Oracle aims to support both public and private clouds with a complete portfolio of products. Their strategy includes providing enterprise-grade technology through their PaaS platform and IaaS offerings. Oracle's platform allows customers to build, deploy, and manage applications and services in cloud environments. They are developing their portfolio of applications, middleware, databases, servers, and management tools to enable rich SaaS and cloud solutions.

1. VOLUME II, NUMBER 1
www.techmahindra.com
JANUARY 2011
Tech Missive
Cloud Computing
IT Lexicon's Latest Hot Spot

2. In This Issue
Foreword - Creating Value With Cloud 1
Analyst Insight: Cloud Computing Myths and Risks 2
Partner Speak: An In-depth Analysis : Oracle Cloud Computing Strategy 4
Tech Vista: Clouds of Change 8
Tech Talk: Will Cloud Boost Virtualization, Centralization of Infrastructure? 12
Tech Mahindra on the Cloud 14
Tech Mahindra Case Studies
Setting up a Next Generation Data Centre for a Greenfield Operator 17
SaaS Delivery Platform Development for a Finland based IT Infrastructure Provider 18
High End Server Migration Implementation for a Leading Operator 19
Performance Testing in Virtualized Environment 20
Tech Mahindra Fact File

3. Foreword
Creating Value With Cloud
In a reasonably short span of time, cloud computing has
gained popularity and has become one of the most talked-
about deployment models in the industry.
One of the primary forces enabling the adoption of cloud
computing has emerged from the enhancing
interdependence of business and IT issues. Today,
technology investments are more on improving business
outcomes rather than traditional metrics of scope and
speed. Driven by the pursuit of higher utilization of IT resources for cost reduction, organizations are
experimenting with shared platforms operated by external service providers with higher levels of
resource sharing. The internet has enabled IT related capabilities to be delivered as-a-service and the
resources can be shared and interconnected between people, departments and companies.
This highly flexible on-demand model holds particular importance for the telcos, not only because it
depends on fast, efficient and dependable communication, but also because telcos can create value by
leveraging their experience in offering IT centric managed services.
Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam together encompass capabilities to roll out cloud leveraged next
generation solutions through major investments in building cloud competency centre and partnering
with pioneers in the field for joint research and development projects. We invite you to flip through the
next few pages to gain further insight into this disruptive technology trend.
Read on to find out a key partner, Oracle's approach and industry expert views on this emerging
phenomenon, along with examples of how Tech Mahindra's solutions around cloud enablement create
value!
L. Ravichandran
(President - IT Services)
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4. Analyst Insight:
Cloud Computing: Myths and Risks
Michael Barnes
Vice President, Software Research
Springboard Research
Respondents to a recent Springboard Research cloud computing and data security.
survey of 474 organisations across Asia Pacific
Myth: Data securit y c an always b e
revealed that 20% were primarily concerned
guaranteed
about data security when asked about their
major concerns and/or barriers to the adoption Reality: It is simply common sense that nothing
of cloud computing. While Springboard is ever guaranteed. Vendors can go out of
Research is confident the role of cloud business, natural disasters can occur, or internal
computing in enterprise IT will become critical malfeasance can take place. However, cloud
in the years to come, organizations must remain infrastructure, applications and business
vigilant. The risks associated with cloud services providers do generally take great care
computing are of course, very real. However, to make data as secure as possible. In most cases,
they are not necessarily unique to this particular these efforts do go well beyond what can be
form of technology and must be managed provided through in-house data centres.
accordingly. Nonetheless, human and/or technical errors,
malicious retribution, and the forces of nature
As the Springboard Research survey results
will conspire against even the most hardened
clearly illustrate, concerns around data in terms
secured environments.
of both security and more specifically privacy
(data privacy, residency, or loss of control at Myth: Cloud providers will never gain
11%), remain top of mind for a significant unauthorised access to our data
number of organizations across Asia Pacific. It is, Reality: The vast and overwhelming majority of
therefore, crucial that both cloud computing cloud vendors will state they never gain
infrastructure and application providers have a unauthorised access to data. However, there will
well designed strategy in place for ensuring data be cases where this does happen. Similar
security for enterprise cloud users. occurrences have continued to hamper credit
Cloud providers must also clearly articulate this card processing companies as well as new and
strategy to their clients and prospects to ensure emerging examples including Facebook and
an adequate level of trust is created among other social networking sites. The chances of
those organizations new to adopting cloud this happening are generally quite low, but
computing. primarily through the human element, it can
(and likely will) happen. To reduce the chances,
Springboard Research highlights some of the
organizations are advised to choose providers
more common myths and realities related to
2

5. who can show that their environments are not them legally or morally, even without any real
only free of root access accounts but encrypt all breach of legal compliance.
client data with keys that they themselves do Springboard Research observes that the
not maintain. adoption of cloud computing is accelerating
Myth: It is easy to switch cloud providers within organizations across Asia Pacific. To
ensure this strong growth continues, adopters
Reality: A more accurate statement would be to
of cloud must fully understand not only the
say that it is typically easier to switch from one
benefits of cloud computing, but also the risks
cloud-based solution to another than it is to
associated with the various cloud computing
switch from one on-premise solution to another.
styles that are emerging. Springboard Research
However, in most cases, this migration is rarely
does expect that security and privacy will
simple. The nature of the cloud, including the
remain the primary concerns among Asia Pacific
pay-as-you-go economic model and the higher
organizations for the foreseeable future. We fully
degree of openness and standards-based access
expect that these security-related concerns will
it promotes, enhances the ability to turn off a
inevitably prevent some organizations from
cloud-based solution and is often financially less
fully leveraging or adopting cloud-based
arduous than doing the same with comparable
solutions. Nonetheless, we believe that some
on-premise solutions. However, in switching
organizations will confront these risks and will
among cloud providers, there are still external
view any raised security concerns as just one of a
and internal migration costs that must be
growing number of general business risks. It will
considered.
therefore be seen as an insufficient reason to
Myth: Data location is unimportant limit the adoption of cloud-based solutions
Reality: In theory at least, this statement is not given the substantial business benefits they
only true but a fundamental tenet of cloud offer.
computing. In reality, the statement can be
reasonably accurate or wildly inaccurate, often
based on the type of data that is being stored. It
is generally less important for non-sensitive
data, but more important for sensitive data (e.g.,
related to company financials, privacy
information, data on customers, credit
card/payment information). This is typically
driven by local legislation, discovery orders
issued during legal proceedings, corporate
policies, and privacy. Every current or potential
cloud user must clearly understand their
options and requirements when storing
confidential information whether in the cloud
or not. This includes the location of the data and
how it may move over time. It could expose
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6. Partner Speak:
An In-depth Analysis:
Oracle Cloud Computing Strategy
Dhruv Singhal
Director, Sales Consulting
Oracle India
It is interesting to see how cloud computing, a Oracle supports customers irrespective of
model that has evolved from other utility and the type of cloud or non-cloud service
distributed models like on-demand computing, they choose.
grid computing, software-as-a-service, and Deliver most complete PaaS and IaaS
virtualization will evolve further to deliver value product offerings Oracle provides the
to both, the vendor and user organizations. most complete portfolio of software and
Cloud encompasses the issues of both, the IT hardware products to enable
and business worlds and has served to catalyze organizations build, deploy and manage
the increasing realization of IT and business public and private PaaS and IaaS. A key
interdependence. Oracle's overall corporate element of Oracle's strategy is to offer the
strategy is to provide the industry's most Oracle PaaS Platform.
complete, open and integrated set of products Develop and enable rich SaaS offering A
from applications to disk. Much in line with this, broad portfolio of horizontal and industry
for an all encompassing technology trend like applications that are deployed either in a
cloud computing, Oracle's strategy is to: private shared services environment or in
Ensure that cloud computing is fully a public SaaS model.
enterprise grade Oracle provides While there is still significant debate on when
enterprise grade technology for high and how the different dimensions of cloud
performance, reliability, scalability, computing will become viable for different
availability, security and industries and businesses, there is broad
portability/interoperability (based on agreement that it will have an increasing impact
standards). Enterprises demand these on nearly every IT organization.
characteristics before moving important
workloads to a public or private cloud. Cloud computing is driving a significant part of
Oracle's product development plans from
Support both public and private clouds to enterprise applications to middleware,
offer choice to the customer databases, servers and storage devices, as well
Organizations are adopting different as cloud management systems. Taken together,
deployment models for different these developments are building off Oracle's
applications at different rates of speed.
4

7. grid computing architecture to create an out-of- technologies, the Oracle PaaS Platform also
the-box solution for cloud computing. includes components such as Oracle SOA Suite,
Oracle BPM Suite, Oracle Identity Management
Oracle PaaS Platform
and Oracle WebCenter.
The Oracle PaaS Platform is a comprehensive
The Oracle PaaS Platform is built on a robust
portfolio of products to build an application
Oracle IaaS offering consisting of Oracle Solaris,
platform delivered as a public or private cloud
Oracle Enterprise Linux and Oracle VM for
service. The Oracle PaaS Platform is based on
virtualization, Sun SPARC and x86 servers, and
Oracle grid technologies including Oracle
Sun storage. Both the Oracle PaaS and Oracle
Database with Real Application Clusters and
IaaS are managed by Oracle Enterprise Manager,
Oracle application grid including WebLogic
which provides integrated systems
Server, Coherence in-memory data grid and the
management from applications to disk across
JRockit JVM. On top of this foundation of
the complete cloud deployment lifecycle.
clustered middleware and database
Fig 1. Oracle PaaS Platform
5

8. Partner Speak:
An In-depth Analysis:
Oracle Cloud Computing Strategy
The following are the various components of the applications and shared services in either
Oracle PaaS Platform. public or private cloud environments.
Storage: Sun's Open Storage products Database and Storage Grid: Oracle
combine open-source software with Database has offered grid computing
industry-standard hardware to deliver an capabilities since the release of Oracle
open, scalable storage platform that can be Database 10g in 2003. Since then, Oracle
optimized to provide public or private has continued to enhance the grid
cloud storage services. capabilities of the database in the areas of
clustering with Oracle Real Application
Servers and Operating Systems: Oracle
Clusters (RAC), storage virtualization and
offers Sun server product lines (Netra, Blade
manageability with Automatic Storage
Servers, SPARC Enterprise, X64, et al.) and
Management (ASM) and database
industry standard operating system
performance with In-Memory Database
support (Solaris, Linux, Windows), which
Cache.
will continue to provide a wide range of
physical infrastructure optimized for the A p p l i c a t i o n G r i d : O r a c l e Fu s i o n
highly virtualized and distributed nature of M i d d l e wa re s u p p o r t s ro b u s t gr i d
cloud implementations. functionality in the middle tier with a group
of products called Oracle application grid.
Server Virtualization: Oracle VM offers
The key technologies that make up Oracle's
suppor t for both x86 and SPARC
application grid are Oracle WebLogic
architectures, making it possible to deploy
Server as the flagship application server,
in a heterogeneous environment.
Oracle Coherence providing in-memory
Customers can leverage Oracle VM to
data grid services, JRockit JVM providing
consolidate servers, rapidly deploy
lightweight, lightning fast Java runtime
software, recover quickly from system
environments, and transaction monitoring
failure, and match resource capacity to
and management with Oracle Tuxedo.
workloads.
SOA and Business Process Management
VM Templates and Assemblies: Oracle VM
Templates are virtual machine images (BPM): Oracle SOA Suite provides a
containing pre -installed and pre - comprehensive and easy-to-use basis for
configured enterprise software that can be creating the reusable components at the
used to develop, package and distribute heart of your PaaS private cloud. Rich drag-
applications for faster deployment. Oracle and-drop SOA component features in
Virtual Assembly Builder is a tool that takes JDeveloper and the SCA designer enable
such a multi-tier, distributed application rapid creation of components and
and packages it up into an assembly that subsequent composition of those
can be reused in a way similar to how components into applications. Oracle
appliances are used. This technology will be Service Bus provides a simple way to make
a critical element for creating a library of components available to department
6

9. application creators using your PaaS cloud. ideal facility for managing access and
End-to-end instance tracking and Oracle security in a PaaS environment. Within the
Business Activity Monitoring provide a suite, Oracle Access Manager supports
range of metrics visualizations supporting corporate directories and single sign-on.
both the central IT function charged with Oracle Entitlements Server provides
keeping the PaaS up and running and the centralized access control policies for a
d e p a r t m e n t a l a p p l i c a t i o n ow n e r s highly decentralized PaaS environment.
concerned with business-level Oracle Identity Manager is a best-in-class
performance indicators. user provisioning and administration
solution that automates the process of
User Interaction: Oracle Web Center Suite
adding, updating, and deleting user
provides a number of portal and user
accounts from applications and directories.
interaction capabilities that are ideal for
It improves regulatory compliance by
creating reusable UI components as part of
providing granular reports with
a PaaS. Themes and skins provide powerful
information about who has access to what.
facilities for tailoring the look and feel of
Oracle Identity Federation provides a self-
applications in a tiered way for an entire
contained and flexible multi-protocol
web interface or for portions of a web
federation server that can be rapidly
interface associated with a department.
deployed with your existing identity and
This enables consistency in look and feel
access management systems.
while consolidating deployment. The
Advanced Personalization Framework Cloud Management: Cloud computing
provides the ability to further tailor the succeeds or fails based on the quality of its
usage of the UI and the information systems management. Enterprise Private
delivered to the UI based on users' PaaS requires highly sophisticated
activities. Common enterprise metadata automation in order to manage the vast
services provide a revolutionary way to amount of computing power, huge data
store and manage all look-and-feel sets and highly virtualized IT services.
changes, personalization, and mashups via Oracle Enterprise Manager provides full
uniform metadata that enables in-place lifecycle management for cloud computing
customizations at runtime and insulates and manages the complete Oracle stack
the UI from changes to the base from applications to disk. This includes
application. Cloud Setup, Build and Package as
Application, Setup Cloud Policies, Deploy,
Identity Management: Oracle Identity and
Patch, Monitor, Scale Up/Down and
Access Management Suite provides an
Decommission.
Summary:
Oracle aims to make cloud computing fully enterprise-grade and supports both public and private cloud
computing to give customers choice. Oracle provides the industry's most complete, open and integrated
portfolio of products to build, deploy and manage public and private clouds.
Disclaimer :
The preceding is intended to outline our general product direction. It is intended for information purposes only, and may not be incorporated into any contract. It is
not a commitment to deliver any material, code, or functionality, and should not be relied upon in making purchasing decisions. The development, release, and
timing of any features or functionality described for Oracle's products remains at the sole discretion of Oracle.
The author can be reached at dhruv.singhal@oracle.com
HOME 7

10. Tech Vista:
Clouds of Change
Vikas Gupta
Vice President – Cloud Competency
Tech Mahindra
Cloud Computing – The Resource-Wise There is little doubt that Cloud will
Technology Trend fundamentally change the way technology
providers engage with their customers. How
IT and business executives across industry
does Cloud Computing change the way
verticals have demonstrated soaring interest
organizations deploy software applications and
levels in Cloud based technologies. It is seen as
middleware? How will an individual consumer,
an enabling technology and an IT paradigm that
an enterprise or a service provider get impacted
forms the basis for delivering high service levels
in their respective businesses by Cloud related
and feature-rich services in an exceedingly
technologies? In this article I intend to delve into
automated and self-care service environment
these and discuss how this emerging
with direct infrastructure and capital cost
technology trend will shape the future.
benefits.
Source: Evolution of Cloud Computing Markets - Forrester
8

11. Let’s begin by understanding what are the key needs. In Cloud terminology, we have
areas impacted by Cloud. The pie chart depicts implemented a private Infrastructure Cloud.
research findings for global business and Disaster Recovery of data centres in the Cloud,
government spending on ICT products and storage for non-critical data, test and
services. development environments are some of the
C l e a r l y, I T o u t s o u r c i n g , a p p l i c a t i o n initial “test-as-you-go” use cases where we see
development and SI services will see the shift great interest amongst our client organizations.
towards adoption of Cloud enabled business We believe pilots such as these non-mission-
models such as utility based computing. There critical areas will prove vital in encouraging
will be a significant shift from capital investment in the space as business and IT
expenditure to operating cost or pay-as-you-use executives start to understand and appreciate
commercial models and the consumers of application of Cloud technologies in their
services will experience feature-rich technology business context.
at highly optimized costs.
One Successful Trend Breeds Another
It is evident that this disruptive technology
trend provides a large number of choices to Virtualization is an imperative for Cloud based
consumers as to how IT services are delivered to services, and many organizations through their
them. data centre consolidation and virtualization
efforts have implicitly set the stage for Cloud
The Current Commercial State of Play infrastructure services. Most of them have been
Organizations exploring innovative ways to successful in their virtualization programs.
reduce costs and increase operational flexibility Today, majority of these organizations operate
have found Cloud to be a cost-effective in an environment which is more than 25%
alternative to traditional on-site storage virtualized and are reportedly well satisfied with
infrastructures and architectures. Let us look at a the success of their virtualization program.
case in point. (Source: Forbes)
M ichigan D epar tment of I nfor mation The maturity of Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
Technology (MDIT) has launched a pilot to use (VDI) technologies has sparked a greater interest
Cloud-based storage for storing non-critical and pilot programs by large organizations in
data such as soil samples. MDIT expects a order to optimize desk-side support and achieve
reduction in storage costs to 1/10th of the lean management along with faster access to
storage cost. business applications. Much technological
We, at Tech Mahindra, have customized a progress has been made in terms of driving real-
leading open source Infrastructure provisioning time traffic to virtual/thin clients such as IP voice,
tool which is now being used by our large video and other collaboration technologies. We
testing and development associates working on believe this to be the next frontier that every IT
client projects to self-register, authenticate, manager would explore to reduce overall
request resources and get credentials through operating cost of desk-side technologies.
email – all in a matter of minutes without any Delivering VDI via centralized Cloud based data
intervention from IT. The idea is simple – IT does centre for anywhere/anytime access will be a
the monitoring of environment and capacity to compelling use case for Cloud Computing in the
ensure effective resource utilization and near future.
empower the end-user to self-provision the Beyond infrastructure, moving up the value
9

12. Tech Vista:
Clouds of Change
chain to areas like ERP or BI is the next logical consolidation. Instead we will have
step and growth area for Cloud. numerous data centers across the world.
In addition to all the above mentioned aspects, Legacy Applications - Ability to handle
we believe Cloud also offers the potential to legacy applications
significantly reduce the environmental impact
Tech Mahindra's Cloud Strategy
of Information and Communication Technology
(ICT). This can be attributed to the flexible and Tech Mahindra's unparalleled understanding of
scalable model making it collectively more the telecom domain and proven expertise
resource efficient enabling organizations to combined with distinctive IT skills enable us to
reduce energy costs contributing effectively to cater to the needs of telecom companies with
their Green IT initiatives. best of the breed solutions.
Yes, we believe Cloud is a sustainable and long- Cloud services span a variety of markets,
term IT paradigm that holds great promise in including those that telecom players currently
terms of positively disrupting the way services operate in. Thus the trend assumes great
are delivered resulting in enhanced efficiency significance for the telecom sector. Let us
and reduced cost. Having said that, we cannot explore the role of telcos in the Cloud eco
deny that there are barriers beyond technology system:
that need to be addressed. Telcos, with their large infrastructure
Tech Mahindra along with Mahindra Satyam is footprints, trusted brands, and
closely working with the World Economic Forum experience of delivering always-on,
to increase awareness and create a positive quality services, should be natural
mindshare in the government and business suppliers of IaaS.
sectors and encourage adoption of Cloud Telcos will play crucial role in the
technologies. According to us, the prime “transport” part of accessing Cloud
barriers in adoption of Cloud would be: services – quality access would be key to
Interoperability and lack of building confidence in Cloud based
standardization – There is a high level of services.
skepticism regarding the various Cloud Telcos themselves would look into
technologies being able to inter-operate. consolidation of their own infrastructure
assets to benefit from automation, self-
Security – Data security is one of the key
provisioning, dynamism & low
concerns when IT services are migrated to
maintenance promise of Cloud.
the Cloud, more so in public Cloud.
Telcos are in an enviable position to offer
Portability – A customer's prime concern
business-grade Cloud services:
is the migration services cost involved in
changing the provider. They possess the combined strength
of managed networking capabilities
Data privacy laws – Can one country
and large infrastructure footprints
allow data to reside in some other? If not,
this will not help achieve greater Quality of service is an advantage, as
10

13. “network” is at the core of delivering such services
They are driven by end-to-end service and performance SLAs
IaaS is a growth driver for telcos
White-label solutions to allow scale leverage of larger Telco
Communication-as-a-Service is an area of high potential and interest for telcos
They can embrace PaaS for telecom assets exposure.
Tech Mahindra is developing various “in-a-box” offerings with an intent to have minimum integration
effort required to enable telcos launch Cloud services (for e.g. Public compute services) for a reduced time
to market and quick monetization of their existing investments.
The following is a sample architecture depicting the various interfaces and considerations required to
enable IaaS for a Telco. It also highlights the integration aspects of OSS/BSS and associated telecom IT
systems.
Tech Mahindra has established a dedicated Cloud Competency practice and has invested in a Cloud
Competency Lab where solutions are developed based on customer specific requirements. The team
consists of domain experts in billing, CRM, portal, BI, infrastructure technologies with dedicated product
managers developing service offerings. Tech Mahindra will leverage strategic partner and long-term
client relations to become the preferred Cloud solution integrator for the ICT industry.
The author can be reached at vikas.gupta@techmahindra.com
HOME 11

14. Tech Talk:
Will Cloud Boost Virtualization,
Centralization of Infrastructure?
Neelesh Kumbhojkar,
Specialist, Cloud Performance Management
Tech Mahindra
The ever increasing need to do more with less IT pre-failure warning on a shared disk array, high
infrastructure continues to drive interest in and CPU utilization and natural disasters at the data
adoption of cloud computing and virtualization. centre site can result in huge revenue losses to
Cloud computing in the simplest form can be any business. Increasing capital expenditure
defined as consumer and business products, and maintenance costs pose major business
services and solutions delivered and consumed challenges for telcos.
in real-time over the Internet. The strength of Cloud infrastructure services lies
The Driving Force in the fact that they provide massively scalable
platforms. This underpins the economic and
Multiple economic, market and technological
technological disruptions as communication
forces continue to drive enterprises to adopt
capabilities are now rapidly moving away from
cloud. Convergence of service orientation,
the confines of hardware infrastructure.
virtualization and standardization of computing
through the Internet are fuelling the need for What Enterprises Need to Know
shifting to cloud. Infrastructure services that are becoming cloud-
Over the last few decades, Infrastructure has based include storage, content management,
been commoditised and communications conferencing, processing bandwidth and
services are increasingly becoming web and network connectivity. Cloud platforms scale to
software-centric. Networks are becoming more accommodate the growth in the network traffic
open and controllable with application l e v e l s . H o w e v e r, p r o v i d i n g v i r t u a l
software. With IP infrastructure growing more infrastruc tures to multiple customers
widespread, personal video is already rapidly simultaneously poses significant challenges.
making its way into enterprises after becoming While evaluating their communication
main stream in the consumer market. Analysts infrastructure, enterprises should know all the
believe that this decade will certainly witness a capabilities initially moving on separate tracks
huge increase in workforce that globally will run and now converging. As they evaluate, the
corporate-supplied videoconferencing from installed base of telephony providers may be
their desktops, The trend is primarily driven by threatened, causing pricing changes resulting in
emphasis on significant reduction (up to 50%) in enterprises paying more. Enterprises need to
travel budgets and a myriad of new take cognizance of the fact that although
communication avenues. In such a scenario, technology is converging, no single vendor
downtimes, disasters such as total server failure,
12

15. would be able to provide a complete solution for Manufacturers (TEMs) segment. A case in point
some time. Though every organisation will see a is a leading TEM in APAC/SAARC. As part of
compelling need for extending video to more managed services, the manufacturer has
workers, it will also require an increasingly cost- created a shared NOC to service customers
effective approach to deployment. Network provided with the equipment. The shared NOC
operators are under increasing pressure to with managed services will be offered to clients
revamp their data centre resources to deliver in the US and Canada, and includes mobile
cloud computing and XaaS to corporate telecom operators, wireline telecom service
customers, but finding the right enabling providers and Internet or broadband service
technologies and the right technology partner providers. The manufacturer is looking towards
to provide strategy and consulting services to management of the TEMs and other multi-
make the transition happen is a big challenge. vendor networks. Regarding other segments of
The network operators also need expert advice business, the IT sector and enterprises have
on where cloud computing fits within the wider already forayed into shared NOC for
spheres of IT and telecommunication, the type infrastructure management and PaaS.
of services that are in demand, and how they can
Conclusion
migrate to cloud computing architecture with
minimum disruption to the existing operations. Owing to the global recessionary and
competitive pressures, integrated operators are
Network operators that aspire to harness the
confronted with the challenge of constructing a
cloud should look at optimization and re-
path to convergence services while providing
architecting the data centre infrastructure,
quality of services to retain and grow the
processes, and applications, a prerequisite for
customer base. Operators are also under
the transition journey.
considerable pressure to deliver more profits,
Key Trends and Opportunities reduce TCO, create greater efficiency and
Vendors are making it easier for network manageability in the business processes and
operators to develop new cloud applications management of networks. A typical situation at
using PaaS, bundled software stacks, and cloud almost any of the integrated carriers in
operating systems. Increased interest and Asia/Pacific is a separate Network Operation
activity in the cloud space will prompt greater Centre (NOC) for each service and for each
u rg e n c y a ro u n d s t a n d a rd i z a t i o n a n d vendor network in a multi supplier scenario. In
compliance efforts. conclusion we foresee the implementation of
converged NOC as the next necessary and
Our view is that tier 1 telecom operators will not logical step in the evolution to next generation
take up shared NOC services due to network and and convergence service infrastructure.
data privacy issues. These services would gain Vir tualization and centralization of
immediate popularity with Tier 2 and 3 telcos infrastructure across the ICT industry segments
across the world, since cost optimization is of will continue to grow rapidly. Although cloud
significant concern to such operators. Another seems to be slightly distant for now, enterprises
segment where shared NOCs are becoming are already gearing up to deploy cloud-enabled
impor tant is the Telecom Equipment solutions in the near future.
(Reproduced from Biztech)
The author can be reached at neeleshk@techmahindra.com
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16. 14

17. Tech Mahindra on the Cloud
Cloud Advisory, Assessment and Qualification Services Platform as a Service
Assessment of existing infrastructure Tech Mahindra Service Enablement Platform (SI 2.0)
Address scalability, utilization and demand leveraging partner systems for BSS / OSS capabilities
management Reusable rule driven business components and
Runtime cost optimization such as energy, adapters
maintenance, support, tools and licenses Flexible rule driven BPM and process orchestration
Infrastructure as a Service Software as a Service
Cloud advisory and roadmap creation services Product(s) and application(s) evaluation for Cloud
Data centre consolidation and transformation Software and product development and deployment
Communication-as-a-Service / UC enablement on Cloud
Services Device abstraction and widget realization
Remote Cloud infrastructure operations and Application store realization
management
Cloud Competency Center (Playground for Customers ) Solution Design, Build and Optimization: Foundation
Collaborated effort between Tech Mahindra and IaaS Layer/Data Centre
various technology partners Design of Cloud IaaS infrastructure
Telco Industry specific solutions On-demand, self-provision automation portal, shared
Customers business use case development and and fully virtualized compute, network and storage
demonstration for confidence building and POC services
testing simulate expected “outcome” architecture and Security assessment and controls implementation
modeling with industry partnerships
Productivity Applications and Services Provisioning Cloud Operations, Administration and Management
Telco enablement for communications / (OA&M)
collaboration-as-a-service such as messaging, IM, Unified interface virtualization management
web/audio conferencing, document sharing, IP
Capacity and demand management via automated
contact center, IP-PBX.
reporting and self-portal
Enabled over IaaS foundation layer and offered via
FCAPS lifecycle management such as
partnerships such as Microsoft, Google for Telco and
monitoring/management of core IaaS components,
enterprise customers.
application performance monitoring and service
management
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18. Case Studies
16

19. Case Study 1
Setting up a Next Generation Data Centre for
a Greenfield Operator
Case Summary Civil works - Flooring, power & network
cables set up, fire protection, physical
The client, a Greenfield operator in India
security and ensuring flawless
provides national and international long
functioning of HVAC systems.
distance telephony solutions, full range of
prepaid & postpaid products, national & Infrastructure deployment.
international roaming and value added services. Application installation and integration.
Tech Mahindra's solution for the client consisted
The last two phases included:
of setting up a next generation data centre
involving virtualization and cloud readiness, Rack Installation
enabling the data centre to provide application Servers Power on Self Test
services to meet the OSS and BSS requirements
OS and Gold Image Deployments
scalable with the growth in demand. The
solution ensured reduc tion in power Application Installation and Integration
consumption and the number of servers. Post Installation check
Business Needs of the Client End to end testing
Being a Greenfield operator, the business The phased approach ensured proper
objectives of the client were driven by the need management and resulted in the following
for fast time to market, and a scalable and benefits for the client:
flexible solution with reduced server sprawl.
Fast track Implementation to set the data
Tech Mahindra Solution and Business centre up and running in flat three
Benefits to the client months.
Tech Mahindra's proven expertise in Greenfield Lower TCO by reduction in footprint cost
implementations enabled a successful planning of hardware by virtualization and
and execution of the proposed solution. The consolidation.
solution consisted of five phases:
Ensured business continuity by state-of-
Requirements gathering - Identification the-art technology.
of facility management, civil works, and
A highly flexible and scalable solution to
server and application requirements.
excel in a competitive mobile market. The
Planning - Application to server mapping, solution enables the operator plan
building the network strategy and expansion and support a large user base.
deployment planning.
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20. Case Study 2
SaaS Delivery Platform Development for a Finland
based IT Infrastructure Provider
Case Summary Tech Mahindra Solution and Business
The client is a Finland based provider of Benefits to the Client
managed business infrastructure and enterprise Tech Mahindra implemented the integrated,
desktop services. Its business model is built server based SDP solution to address the
around the delivery of centralized and integration requirements of the client. The SDP
standardized IT infrastructure services via the solution enabled the integration of client's BSS
internet consumed as a simple subscription- system with various backend provisioning
based service, as and when required. The client systems.
needed a solution to automate provisioning of
various products along with support around
deployed products, and required the solution to Tech Mahindra's SDP platform is an integrated,
provide a faster time to market for new products server-based software solution for building and
and services. Tech Mahindra's SDP solution managing services using a service-oriented
fetched rewarding returns to the client on the architecture (SOA). It is an extensible and
above mentioned requirements. configurable framework which empowers on-
boarding new services with minimal coding
Business Needs of the Client efforts. This highly reusable solution provides
The client required an integration solution for: facility for integrating third party services.
Automated provisioning of various
products like Exchange, Virtualization,
Business Benefits:
Software Provisioning, Network Sharing,
SaaS software, etc., and deal with Improved SLA tracking leading to
provisioning requirement of client's increased customer satisfaction.
increasing number of customers. Reduction in cost of provisioning by
Reduced time to market for new products enabling the CSR agent to send
and services. provisioning request using UI.
Consultancy and suppor t around Reduction in deployment and support
deployed products. cost.
Reduction in provisioning time by
providing self-service and automated
provisioning.
Faster time to market for new products
and services.
Reduced provisioning errors as compared
to manual provisioning.
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21. Case Study 3
High End Server Migration Implementation for
a Leading Tier 1 Operator
Case Summary Tech Mahindra Solution and Business
The client, a leading provider of Benefits
telecommunication and ICT services in the To optimize the current environment, Tech
Netherlands, offers wireline & wireless Mahindra enabled the client in scaling up
telephony, TV and internet services to internally through virtualization. This required
consumers and end-to-end telecom and ICT migration of the existing infrastructure to a new
services to business to business customers. The consolidated and virtualized infrastructure. The
provider has operations in 22 countries, and existing infrastructure was split into SUN and HP
provides a sophisticated portfolio of IP and data servers and the task was to migrate from both
services. The client needed a solution to these systems to the new unified SUN platform.
optimize the current test environment, Client's existing infrastructure on the SUN
consolidate old applications, minimize platform supported many disparate systems
hardware footprint and cater to new business including systems running on SUN V880, SUN
needs. Tech Mahindra implemented best E450, SUN V440, HP and Digital Compaq
practices in consolidation & virtualization to platforms. The other systems were migrated
serve the client needs thereby bringing about from DL 380 platform to SUN X Series platform
active utilization of client's IT infrastructure. where all the features, for eg. XML builder, client
Business Needs of the client accept module, mobile online activation etc.
were bundled together.
To optimize the current test environment
by consolidation and virtualization. Business Benefits:
To rebuild an environment to consolidate High performance of servers with
old applications and also cater to new increased availability and scalability
business needs. Attained 8:1 ratio on Windows
The replication of testing requirement at system and 14:1 ratio on Solaris
offshore required: server.
Establishment of an environment to cater Seamless integration of disparate systems
to production level testing. by using high level migration framework.
Provisioning of equivalent computer
power and setup.
Minimization of hardware footprint via
virtualization.
To manage effective workforce for
resolving customer/network problems.
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22. Case Study 4
Performance Testing in Virtualized Environment
Case Summary Tech Mahindra solution includes a set of
baseline production user load scenarios in the
The client, a leading provider of
production environment to be identified with
telecommunication services in Europe offers
linear scaling behaviour by analyzing the daily
wireline & wireless telephony, TV and internet
traffic in production.
services to consumers and end-to-end telecom
services to businesses. The client needed a
solution to optimize the current performance
test environment, consolidate old applications,
minimize hardware footprint and cater to new
business needs. Tech Mahindra's role was to
analyze and come up with the virtualization
overheads in performance and system resource
usage while using virtualized test environment
for performance testing. The test environment
findings were then extrapolated to production.
Business Needs of the Client
To optimize the current test environment
by consolidation and virtualization.
The same baseline production user load is
Cost optimization on testing pumped to the test environment and
environment. performance metrics gathered during the test
To extrapolate performance results from run.
virtualized test environment to the
production environment.
Tech Mahindra Solution and Business
Benefits
To come up with the virtualization overheads,
the Tech Mahindra team chose CRM application
and billing system for wireless customers.
Performance testing criteria:
The server configuration of the test
environment needs to be similar to that of
production environment. If this does not
hold, the SPEC ratio* needs to be
assessed.
CPU resources need to be dedicated to
particular platforms. Each tier though
virtualized will use only CPUs assigned to
them.
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23. To validate the similarity of the performance The CPU overhead for the virtualised
behaviour between the two platforms, the environment is calculated from the above graph
expected load on the scaled down production and the resultant factor is applied for the
environment is calculated. subsequent performance test results on the
virtualised environment.
The same approach is adhered to come up with
memory and I/O overheads.
Business Benefits:
Test server consolidation with significant
reduction in OPEX and CAPEX costs.
Reliable approach to extrapolate the
virtualised environment results to non
virtualised environments.
Better scaling of per formance
environment compared to production
due to sharing of the underlying
hardware in virtualised environment, and
staggered testing timelines for different
applications.
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24. Awards & Recognitions 2009-2010:
AT&T 2010 Supplier Award for outstanding performance and service to AT&T and its affiliates
Best System Integrator by CMAI and INFOCOM's National Telecom Awards 2010
1st Runner-up for the Best Service Enablement Implementation at the BOSS Conference & Expo 2010
Maharashtra IT Award 2009-2010
Leapvault Change Leadership Award 2010 for Game Changing M&A Domestic Category
'Software Solution of the Year Middle East' by TMT Finance & Investment Middle East
Alexander Graham Bell Award for 'Innovation in Services to Telecom' by Aegis School of Business &
Telecommunication
Alexander Graham Bell Award for 'Value Added Services as Business Driver' by Aegis School of Business &
Telecommunication - CanvasM
Ranked 9th in NASSCOM's Top 20 IT-BPO Employers in India FY09-10
Ranked 5th in NASSCOM's Top IT Exporters 2010
Amongst the Top 20 IT companies in the DQ Top 20 Club 2009-2010 (Ranked 15th)'
‘Leaders' in '2010 Global Outsourcing 100' - IAOP's Annual List of the Best Outsourcing Service Providers
About Us
Tech Mahindra is a leading provider of solutions and services to the telecommunications industry, majority stake
owned by Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, in partnership with British Telecommunications plc. With total revenues
of INR 4625.4 crores (USD 976.6 Mn) in the year ended March 31, 2010, Tech Mahindra serves telecom service
providers, telecom equipment manufacturers, and software vendors. Tech Mahindra enables clients to maximize
return on IT investment by providing solutions which help the clients achieve shorter time-to-market, reduced
total cost of ownership, and high customer satisfaction. Tech Mahindra achieves this through its domain and
process expertise, distinctive IT skills, research and development, and proven innovative delivery models.
Assessed at SEI-CMMi Level 5, Tech Mahindra's track record for value-delivery is supported by 34,000-plus
professionals who provide a unique blend of culture, domain expertise and in-depth technology skill-sets. Its
development centres are ISO 9001:2008 & BS7799 certified. Tech Mahindra has principal offices in the UK, United
States, Germany, UAE, Egypt, Singapore, India, Thailand, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines, Canada, and Australia.
www.techmahindra.com