“We believe in ‘Enabling Experience’ for customers”

With a clear “Solutions” approach that includes leveraging products from technology leaders like HP, Dell, IBM, NetApp, EMC, Microsoft, Citrix, Oracle, VMware and Cisco to address its customer’s current and future functional requirements AGC Networks is delivering maximum up-time along with higher ROI to its set of customers. Kalpana Singhal engages in a talk with Subir Bhatnagar, VP & global head Solutions, AGC Networks on how the company is looking at the data center market in India

1. How is the data center technology evolved over the past recent years? How is it different and more efficient now?

Data storage became need-of-the-hour on the day when first digital data was generated. And when the need of data sharing & accessing arose, data centers came into existence. From storing on own devise we moved to storage on mainframes and then to servers & racks which was then followed by blades and today we are talking about cloud & virtualization. It’s the amount of data and user behavior which has defined the next transition.

Globally every day we create 2.5 quintillion bytes of data. So much that 90% of the data in the world today has been created in the last two years alone. Also 3/4^th of data produced is done by transfer of digital files. The music we listen, the book we read, the movies we see is all data which needs high speed computing and storage facility. This has been the reason for data to become big data and secure storage of information taking precedence before most of technical planning.

The advancements in data center technology includes Software Defined Data Centers (SDDC) where all the infrastructure components — storage, CPU, networking, and security – which are virtualized and delivered as a service is gaining traction even though the concept has been around for some time now. The flexibility, efficiency and reliability offered in deploying, provisioning, configuring and managing mission-critical applications that must work on multiple devices at multiple times, even across multiple time zones is a key driver.

In near future we could see shifting of physical data center & applications moving to a country’s shores so that it is best protected.

2. How is AGC Networks positioning itself in this space?

As a Solutions Integrator, AGC Networks presents a host of innovative and creative IT solutions for data storage and management. With our wide alliance portfolio we can help client store data, build data center and also manage it for them. We take care of aspects like storage, network, security (active and passive both), applications and management of data center for our clients. We work as a technology partner to our customers for providing an end-to-end enterprise portfolio starting with building data centers; we cover the entire spectrum of services including non-IT part / infrastructure consulting and design / product supply / deploying and managing services etc.

Our “Solutions” approach includes leveraging products from technology leaders like HP, Dell, IBM, NetApp, EMC, Microsoft, Citrix, Oracle, VMware and Cisco to address our customer’s current and future functional requirements and deliver maximum up-time along with higher ROI. Our OEM certified team members from all groups (Sales / Presales / Project and Delivery) keep abreast with knowledge of the latest, highly efficient technologies and focus on solutions that deliver unmatched value to our customers. From a security perspective, AGC offers wide range of services under IT Governance Risk & Compliances like certifications, audits, consultancy on applications and data security, etc.

Overall, we help our clients establish an effective and robust storage infrastructure for all business needs.

3. What are some of the big priorities of an enterprise while designing their data center?

The efficiency and effectiveness of a data center completely depends upon understanding business needs and aligning the data center plan and design to today’s needs and future requirements. A data center building should have a collaborative design for crucial factors like reliability and availability of information services.

The data center infrastructure has to be designed with the possibility of (planned) growth capacity of servers, network equipment and their connections without interrupting the information system. The value of data centers in India is the safety and integrity of information that depends on execution of business processes and the existence of the enterprise as a whole.

Another key aspect is the architectures in which servers are dedicated within an enterprise or between clients. This is decided basis majority of traffic flows in and out of the data center. Most data center networks are based on hierarchical designs comprised of an access tier, an aggregation tier, and a core tier.

Low-latency server-to-server connections; greater performance and resiliency; higher bandwidth at the server edge; reliable application delivery across public or private cloud; high availability, business continuity, and disaster recover; unified management, and virtualization-aware security are the few requirements of the cloud-optimized data center network.

Finally the Green practice adoption is key which in Tier 4 Data Centers has cooling equipment independently dual-powered, including chillers and heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems.

4. How does your data center solution make sure that the overall energy consumption is below the average for a data center environment?

Energy cost is one of the key factors responsible for new technology discoveries in data center space. Hardware has become more efficient now and with automated procedures, labor cost has declined considerably. This has shot up the energy costs to 25 percent of the total operational cost of the data center business. AGC Networks understands this need for its customers and thus selects appropriate data center technologies through stronger partner synergies, ensure customers receive energy efficient solutions that will ultimately enable them to save on their operational costs and be effective in their business operations. For example our virtualization portfolio helps client reduce server footprint, heat generation and cost of operation.

We act like a consultant to our clients providing them the right solution with details like IT Systems including servers, storage, network, power supplies, etc and the compliances that needs to be met to develop a Tier 3 OR Tier 4 data center. This includes building up of an efficient Air and Cooling system.

5. What is your go to market strategy for data center space? What are some of the USPs that AGC brings for the enterprise community?

At AGC Networks we believe in ‘Enabling Experience’ for our customers. By synergizing technologies in a way that address needs, are innovative and render experience for the brands that we serve. With its wide experience in design, implementation and management of multi-OEM installations, AGC Networks undertakes large-scale multi-location project executions with flexible delivery options.

AGC Networks’ OEM trained and certified experienced sales workforce follow open communications without any hidden agendas and has a track record of met commitments. We help clients devise IT strategy considering factors like IT Infra planning and build with Data Centers. Thus, AGC Networks maintains highest level of business partnership with OEMs. Compounded to this is the strength of our alliances with global partners across various verticals and industries, which has helped AGC Networks to create a differentiator for itself in the market place. With appropriate go-to-market strategies addressing customer demands, AGC Networks is all set to become the partner-of-choice for enterprises in India.