IThe PCQuest Infrastructure SummIT 2009 was an event that provided CIOs and
IT decision makers with strategic advice on how to get more out of their
existing IT infrastructure as well as go a step further in understanding current
technologies and trends with the aim of sailing through the slowdown
The event was divided into two segments — a morning track targeted at network
administrators and IT managers, where hands-on demos on some of the hottest
technologies were exhibited, which the fraternity could use to realize immediate
results. The evening track saw the gathering interact with industry experts
towards understanding various aspects of IT implementation, maintenance and
management that would help enterprises — small, medium or large — survive and
constructively optimize their resources during current economic uncertainties.
Technologies and trends discussed in the event were relevant for the slowdown
— Open Source software, Application Management, Data Center Outsourcing, Green
IT and more. The event rounded off with a panel discussion on how to get RoI
from IT during tough times, which unanimously is the single biggest apprehension
over the last month or so.
The Bangalore edition of the summit, like the ones in Mumbai and Delhi,
kicked off with a PCQuest overview of relevant technologies that can be
handpicked by enterprises with immediate effect. Ranging from strategies like
containing current business as against growing aimlessly, to cutting marketing
budgets as against increasing visibility, the session also delved deep into
complex infrastructure, manual processes, and increased travel being 'budget
sappers' and how using Green IT, embracing Open Source, and adopting SaaS models
can significantly reduce costs and increase profitability.
Netmagic revealed startling facts like most servers being loaded to only 10%
of their capacity and how consolidating groups of servers can go a long way in
seeing better RoIs. It was quite a revelation for IT managers that hardware,
networks and operations support are the biggest aspects of IT infrastructure
where recurring costs occur. During times of economic uncertainties the 'build
v/s buy' percentages for IT hardware becomes more pronounced and using third
party servers and hardware usage in a pay-as-you-use model was agreed upon as
the way to go.
Another interesting industry view from D-Link was that of converged data,
voice, and video with anywhere, anytime availability, and its ability to
democratize the technology landscape, right from the grass-root levels to more
state-of-the-art solutions that have superior speeds ranging from giga to tera
bytes. Also, a road map to meet SLAs with fewer resources, handle mergers and
technology consolidations, enrich maximum out of existing infrastructure and
'out of the box' options to bundle these strategies under one umbrella was put
forward by Quest Software.
Going green to reduce costs was touched upon by LG, that sparked off a CRT
v/s LCD debate, and how the latter saves space, energy consumption and in the
long run, has an impressive savings in the company's facilities department.
Overall technology transformation was another interesting topic of discussion
where Wipro discussed how the traditional CEO v/s CIO disparity can be solved by
linking the IT with business goals, with investments, assess reuse,
configuration optimization, deployment planning and effective consolidation of
plan-to-deployment cycles.
The final brainstorming session where attendees actively indulged in debates
with the panel of speakers was the highlight of the event where it was
unanimously agreed upon that a detailed and conscious road map needs to be
formulated with the aim of linking the business goals with the existing IT
backbone, and outsourcing of hardware should be seriously considered, along with
taking a serious re-look at the existing framework and make technology decisions
that are qualitatively aimed at business consolidation and faster RoIs.