CIOTechOutlook >> Magazine >> July - 2015 issue

Insight business machines enterprise infrastructure management made easy

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CIOs today face the challenge of proving the value proposition of IT infrastructure to business and in order to do so they are looking to foster business agility and bring down the exorbitant costs of maintenance and administration. They continue to seek control over the technology components such as servers, storage, desktop computers, networks and mobile devices. Under the pressure to strike a balance between budgets and enterprise needs, CIOs have to look out for every viable solution and zero in on one which can address this issue in the most satisfactory manner for them. In addition, as there is more pressure than ever for companies to provide superior quality and customer support, CIOs strive to have responsive systems and processes in place to bridge the gap between operations and processes. However, it requires extensive expertise to successfully do so and that is why they are increasingly considering it to align IT with business and manage their IT infrastructure with a service model.To keep the costs down and focus more on their core competencies, businesses of all types are choosing to outsource their non-core processes.

However, as outsourcing is no longer a tactical decision to save cost, but a strategic one that facilitates cost containment and provides a knowledge domain to bring innovation and add competitive advantage, enterprises need a service provider that can partner with them and go all the way to help them run their IT infrastructure in a better way. Insight Business Machines, headquartered in Mumbai, plays the role of such a partner for enterprises by offering flexible and operable solutions for Systems Integration, Infrastructure Consolidation and Networking.Founded in 1992 and having established itself in the IT sector as a complete solution provider, the company is well equipped to simplify, accelerate and increase the Return on Investment (ROI) on Enterprise computing, Network Infrastructure and Enterprise Storage. INSIGHT makes it possible by consolidation of integration technology through a flexible,standards-based infrastructure that enables business systems to communicate using a flexible service-oriented architecture through Facilities Management Solutions.

The iSMAC Initiative
INSIGHT has invested Rs 85 million in creating infrastructure and developing specialized Task Force - Technology Consulting Team (TCT) across India for better services andexpanded reach to its customers.“We have created our TCT portfolio on and around the four services of Security, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud to address the infrastructure concerns for each of these services. We call it as iSMAC (Infrastructure, Security, Mobility, Analytics and Cloud). The key differentiating factorfor us is that we bring in the right mix of product and solution on the table at an affordable price, and we have extensive expertise in designing specific solutions for specific verticals,” says Neel Shah, Chairman, INSIGHT.The company is adept at managing the infrastructures which are already in place and at the same time it has the capability to build, create, deploy and manage new infrastructures for its customers. This capability can be attributed to the numerous partnerships which the company is in with global technology leaders. INSIGHT is Gold Certified Partners with Microsoft,Premier Certified Partners with Cisco, Enterprise Partners with HP, Business Partners with IBM andSilver Partners with Symantec, to name a few.

The company is also in partnership with various Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) like IBM, HP, Lenovo, DELL and Fujitsu; and these partnerships are being leveraged by its in-house expert team to help the customers overcome the critical challenges from infrastructure perspective. “We go to the customers, understand their requirement and devise a strategy for them while suggesting them the right OEM to go for as far as hardware is concerned. Then we design and deploy the solutions. The unique offering from our side which brings value to the table is that we have various brands with us and we know which product will work best for which vertical or business, and how that particular brand can create a value out there at customer’s place,” adds Neel.

For example, in media and entertainment vertical, INSIGHT has done commendable work for digital asset management or media asset management. In the last two to three years, the company has supplied more than 10 odd libraries just for media asset management solution. This is a unique proposition for the company wherein it reaches out to the customers and understands what kind of application they are going to use for digital asset management or media asset management, and then it aligns the right product for which its has a certification for a particular application,and deploys it. “Infrastructure as a Service is a unique service offering from our side wherein we create a complete infrastructure and charge monthly recurring amounts from end customers. The customer just needs to specify his needs and we create the infrastructure for them. We host the datacenter and infrastructure of his choice, convert the entire piece of infrastructure in OPEX (Operational Expense) and give it on a monthly recurring charge basis to the customer,” shares Neel.

Comprehensive Infrastructure Consolidation
When it comes to infrastructure consolidation, like any other big technology initiative, there's a right way and wrong way to consolidate. Being a wide-ranging task, the drivers for infrastructure consolidation projects vary greatly. According to Forrester, the major drivers for data center consolidation include improving operational efficiency, reducing complexity, enhancing operational staff productivity, reducing power costs, addressing disaster recovery inefficiencies, consolidating application workloads onto fewer servers and reducing overall data center costs. INSIGHT comprehends the business requirement of enterprises and designs and implements the server/storage consolidation and virtualization backed by required back up solution taking Cluster and Replication into account to achieve the high availability of Network and Information. INSIGHT’s data center solution enables enterprises to implement state-of-the-art solution for managing their database. The solution is based on industry open standard in order to achieve the end objective of business continuity, service oriented architecture secured and complied with global IT standards. In addition, to redirect the resources of an enterprise from non-core activities to the activities which have greater returns, INSIGHT offers Facility Management Service to provide the service of an add-on in-house Information Systems Manager.

In recent years, industry has seen very few technologies that have gained as much attention from IT executives as virtualization and it can be owed to its capability to lead to more efficient provisioning of resources, increased flexibility, low costs and reduced energy consumption. INSIGHT helps enterprises in virtualization of their applications by using the same or new hardware in a virtualized environment, which eventually helps them save on power, space, cooling and maintenance of hardware. INSIGHT’s TCT also provides Infrastructure Optimization Service which focuses on what is current efficiency and determines capacity for required changes. The company optimizes the OPEX (Operation Expenditure) of enterprises by reducing their infrastructure costs and improving performance through infrastructure consolidation, classification and policy improvements, and application optimization. It aligns their technology and business objectives with its Cost Optimization Services to deliver optimum results. Another offering in INSIGHT’s portfolio is Device as a Service, wherein it offers mobile devices and tabs as a service to customer based on an OPEX model. The customer selects a product and INSIGHT converts the entire product offering into OPEX model and delivers it to the customer.

Riding the tide
Moving ahead, the company is looking to tap into the potential of SAP HANA and has created its in-house capability of HANA infrastructure. INSIGHT is also building its own cloud services and deploying it in itsown infrastructure to create a cloud platform for its customers. The company is also enriching its Professional Services to help customers by using its expertise on migration activity and has created as many as 18 business lines as far as professional services are concerned. On the operational front, INSIGHT is merging Business Intelligence with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) to know and serve its customers better. With such tendency to be at the forefront of technological advancements, the company is all set to lead the change in its areas of pursuit.

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