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The biggest trends seen in the server space in the recent times is the
growing need for energy efficient data centers and virtualization. Agarwal of
IBM shared that now Indian companies are slowly but steadily gearing towards
adopting green technologies that help save energy and cut costs
The server market like others has seen rapid development and the biggest
trends seen in recent times is the growing need for energy efficient data
centers and virtualization. Managing energy in the data center is a growing
concern across companies of all sizes throughout India.
With an increas in the number of servers comes an incremental rise in heat
generation, thereby raising the cost of energy. So users are looking for
technologies that help them save power and increase utility.
In order to overcome that, vendors have come out with servers, which can help
cut costs, increase performance and help control power usage. By consolidating
and virtualizing on these servers, users can increase the utilization of their
hardware and decrease the number of physical assets they need to watch over.
This translates into real savings through better energy conservation and IT
resource usage across the data center.
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Shailesh
Agarwal VP-Business Systems, IBM |
Going green
India is slowly but steadily gearing towards adopting Green technology and
companies are investing in technologies that help save energy and cut cost in
the long run. As per the latest IDC's Green Poll in the Asia Pacific region, as
many as 81 percent of participating organizations said that the greenness of the
IT suppliers would become increasingly important when it comes to selecting
their IT. Some 18 percent of the organizations said they already took this
factor into consideration in selecting suppliers, and another 30 percent said
they were putting systems.
Also, a recent study by IBM for SMB's in eight countries, including India,
highlights that Indian small businesses cite energy costs as one of the 'Biggest
Cost Increase' over the past two years. Hence, vendors' Green IT efforts aim to
remove the barriers that often prevent SMBs from adopting energy saving,
environmental friendly IT practices, by making them financially attractive and
easy to implement.
Small and mid-sized firms must make energy efficiency a priority when
purchasing new IT systems; must consolidate IT systems. Virtualization
technology enables to have a smaller IT footprint by pooling resources from
multiple systems, enabling users to get more computing from fewer systems.
SMB firms must also have a plan for how to dispose of IT equipment in a
secure and sustainable manner. Certified recycling services will ensure data is
wiped clean and the systems are reused, resold or recycled, keeping harmful
materials out of landfills.
Growth drivers
As per the latest IDC's Asia-Pacific Quarterly Enterprise Server Tracker, 4Q
2007, the overall India server market grew by 24 percent at $727 million in 2007
and also has seen a healthy growth as customers continued to refresh and expand
their IT infrastructures.
The blade server platform is the fastest-growing segment of the server market
and is expected to account for 10 percent of global server unit sales in 2007.
The segment will generate $11 billion in revenue by 2010, and India will play a
critical role in this growth.
Till recently, vendors predominantly aimed its blades at large enterprises
but now the focus has been the SMB as well. SMBs tend to have many computers and
often they buy a machine to do a specific job within their operation.
Being able to use blades within a chassis instead of a number of individual
machines can make life easier for small businesses. The fact that blades house
both servers as well as storage is an excellent option for SMBs. Factors such as
the growth in the small and medium business and the need for companies to lower
the TCO as blades are easy to manage, virtualize and scale up have also
attributed to this growth. They are excellent for power consumption and they
have internal storage as well.
With energy costs rising and power density of new electronics increasing,
power-efficient devices are increasing in importance, especially in large data
centers. This is where the mainframe brings its value as a power-efficient
device.
Telecom, BFSI, manufacturing, retail, media, entertainment and construction
were the major drivers for this market thus far. Sectors like energy and
utilities, healthcare, retail, airports, industrial (especially automotive),
government, ITeS, metals and telecom show a lot of promise for the future.
Solution provider benefit
The solution partner community drives the server business. For instance, in
India alone IBM works with over 2,500 business partners and 600 odd ISV's and
SI's through effective collaboration.
Partner initiatives are created upon the basis of being in tune with evolving
partner needs, understanding their primary growth drivers and establishing a
two-way communication channel with them, which in turn ensures a mutually
beneficial partnership for all involved. As we grow, our partners will grow with
us. It is important that vendors enable partners to enhance their responsiveness
and turn-around time in relation to partner led sales opportunities in India.
Initiatives like these help create an environment of collaborations with
business partners thereby creating value for customers of all sizes and across
all verticals.
One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that partners understand the
products offered so that they will be able to act as technological experts for
customers. This is something that vendors are trying to find ways and means to
resolve in their own ways.
Subbalakshmi BM
subbalakshmibm@cybermedia.co.in Page(s) 1
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