Print

Comment

Email

Digg

Del.icio.us

Reddit

iGATE Global Solutions is the first fully Integrated Technology and Operations (iTOPS) company with a global services delivery. Services include consulting, IT services, data analytics, enterprise systems, infrastructure management services, software testing, BPO/BSP and contact center. iGATE employs over 6,000 professionals and has offshore facilities in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Noida. Chella Namasivayam, VP, Global IT at iGATE walks through the company's network that powers its IT in an interview with VOICE&DATA. Excerpts:

For IT to function seamlessly, a robust networking back end is a must. Can you talk about your network architecture and its significance?
A robust architecture implies fault tolerance. At iGATE, our networks are deployed with minimum single points of failure. Although this requires higher investment, it is worth the money spent as a resilient network always pays off when equipments fail. Resilience in the network needs to be built at the “core” and “distribution” to ensure that primary services are available during equipment failures. As today's networks are mission critical, it is all the more important to plan a network with resilience. In the case of wide area network infrastructure, planning for failures is different and a resilient network topology which converges quickly and automatically in times of failure, is key to deploying mission critical networks. For instance, in the event of disasters like the recent earthquake in Taiwan or the cable breakdown at Bombay high, the impact was nil.

What are your views about the range of connectivity solutions?
IPLCs are generally well suited for voice and delay sensitive applications. Apportioning bandwidth on IPLCs to different applications is a sensitive task and hence, needs attention. VPNs are ideal connectivity for applications that can tolerate some amount of delay such as, applications like email, remote support, and database replication. Generally, trusted VPNs use IPSec for security. MPLS-based VPN is a new trend and the key factor is proper classification of network traffic over the WAN. The benefits of MPLS-based VPNs can be felt while integrating multiple sites with common traffic. Use of MPLS for voice traffic is gradually gaining ground as there is considerable investment on the legacy PBX infrastructure, and migration of voice onto the MPLS needs additional investments.

“Network availability is a must for delivery of products and services, so much so that today network availability has become a basic need for organizations similar to how food, water and clothing are for individuals”

Wireless technology continues to open many new options for infrastructure deployment. At iGATE, we have deployed microwave wireless links as a fall back mechanism for our Internet links. However, with high-rise buildings coming around our campus, we will have to look at alternatives due to the line-of-sight problem. Wireless will certainly change things with the advent of new technologies like WiMax.

What kind of IT application have you deployed at iGATE for your internal operations?
At iGATE, we have deployed Peoplesoft for the critical internal applications such as CRM, finance, and HR. We also use an in-house developed i-Quest application for end-to-end management of customer specific projects. In addition to this, iGATE has deployed another in-house developed application called i-Sight, which has been customized to automate our helpdesk requests across support functions, manage NoC alters, issue log related to the systems and networks group, change management and release management requirements of the IT group. And, for corporate procurement system, budget tracking and management system, asset management system, and internal audit tracking systems for ISO9001 and ISO27001 certifications. For messaging, chat services, and data sharing, iGATE has deployed Microsoft-based application across locations.

How did you address the key networking challenges?
The key network challenges are in envisaging growth, ensuring that design principles are based on scalability, and that there is provision for failures, always. This is much easier said than done as timelines for new projects are often demanding. iGATE has grown from 1,000 users to about 6,500 users over the past three years and therefore designing a campus network to grow seamlessly with increasing number of nodes was one challenge we overcame by moving to a 10gig network backbone. This was done in early 2005, and now new nodes connect on to this backbone at two separate points.

While evolving your network backbone, what key things top the agenda?
Capacity planning is an important factor. Resilience and scalability has to be taken into account and last but not the least is the cost factor.

Can you give an insight into the mission critical nature of your networks like SLA and managing downtime?
In the fast converging world of voice and data, network availability is a must for delivery of products and services, so much so that today network availability has become a basic need to organizations similar to how food, water and clothing are for individuals. Any production network in the IT/BPO space is entirely dependent on the network present. Network infrastructure availability becomes mission critical in today's world of five nines-demands dictated by the businesses that we are in to.

The SLA documents dished out by service providers are generally worded by legal teams intent on putting in a lot of fine print. When the services are disrupted, the service teams of providers hide behind words like “Force Majure”. Most services are generally based on “Best Effort” of service providers. Although they offer elaborate SLA documents and matrices, it is difficult to hold any service provider responsible for faults in services.

Managing downtimes is an evolving process and each instance of downtime is different from the other. The appropriate provisioning of infrastructure with provisioned backups for points of failure minimizes risks. Proper alerting mechanisms help in averting downtimes. At iGATE, L2 executives, who provide 24x7 services, are alerted by an SMS/email of any impending disasters. Despite these measures, downtimes do occur. At iGATE, we have a process for analyzing downtimes which have occurred, and members of the senior committee review each downtime and suggest further changes.

How do you rate the quality of connectivity services available in India?
We, in India, have come a long way in the past few years with de-regulations in the telecom industry. With multiple service providers now laying fibre optic cables across cities, the last mile challenges and costs have come down. Outages occurring due to links being down have also come down dramatically. However, the Internet is still US centric, and that means one will not get the same quality of bandwidth as that in the US. In such cases, we would need to make specific requests to the service provider to provide us an optimum path. Once that is achieved, using the Internet to establish secure paths between enterprises can be done very fast thereby enabling more productivity and faster project implementation timelines.

How do you manage security at iGATE?
The iGATE security architecture is built upon seven layers called the “Defense-in-Depth Model”, similar to the OSI Layers. Apart from this, we believe that just by implementing the security tools, data/information is not safeguarded. Also, processes and procedures play an important role in safeguarding the information at iGATE. Hence, we have taken various measures to create awareness among employees. Moreover, external auditors audit these security measures every six months. The management of iGATE supports security implementation and this has led to successful implementation of security measures maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of customers' data.

Shrikanth G
shrikanthg@cybermedia.co.in