ForeThought - RCV Innovations

The Choice of a Data Center location is largely influenced by emotional need for security, Business Sense and Technical Prudence. As one of the largest data center provider of India, our team is constantly juggling between these factors. It is important to understand the emotional needs of user community. Even in this age of borderless commerce and cloud based virtual infrastructure; there is still a premium for secure and accessible data center facilities. Users continue to feel safer if their servers are close to the work location. They are willing to pay a premium for accessible and secure locations. In addition to emotional needs, there may be regulatory and political factors for locality of the data. The recent drive by government of India to fund State Data Centers(SDC) in many of the Indian states under the National e-Governance Program is a visible example to fulfill these needs. In my Experience, It was easy to convince the datacenter users/customers to move-in the computing a...

This is the age of IT savvy business executives. they have a keen insight into the benefits and pitfalls of IT. This crop of Business executives constantly challenge the IT departments/CIO's on both merit and value of implemented technologies. The recent downturn has further increased the scrutiny in to the exact spend and benefits of IT investments. This resulted in a significant reduction of spend on Big ticket/Big Toys(Large SMP servers, Storage and Network Overhauls) and Growth oriented Buzzword deployments(BI/CRM etc). The New Mantra for CIO's is to plan and execute growth oriented projects with S.A.M.E (Simple, Agile, Mobile, Efficient) and Greener IT : Simple – CIO's are looking for simpler more transparent closed ended deployments of software and hardware infrastructure at a predictable cost. This driving the adoption XaaS - (X as a Service -SaaS-Software, PaaS-Platform, IaaS - Infrastructure etc) in the Enterprise. Agile- The Projects generating unique Intellect...

When I was kid... We used to go on bicycle trips... one, two some time three people on one bicycle... the bicycle trip was more fun with more people sitting on them but painful for the driver. Sharing a Single user appliance with multiple users is generally painful for the primary owner of the resource. Let's take the case of Desktop computers. If you carefully analyse a desktop computer, there are three main functions: 1. Access - Keyboard, Video, Mouse, Sound, USB etc. 2. Storage - Harddisk and CDROM 3. Compute - Processor and Memory Let's take the bicycle analogy again of sharing access - this can be realized by software like VNC Server and VNC Viewer - here One Driver(VNC Server) and Many passengers (VNC viewers) can share the Access experience. In this case the passengers(VNC viewers) are the sufferers. So Sharing the Access layer may not be such a good idea. The same is not true for both storage and compute. The Capabilities and capacities of desktop storage and compute e...

A friend of Mine shared these question to help his friend to face the media... All the answers are straight from my heart... 1. Is cutting costs in the data center a priority for most of your customers? What are the key factors pertaining to cost that pose a problem in data centers? Security enforcement, Power Density and Cooling efficiency 2. How do you propose to go about helping clients cut costs without new investments? Reuse servers, Reclaim Storage and Consolidate Database/application workloads – this will help in cutting costs. 3. What are the key criteria to improve performance of the data center? - Balanced architecture with mixture of Dense(blade-like) and standard Workloads to balance power and cooling requirements. - Well planned storage foot print with balance of performance and capacity storage. - Plan a Flat low latency network core switching and routing with properly configured structured cable plant. - Simpler non-intrusive security infrastructure so that server cycle...

The Perspective in this blog is a first hand account from working for a network service provider under going a transformation. We are moving from simple bandwidth and data center services provider to a complete managed services provider(for IT Infrastructure) by partnering with several hardware, software and tools providers. Let me do jargon bursting for easier comprehension... SaaS - Software as a Service - Providing a in-house/third party software in a shared Multi-tenanted (apartment leasing type) model with automatic upgrades and technology refreshes in a Pay as you go model. Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Providing basic building blocks of IT like Servers, Storage and Networks along with some tools that enable hosting/running compatible applications on a pay as you go model. Cloud computing - Similar to PaaS in a pay per use model with more generic/abstracted platform services. What are Managed Services ? Managed services in general is the practice of transferring day-to-day relat...

There are hardly any tools to truely automate a Multivendor Storage Services Environment. Storage Admin's are stuck with Veriety of Independent Web interfaces or commandline tools with little or no common semantics for common configuration elements or a provisioning activities. The procedures are generally convoluted with myriad manual settings... This is the most realistic dipiction of Multi-vendor Storage Administrators Plight... I was a ECC( http://www.emc.com/products/family/controlcenter-family.htm ) user and large-size env.. EMC Storage admin.. ECC got very close... but it was pig... to slow. Good for Symmetrix..Weak for for Clariion and third party arrays.. There are tools like NetAPP SanScreen( http://www.netapp.com/us/products/management-software/sanscreen/sanscreen-service-insight.html ), Symantec Command Central( and HP AppIQ( http://h18006.www1.hp.com/products/software/bto/srmgt/index.html ), itheon's SRA http://www.itheon.com/solutions/storage_resource_analysis.htm...

Virtualization as a technology existed from the mainframe era in large glasshouse data centers. Transfer of virtualization technology on to commodity x86 based hardware has increased the adoption of virtualization. The first generation of x86 based Virtualization technologies had limited use in testing, development and re-hosting legacy applications. We are seeing rapid evolution of Virtualization technologies by the vendor community into what we know as Virtualization 2.0. What is Virtualization 2.0 ? In my view, Virtualization 2.0 is about taking the virtualization from development, staging and production servers to Desktop (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure - VDI), Mobile and affordable Cloud based Disaster Recovery/business continuity applications. Virtualization 2.0 signifies free/inexpensive access to advanced hypervisor based Virtualization technologies from various vendors. This is allowing the change in deployment models for virtualization from typical scale-up approach(SMP with ...

Ubiquitous Storage - data everywhere How many times we have heard someone saying: "Send me the Quarterly numbers….I will check on my Blackberry…" "It’s a big file….gmail it…or put it on the thumb drive…." "Lets look up every thing on xyz product – designs, manufacturing records, marketing materials and support cases" When you start connecting the dots of data management. It is no longer limited to the data center or desktop... If you follow the bit trail....There is data everywhere... The Data management revolves around a simple information lifecycle and associated tools: Data Creation – MS Office, ERP Distribution – Email, Web, FTP.. Action – Document management systems & other applications Disposition – Backup and archival application On further study, You will realize there are three distinct classes of storage: Personal Storage iPod generation Smart Phone, Blackberry, PDA Thumb drive Internet Storage iDisk, SkyDrive, Gdrive Flickr, youTube, gmail ...

Storage Networking is a tricky animal...My brush with networked storage platforms started from the time we needed few hundred megabytes of shared storage for building a cluster to enable database and email consolidation in the late 90's. The essential character of Block based network storage continues, the goal is to protect and consolidate mission critical workloads. Networked Storage using traditional FC-SAN's are getting more complicated in the quest for speed and functionality. In my view, there is a need to simplify networked storage to reduce risk, decrease mean-time-to-repair and reduce costs. Drawing from my personal experience, More complicated SAN sub-systems and network elements are harder to understand, harder to troubleshoot and expensive to deploy.... Personally, I have moved away from SAN implementations with FC-Front end networks after attempting to use use FC-to-ISCSI routers and put up with the complexity in the nework layout and provisioning challenges. The A...

Microsoft offers its Crown Jewel MS-Exchange 2007 and Windows Sharepoint Services as Hosted Messaging and Collaboration Solution. This is a incrimental development of products for Service providers like MS - Internet Services, HMC 3.5 with Exchange 2003.... This solution requires eloborate Hardware and Software Infrastructure covering almost all server products from Microsoft Stable. MS-SQL Server MoM -SCoM Active Directory - CDI ISA SharePoint Provisioning System I fail to understand, why do we need such diverse set of software products to run an already complex mail platform like Exchange in a multi-tenent mode... It not only increases the exposure in terms of complexity but also results in skills shortage to run such a diverse environment. A Seemingly simple deployment tool has so much depth to it that, If we end up making any mistake...it will lead to a long and unanticipated delay.... The some portions of supported software platform do not run on the Latest 64bit windows servers. ...

There are a bunch of Blog posts on 11/11 Cyberattack.... Threats like these help in understanding the pains and gains of planning/deploying effective web security measures.... The fundamental principles of Security - confidentiality, integrity and availability need to drive the decision making process....for securing Web Properties(Portals, ecommerce and business websites) In my opinion, the defences need to be created at every level of the infrastructure....the key layers being: Hardware ======= Network Storage Servers Appliances Software ======= Operating System Webserver Application server Database server Special appliance firmware/os The typical threats are centered around increase in load (DoS/DDoS), compromising data (sql injection or Web server exploits) and compromising Authentication/Authorization methods. A simple approach to deal with most of the issues is by using a 3 step approach: 1. Improve application security - Application security is turning from art form to more exac...

ForeThought - DeMystifying SAP Security I attended SAP Tech-Ed in Bangalore... I am now Officially SAP Netweaver Security Certified. Let me share my understanding about SAP Security. In my opinion, Classical SAP Security model with Users and Roles is simple yet a well thought out mechanism for giving access to Data and Functionality inside SAP. The Areas that need clearer understanding/implementation knowhow are Security model for Portals and Business Intelligence. One of the Areas which is left to abmiguity is security in the Presentation, Session and Transport Layers. Evidently SAP is moving from SNC to HTTPS protocol for Server to server Communications. With the new emphasis on WebDynpros(Portals) and Exchange Infrastructure(XI) the Diag and Rfc Protocols are giving way to HTTP. This transformation is not very evident as most SAP implementations are centered around SAP GUI. The Core Single-Sign On Central User Admin(CUA) is still based old model. A Promise from from SAP to deliver ...

In my experience.. Most large software infrastructure product deployments run into the path of becoming non-standard implementations. IT decision makers are faced with a barrage of requests for customisation even after initial deployment of the product. The pressure of these requests drive even the very seasoned managers in to a trap of massive customisation. These changes end up in the installation without objective evaluation of real and percieved business value and their impact. This is worse..if the changes are executed during the roll-out or right after.... The resulting deployment is vulnerable and may result in: 1. Lack of Stability 2. Complication in Upgrade path 3. Less security The Support issues around such implementation cause undue stress on the staff. The other side of the coin is an arguement about the importance of functionality for improving efficiency and user experience. A Tight control on the finalization of requirements during pilot phase, A Disciplined approach to...

AVDL V1.0 CAP V1.0 DITA V1.0 DocBook V4.1 DSML V2.0 ebXML CPPA V2.0 ebXML MSG V2.0 ebXML RIM V2.0 ebXML RIM V3.0 ebXML RS V2.0 ebXML RS V3.0 OpenDocument V1.0 SAML V1.0 SAML V1.1 and SAML V2.0 SPML V1.0 UBL V1.0 UBL NDR V1.0 UDDI V2 and UDDI V3.0.2 WSDM-MOWS V1.0 WSDM-MUWS V1.0 WS-Reliability V1.1 WSRP V1.0 WSS SAML and REL Profiles WSS V1.0 XACML V1.0 and XACML V2.0 XCBF V1.1 Little did you know we had so many dielects in speaking of business....the technology around this dielects is rapidly maturing....Although basic transactions remain same...novel business processes are being woven around the data created using these dielects... Frameworks are being built to leverage the intelligence that can be derived from these processes....Buzzwords like Business Process Monitoring(BPM), Corporate Process Monitoring(CPM) are used to describe this conv...

Hurricane Katrina Demonstrated the how complex - reasonably prepared organizations... who modelled the the scenarios and designed reponses to the impending disasters failed to execute their DR plans effectively. The Systems and underlying Infrastructure failed miserably... the preparations did seem to have taken into consideration that the Infrastructure like Roads,Transportation, Power and Communication Systems would themselves be vulnerable for catastrophic failure... There was little or no forethought in relocating and concentrating people in locations like the Dome and the convention center.. straining the already fragile and vulnerable infrastructure... The countermeasures were less-than-perfect...It was impossible to reach most parts of disaster stricken areas by road or communicate over the phone. It is said that FEMA/Department of Homeland security did not inform the public about a Simple emergency hurricane readiness kit...like they did after September 11.... There was little ...

ForeThought Real world is full of people. We have phone books,yellow pages, maps and postal addresses to get to them. Real world is governed by laws, rules and norms. Digital world is full of devices and devices only(severs, desktops, appliances, gadgets etc..) In the digital world, We have DNS, IP Addresses/SMTP mail address, Routers/gateways. All of these methods are still rudimentery to lookup and locate attributes, features and functions of devices. Most devices serve a useful purpose. some of them are misused to inflict pain and damage in the digital world. Clear knowledge attributes, features and functions of devices can hel in reducing the risk and help us in responding to misuse of these devices. An idea of a Global Directory Service -- for locating Devices worldwide....These devices are attributed to People, Resources and Services.... This type of service can help in Asset tracking, Monitoring, Communications, Incident response, forensics and Da...

ForeThought Consolidatation is one of the Buzzword used to rationalize spending money on new Infrastructure products and technologies. The Arguments almmost always centers around reducing the management costs(both in terms of people and infrastructure). While I agree on this premise for consolidation, I have my reservations on the effectiveness of the exercise If it is not performed with a holistic approach. There are often independent consolidation projects for: Datacenter Consolidation Server Consolidation Storage Consolidation Network Redesign/Consolidation Database consolidation Application Server consolidation There are lot of cycles spent on justification, discovery, redesign, implementation and testing of each of the above initiatives. Some times the conclusions from each of the exercise is contrary to each other. A Storage consolidation effort does not gel well with Database consolidation etc. etc....

I have come to India after 3 years... The India I knew is fast disappearing... Lazy Irany Hotel Chai breaks... Street corner hangouts on a stationary bike... Those spontenous galli cricket sessions... The little twinkles of happiness are bieng repalced by.... Fast paced Cafe Coffee Day's.... Bowling Alleys...and Bars Life has suddenly found a fast lane in my home town hyderabad.... Looks like most kids out of college end up earning more than my father earned after 20 years of Government service... Good Dinner outing with the family runs into half the person's salary... Its easy to buy car or a home(with a loan)... and there is lot of peer pressure to do so.... We have yet to realize and embrace the magic mantra to a fulfilling life... Simple Living and High Thinking... Its never too late for introspection...analysis and eventual change... Lets look at Changing from Consumerist Habits ( more soaps, more tooth pastes/tooth brushes, mor...

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