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Driving sustainability for a green future

CtrlS Datacenters has been consciously investing and implementing design and operational approaches that make a material contribution to progress towards its ‘Net Zero’ carbon targets.

For CtrlS, embracing and implementing sustainability across our operations and keeping ‘Net Zero’ goal at the centre is essential. We are committed to be carbon neutral by 2030. And by then, the company will use 100 percent recycled water for all the company’s datacenters.

CtrlS gave birth to 200 innovations with over 80 focused on energy efficiency that reduce carbon footprint and dependency on fossil fuels by using solar energy, eliminating water & resource wastage, recycling e-waste, and creating a paperless office.

As a result of these constant innovations and efforts, CtrlS has one of the industry’s lowest power usage effectiveness ratio (PUE) of 1.35, operating in a hot country like India.

Tapping renewable energy
With 10 operational facilities across six cities and many upcoming, we have set a goal to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2030.

CtrlS is investing in 153 MWp solar projects across three different States of India (Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh) that will generate 2,50,000 MWh energy annually equivalent amount needed to power 50,000 Indian homes each year. This includes a 100 MW (145 MWp) solar project in Maharashtra that will be fully owned and operated by us.

By 2025, CtrlS plans to invest in additional 250 MW projects, as part of its Net Zero Strategy. No other datacenter operator in India is undertaking such ambitious initiatives.

We are the first datacenter operator in India to wrap the external facade of our Mumbai DC 2 with solar panels, instead of glass. The 1.3 MWp-Solar panel, generates over 1MW of electricity for captive purposes. The company will now construct its second solar-wrapped datacenter in Chennai in southern India.

Not only this, CtrlS has installed air filtration plants at Noida, near Delhi, to address the air pollution concerns faced in the National Capital Region-Delhi belt to safeguard the health of its employees. This marks India’s first air pollution-free datacenter ever.

Global green certifications
We are the first datacenter operator in the world, to have our Mumbai DC1, Noida DC1 and Hyderabad DC2 facilities to be LEED Platinum v4 O+M certified by the US Green Building Council, validating the company’s commitment to sustainable growth with healthy, highly efficient and cost-optimized green infrastructure.


Multi-pronged strategy
CtrlS aims to achieve its Net Zero goals through a multi-pronged strategy, not just limited to energy efficiency or renewable energy. The company is determined to achieve tangible and sustainable outcomes in the long-term with a clear roadmap.

As a socially responsible company, CtrlS strongly believes in handing over a safe, green, and better earth to the next generations and has embarked on a conscious and focused ‘Net Zero’ journey to make the planet earth a liveable place.

CtrlS ramping up capacity to meet customer demand

By the time you are halfway through reading this blog, close to 8 million search queries would have been generated on Google! That’s just one example of living in an always available, hyper-connected world.

While the exact number is not known, it is estimated that 120 zetabytes of data/information is created, captured, copied, and consumed each day. This data needs to be stored and computed, in a centralized place equipped with up to date computing and networking equipment to process and manage it. Datacenters also enable tasks such as collection, storage, indexing, tagging, distribution, and quick retrieval of mountains of data.

What is Driving Datacenter Demand?
Increasing adoption of technologies, such as cloud computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI), across industry verticals has resulted in the rising industry demand for high-quality datacenter infrastructure for storage and networking.

Currently, due to Internet of Things (IoT) and other emerging technologies, massive amount of data is being generated, which is driving the demand for datacenters everywhere.

Additionally, globalization, IT security, business continuity and disaster recovery considerations are also driving businesses to diversify their locations across multiple regions to minimize dependency and risk and improve operational efficiency.

With the ultimate goal of eliminating downtime and sharing data across regions, enterprises are actively deploying geographically dispersed datacenters.

Smartphones, connected technologies, IoT and other factors are demanding a robust datacenter ecosystem with a high speed of deployment, flexibility, scalability, security, consistency, reliability and availability. Digital transformation is directly impacting the development of innovative and efficient digital infrastructure that serves as highly agile, cost-effective, and software-defined infrastructure.

Transformation of current hardware-defined infrastructure to one that is software-defined is a key factor driving demand for hyperscale datacenters that is changing the way businesses function.

Major Trends
Valued at $187.35 billion back in 2020, the year when Covid broke out, the global datacenter market is projected to achieve a value of $517.17 billion in ten years, with a healthy CAGR of 10.5 per cent from 2021 to 2030.

Various nations and governments are actively working to build sustainable, ecologically responsible, energy-efficient, and cost-effective datacenters in order to handle the data surge in the future. Parallelly, strict environmental regulations focusing on energy conservation are being introduced that is going to give rise for enormous demand for green and sustainable datacenters.

India is at the cusp of a great IT evolution, where datacenters will play a crucial role, keeping data at the centre. The stage is well set for both Indian as well as foreign companies to invest over Rs 1.5 trillion in the next six years backed by their plans to expanding datacenter capacities in the country, marking a six-fold growth.

India’s total datacenter capacity is currently pegged at 870 MW, powered by 138 facilities. It is estimated that the country could add another 4,900-5,000 MW of in the next six years.

Providing infrastructure status to datacenters, roll-out of special incentives from Central and State governments such as land at subsidized costs, power subsidies, exemptions on stamp duty, and discounts on the usage of renewable energy through industry-centric policies are set to result in a datacenter boom in India.

The country’s datacenter industry’s revenues are expected to grow at a CAGR of 17-19 percent between FY23 and FY25, backed by an increase in capacity utilization and ramp-up of new locations.

CtrlS’ Expansion Strategy 
In response to the growing demand for datacenter services, CtrlS Datacenters has drawn out an aggressive, multi-pronged expansion strategy that will keep the company ahead of competition.

The company has a well chalked out plan to expand its hyperscale and edge datacenters in India. The company will expand its footprint from its existing 10 facilities (eight hyperscale and two edge) to 25 in the coming years. That’s adding an additional 5 million sq ft of space to its existing 1.2 million sq ft.

This includes a 2 million sq ft Hyperscale Datacenter Park in Navi Mumbai, another 2 million sq ft Hyperscale Datacenter Park in Hyderabad and a 1 million square feet DC campus in Chennai. These upcoming projects will together add up to 600 MW capacity. On the Edge front, the company currently operates facilities in Lucknow and Patna and will set up over 20 Edge datacenters across Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities of India, with each facility having up to 5 MW of capacity. Edge datacenters assure agility and reliability of operations, which have become inevitable needs of businesses today.

Expanding its presence beyond India, CtrlS is also planning to foray into several potential markets in Southeast Asia and the Middle East to build a connected future that will benefit enterprise customers and hyperscalers.

The company is exploring market opportunities in Saudi Arabia, UAE, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam and Bangladesh and other locations to help its technology customers expand with ease, create mutual synergies and enhance operational efficiencies. The overseas datacenters may have capacities in the range of 10 MW-50 MW. With an all-round expansion strategy, CtrlS Datacenters is set to cater to datacenter, colocation, managed services, cloud and network needs of hyperscalers, enterprises, medium size companies and startups across BFSI, Telecom, Healthcare, Pharma, E-commerce, Media & Entertainment, Manufacturing and other industries, enabling them in their digital transformation journey.

CtrlS Expands Executive Leadership with the Announcement of Ashish Ahuja as Chief Technology Officer

Google veteran to drive CtrlS Datacenters’’ edge, network strategy and new product intiatvies

Hyderabad, November 9, 2022: CtrlS Datacenters Ltd, Asia’s Largest Rated 4 Hyperscale Datacenter provider, has appointed Ashish Ahuja as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Prior to CtrlS, Ahuja served as Director-Global Network Infrastructure at Google and has also held leadership roles at France Telecom and Tata Communications. Being one of the pioneers of Google’s ‘Global Network Infrastructure’ group, he holds the credentials of leading various global / regional strategic initiatives & partnerships to build a state-of-the-art network across various continents.

He is an industry veteran and a subject matter expert in Networks, Interconnect, Datacenters, Undersea Cable Systems and IaaS with deep understanding of global markets.

His professional career reflects a demonstrated track record in various functional areas, including digital infrastructure investments, product management & strategy, acquisitions, partnerships and sales.

Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder & CEO, CtrlS Datacenters Ltd, said, “As CTO for CtrlS datacenters, Ashish Ahuja will drive our global expansion plans, edge & network strategy and new product development initiatives.”

Royce Thomas, President & Chief Business Officer, said, “CtrlS is on the cusp of a new growth phase and the CTO’s appointment will accelerate the momentum further.”

On this announcement, Ashish Ahuja said, I am very excited to join the CtrlS family, when the company is drawing aggressive global expansion plans. I am looking forward to collaborating with our industry partners and CtrlS team to add momentum in this digital transformation journey.”

About CtrlS
CtrlS operates over one million square feet of datacenter space spread across eight datacenters located in Mumbai, Noida, Bangalore and Hyderabad. The company is building a solar park in Mumbai to power its datacenter facilities and eliminate carbon footprint.

The company is in the process of expanding its footprint by an additional 5 million square feet. The company’s 2 million square feet Hyperscale Datacenter Park in Navi Mumbai is under construction, while another 2 million square feet Hyperscale Datacenter Park in Hyderabad is ready for construction. The company has also planned a 1 million square feet facility in Chennai. There are plans to roll-out new DCs in many global markets as well as roll out various edge datacenters across tier-2 and tier-3 cities across India in a phased manner.

6 Data Center Colocation Trends to Watch in 2021

About Data Center Colocation
A colocation data center is additionally referred to as “colo”, is a type of large data center facility provided by companies that offer a shared, secure area for enterprise businesses to store hardware related to data storage and other equipment. Colocation facilities offer infrastructure, power, cooling, and physical security for the server, storage, and networking equipment of other organizations. The space at this facility is either leased or rented by the room, cage, rack, or cabinet colo services depending on the requirement of the client. It is a common facility where companies share the resources provided by the data center.

All this sharing comes with significant cost reductions bundled with perks like redundancy/ reduced downtime, higher security, flexibility, scalability, and 24/7 IT Support. It can also be a step towards cloud migration. Switching towards colocation means more focus on revenue projects and overall improvements instead of managing an on-site data center. Data center colocation could be the right choice for any business of any size, in any industry.

This industry has seen tremendous growth in the past decade. In 2020, despite the demands of social distancing and the work-from-home model, this sector still performed well and should continue this year. Infiniti Research published that “the global data center market is projected to grow 18% annually to exceed $270 billion through 2024.”

So what can we expect in 2021? We’ve identified the top 6 trends that will shape the colocation business this year.

Top Trends to Dominate in 2021

  1. Market Growth: COVID-19 pandemic and the associated work-from-home economy has accelerated digital transformation, resilience, and edge strategies for service providers. This in turn has boosted demand for IT services in which colocation serves as a major pillar. As we move into 2021, many industries and individual companies are looking to downsize their commercial real estate and facilitate remote work. They are transitioning into cloud-based frameworks. They have already started to turn to colocation as a flexible option.
  2. Interest In Remote Offerings: The continuing COVID-19 pandemic has put restrictions on travel. This means that enterprise customers can’t always rely on their staff to manage the necessary operation at data centers. The interest of industries will be more towards the colocation companies that offer remote help when their personnel is unavailable to visit the site.
  3. Remote workforce Security: Due to the work-from-home culture, businesses have quickly deployed approaches such as VPN tunneling to ensure secured access to applications for employees working from home. These organizations will look forward to colocation services for more robust security. A colocation facility with a VPN or IP routing, equipped with managed firewalls, which in turn can control access to websites and cloud-based applications will be looked forward to in 2021.
  4. Evolution Of Edge Computing: Edge computing will go mainstream in 2021. The global rise in data use, the continued push towards innovative technologies, the growth of 5G networks, and a long-term remote workforce will all drive increased demand for edge computing. Colocation facilities need to weigh these effects on colo use cases, technology, and investment strategies.
  5. AI Demands On Infrastructure: AI compute as a service will significantly affect colocation data center services. Automation and robotics will play a key role in facility management. This can include the use of robots to install servers in racks, swap out failed servers, manage disk storage and interconnection, and site security. This is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which demands less reliance on human resources.
  6. Focus On Environmental Impact: One major trend of colocation facilities will be how the service providers will make more energy-efficient solutions and commitments to address both customers and regulatory requirements. Innovation around on-site renewable energy generation for power will be at pace this year. Colocation centers need to minimize their impact on the environment and move towards sustainable practices for energy consumption.

Conclusion:
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the colocation landscape for many organizations with a continuous emphasis on securing business continuity with its IT systems. According to International Data Corporation (IDC), 80% of businesses will boost their cloud and IT infrastructure at twice the current speed by the end of 2021.The expected result is that the colocation data centers are set for vigorous growth in 2021.

Environment, Health and Safety Event at CtrlS

Environment, Health and Safety Event at CtrlS

4 March 1966, the National Safety Council was established by the Ministry of Labour, Government of India (GOI) to sustain a voluntary movement on Health, Safety, And Environment (HSE) at the national level. It is an apex non-profit making, tripartite body that is registered under the Societies Registration Act 1860 and the Bombay Public Trust Act 1950.

CtrlS has always been a major contributor in innovating environment-friendly and energy-efficient processes at its datacenters. We have a firm grip hold to take care of the environment in every possible way along with keeping our workforce safe, who work relentlessly at our datacenters. We have an evolved Corporate Safety group divided into two teams- Project Safety and Operational Safety. These two teams work together with the leadership in building elaborate safety guidelines and stringent safety protocols. They ensure that the entire organization sticks to the specifications of the same.

Keeping the workplace safe and secure by taking appropriate safety measures is a task of great responsibility to reduce the rate of industrial accidents. In order to promote these practices at CtrlS, we hosted National Safety Week at all our DC sites- Mumbai, Hyderabad, Noida, and Bangalore. This year marked the 50th National Safety week, which was celebrated with all our workers, vendors, and other stakeholders. The celebration started on 4th March and lasted till 10th March.

Objectives of the Safety Week Celebration

  • To spread Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) movement to various parts of the country.
  • To ensure the participation of different industrial sectors at different levels.
  • To promote a participative approach for the employees in HSE activities.
  • To promote several developmental activities required for self-compliance and professional HSE management systems at workplaces.
  • To cover voluntary HSE movement sectors.
  • To motivate and remind employers, employees, and others of their responsibility in making the workplace safe.

The Theme Of The Year
Every year the National Safety Week is celebrated across the country with great enthusiasm and positivity. To make it further directional and focused, it is always honored with a theme. The theme for the year 2021 is “Learn From Disaster And Prepare For A Safer Future.

Enduring this year’s theme, CtrlS aimed at developing awareness about social responsibilities amongst the workers to create a supportive and friendly environment. Therefore, the week was filled with a number of events that created awareness about the environment and health safety amongst the employees.

Event List:

  1. Flag – Hoisting
  2. Safety Oath/ Pledge
  3. Safety-March
  4. Quiz Competition
  5. Drawing Competition Exhibition
  6. Prize Distribution
  7. First Aid Training
  8. Medical camp
  9. Defensive Driving Awareness & Badge Pinning
  10. Safety Movies Shown To The Worker & Staff

All the employees passionately participated in the safety week events. The main motive behind these activities was to ensure that each and every person at CtrlS is well informed about what we are trying to achieve in terms of sustainability and safety of our environment and workers respectively. We believe that “we all share the responsibility for encouraging a safe work culture to improve behavior and performance in the workplace, and we all share accountability to encourage our peers to value safe work practices and safety programs in a positive, proactive way.” So, make a commitment today to take an active role in safety.

Four-point guide on why should you know your data center

Four-point guide on why should you know your data center

A document, an image and a video, everything is a form of data.

McKinsey’s report on data describes it as an asset beyond our imagination. Indeed. The humongous data that surrounds us are key to fuelling business growth.

More the data, more the concern and trust factors. Unfortunately, the current wfh scenario has made data more vulnerable to theft and cyberattacks than ever. The most critical asset can only be protected by a secure data centre. Yet, the growing demand for data centers poses a question.

You are entrusting your mission-critical systems and asset with an unknown service provider. How well do you know them? Or do you know your data center at all?

Let us help with the four-point guide.

1. Type of data centre
Data centers could be off or on-premise. Cloud data centres are off-premise locations where data is hosted on any of the public cloud or on AWS, Microsoft Azure, or IBM Cloud.

Enterprise data centers, Managed services data centers and colocation data centers are on-premise where data is stored in a physical location.

Enterprise data centers are owned by an enterprise and are built within the dedicated campuses. On the other hand, managed service data centers are managed by a third-party service provider which rent or lease the storage infrastructure from the owners. The fourth type is called Colocation data centers where infrastructure is shared by multiple parties. Hosting, security facilities, speed, and firewalls are shared between the occupants.

2. Physical location
The physical location of data centres is of utmost importance to data management and security.

The best services have facilities for in-country or local data centres where implementation becomes seamless. Single data centres are prone to risks. Security, bandwidth, speed and risk mitigation becomes critical in such an environment. Also, the intended customer experience cannot be yielded by single data centre solutions.

3. Infrastructure facility and certification
A data centre must adhere to standard ANSI/TIA-942 certification to ensure compliance and is vital in protecting the hosted systems.

Based on infrastructure complexity and redundancy, data centers are classified into four; tier1, tier2, tier3 and tier4.

The most basic of all is tier 1 which is designed for small businesses. With a single path of power and cooling and minimal or no redundant components, tier 1 has an uptime of 99.671%.

Tier 2 data center offers an uptime of 99. 741% with redundant components including USP systems and generators for cooling. Tier 3 is designed for enterprises which require high security and seamless end-user experience. 99.982% uptime and multiple distribution paths ensure seamless data access and management.

Tier 4 or the most secure infrastructure ensures total protection from data theft and mismanagement. It offers round the clock monitoring without disruption with 99.995% uptime.

4. Credibility & Expertise
If all the above points are convincing enough, credibility and expertise of the service provider must be the deciding factors for choosing a data centre.

How reliable is the service provider to protect and safeguard your data?. Do they have proven experience? How much have they delivered and how much have they helped their clients are needed to build trust.

CtrlS being India’s only Rated 4 data centre has always ensured to surpass client expectations. Our Hyperscale data centers assure uninterrupted power supply, 100% network availability, ISO 27001 and 20000-1 certified security policies, 99.995% uptime with scalability on-demand and faster completion.

Does your data center have the same to offer?
Get in touch. Our experts are ever ready to help you provide the best suitable data centre solution.

 

Datacenters In Global Pandemic – Defining New Strategy & Redefining Operations To Maintain Availability

Datacenters In Global Pandemic - Defining New Strategy & Redefining Operations To Maintain Availability

After months and multiple phases of lockdown, businesses across every geography are grappling with the new normal and re-opening of office space. Yet, a recent report by Bitglass points out that the majority of employees and leaders in the US and EU continue to root for work from home (about 84%). But are businesses ready with the secure access and infrastructure for remote working?

With the start of lockdown, IT has been trailblazing the world of collaboration, striving to make its entire breadth of services available for the remote workforce, spread around the globe. With the possible continuation of remote work for many, companies will continue establishing new practices and tools to upend the pre-existing IT infrastructure.

However, not everything can be “Remoted” – especially mission-critical facilities like Data Centers.
Besides the given factor of their non-transferrable infra support like power-grid access, security protocols, backups, etc., one has to consider the sheer volume of highly complex workloads managed by such facilities. But, given the surge in remote work, every byte of organizational data must be managed and secured, now more than ever before.

So, what are Datacenter Providers upto?

  • First priority, which by now has translated to an established SOP for most, has been to re-examine data center operation strategy from the purview of COVID-19.
  • The second and current priority is rebalancing Hyperscale data center services, ensuring uninterrupted access, and how the services continue to evolve as the pandemic progresses.

How CtrlS, India’s leading Rated4 Data Center provider is addressing these –

1 – COVID-19 data center operation strategy

Disruption in IT operations was the reality during the first wave of lockdown. Quick-action to maintain uptime and client business continuity, and parallel ensuring on-prem staff safety, was the need of the hour.

To ensure safety and maintain social distancing norms, about 67% of the CtrlS workforce was sent home for remote functioning, as 33% (those in charge of mission-critical IT assists) remained at the facilities, under rigorous safety protocols. Every entry-point hosted no-contact temperature scanning and isolation areas, with employees screened for body temperature and other symptoms.

Today, the same continues as SOP, with masks, gloves, and PPE suits provisioned for everyone working in datacenters. Teams are provided dedicated operational cabins for social distancing and announcements over PA systems for limited face-to-face interactions. Besides these, clear demarkations in public areas for social distancing and frequent sanitization are commonplace. CtrlS continues to collaborate with certified medical experts who conduct virtual training sessions for COVID-19 awareness – mandatory for every employee on the field.

Technology was another route to mitigate disruptions, with the use of AI-driven predictive analytics for better asset management and remote infrastructure-monitoring to automate fault resolutions.

2 – Rebalancing data center services

COVID-19 has forced the world and businesses to adapt fast, with people adjusting to new work paradigms. The outcome – spiking internet traffic and increasing data exchanges over applications. CtrlS has incorporated edge computing capacity in data centers to meet these shifting demands.

Instead of re-inventing the wheel, CtrlS has strengthened its existing infrastructure with better capacity management. This has been effected with efficient management of power, network bandwidth, etc. CtrlS has set up near-site solar plants for DC consumption, parallelly ensuring zero carbon emission and continuous power availability. Besides 100% uptime, this has eliminated any dependency on unreliable shared power grids, allowing to scale datacenter service. The result – a significant reduction in energy bill – saving costs for customers, and no-downtime, avoiding possible business risks in this already volatile business environment.

Summing it up…

With COVID-19, multiple social, economic, and business operation changes will be permanent. This is an indication that the next phase of managing and providing data center resources is about scaling mission-critical infrastructure to ensure client business continuity. Stakeholders at CtrlS are mapping this out, with planned expansions of DC space and Edge Datacenters – for the new normal post COVID era.

Solar Powered Datacenters Drive Sustainable Growth

solar-sustainability

Each stroke of the keypad, each search on internet, every click, every swipe consumes energy. More than 40,000 searches are made every second on Google, amounting to consumption of power equivalent to a ceiling fan running non-stop for a month. And most of the energy consumed – 90% of it, by an estimate – is attributed to datacenters. Yes, the “connected world” is powered by huge datacenters that consume almost 10% of total electricity produced globally. In the next decade, demand for datacenter is estimated to increase by 10 times, consuming 13% of electricity, the world over.

India is arguably the fastest growing datacenter market in the world, currently having 252MW of power. With a compound growth rate if 20% yoy, it is expected to reach 536.1MW by 2024, almost double is current state. Such rapid growth can put pressure on environmental health, unless datacenters are designed and operated sustainably. The need for optimized resources and the urgency of environmental protection has led to a sunrise – solar powered datacenters.

Solar Powered Datacenters for Sustainable Growth
UN mandates Sustainable Development Growth (SDG) for technology operations worldwide. The increasing threat of climate change and depleting resources demand organizations to innovate and adopt  a balanced approach for their operations. The next generation of

sustainable datacenters strive to achieve zero carbon, zero emissions, and zero waste. And it all begins with clean energy. Solar energy is emerging as the most feasible alternative to traditional power sources. It is produced on or near site for consumption on a per kilowatt hour basis with zero carbon footprint, zero emission, and is able to scale rapidly.

Optimized Costs, Maximized Efficiencies
Solar powered datacenters are not just environment friendly but cost efficient. It brings down the energy bill by almost 70%, a benefit directly passed to customers, resulting in huge cost savings. The zero emission and zero loss of power during transmission increases efficiencies and curbs wastage. It also eliminates the concern over extreme volatility and un-reliability of regular power grids. Relative stability of cost of solar power over ever increasing cost of traditional power gives a lot of headroom to organization to invest in innovation. There is no barrier to scale as well. Sun being an infinite energy source, solar powered datacenters can easily scale to meet their growing requirements.

CtrlS Brings Sustainable Datacenters to India
CtrlS has been at the forefront of innovation and sustainability. We are the first Datacenter in the world to be accredited with a ‘LEED Platinum’ certification from United States Green Building Council (USGBC), validating our commitment to sustainable growth with healthy, highly efficient and cost-optimized green infrastructure.

Our Mumbai datacenter is country’s largest solar plant in façade with 1.3 MW installed capacity generating 42,000 units of power per year. Carrying forward our vision to minimize environmental impact and move to zero emission, zero waste, zero pollution operation, we are all set to build captive power solar plants with capacity of 200 MW. The first phase of this project will be completed in next 9 -12 month, with 50 MWp capacity generating 75 million KWH.

Sustainable practices are the only way forward to keep the balance between rapid pace of technology led transformation and environmental impact. Resilient and efficient infrastructure by design and optimized operations drive responsible growth. CtlrS has pledged to support the exponential rise of data economy with unflinching commitment to ecological health. The solar powered datacenters are our first but decisive step towards a greener earth in the face of monumental energy requirements.

Many Models One Cloud: Overcoming the Jigsaw Puzzle in Cloud Selection

As cloud computing is gaining adoption by organizations due to its immense benefits, not all cloud models will work for every type of business. There are subtle and major differences with each model and the working of each model is unique. Each cloud model has its own advantages and shortcomings. Organizations planning to implement cloud services in their operations must carefully examine the pros and cons of each model and decide the most appropriate model to suit their business and generate value in the long run.

Cloud computing is emerging as a potential driver for business innovation and growth. Cloud computing promises new business models, planning for business strategies to obtain competitive advantage in markets and offers global business potential. All of us understand, cloud is a service model that offers IT resources and services for any type of business and ensures flexibility in terms of volume and scale. Users can access cloud services and applications, using any web browser on a desktop, laptop or on a mobile device connected to the internet. Some of the key enablers offered by cloud in terms of business benefits include,

  • Flexibility in terms of cost: The costing in cloud models is a variable. Cloud implementations allow business companies to ‘pay for the resource as and when needed.’ This offers the benefit of reduced capital expenditure in upgrading and running an in-house IT infrastructure.
  • Business scalability: Cloud provides flexibility. Resources in the cloud can scale up or down to support business growth and in times when business is lean. This is another benefit.
  • Adaptability in the market: All cloud models enable faster time to market, and provides scope for business innovations and explore new opportunities.
  • Context-driven variability:Increases the relevance of products and services and enables user defined experiences.
  • Connectivity with the existing ecosystem: Cloud models offer capabilities to fully integrate into existing infrastructure.

In cloud models, business firms have the opportunity to leverage cloud business enablers for achieving competitiveness in markets through innovation across customer value propositions and in the industry value chain. Cloud services are available in three major service models namely, Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). Cloud computing models are available in three deployment types namely, Private Cloud, Public Clouds and Hybrid Clouds to suit the requirements in different types of operations.

Making the right choice – Selecting the most appropriate model

It is highly important to have a closer look into the service offerings while choosing the right infrastructure model.

  • PaaS: This service allows applications and programming models to be deployed easily. Specialized services such as authentication, payment gateways, data access, etc. are implemented in PaaS. It offers the benefit of creating web applications and eliminates the need to buy hardware and software that is required in software application development scenarios. System developers need not worry on how processing is done, how much memory and storage is to be used, etc. these are taken care by the cloud infrastructure. PaaS offers all the services required to fulfill the processes (end-to-end lifecycle of development, testing, deployment and hosting complex web based applications) of application development in order to deliver it as a service. Creating and maintaining an infrastructure for efficiency and scalability is time consuming and costs lot of money. PaaS model help businesses to get rid of this major problem. PaaS is gaining popularity and adoption by IT solutions companies, engineering enterprises, etc.
  • SaaS: This service offers the benefit of deploying applications online thereby attracting consumers (users). In SaaS, applications and software can be used by a web browser over the internet and the software is managed centrally. Since applications are centralized, software upgrades, patches, security, etc. are handled by the service provider or client. API integration is possible between different software components. SaaS is very popular because it provides various benefits for business companies. SaaS offers the maximum benefits in scenarios such as, email applications and business productivity tools, e-commerce portals, helpdesk/support services, data processing capabilities over the web (payroll processing, billing, etc); collaboration software, etc. Applications are available for multiple clients using a variety of devices. SaaS model is widely used by businesses for the purposes of e-mail, helpdesk/support services, logistics tracking, monitoring progress in sales and marketing domains, financial management, customer relationship management, etc. SaaS can be a viable option for SMEs looking to maximize business value with minimal IT budgets.
  • IaaS: Infrastructure as a service enables on-demand provisioning of servers running several choices of operating systems and customized software. IaaS delivers the infrastructure (servers, storage, network and OS). This is a fully outsourced service available for on-demand access and offers to deliver resources, provides dynamic scaling, pricing model based on utility usage, support for multiple users and so on. IaaS is suited for organizations without capital to invest in hardware and most suited for organizations where growth is rapid and there are problems in scaling up. IaaS eliminates the need of maintaining expensive server hardware and network components within the firm which is saves hardware costs. In fact, IaaS is a facility given to businesses that allow users to leverage on compute, network and storage space in servers and data centers.

Companies looking for the right cloud service must choose from PaaS, SaaS or IaaS Service models depending on their need and the chosen service model must fulfill their business objectives. It is important to ensue the chosen service model must blend seamlessly into their existing business operations. In addition to choosing the service model, there are some factors to consider by business in choosing their deployment model.

Factors to consider in Implementing Cloud Computing Services in Business

Deployment models available in cloud are private clouds, public clouds and hybrid clouds. Firstly, companies must develop a blueprint which is developed by exploring answers for the following questions,

  • What is the current state of business and how well it operates today?
  • Where are the efficiencies, gaps, risks, and opportunities for change?
  • What is the plan to manage change and achieve the intended ROI?

When a company is considering a cloud for improving business outcomes it should consider how the cloud can fit into its business strategy and associated functions. Cloud implementations are not limited to one type of deployment. There is a wide spectrum of choices available for a company to choose from. Here are some more criteria to consider for selecting a cloud deployment model.

  • Criteria for Public Clouds: The public cloud provides a cost-effective service to business services. Public service model helps businesses to understand the missing components in existing IT portfolio such as outdated applications, issues in extra processing, storage and capacity when needed. The major reasons for adopting a public cloud model for business are cost, speed and specialization. The public cloud offers pay-as-you-go pricing model which gives substantial savings compared to capital expenditure (CapEx) and operational expenditure (OpEx).
  • Criteria for Private Clouds: A private cloud is deployed mostly by very large enterprises and works on the notion of self-service on premise infrastructure managed and maintained by in-house IT. The private cloud can fulfill both the perspectives of business goals and the expanding IT workloads due to increased business activity. A private cloud is designed to deliver better service results, improve agility and efficiency and improve collaboration between the various departments within the organization. A private cloud is designed to solve many of the IT and management problems and offers service availability and centralization of data and applications.
  • Criteria for Hybrid Clouds: Hybrid clouds are a mix of private and public clouds. Hybrid clouds are often viewed by enterprises as an ideal solution to fulfill compliance, avoid vendor lock-ins and to overcome data security and privacy issues. Hybrid clouds are also seen as a strategic option when the private cloud environment cannot always provide the resources required by an application with unpredictable growth patterns. As the application grows the available resources in a private cloud may not be able to support the growing user base. In such cases a hybrid cloud is considered by the organization to own some portion of the infrastructure and the public cloud is used for the remaining resources. In order for a hybrid cloud to be effective, the company must define policies for security loopholes.

A few architectural principles to consider when implementing cloud for the business will include aspects such as

  • Service Orientation
  • Service Foundations for workload profitability between private and public models
  • Service Standards are maintained to ensure business operations without disruptions
  • Ensure Ecosystem alignment to mitigate issues in service or resource availability

Despite the advantages and benefits offered by the cloud models one should make a decision on the right model after carefully weighing the pros and cons and examine service level agreements (SLA) carefully before adoption.

Breaking free from data tangles

Making use of Cloud computing platforms can empower a business to select the resources required, instances of operating systems, amount of storage, memory and the processing power according to one’s requirement. Achieving economies of scale thus becomes much easier for companies with ancillary functions taken care of.

Picture this, you are a medium-sized organization, have just started out on your business, grappling with day-to-day activities. You deal with an online shopping portal for clothes and fashion accessories. With more than 1000 stock keeping units to handle, one can imagine the amount of data that the portal has to deal with.

As if the load of setting up the new business itself was not enough, there is an additional database to be managed with details of every transaction that took place or is going to take place. With online transactions, comes the additional requirement of keeping a record of the payment modes and related data. A meticulous data entry is to be maintained at all times for each of the items in stock, the items that leave the warehouse and the ones that are to be procured. Such a data management calls for a system that can not only store this data but also help process it for future use.

This is where many of the small and medium sized business are tempted to maintain a center of their own. However, they underestimate the efforts and the cost of managing such voluminous data when they start. When the system turns out to be a white elephant, the organization starts to wish there were help for the data mangle.

This is where data center outsourcing services come into picture. When one is in need of the infrastructure but is not sure how to manage the same, the best thing to do is to outsource it to the experts. It helps reduce infrastructure complexity, operating costs, controlling the staff turnover risks and improve utilization.

At times of economic downturns, outsourcing equips companies to achieve high performance and sustained profitability. With all your data requirements being taken care of, one can respond to market changes quickly, jump start growth, and improve efficiencies. Cost efficient, flexible and scalable infrastructure model ensures that one can concentrate on their core competency to achieve higher scales.

Reliability is one concern for many businesses that want to venture into data center or infrastructure outsourcing, but the high security and agility with which the systems are handled can keep all kinds of qualms at bay.

Making use of Cloud computing platforms can empower a business to select the resources required, instances of operating systems, amount of storage, memory and the processing power according to one’s requirement. Achieving economies of scale thus becomes much easier for companies with ancillary functions taken care of.

Thus to sum up the advantages of the data center services, one can avail the following end to end management facilities:-

  •  Systems monitoring and management
  • Instant and anytime access to data
  • Data security and confidentiality
  • Database administration
  • Storage management
  • Technical services
  • 24/7 Support
  • Predictable pricing
  • Disaster recovery
  • Quick adoption of new technology
  • Flexibility and agility

Thus it is a wise option to break free from the tangles of the humongous data by letting the data experts handle it all for you. This way one ends up making informed decisions and operating efficiently too.