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|In: Interviews|Last Updated: | 1 Comment

Internet of Things [IoT] has become one of the most popular terminologies, especially when the discussion is about creating an overall connected eco-system. As per a report by Gartner on IoT, there might be around 20 billion connected things by 2020. Things in IoT would not only be limited to smartphones, PC’s, etc. but also extend to objects like vending machines, connected cars, agriculture equipment’s, manufacturing equipment’s, etc.

Image Source- IIoT

IoT has been instrumental in the creation of new business models, transformation of businesses to the digital front and helped enterprises improve the overall operational efficiency. Though there has been a lot of discussion about the growing usage of IoT in the consumer devices, it is playing a very important role in the transformation of the Manufacturing industry, also called as Industrial IoT [IIoT].

In simple terms, Industrial IoT harnesses the power of data by amalgamating it with Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data, M2M Communication, etc. thereby improving the overall productivity and quality in an industrial setup. From smart manufacturing to home automation, Industrial IoT is shaping enterprises for a connected future.

Indian enterprise Sasken has deep-rooted expertise in industrial analytics that enables smart services through data ingestion, data processing, and actionable insight generation. It has various offerings for enterprises looking to capitalize on the IIOT wave. Today, we have a chat with Ram Ramaseshan, Senior VP & Head, Automotive and Industrials Business Units, Sasken Technologies Limited about IIOT, trends & challenges in IIOT, how enterprises can leverage the power of IIOT, etc.

What are some of the drivers of growth of the Industrial IoT [IIOT] eco-system?

IoT has catalyzed the tapping of existing data faster and in significant volumes. IoT is one of the key factors that have pushed the adoption of digital transformation. When IoT technologies are applied to the manufacturing industry, we call it the Industrial Internet of Things. Industrial IoT continues to disrupt the way machines and human beings collaborate. Some of the drivers of growth are:

  • Availability of relevant and economical wireless connectivity technologies
  • Decreasing cost of hardware components such as Sensors, g/w and software components and in addition, cloud storage, analytical tools
  • Emergence of more robust IoT platform such as Thingworx, Predix, etc.
  • Standardization that would allow aggregating data for decision making

What are the use cases and industries where you see the massive traction for IIoT?

Increasing adoption of the Internet of Things presents manufacturers with tremendous business opportunities. And, through a connected factory setup, manufacturers can effectively gather and apply insights to monetize these opportunities. Today, the IoT-driven Industry 4.0 solutions are helping businesses to improve productivity, reduce operating costs, and enhance worker safety. Reduced cost of ownership is one of the major benefits linked to IIoT. Some areas where IIoT will see major traction are:

  • Logistics in general, especially high-value shipments
  • Security and surveillance systems
  • Asset Performance management for safety and reliability of equipment
  • Energy sector such as wind turbine, solar power plants, Oil & Gas monitoring, etc.
  • Remote management of assets

How can executives at industrial companies exploit the revenue-generating opportunities of the IIoT?

The adaptation of IIoT is not an alternative but an essential tool for survival and success in today’s time. Since technological advancement is directly proportional to enhanced profits, every firm, be it large or small, must work towards the achievement of complete digitization and must also empower their workers with the necessary skills. A few things executives in Industrials sector can keep in mind are:

  • Productivity/utilization of equipment can be increased thus increasing revenue
  • Implementation of IIoT can help reduce downtime thereby increasing revenue
  • Wastage can be reduced and quality can be improved
  • Allowing machines in sequence to be connected thereby moving to silos to better utilization of capital assets

What are some of the key challenges [be it technical, infrastructure, security, etc.] that your team encountered while implementing IoT/IIoT solutions?

The Industrials customer, today, has some really challenging needs that include decreasing operational cost, increasing productivity and quality, and ensuring the interoperability of information technology [IT] and operational technology [OT]. Some of the challenges that we at Sasken have helped solve in the recent past are:

  • Unavailability of a single tool/platform which can provide easy installation and maintenance of IIoT system
  • Right connectivity solutions as there is no one size that fits all
  • Convergence of IT & OT is difficult as the lifecycle of both technologies varies by default
  • Concern over security/cyber-attacks
  • Managing data coming from disparate systems becoming a deterrent to IoT implementation
Ram Ramaseshan, Senior VP and Head, Automotive and Industrials Business Units, Sasken Technologies Limited

Which are some of the emerging technologies with the rise of IoT and AI in the area of Industrial Automation?

The introduction of IoT in the Industrial space heralded the advent of expanding connectivity, more digitalization, utilizing cloud infrastructure, and newer business models. The implementation of IoT and AI in the Industrial landscape is giving rise to technologies such as machine vision, machine learning, sensor automation, mesh networking with short range communication protocols, and wearable technology such as the smart helmet.

From an enterprise customer’s perspective, how much savings/reduction in OPEX will an industrial enterprise get when shifting to an IIoT solution?

Market research shows that 86% of maintenance is reactive [too late] or scheduled [unnecessary] and typical maintenance practices have not changed much over the years. This could be attributed to the unavailability of tools robust and mature enough to fundamentally improve maintenance practices. At present, the most asset intensive industries follow scheduled [time/usage based] preventive maintenance practices. This practice still does not eliminate the possibility of unscheduled maintenance and catastrophic failures. So companies are trying to make their operations reliable and ensure optimal performance at a lower maintenance cost by predicting and preventing failures in a timely manner.

As per The International Society of Automation:

  • 5% of plant production is lost annually due to unplanned downtime
  • $647 billion is lost globally by manufacturers across all industry segments

Being able to predict the health of an asset on a continuous basis and avoiding the OPEX spent on regularly scheduled maintenance can bring down the OPEX by as much as 50-70%. E.g. being able to predict the health of a rolling stock can avoid bringing the rolling stock back to the yard for regularly scheduled services and this can result in significant cost savings to the rail services as it can now run those many more trips.

What is the role of wearable technologies, AI, machine learning, etc. in shaping up the entire IoT industry [be it IoT or IIoT]?

We see them as the important building blocks for the realization of IoT/IIoT for:

  • Safety
  • Remote management of assets
  • Collaboration for decision making
  • Intelligent Alerts and Events management
  • Condition based monitoring, in its true sense

are some of the applications we see being realized through these technologies.

Who are some of the customers, industry partners of Sasken for its IIoT business?

Some customer problems that Sasken is trying to solve include enabling legacy controllers by ensuring compatibility at the shop-floor and control-level, asset management, and using AR and virtual reality (VR) to make field service operators more effective and efficient. These are complex problems and require reliable and proven partnerships.

Sasken has partnered with the following companies to solve such complex business challenges:

  • PTC ThingWorx
  • Intel
  • Qualcomm
  • TI
  • Smartrac
  • QNX

Can you share some thoughts about Digital India [particularly Housing For All] and what are the challenges if ‘Smart Housing’ needs to go mainstream?

Digital technologies including smart devices [e.g. smartphones and wearable devices] and cloud computing applications have emerged as catalysts for rapid economic growth and consumer empowerment across the globe. The emergence of smart devices is the key to the vision of a Digital India. The Indian government envisions transforming our nation and creating opportunities for all citizens by harnessing digital technologies and to empower every citizen with access to digital services, knowledge, and information. Mobility, Analytics, and Cloud are the foundations that will enable the Digital India visions of providing ‘e-governance and services on demand’ and ‘digitally empowering citizens’ and support the social inclusion schemes being launched by the government. Here IIoT can play a major role in the government’s Digital India vision by digitizing the government initiative and tracking systems.

The Andhra Pradesh Government’s dashboard is a good example of what we can achieve with the implementation of IIoT. This will enable government schemes to become more transparent thereby reducing spillage and corruption. With respect to Housing for All, smart lighting, drinking water, drainage systems, and security can be managed much better through IIoT implementations. The wastage of electricity and water can be monitored and prevented through smart metering and lighting solutions for electricity and water.

What are some of the data security measures and energy efficiencies within smart building and home automation services?

Smart Homes will provide increased flexibility of energy consumption with smart energy management. The user will be able to control HVAC and lighting remotely from his smartphone. This will result in reducing the load on electrical grids thus bringing down the need to use expensive generators.

The typical challenges continue to be security of the data and information, interoperability issues, complex systems trying to talk to each other, evolving standards, etc. More importantly, the world is still not a full-fledged connected place; there are infrastructure issues which have to be fixed first for IoT to become a reality. The good news is that the whole industry is working towards addressing these aspects.

How important is a requirement for Open architecture, shared platforms, etc. for the growth of the entire IoT/IIoT eco-system?

One of the challenges in implementing IIoT faster is the non- interoperability between industrial devices from multiple vendors. In order to make the implementation easier for end users, it is important to have an open architecture, shared platform, etc. in the IIoT eco system. This will help the existence of multiple vendors and healthy competition thereby enabling customers to achieve better value.

We thank Ram Ramaseshan for sharing his insights with our readers. If you have any questions for Ram about IIOT, How your startup/enterprise can leverage capabilities of IIOT, etc. please email them here or share them via a comment to this article.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Uber, the ride-sharing app that connects riders with driver partners to provide convenient, reliable and affordable rides at the push of a button have announced a phased  roll out of two new features namely In-app chat and Multi-destination to make the Uber experience as frictionless as possible for riders and drivers alike.

The in-app chat feature aims to help riders and driver partners get in touch with one another to provide information such as their exact location. As a result, coordinating the pickup can be faster and cost effective, since they don’t have to switch between apps or incur call charges.

Both riders and driver partners will see if their chats are delivered and read, helping to confirm the other actually received the communication. They can even choose to communicate in their preferred local language, if required. This features also means that regardless of where they are located across the globe, riders and drivers won’t have to share their phone number with one another should they have to get in touch.

How the In-app chat feature works

  • When connected to a driver, a rider should go to the Uber feed and tap ‘contact’ and then ‘chat’
  • During a POOL trip, the feature lets the driver partner know which rider sent the chat
  • Both riders and driver partners will see if their chats are delivered and read, helping to confirm the other received the communication

Multi-destination feature enables riders add multiple stops along their route. Whether it’s a ride to the airport and the rider needs to pick up a friend en route, or going home after dinner, and need to drop off a loved one on the way, it’s easier than ever to pick up and drop off your friends or family along the way. This takes just a few taps on the app when requesting a ride. With this feature, riders can sit back and relax during your trip and there’s no need to make any changes.

How it works

  • Tap ‘Where to?’
  • Tap the ‘+’ next to the ‘Where to?’ box
  • Add the addresses of the additional stops en route
  • Riders can also add and remove stops during the trip
  • As courtesy for driver’s time, it is recommended that each stop be limited to 3 minutes or less

|In: e-commerce|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

A Microsoft-Zinnov study has revealed that the Hybrid Cloud market in India is fast becoming a new standard for delivery of digital transformation. With the substantial cost as well as organizational benefits, Indian enterprises are increasingly intensifying their reliance on a hybrid cloud setup.

Image Source – Cloud Computing

The report observed that hybrid cloud deployment at a steady rate could result in cost savings of anywhere between 5% and 30% for an enterprise [depending on the growth of virtual machines in an enterprise’s data centre and a proportion of workloads moving from private data centre to public cloud infrastructure], based on the output of its proprietary cost modeller. As per the modeller, the hybrid cloud solution offered by Microsoft Azure is the most economical.

As per the survey conducted as part of this study, over 40 percent of enterprises have planned or are planning to build a hybrid cloud infrastructure or transform their existing IT infrastructure. The primary reasons cited for adopting hybrid cloud solutions include, lowering total cost of ownership [54%], facilitating innovation [42%], enhancing operational efficiencies [42%], and enabling companies to respond to and meet customer expectations more readily [40%].

Highlighting the need for hybrid cloud, Meetul Patel, General Manager, Marketing & Operations, Microsoft said

Many organizations have existing investments in IT infrastructure and business-specific needs to keep parts of it on their own premises. At the same time, the cloud presents an incredible opportunity to improve RoI, develop innovative solutions, and respond rapidly to changing business demands. The hybrid model is a ‘best of all worlds’ option that allows customers to benefit from the cloud on their own terms.

According to Pari Natarajan, CEO, Zinnov

Hybrid cloud is becoming the preferred deployment model across sectors. Industries where the impact of digital transformation is the highest are the ones that are adopting hybrid cloud at an accelerated pace. However, enterprises need to select a hybrid cloud provider that can provide them with the right migration tools to enable seamless relocation of existing services – between dedicated private cloud and public cloud infrastructures – without lengthy or unplanned disruption to live service.

According to the report, adopting a hybrid cloud model requires transformational change in the way companies interact with their IT and business. There is a need to enable employees with competence in contract management, as hybrid cloud deployment models involve interaction with third party cloud providers.

Members within the organization need to be skilled to handle any exigency involving the cloud service provider. Therefore, training is needed to facilitate employees within the organization to familiarize themselves with the new business processes and governance structures, said the study.

Zinnov analysed more than 50 global cloud channel partners and found that hybrid cloud deployments constituted 45~50% of their overall cloud business. These channel partners are distributed across large-tier IT service providers, mid-tier IT service providers, Hosters and Telcos, Digital Marketing, and Platform BPO companies.

The growth of the cloud industry has been spurred by the funding and investments in cloud tech startups, which have increased exponentially. In 2016, the cloud market saw an estimated 370+ deals with the average investments growing at CAGR 15% between 2012~2016. The hybrid cloud deals accounted for 45-50% of the total cloud deals that happened from 2012 to 2016, and these primarily focused on storage, automation as well as hybrid cloud management solutions.

In addition, there has also been an increase in the cloud-specific acquisitions, growing at 35% CAGR from 2012 to 2016 with an average investment jump of 81.25%. In 2016 alone, there have been 115 cloud-specific acquisitions with the likes of CenturyLink shelling out USD 34 billion for Level 3 Communication, a provider of Data Center Connectivity and Cloud.

Rapid growth in internet adoption – fueled by government initiatives like demonetization and GST, growth of mobile data [the number of mobile developers is estimated to double from the current 300,000 by 2020], and digital transformation, led by the emergence of disruptive start-ups, especially in areas such as fintech, e-commerce, SaaS, are stated to be the key reasons for this development.

|In: Digital|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

At least 40% of all businesses will die in the next 10 years… if they don’t figure out how to change their entire company to accommodate new technologies.

Digital transformation in its simplest form means the use of technology to radically improve performance & reach of enterprises. But it does not merely stop at that. As technology becomes a permanent fixture in everyday life, the best organizations combine digital technologies with strong leadership to bring about real transformation.

Image Source – Digital Evolution

Business and IT leaders are eager to fully utilize key digital technologies such as analytics, mobility, social media, IoT, Machine Learning and smart embedded devices to vitalize their customer relationships, internal processes and value propositions hence, bringing the much needed digital evolution.

Even though the digital transformation is a long journey with the gradual evolution of the organization, there are a few key elements which are to be taken care off while beginning the transformation endeavor. Implementing advanced digital technologies, improving customer experiences, transforming internal processes, re-evaluating and designing improved business models and bringing to the fore your key value propositions are some of the key elements of a digital transformation exercise.

Digital Evolution is more of a business evolution than a technology initiative. It has created a rapidly changing business environment and has compelled companies to rethink nearly everything they do. Pro-actionary approach along with quick adaptability and flexibility is required for an organization to stay on the leading edge of the digital landscape.

This is a time of Digital Darwinism – an era where technology and society are evolving faster than businesses can naturally adapt. Therefore, as companies look at moving business platforms and technologies, corporate leaders face an endless list of initiatives to consider, prioritize, evaluate, validate and implement. The challenge is to ensure that their priorities are aligned wisely. Without any strategic direction, every single attempt to evolve digitally can end up disjointed and ineffective.

Mr. Ashok K laha [Image Source]

It’s no surprise that digital evolution is an ongoing wave of new technologies and capabilities that are coming at us at an unprecedented pace. The major one being the data revolution which has emerged as a new weapon in the industry in the recent years. It is being generated, combined, recreated and consumed at significant levels which are facilitating changes within the organization.

But the question to be asked is Are companies investing in the right technology for their Big Data needs in addition to the training of marketing and IT personnel?

Given the speed of evolution and scope of impact, an organization needs to fully understand the opportunities to be gained and lost, spot important trends and identify its competitors in order to evolve along with the world and its gadgets.

Cyber security is another major concern when we talk about digital evolution. The world currently deals with approximately 2.5 million cyber security threats per second. Most of the business leaders are reluctant to innovate due to cyber risks. However, these risks are worth dealing given the plethora of opportunities that digitization offers. Else, sitting on the sidelines and not responding to the market conditions and threats will become the fastest way to extinction.

With the new Modi Government at the helm, we as a country are making great strides in digital transformation. Reforms like demonetization, GST, and Digital India will act as stepping stones in helping the country’s businesses and economy to digitally enable and transform them.

Digitization is a gift to the organizations though it takes investment, agility and relentless focus to stay ahead. The road to digital evolution is far from easy but it carries great incentives for businesses and customers alike. The digital industry could be an important vehicle for change and it could provide the opportunity for India to dramatically expand its role and influence in the global economy enabling it to become a powerhouse of digital innovation.

About the Author

Mr. Asoke K. Laha is the Founder, President & CEO of Interra Information Technologies. Interra Information Technologies has been a leader in the Information Technology Industry since its founding in 1996. Headquartered in California, the company’s operations and sales network spans across multiple countries. You can learn more about them at www.interrait.com. You can also connect with Interra Information Technologies on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

With the festive season all set to begin, Intex Technologies, in its continued efforts to provide consumers additional features and convenience, has partnered with Times Internet Limited [TIL] for Databack offers. Adding to its varied range of Digital Services, Intex with this tie-up further strengthens its portfolio to enhance user experience.

With Intex Databack services, one can save 2G, 3G and 4G mobile data that is spent using apps and is given back to users, which allows them to save up to 500 MB mobile data every month.

Other additional features that the partnership offers are Spin & Win 3G/4G where users can win up to 50 MB of data as a daily bonus from Spin the wheel. Along with this, Data Monitor provides users a way to tap which app uses the maximum data and track their usage of each app on a real-time basis. This enables users to assess their data requirements more aptly. Additionally, another feature, namely Data Saver saves up to 20% of mobile data every day for users and ensures that they never run of data.

Databack service is available offline as well and users don’t need to have internet connection to monitor data consumption. All saved data can be redeemed as data recharge by users. As a promotional offer, users can also avail 50 MB mobile data for every contact who joins on their invitation.

Commenting on the partnership, Nitin Goel, Head of Digital Services, Intex Technologies said

Intex and Times Internet have been partners for some time and this latest tie-up on Databack Services has further strengthened our combined efforts towards digital services. For the tech savvy youth, Databack services will prove to be an accelerator in enjoying data services in addition to the already available Value Added Services to consumers. We have always been committed to focusing on enhancing consumer experience for smart phones through constantly working on strengthening our digital services ecosystem.

Commenting on the partnership, Sahil Deswal, Head of Growth & Marketing, TOI [Digital] said

We are pleased to further strengthen our partnership with Intex. Indians today browse, share, like and love to live online. We at Times Internet are leading this digital wave and are the ones who inform [news that matters by NewsPoint], entertain [streaming music from Gaana] and enable [getting stuff done and saving with Haptik & Databack] young India to do more with their smartphones. Our products are where India signs in every day.

Kumar Apurva – Founder, Databack said

Databack is the leading app to ‘track, monitor and save mobile data.’ The Intex and Times Internet partnership will now allow Intex users to track their data usage live – a feature that no other phone has, and enable Intex users to get data refunds when they use mobile internet on their phones through Databack, to make their data packs last longer.

Intex’s association with Times Internet covers a wide variety of services that cater to various consumer needs on content, entertainment, utility and it is due to this synergy that the two giants in their respective fields have come together for collaboration on wide range of services like:

NewsPoint – It is the preferred news app for over 1 crore Indians. With 15 language options to choose from and hundreds of trusted content sources, it covers the length and breadth of the nation across national, regional and local news, entertainment, sports etc.

Haptik – It is integrating its chat commerce services into the Intex LFTY platform. Intex users will now be able to book flights, cabs, pay bills and a lot straighter from the minus-1 screen without downloading any other app.

Gaana – India’s No. 1 music streaming service with more than 35 million monthly active users and offers a repertoire of more than 30 million songs across 21 languages including Hindi, English and regional languages.

|In: Technology|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

HackerEarth have announced its strategic partnership with Monstar-Lab Technology (Chengdu) Co., Ltd, a consumer and enterprise mobile app development company in China. As part of the partnership, Monstar-Labs will expand its services in the space of technical recruitment by reselling HackerEarth products, Recruit and Sprint.

Image Credit – HackerEarth

China’s digital economy is likely to create 415 million jobs by 2035, according to forecasts by the Boston Consulting Group and Ali Research Institute. And as in any country, China faces challenges when it comes to technology recruitment. Most of the companies still follow the traditional way of hiring that involves sifting through resumes manually. This adds up on cost and time for most of them as they end up spending almost one month to select one candidate. Even after spending much time and resources the companies do face the risk of the candidate’s skill sets not matching the requirement.

HackerEarth will help resolve all these issues not only by accelerating the technical hiring process, but also by improving the quality of candidates for employers, and providing a way for candidates to gain competitive edge during their career search journey.

Monstar-Lab’s partnership with HackerEarth will help companies resolve many of the challenges involved with hiring tech talent. Companies can screen and qualify candidates across 35 different programming languages that includes Swift, Ruby, Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript, C/C++, etc. and also automatically evaluate logical thinking, running speed, memory usage, and quality of a candidate’s programming code. For employers with less technical acumen, HackerEarth’s pre-built library of more than 20,000 technical and non-technical questions simplifies the process of creating tests, generating efficiency for hiring managers and adding confidence in the recruiting process.

These questions are in various topics, ranging from software engineering, computer science, machine learning, AI, programming, to front-end development. Additionally, through Sprint, companies can also host their own in-person or virtual hackathon  to achieve a variety of outcomes including sparking innovation within a company, building viable products, expanding employment branding to new tech professionals and qualifying top tech talent for potential future hire.

Sachin Gupta, CEO & Co-founder, HackerEarth said

HackerEarth has grown strongly over the last 4 years. We have worked with hundreds of customers, and have been able to help them significantly improve their technical recruiting process. We believe there is a huge opportunity in China and that we can create a massive impact by helping skilled software engineers connect with some of the most innovative companies.

Monstar-Lab is the perfect partner for us to take our products to China as they have been part of the ecosystem for long and understand it well. We are quite excited about this partnership and look forward to strong business growth in China.

Roger Lakhani, Global Head of Investments and Partnerships, Monstar-Lab added

With strong government-led initiatives and rapid innovation across the IT sector, IT continues to be a strong driving force within the China economy. We are excited to be able to work with HackerEarth to bring their platform to China, and thereby helping software engineers in China build up critical skills, helping IT departments in companies with talent assessment, and helping leading IT companies to leverage HackerEarth’s unique hackathon platform to foster innovation and talent build-up across their teams.

About Monstar-Lab

Monstar-Lab is a consumer and enterprise mobile app development company. Our products include music streaming services and mobile gaming services in 9 countries and 17 cities. For more information, please visit Monstar-Lab

|In: Mobile|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Truecaller announced that the company has reached a new milestone as a mobile in-app publisher, achieving a record 200 million impressions in a single day.

The daily impression rate on Truecaller’s in-app advertising platform has grown by over 300% in the past year. The monumental traction is a product of Truecaller’s innovation as a one-stop solution for communication, payments, and now, brand engagement. Real estate on Truecaller has appreciated to the extent that over 70% of existing advertisers have decided to continue to invest in Truecaller’s mobile advertising inventory. Truecaller’s direct-to-consumer connect has attracted new interest of brands across the spectrum of FMCG, consumer electronics, and automobiles from brands like Mondel?z, Samsung, Himalaya and Maruti among many more.

Commenting on the milestone achievement, Tejinder Gill, VP Sales & Head of India Operations at Truecaller, said

This is a fantastic milestone for Truecaller, and this shows that the mobile ad eco-system has an incredible potential in India. At Truecaller, we are constantly looking for innovative ways to add value to the lives of not only our customers, but our partners’ as well. With Patanjali, we saw a cult favorite brand that has witnessed unprecedented growth by offering a differentiated product –  much like ourselves, so the partnership has worked brilliantly. As we approach the all-year high of customer engagement with the festive season in India, we foresee many more upcoming collaborations with brands across categories.

Patanjali, India’s homegrown leader in Ayurveda, leveraged Truecaller in a one-day app inventory takeover, resulting in a new benchmark for both Patanjali and Truecaller.

Commenting on this milestone, Santosh Kumar, Co-founder & CEO MangoData, Patanjali’s digital agency, said

What began as crafting an innovative campaign for Patanjali has surpassed our expectations in terms of both impressions delivered, which were upwards of 200 million and click-based engagement of over 430,000 in a single day. Leveraging the strong association customers have with Truecaller and supported by a 100% share of voice on the platform, has helped us target the right customer with the right offering and narrative from our portfolio.

 

|In: Interviews|Last Updated: | 0 Comments

Aafter the advent of the Digital Economy, ‘Data’ has become more important than ever before. There is a common saying – Data is the new Oil and a very valuable asset and hence it becomes primarily important for enterprises to ensure that customers’ data is safe and is periodically backed up. From an end consumer’s point of view, utmost care has to be taken to ensure that the data on their laptops, mobiles, etc. is safe so that chances of compromising data are very slim! Quantum, a US-based storage company is a leading expert in scale-out tiered storage, archive, and data protection, providing solutions for capturing, sharing and preserving digital assets over the entire data life-cycle have come.

Image Source – Data Storage

From small businesses to major enterprises, more than 100,000 customers have trusted Quantum to address their most demanding data workflow challenges. Quantum’s end-to-end, tiered storage foundation enables customers to maximize the value of their data by making it accessible whenever and wherever needed, retaining it indefinitely and reducing total cost and complexity. We had a detailed interaction with Mr. Jim Simon, Senior Director of Asia-Pacific Marketing at Quantum Corporation where we discussed about the storage solutions from Quantum, their offerings for SME’s, best practices w.r.t data security, Quantum in India, etc.

Off late there has been a lot of ransomware attacks, can you please stress upon on how solutions from Quantum can help companies facing such outages and how safe is it for a company which is into Fintech, e-commerce, etc. to move to the cloud only approach?

Quantum recommends a ‘3-2-1 backup best practice‘: 3 copies of your data, 2 different types of media & 1 copy offline/offsite.

Offsite could include cloud. However, for maximum protection, having an offsite copy in a non-connected location will ensure that if a virus infects a network, the offline copy will be immune.

Quantum’s solutions include one or more media such as flash, disk, object storage, and tape.  Tape is particularly suited for keeping an offsite copy of one’s data, out of reach of ransomware viruses.

Which are some of the industries/verticals that currently use Quantum Storage solutions, please give some insights into Indian customers?

Quantum’s solutions are used by all types of customers since these customers have IT departments who rely on Quantum for backup, recovery, and archive.

In addition, Quantum’s workflow storage solutions are especially well-known in vertical markets such as media/entertainment, surveillance/security, oil/gas, high-performance computing, etc.  Each of these markets has a common workflow such as ingest, edit/use, share, and preserve.  Each has large streams of data that require high performance ingest and data access while needing sharing [such as via cloud] and low-cost preservation.

How can SME’s and startups leverage the capabilities of solutions from Quantum, Q-Cloud in order to scale their operations and reduce the overall Time to market

For SMEs, Quantum’s DXi family has built-in replication to Q-Cloud which is built on Amazon Web Services.  In other words, we take care of all the hard work so our customers just need to select Q-Cloud as a secondary offsite copy for their data and we bill them on a consumption basis. In the meantime, for day to day recovery, it is fast and simple as local copies of backup data reside on the local DXi appliance(s) or on a customer’s own server employing our DXi software-only approach.

Many Indian corporations and growth stage companies are setting up their own Data Center [citing security and scalability reasons], can you share some thoughts on the same and how overall solutions from Quantum can help the Indian unicorns/growth stage companies

Most of our customers have their own data centers.  The key questions to ask include:

  • How is their primary data backed up for quick, local restores?
  • How is their primary data backed up offsite for recovery in case of a disaster?
  • Is there less valuable primary data residing on expensive primary storage?

Quantum and DataFrameworks can highlight data that would be better suited for storage on low-cost disk, object storage, or file-based tape thereby saving IT organizations tremendous investment in unnecessary excess primary storage, not to mention power and cooling.

Jim Simon, Senior Director of Asia-Pacific Marketing, Quantum

Please share some details about the Indian subsidiary of Quantum [employee size, innovation, market it addresses, etc.]

Quantum has been operating in India for nearly two decades.  We have pre-sales, sales, and post-sales team members in our offices in New Delhi, Mumbai, and Bengaluru.

What are the next big innovations which we can expect in the near future from Quantum or something which is happening in the area of Storage, Security, Connected computing, etc.?

Quantum is working on a software designed storage initiative known as Castle. We aim for storage to be agile and able to evolve while managing it should be ‘a piece of cake’

There is a huge amount of thrust about Digital Media [epecially after the advent of 4G in India], which means more content creation companies. How can Digital Content/Digital broadcast companies leverage the strength of suite of solutions from Quantum

Both agencies and clients understand the importance of video and digital media to a standout content plan. They know it’s difficult to create, distribute, and repurpose digital content effectively, especially when dealing with large, rich media files. The demand for content from their growing base of clients can quickly outpace their ability to manage it on the back end.

An Effective Content Plan Requires an End-to-end Approach. We help agencies and clients from concept to creation to distribution to repurposing and remonetizing their media.

Can you share some insights into the storage scenario in Asia and globally

Data is an ever-increasingly valuable asset to organizations both big and small. Recent ransomware attacks have demonstrated how the loss of data [or data access] can cripple an organization.  The value of data is expected to continue to grow as digital overtakes physical.  This, in turn, will drive demand for high-performance primary storage as well as always-accessible low-cost storage.

How has the year 2017 been so far for Quantum, can you summarize the technical developments that your company has achieved in this year.

Earlier this month, Quantum announced the general availability of StorNext 6, a major new release of the company’s scale-out storage technology. StorNext 6 delivers a unique combination of new advanced data management features for on-premise, hybrid cloud & public cloud environments and industry-leading streaming performance. StorNext 6 is now shipping with the company’s Xcellis® workflow storage solutions, enabling users to overcome the limitations of traditional NAS systems in keeping up with the demands of large, rapidly growing data-intensive workloads and driving business value from that data.

This latest StorNext release provides more efficient and cost-effective ways to share and access files across geographically distributed teams, to manage and protect archived data, and to audit changes to data throughout its lifecycle.

Some of the competitors of Quantum and how offerings from Quantum stand vis-a-vis its nearest competitors [pricing, core offerings, SAN, etc.]

Quantum has a long history of competing against the likes of Dell/EMC, HP, IBM, and NetApp.  Unlike those generalists, Quantum is a data workflow specialist. Therefore, those with the most challenging data workflow needs to rely on Quantum to achieve their mission whether it is a government space agency, a film production company, a university bio-research team, an airport, or IT data centers.

We thank Jim for his time and sharing his valuable insights with our readers. If you have any questions about Quantum, their solutions and how it can help accelerate your business, etc. do email them to himanshu.sheth@gmail.com or leave them in the comments section…