling

4. Use appropriate technology: Select equipment based on life cycle costs that take into account the energy usage of servers

5. Take a green perspective on ILM (Information Lifecycle Management).

6. Investigate liquid cooling: In essence, liquid cooling systems utilize air or liquid heat exchangers to provide effective cooling and isolate equipment from the existing HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) system.

7. Utilize greener energy sources.

CIOL: How vital is project management for data center projects?

SB: Project management is essential as it is dedicated project ownership throughout the lifecycle and focuse   driven and prioritized by the business needs. Co-ordination of all resources (internal and external) plays an important role. Professional project management is not optional in the solutions and services world.

Datacraft has an experienced and certified team for data center projects. We help in adopting a standardized global methodology for deploying green data center with a consistent approach.

CIOL: How serious is the issue of data management when it comes to Indian SMEs?

SB: Till the time India has been completely exposed to the international and global markets, data management may not be a serious issue for the Indian SMEs.

CIOL: What impact can the data explosion have on the SME spends in storage?

SB: Awareness of data centers and their benefits would increase the spend. However, because most Indian SMEs employ traditional methods when it comes to storing data, an increase in knowledge of ‘centralized data centers’, benefits of having it outsourced, leased etc., can result in a huge boom for data centers in India.