Data centers : An Early Start

KV Jagannath, CEO and MD, Choice Solutions entered into data center business
five and half years ago, in mid-2003. That was a time when most people were
aware of servers, the word 'hosting' was not very popular and the data center
was a completely new business area. With experience of 12 years in the IT
business, Jagannath made up his mind to enter into data center business sensing
the immense potential of this segment in the coming time. Choice Solutions had
already built up its experience in power management and had got specialization
in power and cooling solutions. Combined with the IT infrastructure integration
skills, venturing into data center was a natural extension of his business.

“At that time it was generally considered that solution providers who are in
software and server market are the big players. The data center business was not
known to many. It was good extension of the solution business,” said Jagannath.

KV Jagannath CEO and MD, Choice Solutions, Hyderabad

Jagannath recollects that there has been a sea change in the data center
market over the last five years. Now the market is completely different and
there has been a major change in the structure of data centers. “Earlier it was
only about what is kept in a data center. The capacity of data center used to be
low, power consumption was very high. Now the efficiency has increased
manifolds. There were lots of issues regarding power supply and cooling.”

He shared that earlier there used to be only single phase in the data center
and now with the introduction of blade server it has three phases. The
applications have changed. Green technology has come into picture. When
Jagannath ventured into data center he started his business with APC. Now he is
dealing with all the top players including HP, Cisco, IBM.

Besides data center solutions, Jagannath also offers consultancy to customers
about the implementation of data center in an organization at different levels.
He helps customers build their data centers and offers them specific solutions
as per their requirements.

He has got multi-faced specializa­tions that includes the physical part of
the IT infrastructure of the data center and also the planning, analyzing,
designing and implementation of power and cooling solutions for the
infrastructure of the data center. Of his total revenue,10 percent comes from
data center projects. This excludes his consultancy services.

SNAP INTERVIEW
QUESTIONS		Sreevalsan Ponnachat Director-Services Sun Microsystems		Sharad Sanghi MD, Netmagic Solutions		Sandeep Nair MD, Enterprise Solution Emerson Network Power
Is virtualization of data centers a market opportunity for SPs and SIs?	Virtualization and consolidation go hand in hand and this can help in maximizing the return on investments for customers and for SPs		Yes. Server virtualization has fast become one of the most widespread IT trends today. As opposed to traditionally running a data center with many standalone computers that perform dedicated functions for individual applications, virtualization technology allows applications and servers to work in a non-dedicated manner, interacting as needed to get the job done		Yes, and a lot of awareness is being created on virtualization and customers are showing acceptance for these solutions as they see immediate cost benefits and optimum use of infrastructure. Customers are looking forward to flexible IT systems which must be reliable as well as operate in lowest TCO. We promote Adaptive Architecture which covers all these aspects and provides highest reliability

Amrita Tejasvi

amritat@cybermedia.co.in