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The automotive segment in India is one of the early adopter of IT, and companies in the fray have put in place various IT best practices that have boosted overall operational efficiencies. Take the case of the Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) group, a $4.5 bn business conglomerate which manufactures multi-utility vehicles and farm equipment with significant presence in other key sectors like infrastructure development, information technology, financial services and auto components. M&M's automotive division manufactures a wide range of vehicles including MUVs, LCVs, and three wheelers. M&M is the largest manufacturer of MUVs, offering over twenty models including new generation multi-utility vehicles such as Scorpio and Bolero. As a leading company in the automotive space, IT and networks play a mission critical role. Arvind Tawde, senior VP and CIO of the company talks to VOICE&DATA on the company's network that empowers its IT. Excerpts:

Can you talk about the significance of your network?
There are disparate systems that support business operations and communication in general. These include email services, centralized ERP (SAP R/3 4.7 Enterprise), integrating all organizational processes across locations, product development system and partner facing solutions such as supplier relationship management, supply chain management, dealer management system and CRM. These business applications and business processes rely on the foundation of IT infrastructure-the network.

The network connects users at all business locations. It has become the vehicle for carrying critical business information in the form of data, voice, and video. In addition to running the base business applications mentioned above, the network platform is being used for desktop chat, video conferencing, VoIP, and video telephony. Having a flexible, adaptive, scalable, and secure network has proven to be a key facilitator in this integration process. M&M's network elements are configured to ensure high confidentiality of information, its availability, and integrity.

Can you explain your network architecture?
Our network architecture has three major components-the first is MahindraNet, connecting all plants and sales offices with MPLS lines and leased circuits. It has Cisco routers of 1750 and 3600 series. Plants have three-tier LAN with backbone switches of Cisco 4000 series and distributed workgroup switches of Cisco 2900 series. Datacenter and R&D LAN are on GBIC network and other LANs are on 100 Mbps network. VLANs are created to limit broadcast if any.

All Mahindra Group companies are connected with 128 kbps or higher MPLS lines forming MahindraWorldNet. The group companies can access common portal and share IT services. This network is connected to MahindraNet through UTM device. This is the second component of M&M network architecture. We are in a process of rolling out network connecting M&M dealers. This is the third component referred to as MahindraDealerNet. Dealers access the hosted dealer management solution through the same.