1. Mobility: It's time to think about application development with the mobile device as the primary client. The company's top executives and sales force would be using their mobiles as their primary way of staying in touch with the company. The customers are more likely to respond to offers made via mobile messages.
2. Social networks: This is something that is going to be the most talked about phenomenon. Communication with employees, customers and other stakeholders would be much prominent through social media.
3. Cloud and virtualization. Cloud computing and Virtualization is many a times confused with cost cutting. However, cloud computing also offers a way for companies to quickly provision technology infrastructure for startups within their own company.
4. Company's IT infrastructure. In most companies, the majority of their IT budget still goes into keeping the lights on and the servers running. Reducing those costs is where you free up capital. The new part is you have a wider range of hosted services to look at than even a year earlier
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
ISO 27001
ISO 27001, titled "Information Security Management - Specification With Guidance for Use", is the replacement for the original document, BS7799-2. It is intended to provide the foundation for third party audit, and is 'harmonized' with other management standards, such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001.
Omnitech is in the process of acquiring this certificate.
ISO/IEC 27001:2005 is intended to be suitable for several different types of use, including the following:
■use within organizations to formulate security requirements and objectives;
■use within organizations as a way to ensure that security risks are cost effectively managed;
■use within organizations to ensure compliance with laws and regulations;
■use within an organization as a process framework for the implementation and management of controls to ensure that the specific security objectives of an organization are met;
■definition of new information security management processes;
■identification and clarification of existing information security management processes;
■use by the management of organizations to determine the status of information security management activities;
■use by the internal and external auditors of organizations to determine the degree of compliance with the policies, directives and standards adopted by an organization;
■use by organizations to provide relevant information about information security policies, directives, standards and procedures to trading partners and other organizations with whom they interact for operational or commercial reasons;
■implementation of business-enabling information security;
■use by organizations to provide relevant information about information security to customers.
Omnitech is in the process of acquiring this certificate.
ISO/IEC 27001:2005 is intended to be suitable for several different types of use, including the following:
■use within organizations to formulate security requirements and objectives;
■use within organizations as a way to ensure that security risks are cost effectively managed;
■use within organizations to ensure compliance with laws and regulations;
■use within an organization as a process framework for the implementation and management of controls to ensure that the specific security objectives of an organization are met;
■definition of new information security management processes;
■identification and clarification of existing information security management processes;
■use by the management of organizations to determine the status of information security management activities;
■use by the internal and external auditors of organizations to determine the degree of compliance with the policies, directives and standards adopted by an organization;
■use by organizations to provide relevant information about information security policies, directives, standards and procedures to trading partners and other organizations with whom they interact for operational or commercial reasons;
■implementation of business-enabling information security;
■use by organizations to provide relevant information about information security to customers.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Security concerns in Cloud computing II
Continuing with few more concerns as per a Gartner report:
4) Data in the cloud is typically in a shared environment alongside data from other customers. Encryption is effective but isn't a cure-all. "Find out what is done to segregate data at rest," Gartner advises. The cloud provider should provide evidence that encryption schemes were designed and tested by experienced specialists. Encryption accidents can make data totally unusable, and even normal encryption can complicate availability
5) Even if you don't know where your data is, a cloud provider should tell you what will happen to your data and service in case of a disaster. Any offering that does not replicate the data and application infrastructure across multiple sites is vulnerable to a total failure
6) You must be sure your data will remain available even after an event in which the provider goes bankrupt. Ask potential providers how you would get your data back and if it would be in a format that you could import into a replacement application.
4) Data in the cloud is typically in a shared environment alongside data from other customers. Encryption is effective but isn't a cure-all. "Find out what is done to segregate data at rest," Gartner advises. The cloud provider should provide evidence that encryption schemes were designed and tested by experienced specialists. Encryption accidents can make data totally unusable, and even normal encryption can complicate availability
5) Even if you don't know where your data is, a cloud provider should tell you what will happen to your data and service in case of a disaster. Any offering that does not replicate the data and application infrastructure across multiple sites is vulnerable to a total failure
6) You must be sure your data will remain available even after an event in which the provider goes bankrupt. Ask potential providers how you would get your data back and if it would be in a format that you could import into a replacement application.
Security concerns in Cloud Computing- I
There is a perception that cloud computing removes data compliance pains, however it should be clear that the data owner is still fully responsible for compliance.Cloud computing is not necessarily more secure; applications with years of expert development still contain undiscovered vulnerabilities that can be a risk to data security.
Gartner report helps us understand certain security concerns of Cloud Computing.Some of them are:
1) Sensitive data processed outside the enterprise brings with it an inherent level of risk, because outsourced services bypass the "physical, logical and personnel controls" IT shops exert over in-house programs. Get as much information as you can about the people who manage your data. "Ask providers to supply specific information on the hiring and oversight of privileged administrators, and the controls over their access
2) Customers are ultimately responsible for the security and integrity of their own data, even when it is held by a service provider. Traditional service providers are subjected to external audits and security certifications. Cloud computing providers who refuse to undergo this scrutiny are "signaling that customers can only use them for the most trivial functions
3)When you use the cloud, you probably won't know exactly where your data is hosted. In fact, you might not even know what country it will be stored in. Ask providers if they will commit to storing and processing data in specific jurisdictions, and whether they will make a contractual commitment to obey local privacy requirements on behalf of their customers
Few more risks in the next post...
Gartner report helps us understand certain security concerns of Cloud Computing.Some of them are:
1) Sensitive data processed outside the enterprise brings with it an inherent level of risk, because outsourced services bypass the "physical, logical and personnel controls" IT shops exert over in-house programs. Get as much information as you can about the people who manage your data. "Ask providers to supply specific information on the hiring and oversight of privileged administrators, and the controls over their access
2) Customers are ultimately responsible for the security and integrity of their own data, even when it is held by a service provider. Traditional service providers are subjected to external audits and security certifications. Cloud computing providers who refuse to undergo this scrutiny are "signaling that customers can only use them for the most trivial functions
3)When you use the cloud, you probably won't know exactly where your data is hosted. In fact, you might not even know what country it will be stored in. Ask providers if they will commit to storing and processing data in specific jurisdictions, and whether they will make a contractual commitment to obey local privacy requirements on behalf of their customers
Few more risks in the next post...
Data Security
In simple terms, data security is the practice of keeping data protected from corruption and unauthorized access. The focus behind data security is to ensure privacy while protecting personal or corporate data.Data could be anything of interest that can be read or otherwise interpreted in human form.
However, some of this information is highly confidential and isn't intended to leave the system. The unauthorized access of this data could lead to numerous problems for the larger corporation or even the personal home user. Imagine, someone robbing your valuables from the safe or in more technical terms, someone deleting data from database.
Due to internet, emphasis on data security has gone up leaps and bounds. There are a number of options for locking down your data from software solutions to hardware mechanisms. Computer users are certainly more conscious these days, and some idea can be got through the following methods of Data security:
Encryption
Encryption has become a critical security feature for thriving networks and active home users alike. This security mechanism uses mathematical schemes and algorithms to scramble data into unreadable text. It can only by decoded or decrypted by the party that possesses the associated key.
(FDE) Full-disk encryption offers some of the best protection available. This technology enables you to encrypt every piece of data on a disk or hard disk drive. Full disk encryption is even more powerful when hardware solutions are used in conjunction with software components. This combination is often referred to as end-based or end-point full disk encryption.
Strong User Authentication
Authentication is another part of data security that we encounter with everyday computer usage. Just think about when you log into your email or blog account. That single sign-on process is a form authentication that allows you to log into applications, files, folders and even an entire computer system. Once logged in, you have various given privileges until logging out. Some systems will cancel a session if your machine has been idle for a certain amount of time, requiring that you prove authentication once again to re-enter.
The single sign-on scheme is also implemented into strong user authentication systems. However, it requires individuals to login using multiple factors of authentication. This may include a password, a one-time password, a smart card or even a fingerprint.
Backup Solutions
Data security wouldn't be complete without a solution to backup your critical information. Though it may appear secure while confined away in a machine, there is always a chance that your data can be compromised. You could suddenly be hit with a malware infection where a virus destroys all of your files. Someone could enter your computer and thieve data by sliding through a security hole in the operating system. Perhaps it was an inside job that caused your business to lose those sensitive reports. If all else fails, a reliable backup solution will allow you to restore your data instead of starting completely from scratch.
However, some of this information is highly confidential and isn't intended to leave the system. The unauthorized access of this data could lead to numerous problems for the larger corporation or even the personal home user. Imagine, someone robbing your valuables from the safe or in more technical terms, someone deleting data from database.
Due to internet, emphasis on data security has gone up leaps and bounds. There are a number of options for locking down your data from software solutions to hardware mechanisms. Computer users are certainly more conscious these days, and some idea can be got through the following methods of Data security:
Encryption
Encryption has become a critical security feature for thriving networks and active home users alike. This security mechanism uses mathematical schemes and algorithms to scramble data into unreadable text. It can only by decoded or decrypted by the party that possesses the associated key.
(FDE) Full-disk encryption offers some of the best protection available. This technology enables you to encrypt every piece of data on a disk or hard disk drive. Full disk encryption is even more powerful when hardware solutions are used in conjunction with software components. This combination is often referred to as end-based or end-point full disk encryption.
Strong User Authentication
Authentication is another part of data security that we encounter with everyday computer usage. Just think about when you log into your email or blog account. That single sign-on process is a form authentication that allows you to log into applications, files, folders and even an entire computer system. Once logged in, you have various given privileges until logging out. Some systems will cancel a session if your machine has been idle for a certain amount of time, requiring that you prove authentication once again to re-enter.
The single sign-on scheme is also implemented into strong user authentication systems. However, it requires individuals to login using multiple factors of authentication. This may include a password, a one-time password, a smart card or even a fingerprint.
Backup Solutions
Data security wouldn't be complete without a solution to backup your critical information. Though it may appear secure while confined away in a machine, there is always a chance that your data can be compromised. You could suddenly be hit with a malware infection where a virus destroys all of your files. Someone could enter your computer and thieve data by sliding through a security hole in the operating system. Perhaps it was an inside job that caused your business to lose those sensitive reports. If all else fails, a reliable backup solution will allow you to restore your data instead of starting completely from scratch.
Trends in Technology 2010
Below are 8 trends that are sure to catch the fancy of IT world. While the full impact of these trends may not appear this year, but executives need to act now so that they can exploit the trends for their competitive advantage
Trend 1- Business Continuity responsibility
• The onus will lie on the senior management to ensure that there is no ambiguity in the ownership of responsibility of a BCP. There would be a dedicated team for ensuring business continuity. This team should have representatives from all the critical functions. Senior management must bestow the responsibility for business continuity with the business and not any of the support functions.
Trend 2- Cloud computing purchase
• The actual purchase of cloud-based services has an interesting trend lined up . On the face of it, using pay-as-you-go IT services should be highly attractive from a procurement standpoint, moving payment and authorization processes from capital expenditure to operating costs. The procurement of cloud computing, and the whole concept of what an enterprise agreement looks like in a cloud environment, are sticking points that will need to be looked at in future.
Trend 3- Content management
• Storage and the network bandwidth to store and access information is growing much faster than computing causing an explosion in content creation. This will make content management one of the most important information technologies and new technologies will emerge to automatically find, organize, verify and visualize content.Content and content management will increasingly be delivered in two main forms - appliances and on-line services. Extremely simple, purpose-built physical appliances for household and office use will capture and organize documents, photos, music and video. Software appliances, configured as virtual machines for specific tasks, will be downloaded from the internet to generic hardware that will come in sizes Small, Medium or Large.
Trend 4- Mash-up technology
• On-line collaborative and content services will extend from Web 2.0 to the community developing sites and user experience with open source accelerating their rate of evolution. Mash-up technology will replace web services and will blur services as it blends internal and external services. Services will start to spill over into the physical world as shops and delivery become more integrated into requests from the internet
Trend 5- Mobile computing and communication
• Business computing will shift significantly from PCs to mobile devices as Blackberry-size devices capture more business activities and form factors improve. Ubiquitous internet access and informality espoused by blogs and instant messaging will lead to simpler forms of communication. Content will be consumed on something probably closer to a Playstation Portable and your very thin mobile phone
Trend 6- Soft design
• A new revolution in user interface design is just beginning as designers move from physical to soft design. Gesture control will make its way into handheld and notepad devices. User interfaces will move from 2D to 3D as gamers influence work habits and we may see the first holographic interfaces. Avatars will begin to replace dialogs as the request-response metaphor and we may see practical voice recognition and language understanding.
Trend 7- IT infrastructure as service
• By 2011, early technology adopters will forgo capital expenditures and instead purchase 40 per cent of their IT infrastructure as a service. Increased high-speed bandwidth makes it practical to locate infrastructure at other sites and still receive the same response times. Enterprises believe that as service oriented architecture (SOA) becomes common, “cloud computing” will take off, thus untying applications from specific infrastructure. This trend to accepting commodity infrastructure could end the traditional “lock-in” with a single supplier and lower the costs of switching suppliers. It means that IT buyers should strengthen their purchasing and sourcing departments to evaluate offerings. They will have to develop and use new criteria for evaluation and selection and phase out traditional criteria
Trend 8- Green sourcing
• By 2011, suppliers to large global enterprises will need to prove their green credentials via an audited process to retain preferred supplier status. Those organizations with strong brands are helping to forge the first wave of green sourcing policies and initiatives. These policies go well beyond minimizing direct carbon emissions or requiring suppliers to comply with local environmental regulations. For example, Timberland has launched a “Green Index” environmental rating for its shoes and boots. Home Depot is working on evaluation and audit criteria for assessing supplier submissions for its new EcoOptions product line.
Visit Omnitech website "Downloads" section to get the article.
Trend 1- Business Continuity responsibility
• The onus will lie on the senior management to ensure that there is no ambiguity in the ownership of responsibility of a BCP. There would be a dedicated team for ensuring business continuity. This team should have representatives from all the critical functions. Senior management must bestow the responsibility for business continuity with the business and not any of the support functions.
Trend 2- Cloud computing purchase
• The actual purchase of cloud-based services has an interesting trend lined up . On the face of it, using pay-as-you-go IT services should be highly attractive from a procurement standpoint, moving payment and authorization processes from capital expenditure to operating costs. The procurement of cloud computing, and the whole concept of what an enterprise agreement looks like in a cloud environment, are sticking points that will need to be looked at in future.
Trend 3- Content management
• Storage and the network bandwidth to store and access information is growing much faster than computing causing an explosion in content creation. This will make content management one of the most important information technologies and new technologies will emerge to automatically find, organize, verify and visualize content.Content and content management will increasingly be delivered in two main forms - appliances and on-line services. Extremely simple, purpose-built physical appliances for household and office use will capture and organize documents, photos, music and video. Software appliances, configured as virtual machines for specific tasks, will be downloaded from the internet to generic hardware that will come in sizes Small, Medium or Large.
Trend 4- Mash-up technology
• On-line collaborative and content services will extend from Web 2.0 to the community developing sites and user experience with open source accelerating their rate of evolution. Mash-up technology will replace web services and will blur services as it blends internal and external services. Services will start to spill over into the physical world as shops and delivery become more integrated into requests from the internet
Trend 5- Mobile computing and communication
• Business computing will shift significantly from PCs to mobile devices as Blackberry-size devices capture more business activities and form factors improve. Ubiquitous internet access and informality espoused by blogs and instant messaging will lead to simpler forms of communication. Content will be consumed on something probably closer to a Playstation Portable and your very thin mobile phone
Trend 6- Soft design
• A new revolution in user interface design is just beginning as designers move from physical to soft design. Gesture control will make its way into handheld and notepad devices. User interfaces will move from 2D to 3D as gamers influence work habits and we may see the first holographic interfaces. Avatars will begin to replace dialogs as the request-response metaphor and we may see practical voice recognition and language understanding.
Trend 7- IT infrastructure as service
• By 2011, early technology adopters will forgo capital expenditures and instead purchase 40 per cent of their IT infrastructure as a service. Increased high-speed bandwidth makes it practical to locate infrastructure at other sites and still receive the same response times. Enterprises believe that as service oriented architecture (SOA) becomes common, “cloud computing” will take off, thus untying applications from specific infrastructure. This trend to accepting commodity infrastructure could end the traditional “lock-in” with a single supplier and lower the costs of switching suppliers. It means that IT buyers should strengthen their purchasing and sourcing departments to evaluate offerings. They will have to develop and use new criteria for evaluation and selection and phase out traditional criteria
Trend 8- Green sourcing
• By 2011, suppliers to large global enterprises will need to prove their green credentials via an audited process to retain preferred supplier status. Those organizations with strong brands are helping to forge the first wave of green sourcing policies and initiatives. These policies go well beyond minimizing direct carbon emissions or requiring suppliers to comply with local environmental regulations. For example, Timberland has launched a “Green Index” environmental rating for its shoes and boots. Home Depot is working on evaluation and audit criteria for assessing supplier submissions for its new EcoOptions product line.
Visit Omnitech website "Downloads" section to get the article.
Managed Data Center: An introduction
The Managed Data Center is a core part of the overall Managed Services concept for many organizations. The service offering Managed Data Center supports IT supervisors in all their tasks be it operation of servers, storage systems or networks. With ever increasing volumes of data , backup and recovery of data becomes really important although there is a risk of even the backup and recovery systems exceeding their capacities. Thus the main challenge then is to maintain cost efficiency and at the same time not hinder the innovations in business processes. This increases the demands placed on data center performance. So, in come the “Managed data centers” to the rescue.
Main providers of Managed Data centers: Fujitsu Technology Solutions, EMC, HDS and NetApp
Main providers of Managed Data centers: Fujitsu Technology Solutions, EMC, HDS and NetApp
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Disaster Recovery Survey : Some important insights and recommendations
Symantec conducted a survey in 1650 companies worldwide to osberve the trends in how companies approach Disaster Recovery. FOllowing are some recommendations that a business can employ:
--- Organizations can do a better job at curbing the costs of downtime by implementing more automation tools that minimize human involvement and address other weaknesses in their disaster recovery plans.
--- Because disaster recovery testing is invaluable, but can significantly impact business - including customers and revenue - organizations should seek to improve the success of testing by evaluating and implementing testing methods which are non-disruptive.
--- Organizations should include those responsible for virtualization in disaster recovery plans, especially testing and backup initiatives.
--- Virtual environments should be treated the same as a physical server, showing the need for organizations to adopt more cross-platform and cross-environment tools, or standardize on fewer platforms.
--- Organizations can do a better job at curbing the costs of downtime by implementing more automation tools that minimize human involvement and address other weaknesses in their disaster recovery plans.
--- Because disaster recovery testing is invaluable, but can significantly impact business - including customers and revenue - organizations should seek to improve the success of testing by evaluating and implementing testing methods which are non-disruptive.
--- Organizations should include those responsible for virtualization in disaster recovery plans, especially testing and backup initiatives.
--- Virtual environments should be treated the same as a physical server, showing the need for organizations to adopt more cross-platform and cross-environment tools, or standardize on fewer platforms.
Friday, May 28, 2010
Virtualization
Virtualization is a technology that combines or divides computing resources to present one or many operating environments using methodologies like hardware and software partitioning or aggregation, partial or complete machine simulation, emulation, time-sharing, and many others”
There can be innumerous reasons how virtualization can be useful in practical scenarios, a few of which are the following:
• Server Consolidation
• Application consolidation
• Sandboxing
• Multiple execution environments
• Virtual hardware
• Multiple simultaneous OS
• Debugging
• Software Migration
• Appliances
• Testing/QA
There can be several levels of abstraction where virtualization can take place:
Instruction set level
Virtualization at the instruction set architecture (ISA) level is all about instruction set emulation. Emulation is the technique of interpreting the instructions completely in software.
hardware abstraction layer (HAL)
The functionality and abstraction level of a HAL level virtual machine lies between a real machine and an emulator.
OS level (system call interface)
Since system call invocation is the only way of communication from user-space to kernel-space, it should be possible for the virtualization software to totally control what the user-space processes can do by managing this interface.
user-level library interface,
Virtualization at the library interface is possible by controlling the communication link between the applications and the rest of the system through the API hooks.
application level
it implements a virtualization layer as an application that eventually creates a virtual machine.
Whatever may be the level of abstraction, the general phenomenon still remains the same; it partitions the lower-level resources using some novel techniques to map to multiple higher level VMs transparently.
There can be innumerous reasons how virtualization can be useful in practical scenarios, a few of which are the following:
• Server Consolidation
• Application consolidation
• Sandboxing
• Multiple execution environments
• Virtual hardware
• Multiple simultaneous OS
• Debugging
• Software Migration
• Appliances
• Testing/QA
There can be several levels of abstraction where virtualization can take place:
Instruction set level
Virtualization at the instruction set architecture (ISA) level is all about instruction set emulation. Emulation is the technique of interpreting the instructions completely in software.
hardware abstraction layer (HAL)
The functionality and abstraction level of a HAL level virtual machine lies between a real machine and an emulator.
OS level (system call interface)
Since system call invocation is the only way of communication from user-space to kernel-space, it should be possible for the virtualization software to totally control what the user-space processes can do by managing this interface.
user-level library interface,
Virtualization at the library interface is possible by controlling the communication link between the applications and the rest of the system through the API hooks.
application level
it implements a virtualization layer as an application that eventually creates a virtual machine.
Whatever may be the level of abstraction, the general phenomenon still remains the same; it partitions the lower-level resources using some novel techniques to map to multiple higher level VMs transparently.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
RIMS: Remore Infrastructure Management Services
Gartner estimates that "70% of IT support for infrastructure services can be performed from a remote location" and "remote infrastructure management services can reduce labor costs by 10% to 50%, depending on the delivery location, resulting in a 3% to 30% overall net savings, excluding one-time transition charges."
IT maintenance cost is one of main challenges faced by the CIO’s and remote infrastructure management may be the solution to this challenge.
The Remote Infrastructure management Services offered by us not only monitors the health of your IT infrastructure and proactively report incase of any deviation from the normal operations, it will also help in capacity planning for the future IT requirements.
Omnitech gives the total flexibility to the customers to choose the kind of services required by them as per their business needs. In case of any additional services required by the customer due to changing business needs, these services can be added on the fly. This frame work based feature gives the customer advantage of picking only what they want at any particular time and at the same time it helps in capacity planning by giving the option of adding additional services as and when required.
This will help CIO’s to keep the cost in control as well as in planning for the future.
IT maintenance cost is one of main challenges faced by the CIO’s and remote infrastructure management may be the solution to this challenge.
The Remote Infrastructure management Services offered by us not only monitors the health of your IT infrastructure and proactively report incase of any deviation from the normal operations, it will also help in capacity planning for the future IT requirements.
Omnitech gives the total flexibility to the customers to choose the kind of services required by them as per their business needs. In case of any additional services required by the customer due to changing business needs, these services can be added on the fly. This frame work based feature gives the customer advantage of picking only what they want at any particular time and at the same time it helps in capacity planning by giving the option of adding additional services as and when required.
This will help CIO’s to keep the cost in control as well as in planning for the future.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
"Business Continuity Process" consulting
Organizations, be it small or big are in critical phase of evolution in customer management. The buzz now is customer delight and for that organizations should know the criticality of their operations. How critical are different functions in the organization and what is kind of recovery level is required for these different functions is something that should be analyzed by the enterprises.
Having this information, organizations can plan for effective risk management for different aspect of their operations. Various ways through which the companies can manage their risk includes risk mitigation, insurance policies and how effectively the companies can respond to the disaster.
Omnitech offers BCP consulting services to meet the requirement of the customers. With our vast experience in the field of Business continuity management, we help our clients in analyzing the impact of the disaster on the various functions of the organizations and providing right solutions to them. Our consulting service not only involves analyzing, planning, implementing the disaster recovery plan, but also continuously monitor for the changes and update the same as per the requirement of the client.
Omnitech also offers different layers of recovery level for the organizations depending on the impact of various operations in the organizations. We also offer dedicated or syndicated work place recovery seats to meet the customers’ cost and risk recovery point levels. This gives cost effective and flexibility to the customers. The future expansion or requirement can be easily made available on the need to need basis.
With qualified experts in this field and world class technology partners in our side, we offer customized solution for our customers as per their requirement. We act as a partner to our clients, and work together with them through the complete life cycle of the Business Continuity Management implementation and monitoring. Our expertise in remote infrastructure management and system integration helps us in understanding the customer requirement completely and offer them most appropriate technology solutions to their needs. This also helps in faster and smoother recovery of the data as per the need of the customer, allowing them to continuously perform the business operation.
Methodologies used by Omnitech in offering BCP consulting service is given below:
1) Goal Formulation and Assessment
Objective setting
Defining customer requirement
Resource Identification
2) Risk and Impact Analysis
Analyzing threats
Risk analysis
Prevention Analysis
3) Design and Development
Selection of strategy
Recovery level objective
Recovery time objective
4) Implementation
Implementation of choosen DR plan
Testing
5) Continous Monitoring and upgradation
Updating continously
Review and audit the readiness and completness
keeping upto date with state of art technology
Having this information, organizations can plan for effective risk management for different aspect of their operations. Various ways through which the companies can manage their risk includes risk mitigation, insurance policies and how effectively the companies can respond to the disaster.
Omnitech offers BCP consulting services to meet the requirement of the customers. With our vast experience in the field of Business continuity management, we help our clients in analyzing the impact of the disaster on the various functions of the organizations and providing right solutions to them. Our consulting service not only involves analyzing, planning, implementing the disaster recovery plan, but also continuously monitor for the changes and update the same as per the requirement of the client.
Omnitech also offers different layers of recovery level for the organizations depending on the impact of various operations in the organizations. We also offer dedicated or syndicated work place recovery seats to meet the customers’ cost and risk recovery point levels. This gives cost effective and flexibility to the customers. The future expansion or requirement can be easily made available on the need to need basis.
With qualified experts in this field and world class technology partners in our side, we offer customized solution for our customers as per their requirement. We act as a partner to our clients, and work together with them through the complete life cycle of the Business Continuity Management implementation and monitoring. Our expertise in remote infrastructure management and system integration helps us in understanding the customer requirement completely and offer them most appropriate technology solutions to their needs. This also helps in faster and smoother recovery of the data as per the need of the customer, allowing them to continuously perform the business operation.
Methodologies used by Omnitech in offering BCP consulting service is given below:
1) Goal Formulation and Assessment
Objective setting
Defining customer requirement
Resource Identification
2) Risk and Impact Analysis
Analyzing threats
Risk analysis
Prevention Analysis
3) Design and Development
Selection of strategy
Recovery level objective
Recovery time objective
4) Implementation
Implementation of choosen DR plan
Testing
5) Continous Monitoring and upgradation
Updating continously
Review and audit the readiness and completness
keeping upto date with state of art technology
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
AMS: Application Management Service
Application Management Services:
Application management services is the most financed IT related services and with most of them still being a legacy system, it is critical for the organizations to customize the applications as per their needs. We at Omni tech provide solutions understand the business dynamics and help providing customized application for them.
We have proven APIDMA model to deliver applications to varied customers to meet their needs. Also we have developed frameworks which can be used for quick customization. It also provides flexibility in terms of adding additional services as and when the changing business requirement demands it.
The main benefits derived out of adopting a Our model is:
modular delivery to end users
incorporating feedbacks / suggestions
providing better predictability in terms of quality, cost, schedule and feature coverage
Thus the major prerogative that is fulfilled using this service is of providing customers a customized application development service which can be enhanced and modified with time. Isolating the root cause of the problem also is an integral part of AMS
Remote Application Support:
Omnitech offers world class functional support and value to the enterprises through our support team with extensive experience and business knowledge. Omnitech has customer friendly, accessible and always available support to help your business grow. Omnitech makes sure that the applications are available 24 x 7, so that the growing companies can concentrate on their business. A team of expert monitors your application from our NOC and report in case of any deviation from the normal operations.
Why omnitech
Companies can focus on their core competency and we will take care of things on which we specialize
Capacity can be scaled up at any time to without need for hiring any vendors or additional consultants
Support can help in increasing the performance by increasing the efficiency and the effectiveness of the applications.
Application Maintenance:
With lot of legacy systems in the enterprises, it is very critical that these applications be maintained carefully so as to get return from them. Enterprises tend to have dedicated workforce for maintaining them, though it might not be their core competence. Omnitech can take care of these applications so that the companies can concentrate on their value creating services.
According to a leading market research firm, an enterprise spends up to a whopping 80 percent of IT budgets in maintenance and support. Omnitech understands your business and then align the services offered as per the business strategy of the firms. Omnitech goes beyond just managing the application and acts as a partner in helping the firms to implement their strategy
Application management services is the most financed IT related services and with most of them still being a legacy system, it is critical for the organizations to customize the applications as per their needs. We at Omni tech provide solutions understand the business dynamics and help providing customized application for them.
We have proven APIDMA model to deliver applications to varied customers to meet their needs. Also we have developed frameworks which can be used for quick customization. It also provides flexibility in terms of adding additional services as and when the changing business requirement demands it.
The main benefits derived out of adopting a Our model is:
modular delivery to end users
incorporating feedbacks / suggestions
providing better predictability in terms of quality, cost, schedule and feature coverage
Thus the major prerogative that is fulfilled using this service is of providing customers a customized application development service which can be enhanced and modified with time. Isolating the root cause of the problem also is an integral part of AMS
Remote Application Support:
Omnitech offers world class functional support and value to the enterprises through our support team with extensive experience and business knowledge. Omnitech has customer friendly, accessible and always available support to help your business grow. Omnitech makes sure that the applications are available 24 x 7, so that the growing companies can concentrate on their business. A team of expert monitors your application from our NOC and report in case of any deviation from the normal operations.
Why omnitech
Companies can focus on their core competency and we will take care of things on which we specialize
Capacity can be scaled up at any time to without need for hiring any vendors or additional consultants
Support can help in increasing the performance by increasing the efficiency and the effectiveness of the applications.
Application Maintenance:
With lot of legacy systems in the enterprises, it is very critical that these applications be maintained carefully so as to get return from them. Enterprises tend to have dedicated workforce for maintaining them, though it might not be their core competence. Omnitech can take care of these applications so that the companies can concentrate on their value creating services.
According to a leading market research firm, an enterprise spends up to a whopping 80 percent of IT budgets in maintenance and support. Omnitech understands your business and then align the services offered as per the business strategy of the firms. Omnitech goes beyond just managing the application and acts as a partner in helping the firms to implement their strategy
Omni Commerce: The best E-commerce soltion!
E- Commerce is a process that consists of distribution, buying, selling, marketing and servicing of products or services over electronic systems such as the internet and other computer networks. E- Commerce is the most happening thing enabling the lot of transaction between customers and the companies even across the borders. It is useful for the retail companies and its usefulness is ever increasing in the B2B segments. International E- Commerce service offering requires quality, cost effective and ever reliable system for enhancing the business opportunities for the organizations of all sizes. Small and medium scale enterprises can greatly leverage their business opportunities by using the E- commerce in their business operations.
Omnitech offers end to end solution in the E- Commerce space enabling clients to feel comfortable having single point of contact for any E- commerce related operations. Omnitech understands the business of the companies and gives customized solution to the customers matching their requirement. We give you state of the art solution to give your company, a vibrant online presence enabling increased opportunities.
Omnitech involves itself from the starting stage of online presence of the companies, understands what companies are expecting, plans and implements the right solution to its customers. This is helpful in creating a new feel and look for the organizations, helping them to have improved space in the internet. We help in providing complete functionalities, as per the requirement of the customers.
Some of the Key features of Omni commerce are
E commerce Consultation
- Development of Strategy
- Complete end to end solution
Web site Development
- Development of Websites
- Maintenance and enhancement
E commerce Migration
- Migrate existing website
- Support data and functionality migration
E commerce Applications Integration
- Integrate existing business applications
- Integrate the back end ERP system & payment gateway
For more details about this, visit the Omnitech website
Omnitech offers end to end solution in the E- Commerce space enabling clients to feel comfortable having single point of contact for any E- commerce related operations. Omnitech understands the business of the companies and gives customized solution to the customers matching their requirement. We give you state of the art solution to give your company, a vibrant online presence enabling increased opportunities.
Omnitech involves itself from the starting stage of online presence of the companies, understands what companies are expecting, plans and implements the right solution to its customers. This is helpful in creating a new feel and look for the organizations, helping them to have improved space in the internet. We help in providing complete functionalities, as per the requirement of the customers.
Some of the Key features of Omni commerce are
E commerce Consultation
- Development of Strategy
- Complete end to end solution
Web site Development
- Development of Websites
- Maintenance and enhancement
E commerce Migration
- Migrate existing website
- Support data and functionality migration
E commerce Applications Integration
- Integrate existing business applications
- Integrate the back end ERP system & payment gateway
For more details about this, visit the Omnitech website
Monday, May 24, 2010
Virtualization
Virtualization is the process of abstracting computing resources such that multiple operating system and application images can share a single physical server, bringing significant cost-of-ownership and manageability benefits. It combines or divides computing resources to present one or many operating environments using methodologies like hardware and software partitioning or aggregation, partial or complete machine simulation, emulation, time-sharing, and many others.
There can be innumerous reasons how virtualization can be useful in practical scenarios, a few of which are the following:
• Server Consolidation
• Application consolidation
• Sandboxing
• Multiple execution environments
• Virtual hardware
• Multiple simultaneous OS
• Debugging
• Software Migration
• Appliances
Virtualization can take place in several levels of abstraction. Some of them are as follows:
Instruction set level
Virtualization at the instruction set architecture (ISA) level is all about instruction set emulation. Emulation is the technique of interpreting the instructions completely in software.
Hardware abstraction layer (HAL)
The functionality and abstraction level of a HAL level virtual machine lies between a real machine and an emulator.
OS level (system call interface)
Since system call invocation is the only way of communication from user-space to kernel-space, it should be possible for the virtualization software to totally control what the user-space processes can do by managing this interface.
User-level library interface,
Virtualization at the library interface is possible by controlling the communication link between the applications and the rest of the system through the API hooks.
Application level
it implements a virtualization layer as an application that eventually creates a virtual machine.
Thus, whatever may be the level of abstraction, the general phenomenon still remains the same; it partitions the lower-level resources using some novel techniques to map to multiple higher level VMs transparently.
There can be innumerous reasons how virtualization can be useful in practical scenarios, a few of which are the following:
• Server Consolidation
• Application consolidation
• Sandboxing
• Multiple execution environments
• Virtual hardware
• Multiple simultaneous OS
• Debugging
• Software Migration
• Appliances
Virtualization can take place in several levels of abstraction. Some of them are as follows:
Instruction set level
Virtualization at the instruction set architecture (ISA) level is all about instruction set emulation. Emulation is the technique of interpreting the instructions completely in software.
Hardware abstraction layer (HAL)
The functionality and abstraction level of a HAL level virtual machine lies between a real machine and an emulator.
OS level (system call interface)
Since system call invocation is the only way of communication from user-space to kernel-space, it should be possible for the virtualization software to totally control what the user-space processes can do by managing this interface.
User-level library interface,
Virtualization at the library interface is possible by controlling the communication link between the applications and the rest of the system through the API hooks.
Application level
it implements a virtualization layer as an application that eventually creates a virtual machine.
Thus, whatever may be the level of abstraction, the general phenomenon still remains the same; it partitions the lower-level resources using some novel techniques to map to multiple higher level VMs transparently.
Saturday, May 22, 2010
Electronic Data Vaulting: The basics
So, What is it: A fully-automatic offsite backup system for Windows PCs, file and print servers and Mac computers
What does it do: Users of the service can protect their important data offsite at professionally-managed data centers.No investment in hardware is required and no special knowledge is necessary. The solution is highly secure and easy to manage.
The advantages: You can offload the complexities associated with "manual" daily backup procedures such as managing equipment and offsite transportation and storage, while improving data security and file recovery time
Why good ol' techniques like storing data on tapes etc is not recommended:
1) There are issues with data security
2) Backup data needs to be automatic and to geographically separate locations
3) The process needs to be automatic (no user intervention)
4) Change the tape daily
5) Spend lots of money on hardware and tapes as inexpensive hardware is not reliable
What does it do: Users of the service can protect their important data offsite at professionally-managed data centers.No investment in hardware is required and no special knowledge is necessary. The solution is highly secure and easy to manage.
The advantages: You can offload the complexities associated with "manual" daily backup procedures such as managing equipment and offsite transportation and storage, while improving data security and file recovery time
Why good ol' techniques like storing data on tapes etc is not recommended:
1) There are issues with data security
2) Backup data needs to be automatic and to geographically separate locations
3) The process needs to be automatic (no user intervention)
4) Change the tape daily
5) Spend lots of money on hardware and tapes as inexpensive hardware is not reliable
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
The WAR has begun: Work Area Recovery
As far as Omnitech is concerned, it provides Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity solutions on 4 different layers:
Data: Remote Backup, Data Vaults
Equipment: IT, Telecom, Networking
People: Trained & Certified Specialists
Workplace: Near & Far OmniCenters
Initially through Workplace & Equipment from its state‐of‐the art recovery centers where one can avail of business recovery positions (seats). Thiswould be augmented by Data Vaulting Services and through state‐of‐the‐art Data Centers (Tier III) even the 3rd layer, viz. Data and, eventually, this will be topped by providing the final and most important layer, viz. People
What are the amenities provided at the Omnicenter is an important question that a client would want to know. The details of facilties are as follows:
Complete Office facilities including Data Vault (1), and Server room (1)
Up to 300 emergency response workplace positions
Shared (1:7)/Dedicated (1:1) seating arrangements
Conference Room (1) & Meeting Room (1)
Rest Rooms 􀃎 8, Cafeteria on roof top 􀃎 1
Assembly Area—just outside the premises, across the road within 5 meters distance
UPS and Diesel Generator backed POWER resilience – for 18 hours on full load
The Technolofy features include:
Remote IT management Services (proprietary tools and technologies)
Remote Surveillance Management
Layer III/Layer II with VLAN
Redundancy options
Server Room – N+1
Work area – through UPS – Backed up by DG Set – to ensure 99.5% uptime on electricity supply
Thus. Omnicenter aims to provide world class services to its clients during emergency as Business As Usual is the primary concern of business'
Data: Remote Backup, Data Vaults
Equipment: IT, Telecom, Networking
People: Trained & Certified Specialists
Workplace: Near & Far OmniCenters
Initially through Workplace & Equipment from its state‐of‐the art recovery centers where one can avail of business recovery positions (seats). Thiswould be augmented by Data Vaulting Services and through state‐of‐the‐art Data Centers (Tier III) even the 3rd layer, viz. Data and, eventually, this will be topped by providing the final and most important layer, viz. People
What are the amenities provided at the Omnicenter is an important question that a client would want to know. The details of facilties are as follows:
Complete Office facilities including Data Vault (1), and Server room (1)
Up to 300 emergency response workplace positions
Shared (1:7)/Dedicated (1:1) seating arrangements
Conference Room (1) & Meeting Room (1)
Rest Rooms 􀃎 8, Cafeteria on roof top 􀃎 1
Assembly Area—just outside the premises, across the road within 5 meters distance
UPS and Diesel Generator backed POWER resilience – for 18 hours on full load
The Technolofy features include:
Remote IT management Services (proprietary tools and technologies)
Remote Surveillance Management
Layer III/Layer II with VLAN
Redundancy options
Server Room – N+1
Work area – through UPS – Backed up by DG Set – to ensure 99.5% uptime on electricity supply
Thus. Omnicenter aims to provide world class services to its clients during emergency as Business As Usual is the primary concern of business'
RTGS: Real Time Gross Settlement
Trade in this world becoming more and more global and RTGS provides an efficient means for settlement of transactions. Fast paced trade cannot exist in this world without an updated and efficient RTGS system. But for all this as mentioned, the world requires and highly reliable, effective and efficient system and the financial crisis also highlighted the important of it.
Indian banking industry has survived through the financial crisis in the international scenario without much difficulties. But the crisis has shown how important it is to have interbank payment done real time and on gross basis. This helps in reducing the systematic risk in the banking industry. But the RTGS system offered should be reliable, state of the art and should be easy to maintain and also update without major changes in the basic solution offered. RBI has also made it mandatory for the participating firms to upgrade their RTGS system.
Omnitech has foreseen the requirement and has made partnership with the top brands to provide appropriate solution to the banking customers. With 22 years of experience in providing varied IT solutions to customers from different industrial sector, Omnitech has developed end to end solution for RTGS systems giving its banking customer, single point of contact for any emergency or changes in the solution.
Omnitech has proven track record of implementing over 20 RTGS solution to the customers, and has flexibility of providing different solution to different customers, based on their budget and requirement. Omnitech believes in acting as a partner to its clients helping them from the initial stage of planning for the RTGS systems to implementation stage and providing them with key inputs and feedbacks as and when required.
Some of the key advantages in choosing Omnitech for RTGS implementation and up gradation are
End to End Solution on RTGS/NDS (Hardware/Software/Services)
Proven track record (More than 20+ RTGS/NDS solution success stories)
Experience in different sectors and varied banks
State of the art technology
Strategic consulting on RTGS/NDS implementation
Unique delivery models suiting customer requirements and RBI standards
Customized and committed Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) with 24x7x365 support
Efficient reporting and review mechanism
Low cost and effective
More value and excellent customer service
More research into this aspect is awaited from my side…keep watching this space for more
Indian banking industry has survived through the financial crisis in the international scenario without much difficulties. But the crisis has shown how important it is to have interbank payment done real time and on gross basis. This helps in reducing the systematic risk in the banking industry. But the RTGS system offered should be reliable, state of the art and should be easy to maintain and also update without major changes in the basic solution offered. RBI has also made it mandatory for the participating firms to upgrade their RTGS system.
Omnitech has foreseen the requirement and has made partnership with the top brands to provide appropriate solution to the banking customers. With 22 years of experience in providing varied IT solutions to customers from different industrial sector, Omnitech has developed end to end solution for RTGS systems giving its banking customer, single point of contact for any emergency or changes in the solution.
Omnitech has proven track record of implementing over 20 RTGS solution to the customers, and has flexibility of providing different solution to different customers, based on their budget and requirement. Omnitech believes in acting as a partner to its clients helping them from the initial stage of planning for the RTGS systems to implementation stage and providing them with key inputs and feedbacks as and when required.
Some of the key advantages in choosing Omnitech for RTGS implementation and up gradation are
End to End Solution on RTGS/NDS (Hardware/Software/Services)
Proven track record (More than 20+ RTGS/NDS solution success stories)
Experience in different sectors and varied banks
State of the art technology
Strategic consulting on RTGS/NDS implementation
Unique delivery models suiting customer requirements and RBI standards
Customized and committed Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) with 24x7x365 support
Efficient reporting and review mechanism
Low cost and effective
More value and excellent customer service
More research into this aspect is awaited from my side…keep watching this space for more
Monday, May 17, 2010
Green IT for a better future
Stop using vehicles and reduce your carbon footprint, recycle your newspapers, take a shower instead of bath. These are some common guidelines you would find everywhere around you and not without a reason. With the deteriorating environment, a change in lifestyle is imperative and “Go Green” is the new mantra. Green IT is an important peg in the wheel of this movement and we will try and understand some simple things about Green IT through the blog.
So, what are some of the reasons why a company would want to venture in eco-friendly products or services? Few of them are enlisted below:
• Regulations
• Cost Savings
• Customers/Sales
• Shareholder pressure
• Company image/reputation
• Genuine concern
Role of IT: IT-related CO2 emissions alone have been estimated at two per cent of the world’s total. Not only can everyone work together to reduce this figure, but IT itself can support the greening of other processes as well (the remaining 98 per cent!).
A good way to start cleaning up your IT is to include environmental questions in your purchasing requests. Questions such as ‘Are you ISO 14001 certified?’ or ‘Do the devices meet energy or environmental certifications?’ encourage your IT suppliers to demonstrate the environmental credentials of their company and the products you’re buying. A tip worth remembering is that, while purchasing , the whole life implications of acquisitions, should be to look at including the opportunities for reusing
or recycling products when you’ve finished with them.
Managed print service is a good practice in order to incorporate Green IT. Thus, consolidating a large number of personal printers into fewer central models can improve print cost management, while saving on energy and paper use.
A thin client approach can be very handy if it suits your business needs. Best part about it is that, it has a shelf life of around 8 years or more and consumes very little power. Thus the CPUs can be done away with.
Data centres consume a lot of electricity and this demand, along with the size of the associated utility bill, adds a significant cost for a company.. The computers, storage devices and air-conditioning equipment work fully efficiently while the server computers run at less than 30 per cent capacity and, although more effective than the average desktop machine, this isn’t using them to their fullest potential. If you can double the amount of work each processor does, you can halve the number of devices in use and cut the overall environmental impact. This can be done with the help of virtualization software which enables applications to run wherever there’s room for them. Previously, a server might have run a single application. Now each one can run a mix of jobs and earn its keep more effectively. Reducing the amount of equipment releases space and liberates the redundant machines for reuse or recycling.
After you’ve finished with your IT products, what happens when they’re no longer needed?
The priorities for all material things are reduce, reuse and recycle - in that order of importance. If you can extend the working life of your IT products, you reduce the environmental consequences of mining, manufacture, packaging, shipping and disposal. Can you upgrade something rather than finish using it? If you have to replace it, can someone else inside your organization use it? If not, charities and refurbishing organizations may be able to extend the product’s life. And, waiting at the end of the line, many organisations, including some manufacturers themselves, are willing to take equipment back and recycle the components into new products.
Although IT devices consume energy, you can use them to control energy, particularly electricity consumption. You can use IT systems to take care of building management. For example, using movement sensors, thermostats can be adjusted, lights
switched on and off, and computers switched off out of hours and reawakened for software upgrades.
In short, some of the steps for achieving Green IT are:
Commit to sustainability from the very top of the organisation
Make use of the many sources of publicly available environmental information
Include lifecycle questions in requests for proposals (RFPs) and when buying informally
Specify equipment appropriate to its planned use
Request energy efficient machines and power supplies
Extend the working life of equipment if it’s still functional and trouble-free
Reuse redundant equipment elsewhere – including mobile phones and chargers
Recycle IT hardware, but only if you can’t extend or reuse
Raise the temperature of (parts of) the data centre
Drop PCs and screens into sleep or standby after 15 minutes of inactivity
Switch off screen savers
Turn off inactive equipment (such as PCs, printers and network devices) at night
Get out of the habit of using paper – go electronic as much as possible
Reduce the number of printers
Print on both sides by default
Encourage staff to participate in web-meetings and webinars to reduce travel when appropriate
Virtualise applications, storage and servers in the data centre wherever appropriate
Ensure that data centre cooling equipment is optimised to the new arrangements
Finally, do ask the following questions to yourself to go on the right track:
• Can IT help me reduce my CO2 emissions?
• Can I substitute a physical process flow with a digital one?
• Can I use IT to enable greater awareness and control of my environmental impact?
So, what are some of the reasons why a company would want to venture in eco-friendly products or services? Few of them are enlisted below:
• Regulations
• Cost Savings
• Customers/Sales
• Shareholder pressure
• Company image/reputation
• Genuine concern
Role of IT: IT-related CO2 emissions alone have been estimated at two per cent of the world’s total. Not only can everyone work together to reduce this figure, but IT itself can support the greening of other processes as well (the remaining 98 per cent!).
A good way to start cleaning up your IT is to include environmental questions in your purchasing requests. Questions such as ‘Are you ISO 14001 certified?’ or ‘Do the devices meet energy or environmental certifications?’ encourage your IT suppliers to demonstrate the environmental credentials of their company and the products you’re buying. A tip worth remembering is that, while purchasing , the whole life implications of acquisitions, should be to look at including the opportunities for reusing
or recycling products when you’ve finished with them.
Managed print service is a good practice in order to incorporate Green IT. Thus, consolidating a large number of personal printers into fewer central models can improve print cost management, while saving on energy and paper use.
A thin client approach can be very handy if it suits your business needs. Best part about it is that, it has a shelf life of around 8 years or more and consumes very little power. Thus the CPUs can be done away with.
Data centres consume a lot of electricity and this demand, along with the size of the associated utility bill, adds a significant cost for a company.. The computers, storage devices and air-conditioning equipment work fully efficiently while the server computers run at less than 30 per cent capacity and, although more effective than the average desktop machine, this isn’t using them to their fullest potential. If you can double the amount of work each processor does, you can halve the number of devices in use and cut the overall environmental impact. This can be done with the help of virtualization software which enables applications to run wherever there’s room for them. Previously, a server might have run a single application. Now each one can run a mix of jobs and earn its keep more effectively. Reducing the amount of equipment releases space and liberates the redundant machines for reuse or recycling.
After you’ve finished with your IT products, what happens when they’re no longer needed?
The priorities for all material things are reduce, reuse and recycle - in that order of importance. If you can extend the working life of your IT products, you reduce the environmental consequences of mining, manufacture, packaging, shipping and disposal. Can you upgrade something rather than finish using it? If you have to replace it, can someone else inside your organization use it? If not, charities and refurbishing organizations may be able to extend the product’s life. And, waiting at the end of the line, many organisations, including some manufacturers themselves, are willing to take equipment back and recycle the components into new products.
Although IT devices consume energy, you can use them to control energy, particularly electricity consumption. You can use IT systems to take care of building management. For example, using movement sensors, thermostats can be adjusted, lights
switched on and off, and computers switched off out of hours and reawakened for software upgrades.
In short, some of the steps for achieving Green IT are:
Commit to sustainability from the very top of the organisation
Make use of the many sources of publicly available environmental information
Include lifecycle questions in requests for proposals (RFPs) and when buying informally
Specify equipment appropriate to its planned use
Request energy efficient machines and power supplies
Extend the working life of equipment if it’s still functional and trouble-free
Reuse redundant equipment elsewhere – including mobile phones and chargers
Recycle IT hardware, but only if you can’t extend or reuse
Raise the temperature of (parts of) the data centre
Drop PCs and screens into sleep or standby after 15 minutes of inactivity
Switch off screen savers
Turn off inactive equipment (such as PCs, printers and network devices) at night
Get out of the habit of using paper – go electronic as much as possible
Reduce the number of printers
Print on both sides by default
Encourage staff to participate in web-meetings and webinars to reduce travel when appropriate
Virtualise applications, storage and servers in the data centre wherever appropriate
Ensure that data centre cooling equipment is optimised to the new arrangements
Finally, do ask the following questions to yourself to go on the right track:
• Can IT help me reduce my CO2 emissions?
• Can I substitute a physical process flow with a digital one?
• Can I use IT to enable greater awareness and control of my environmental impact?
Friday, May 14, 2010
Data Vaulting: Store data,quality data
This blog aims to give a basic idea of what Data Vaulting is, what are its components and how it can be constructed.
Definition : The Data Vault is a detail oriented, historical tracking and uniquely linked set of normalized tables that support one or more functional areas of business. It is a hybrid approach encompassing the best of breed between 3rd normal form (3NF) and star schema. The design is flexible, scalable, consistent and adaptable to the needs of the enterprise. It is a data model that is architected specifically to meet the needs of enterprise data warehouses.
The Data Vault is architected to meet the needs of the data warehouse, not to be confused with a data mart. It can double as an Operational Data Store (ODS) if the correct hardware and database engine is in place to support it. The Data Vault can handle massive sets of granular data in a smaller, more normalized physical space in comparison to both 3NF and star schema. The Data Vault is foundationally strong. It is based on the mathematical principles that support the normalized data models. Inside the Data Vault model are familiar structures that match traditional definitions of star schema and 3NF that include dimensions, many to many linkages and standard table structures. The differences lie in relationship representations, field structuring and granular time-based data storage. The modeling techniques built into the Data Vault have undergone years of design and testing across many different scenarios providing them with a solid foundational approach to data warehousing.
Data Vault Modeling is a method of designing a database to provide historical storage of data coming in from multiple operational systems with complete tracing of where all the data in the database came from. Data Vault’s philosophy is that all data is relevant data, even if it is “wrong.
Components: components, specifically the Hub, Link and Satellite Entities. The Data Vault design is focused around the functional areas of business with the Hub representing the primary key. The Link Entities provide transaction integration between the Hubs. The Satellite Entities provide the context of the Hub primary key. Each entity is designed to provide maximum flexibility and scalability while retaining most of the traditional skill sets of data modeling expertise.
Building a Data Vault : The Data Vault should be built as follows:
1. Model the Hubs. This requires an understanding of business keys and their usage across the designated scope.
2. Model the Links. Forming the relationships between the keys – formulating an understanding of how the business operates today in context to each business key.
3. Model the Satellites. Providing context to each of the business keys as well as the transactions (Links) that connect the Hubs together. This begins to provide the complete picture of the business.
4. Model the point-in-time tables. This is a Satellite derivative, of which the structure and definition is outside the scope of this blog.
I aim to get into few details in the upcoming blogs regarding the need for Data vaulting, E-vaulting etc…Watch this space…Omnitech with the help of its data centers provides Data Vaulting services.
Definition : The Data Vault is a detail oriented, historical tracking and uniquely linked set of normalized tables that support one or more functional areas of business. It is a hybrid approach encompassing the best of breed between 3rd normal form (3NF) and star schema. The design is flexible, scalable, consistent and adaptable to the needs of the enterprise. It is a data model that is architected specifically to meet the needs of enterprise data warehouses.
The Data Vault is architected to meet the needs of the data warehouse, not to be confused with a data mart. It can double as an Operational Data Store (ODS) if the correct hardware and database engine is in place to support it. The Data Vault can handle massive sets of granular data in a smaller, more normalized physical space in comparison to both 3NF and star schema. The Data Vault is foundationally strong. It is based on the mathematical principles that support the normalized data models. Inside the Data Vault model are familiar structures that match traditional definitions of star schema and 3NF that include dimensions, many to many linkages and standard table structures. The differences lie in relationship representations, field structuring and granular time-based data storage. The modeling techniques built into the Data Vault have undergone years of design and testing across many different scenarios providing them with a solid foundational approach to data warehousing.
Data Vault Modeling is a method of designing a database to provide historical storage of data coming in from multiple operational systems with complete tracing of where all the data in the database came from. Data Vault’s philosophy is that all data is relevant data, even if it is “wrong.
Components: components, specifically the Hub, Link and Satellite Entities. The Data Vault design is focused around the functional areas of business with the Hub representing the primary key. The Link Entities provide transaction integration between the Hubs. The Satellite Entities provide the context of the Hub primary key. Each entity is designed to provide maximum flexibility and scalability while retaining most of the traditional skill sets of data modeling expertise.
Building a Data Vault : The Data Vault should be built as follows:
1. Model the Hubs. This requires an understanding of business keys and their usage across the designated scope.
2. Model the Links. Forming the relationships between the keys – formulating an understanding of how the business operates today in context to each business key.
3. Model the Satellites. Providing context to each of the business keys as well as the transactions (Links) that connect the Hubs together. This begins to provide the complete picture of the business.
4. Model the point-in-time tables. This is a Satellite derivative, of which the structure and definition is outside the scope of this blog.
I aim to get into few details in the upcoming blogs regarding the need for Data vaulting, E-vaulting etc…Watch this space…Omnitech with the help of its data centers provides Data Vaulting services.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
BCP and Disaster recovery in IT, Telecom and BFSI sectors
According to a report by Frost and Sullivan the average spending of a company in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space in India on disaster recovery is $0.44 million.
Another 2009 report states that the data center market in India is growing at a healthy rate of 25% CAGR. The main driver of this growth is outsourcing, which is growing at a rate of 80% annually. According to a Gartner report, as bandwidth prices fall to around Rs 6,000-8,000 per Mbps per month, India will become an attractive destination for hosting.
Estimates put the third party data center market including co-location services, hosting services and managed services in India at $150 million. With a projection of an average CAGR of 36% over the next two years, the verticals that outsource the most are BFSI and manufacturing sector.
We will look at 3 most promising sectors in India and evaluate the importance of Disaster recovery in these sectors:
1) BFSI:
Due to the rules laid down by RBI, NSE, SEBI; the necessity of BCP is very high in this sector. Imagine your nearby ATM is down and you need some cash urgently. This is sure to result in numerous customer complaints. To avoid this situation, business continuity becomes crucial.
Hence, as per RBI, following guidelines must be followed:
• Identification of critical businesses, owned and shared resources with supporting functions (the BCP template shall include IT Continuity Plan template)
• Structured risk assessment based on comprehensive business impact analysis
• Formulating Recovery time objectives (RTO) based on Business Impact Analysis. It may also be periodically fine-tuned by benchmarking against industry best practices.
• Critical and tough assumptions in terms of disaster so that the framework would be exhaustive enough to address the most stressful situations
• Identification of the recovery point objective (RPO) for data loss for each of the critical systems and strategy to deal with such data loss
• Alternate procedures during the time systems are not available
• Clearly documented and tested processes for shifting to secondary/back-up systems and sites
• Risk management by implementing IS design and architecture to attain the bank’s agreed RTOs and RPOs.
• Minimising immediate damage and losses
• Restoring critical business functions, including customer-facing systems and payment & settlement systems like cash disbursements, ATMs, Internet banking, call centres, etc.
• Establishing management succession and emergency powers
• Addressing HR issues and training aspects
• Providing for the safety and wellbeing of people in the branch or at the location at the time of the disaster
• Use of external resources/ support
• Having specific contingency plans for each outsourcing arrangement based on the degree of materiality of the outsourced activity to the bank's business
• Ensuring service providers for critical operations have BCPs in place and also periodically test the same
• Compatibility and co-ordination of contingency plans at both the bank and its service providers
• Action plans, practical manuals and testing procedures
• Independent audit and review of the BCP and test results
• Periodic updating to absorb changes in the institution or its service providers
2) IT/ ITES:
In an IT/ITES company, the disaster recovery plan is more customer-centric. These companies handle critical data of customers. The customers need to be supported 24/7, therefore it both data security and non-disrupted services are a must. Hence the requirement of DRR/BCP {Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning ) by this sector is high.
Some of the reasons why IT-ITES companies need to build robust Information Security Management strategies are:
• To safeguard assets of the company viz information assets, software assets, physical assets and services.
• To ensure the correct and secure operation of computer, network and communication facilities
• To safeguard integrity of data and software from computer viruses, spam, hacking, unauthorized and malicious use
• To build confidence in the minds of existing and potential clients
3) Telecom:
Because businesses today depend so much on communications capabilities, maintaining quality communications is a must for successful telecom environment management. This means, there needs to be a network contingency plan in place that offers the telecom environment quick, alternate connectivity whenever it is needed—ensuring business continuity if any disaster or other connectivity-impairing events should occur
To implement the Business Continuity Plan for a telecom sector it is important for businesses to understand the value in each of their services and what the impact would be if that service were missing.
Also, businesses must determine what the "weakest links" in their services are--which components of service delivery are most likely to fail and if they do, will they cripple connectivity?
Also, it's important for businesses to recognize what system components are critical and focus on the possible inability to access connectivity from the subscriber premises.
Thus, its clear that business continuity and disaster recovery in these sectors is something business’ cant do without.
You can include other sectors and their need for BCP from your experiences too.
Another 2009 report states that the data center market in India is growing at a healthy rate of 25% CAGR. The main driver of this growth is outsourcing, which is growing at a rate of 80% annually. According to a Gartner report, as bandwidth prices fall to around Rs 6,000-8,000 per Mbps per month, India will become an attractive destination for hosting.
Estimates put the third party data center market including co-location services, hosting services and managed services in India at $150 million. With a projection of an average CAGR of 36% over the next two years, the verticals that outsource the most are BFSI and manufacturing sector.
We will look at 3 most promising sectors in India and evaluate the importance of Disaster recovery in these sectors:
1) BFSI:
Due to the rules laid down by RBI, NSE, SEBI; the necessity of BCP is very high in this sector. Imagine your nearby ATM is down and you need some cash urgently. This is sure to result in numerous customer complaints. To avoid this situation, business continuity becomes crucial.
Hence, as per RBI, following guidelines must be followed:
• Identification of critical businesses, owned and shared resources with supporting functions (the BCP template shall include IT Continuity Plan template)
• Structured risk assessment based on comprehensive business impact analysis
• Formulating Recovery time objectives (RTO) based on Business Impact Analysis. It may also be periodically fine-tuned by benchmarking against industry best practices.
• Critical and tough assumptions in terms of disaster so that the framework would be exhaustive enough to address the most stressful situations
• Identification of the recovery point objective (RPO) for data loss for each of the critical systems and strategy to deal with such data loss
• Alternate procedures during the time systems are not available
• Clearly documented and tested processes for shifting to secondary/back-up systems and sites
• Risk management by implementing IS design and architecture to attain the bank’s agreed RTOs and RPOs.
• Minimising immediate damage and losses
• Restoring critical business functions, including customer-facing systems and payment & settlement systems like cash disbursements, ATMs, Internet banking, call centres, etc.
• Establishing management succession and emergency powers
• Addressing HR issues and training aspects
• Providing for the safety and wellbeing of people in the branch or at the location at the time of the disaster
• Use of external resources/ support
• Having specific contingency plans for each outsourcing arrangement based on the degree of materiality of the outsourced activity to the bank's business
• Ensuring service providers for critical operations have BCPs in place and also periodically test the same
• Compatibility and co-ordination of contingency plans at both the bank and its service providers
• Action plans, practical manuals and testing procedures
• Independent audit and review of the BCP and test results
• Periodic updating to absorb changes in the institution or its service providers
2) IT/ ITES:
In an IT/ITES company, the disaster recovery plan is more customer-centric. These companies handle critical data of customers. The customers need to be supported 24/7, therefore it both data security and non-disrupted services are a must. Hence the requirement of DRR/BCP {Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning ) by this sector is high.
Some of the reasons why IT-ITES companies need to build robust Information Security Management strategies are:
• To safeguard assets of the company viz information assets, software assets, physical assets and services.
• To ensure the correct and secure operation of computer, network and communication facilities
• To safeguard integrity of data and software from computer viruses, spam, hacking, unauthorized and malicious use
• To build confidence in the minds of existing and potential clients
3) Telecom:
Because businesses today depend so much on communications capabilities, maintaining quality communications is a must for successful telecom environment management. This means, there needs to be a network contingency plan in place that offers the telecom environment quick, alternate connectivity whenever it is needed—ensuring business continuity if any disaster or other connectivity-impairing events should occur
To implement the Business Continuity Plan for a telecom sector it is important for businesses to understand the value in each of their services and what the impact would be if that service were missing.
Also, businesses must determine what the "weakest links" in their services are--which components of service delivery are most likely to fail and if they do, will they cripple connectivity?
Also, it's important for businesses to recognize what system components are critical and focus on the possible inability to access connectivity from the subscriber premises.
Thus, its clear that business continuity and disaster recovery in these sectors is something business’ cant do without.
You can include other sectors and their need for BCP from your experiences too.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Cloud Computing: The future is Cloudy!
Gyaan:
Cloud is a metaphor for a network of computing resources accessible publically or vately over the Internet or an intranet. It is an abstraction of the complex infrastructure which is concealed from the end-user. The term “cloud computing”, more specifically, represents a style of computing where dynamically scalable resources are provided as a service through internet technologies
Why Use Cloud computing
Cloud Computing enables the smallest of organizations to harness computing power and best practices that were beyond their means a matter of years ago. It allows organizations to move from being technology-focused, to being business-focused, through outsourcing the management of the plumbing to experts. The following are the advantages of cloud computing
• Lower computer costs
• Improved performance.
• Reduced software costs.
• Instant software updates.
• Unlimited storage capacity.
• Increased data reliability.
• Universal document access.
• Latest version availability.
• Easier group collaboration.
• Device independence.
Cloud computing helps organizations by removing their capital expenditure and moving it to operational expenses
Services Offered through Cloud Computing:
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) also known as HardwareInfrastructure-as-a-Service (HIaaS), is a service model around servers (compute power), storage capacity, and network bandwidth. The offered resources most often leverage the agility and flexibility of virtualization, but can also be physical. Examples include Amazon (EC2 and S3), Rackspace, AT&T, and Verizon.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provides an externally managed platform for building and deploying applications and services. This model typically provides development tools (such as databases and development studios) for working with the supplied frameworks, as well as the infrastructure to host the built application. Examples include Force.com, Microsoft Azure, and Google App Engine.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) involves applications or services which hide the supporting infrastructure from the consumer, but are able to scale to meet changing demands. Examples include Salesforce.com and NetSuite
According to Gartner By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets Several interrelated trends are driving the movement toward decreased IT hardware assets, such as virtualization, cloud-enabled services, and employees running personal desktops and notebook systems on corporate networks
By 2012, India-centric IT services companies will represent 20 percent of the leading cloud aggregators in the market (through cloud service offerings). Gartner is seeing India-centric IT services companies leveraging established market positions and levels of trust to explore nonlinear revenue growth models (which are not directly correlated to labor-based growth) and working on interesting research and development (R&D) efforts, especially in the area of cloud computing
However, there are a few impediments for a company banking on Cloud Computing.Some of them are:
Key impediments to enterprise adoption of cloud computing are:
• Migration of Current enterprise apps conveniently
• Risk: Legal, regulatory, and business
• Difficulty of managing cloud applications
• Lack of demonstrable cost advantage for cloud computing
Cloud is a metaphor for a network of computing resources accessible publically or vately over the Internet or an intranet. It is an abstraction of the complex infrastructure which is concealed from the end-user. The term “cloud computing”, more specifically, represents a style of computing where dynamically scalable resources are provided as a service through internet technologies
Why Use Cloud computing
Cloud Computing enables the smallest of organizations to harness computing power and best practices that were beyond their means a matter of years ago. It allows organizations to move from being technology-focused, to being business-focused, through outsourcing the management of the plumbing to experts. The following are the advantages of cloud computing
• Lower computer costs
• Improved performance.
• Reduced software costs.
• Instant software updates.
• Unlimited storage capacity.
• Increased data reliability.
• Universal document access.
• Latest version availability.
• Easier group collaboration.
• Device independence.
Cloud computing helps organizations by removing their capital expenditure and moving it to operational expenses
Services Offered through Cloud Computing:
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) also known as HardwareInfrastructure-as-a-Service (HIaaS), is a service model around servers (compute power), storage capacity, and network bandwidth. The offered resources most often leverage the agility and flexibility of virtualization, but can also be physical. Examples include Amazon (EC2 and S3), Rackspace, AT&T, and Verizon.
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) provides an externally managed platform for building and deploying applications and services. This model typically provides development tools (such as databases and development studios) for working with the supplied frameworks, as well as the infrastructure to host the built application. Examples include Force.com, Microsoft Azure, and Google App Engine.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) involves applications or services which hide the supporting infrastructure from the consumer, but are able to scale to meet changing demands. Examples include Salesforce.com and NetSuite
According to Gartner By 2012, 20 percent of businesses will own no IT assets Several interrelated trends are driving the movement toward decreased IT hardware assets, such as virtualization, cloud-enabled services, and employees running personal desktops and notebook systems on corporate networks
By 2012, India-centric IT services companies will represent 20 percent of the leading cloud aggregators in the market (through cloud service offerings). Gartner is seeing India-centric IT services companies leveraging established market positions and levels of trust to explore nonlinear revenue growth models (which are not directly correlated to labor-based growth) and working on interesting research and development (R&D) efforts, especially in the area of cloud computing
However, there are a few impediments for a company banking on Cloud Computing.Some of them are:
Key impediments to enterprise adoption of cloud computing are:
• Migration of Current enterprise apps conveniently
• Risk: Legal, regulatory, and business
• Difficulty of managing cloud applications
• Lack of demonstrable cost advantage for cloud computing
Saturday, May 8, 2010
What would you recommend??
M&N is a successful firm dealing in refurbished cars and 2 wheelers. Over the last 8-10 years it was expanding rapidly across India with over 200 dealerships. It used Inorganic growth techniques as well by acquiring small players and regional players. The problem faced was- Whenever a new merger or acquisition happened in the company, the new dealership data is never integrated into the main IS solution of the company. Acquired dealers data continued to be managed in a stand-alone fashion. Thus, this hybrid data management ( standalone +integrated) started creating problems for the management of the organization.
In order to get an effective solution, the management invited proposals from solution providers. 2 solutions were received. Lets have a look at both:
Proposal I
· This tries to make optimal use of existing IT infrastructure by upgrading it whenever required.Details as follows:-
· Dealers will collect data from source and from all dimensions (Financial, Sales, Inventory etc) , verify it and load it on regional database
· Regional centers continue to consolidate data on their networks and generate daily reports
· Use Hub & Spoke model to interconnect regional centers with headquarter using Internet based connectivity
· Virtual database would be created at the Headquarter integrating all regional centers
· Proper portioning of database is important to offer maximum authorization to regional heads and sharing relevant and required data only across locations. This would help in reducing telecommunications cost and improve data reliability
· Implement Data warehouse for further analysis
Proposal II
This is more “State of the art” solution trying to capitalize on the existing IT/IS infrastructure. It recommends:
· Inter connect all locations using intranet application
· Data is captured at each location and consolidated at each regional database and into a data warehouse at headquarters. This warehouse can be accessed by headquarters and all regional sites
· All client and application processors would be connected with LAN within each site and a WAN among sites, allowing all users to communicate seamlessly with all local and regional users.
· Head office would have neural network technology for high level real time processing
· Powerful web based application is also proposed to serve new generation customers
The management needs to select the better of the 2 options. What would you recommend???
Business Availability: The need of the hour!
Introduction:
With ever changing business climate, the ultimate challenge is to manage with minimum resources and deliver quality service at almost 100% uptime. Business Availability aims to partner with clients and help them with overall IT infrastructure plans, methodologies, change management, application requirement analysis and business continuity planning. Below hierarchy explains the services covered under Business availability.
Infrastructure Management Service:
The attempt to have an almost 100% uptime 365 days of the year is an achievement in itself and Omnicare strives to achieve it in its own way. The inhouse “IMS” offers a complete suite of services to ensure higher availability of IT infrastructure while reducing the cost of management.
Remote Infrastructure Management:
RIM refers to managing IT infrastructure such as laptops, desktops, storage devices etc of a company.
Data center services house computer systems, backup power supplies and redundant or backup communication connections. The main purpose of a data center is running the applications that handle the core business and operational data of the organization.
Testing services :
Meeting the agreed upon standards and process’ is of prime importance to ensure a high quality product that meets client requirement. Thus Quality Assurance (QA), which involves testing a particular product under extreme conditions assumes a very important role in Business availability. The entire process is focused on problem detection so that any anomalies are eradicated at the right time. Some of the common tests performed are: Regression test, supportability tests and Usability tests. One crucial part of testing services is performance management where an application is checked whether it can sustain certain amount of load or stress in terms of queries, speed, response, heavy data input, connect time, send time, response time, process time, average latency etc.
Online security is another important part of security especially as most of the business depend on web based portals. Thus CAPTCHA authentication, Hacker simulations etc are ways in which business are made more secure.
Application Management services
:
AMS is a pragmatic, “top-down” approach that focuses on delivery of business services. Using SDLC methodology, a synergy can be maintained between the internal and external customers. The main benefits derived out of adopting a SDLC methodology is :
modular delivery to end users
incorporating feedbacks / suggestions
providing better predictability in terms of quality, cost, schedule and feature coverage
Thus the major prerogative that is fulfilled using this service is of providing customers a customized application development service which can be enhanced and modified with time. Isolating the root cause of the problem also is an integral part of AMS.
Enterprise Solutions:
The term Enterprise solution would encompass all solutions that are needed for large corporations with large network. Assessing business requirements, planning and designing of implementation and management of the IT Infrastructure and its applications forms a major part of Enterprise solutions. Also, automating various processes and activities is an off shoot of Enterprise solutions. An example of this service would be : implementation of the RTGS/NDS system in banks or having a messaging service or mail service.
What are some of the essentials for an Enterprise Solution:
1) Cost: Programming cost should be economical
2)Scalability:Should be able to accomodate an increase in number of clients
3) Portable: Any changes in technology should be easy to incorporate
4)Management:Should have an ability to manage version control software for ease of use
Business Continuity- Business cant do without!!!
Business interruptions range from catastrophic natural disasters to acts of terrorism to technical glitches. To hedge against these risks, organizations need business continuity and recovery resources, plans, and management.
Consider the 26 July floods in Mumbai in 2005. Companies that had business continuity plans and contracts in place with vendors of recovery services were able to continue business at alternate sites with minimum downtime and minimum loss of data.
As an example: During the Mumbai deluge mentioned above, one of the leading BPO companies reported that it was able to recover 79%, 82%, 97% and 90% of the calls on 26th, 27th, 28th July and 1st August respectively. The company also reported that had there been no business continuity initiative, the recovery levels would have been 29%, 21%, 82% and 72%. Safe to say now, Business as usual (BAU) is the primary concern of all companies and that’s where we get talking about BCP or Business Continuity Plans.
Business’s today have started realizing the importance of BCP and have made space for it in their overall strategies. Thus, in simple words, if Continuity is a question that’s boggling your minds, Business Continuity Planning(BCP) is the answer.
So, Why invest in Continuity? :
Customers expect supplies and services to continue— or resume rapidly— in all situations.
• Shareholders expect management control to remain operational through any crisis.
• Employees expect both their lives and livelihoods to be protected.
• Suppliers expect their revenue streams to continue.
• Regulatory agencies expect their requirements to be met, regardless of circumstances.
• Insurance companies expect due care to be exercised
For a company, Business Continuity can give it a competitive advantage over its peer companies, afterall which client wouldn’t want 24*7, uninterrupted business. Also, the business and economic sense derived out of it can be maximized if 2 or more companies collaborate in providing the BC services.
Effective implementation of BCP calls for promptness in testing and maintenance of the BCP .The BCP drills must be conducted regularly with proper simulation. It must be ensured that the BCP is kept up-to-date by reviewing it on a timely basis. Organisations must also maintain a well documented history of disruption and remedies
Of course, planning and implementing BCP is not an easy task and is full of challenges, none insurmountable though.
A business continuity strategy is a high-value— but high-maintenance— proposition. Business continuity embraces a broad spectrum of technologies: old and new, paper-based and electronic, manual and automated, individual and integrated.
Involvement of the entire management and employees is a key to successful implementation of Business Continuity. For this, communication with entire hierarchy is very important so that each one knows their duties.
Also, a spotty initial plan can create hiccups later on. Hence, it is of paramount importance to test the plan on regular basis to keep it glitch-free.
Thus, BCP should be considered as a responsibility by each company and something that will give a competitive advantage to the companies vying for new, big clients.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Some WoC( Words of Caution) for Social Media Marketing especially in IT
While many companies are entering the Social media space for marketing, caution must be exercised before launching into it completely. First and foremost, the company's culture needs to support this change as it involves being much more vocal about company's happenings. Below, i present before you some cons on Social Media marketing:
1) A news can spread like wildfire on the internet.While this may work for you at times, if the news is negative, it would go against you and there is very little damage control possible on social media.
2) A high degree of involvement or reciprocity is expected at all times in case of social media. If you have updated your blog with useful information and someone enquires about it or asks for more information, you should be in a position to respond quickly. This is the true essence of social media and if not done properly, the audience/prospective customer might lose faith in you.
3) You must stay abreast with all the latest developments and be adaptive and receptive to changes. On social media, things keep changing constantly and you need to have information of all the latest trends to safeguard the interests of your business.
4) If you intend to build your company's brand through social media, be ready to invest your time and effort, much more than the usual marketing techniques. This is truer once you become an established name and there are large number of followers or queries. Hence it has to be well managed else the entire exercise can backfire.
These are what seem to be the main tripping points...Please feel free to add to this list based on your experience or thoughts...
1) A news can spread like wildfire on the internet.While this may work for you at times, if the news is negative, it would go against you and there is very little damage control possible on social media.
2) A high degree of involvement or reciprocity is expected at all times in case of social media. If you have updated your blog with useful information and someone enquires about it or asks for more information, you should be in a position to respond quickly. This is the true essence of social media and if not done properly, the audience/prospective customer might lose faith in you.
3) You must stay abreast with all the latest developments and be adaptive and receptive to changes. On social media, things keep changing constantly and you need to have information of all the latest trends to safeguard the interests of your business.
4) If you intend to build your company's brand through social media, be ready to invest your time and effort, much more than the usual marketing techniques. This is truer once you become an established name and there are large number of followers or queries. Hence it has to be well managed else the entire exercise can backfire.
These are what seem to be the main tripping points...Please feel free to add to this list based on your experience or thoughts...
Monday, April 19, 2010
Importance of Information System for small and medium sized companies
Hi guys. This is my first blog here and I would begin with a caselet to see how important IT is even for a small business. Please give your suggestions as to how the company could have done better.
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HML is a leading alternate energy solution provider that provides services to numerous companies in North India. It requires generators, batteries, invertors and spare parts for these product lines. HML has 30 sales cum services offices in North India.HML service workshop provides 2 types of services: one preventive-cum-routine maintenance and second on call basis.It tries to offer an uptime of 98% for most of its products that are covered under preventive maintenance schemes.It also offers warranty of 1 month on all call basis repairs.
Customers who have HML products are quite happy but services offered are not as per claims. HML has a large workforce of 100 employees at its service workshop to handle on an average about 300 complaints on daily basis. Due to large number of service requirements, a large amount of inventory of spares is needed to be maintained.
Thus the basic challenge HML is facing is to manage the spare parts inventory and to keep the service schedule for better customer satisfaction. This requires the replacements of critical spares, testing of various systems and regular servicing etc. It was found that items received at Service workshop were not serviced properly during "preventive maintenance" and hence it leads to load increase at service workshop.
Food for thought:
What do you think are the problems being faced by HML and what kind of Information System would help HML achieve serivce level of 98%?
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HML is a leading alternate energy solution provider that provides services to numerous companies in North India. It requires generators, batteries, invertors and spare parts for these product lines. HML has 30 sales cum services offices in North India.HML service workshop provides 2 types of services: one preventive-cum-routine maintenance and second on call basis.It tries to offer an uptime of 98% for most of its products that are covered under preventive maintenance schemes.It also offers warranty of 1 month on all call basis repairs.
Customers who have HML products are quite happy but services offered are not as per claims. HML has a large workforce of 100 employees at its service workshop to handle on an average about 300 complaints on daily basis. Due to large number of service requirements, a large amount of inventory of spares is needed to be maintained.
Thus the basic challenge HML is facing is to manage the spare parts inventory and to keep the service schedule for better customer satisfaction. This requires the replacements of critical spares, testing of various systems and regular servicing etc. It was found that items received at Service workshop were not serviced properly during "preventive maintenance" and hence it leads to load increase at service workshop.
Food for thought:
What do you think are the problems being faced by HML and what kind of Information System would help HML achieve serivce level of 98%?
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