CIO's Shopping Guide

Company

Virinchi Technologies, Hyderabad

Current IT Infrastructure In The Company

As a product development company, we have to maintain efficient hardware
infrastructure. With roughly 200 workstations we have a good
combination of operating systems including Windows, Linux, Solaris, Unix and
Windows CE that enables us to work for the products on mobile and Symbian
platforms. To support these desktops we have placed 30 servers constituting
Sun/Solaris-based servers, Intel-based servers, and AMD servers. Since we have a
combination of operating systems to work with, we have a mix of servers too. But
predominantly 80% of the servers are Linux-based while 15% are Solaris-based.
For every 20 to 25 systems we have a common printer and a Xerox machine. Though
we are optimistic about the all-in-one technology that's being offered by
vendors, we have procured the existing infrastructure of late and we will look
at this option in future.

Value Of Existing IT Infrastructure

Though I can't give the exact IT spend on a calculative basis, we spend Rs
35,000 to 40,000 for a workstation, Rs 10,000 for a printer and about Rs 1 lakh
for a server. Given our current infrastructure of 200 workstations, 10 to 15
printers and 30 servers, this could have cost us between Rs 1 crore to Rs 2
crore.

Proposed IT Infrastructure For 2005-06

We are projecting a business growth of 70%. In turn, we will add 140 to 150
employees to our fold, which in turn means that we will need to have an
equivalent number of workstations in place. But this will not have an impact on
the increase in the number of servers as the present server capacity can as well
support another 100 to 120 workstations easily. We don't foresee any investments
as far as servers are concerned.

Earmarked IT Budgets For 2005-06

Given the projected increase of up to 150 workstations, obviously there
would be an investment of approximately Rs 50 lakh. However, this could increase
if we intend to add any further infrastructure in place. Presently, 40% of the
workstations run Linux operating systems. Since we work extensively on Java
projects, we wish to migrate completely to Linux OS. And we would foresee the
same amount of migration, which is over 40% of the workstations as well, to
Linux this year too.

Current Systems Supplier

We deal with brands like HCL directly. However, we coordinate with local
assemblers to supply the necessary hardware. We work with three Hyderabad-based
solution providers including Pentagon Systems and Hiyagreeva Systems for
catering to the local maintenance and other issues.

Qualities You Look In A Supplier

To sum up precisely, it's the support, which we primarily look for. If you
don't have suppliers who can extend support when in need, it's a sheer waste to
time and effort coordinating with them. We equally look out for the turnaround
time in supplying the required hardware. There could be

some problems where a supplier may not be in a position to supply the requisite
number on time. We consider those issues besides taking a close look at the
configuration specifications.

(CyberMedia News)