The concept of unified data management has not taken off in India because it was never there in the first place

Data archival, Steven Rose believes, is something enterprises are looking
at keenly because the volumes of data created are increasing. This is why
Commvault is investing in partners who can deploy its solutions for these
customers

Why has the concept of unified data management (DM) not taken off in India
as well as it has in the other geographies?

It is because it was never there in the first place. No vendors were
offering the true-blue integrated end-to-end data-management solutions. Earlier,
customers viewed data solutions as technology; today, they view it as a
commodity. The market is maturing and we are looking at more customers enquiring
about tiered storage models. The regulatory and compliance norms are also making
it imperative for customers to comply with proper data storage methods. The data
in an organization is growing and there is a need to map it and make it easily
accessible.

How economical is investing into data management solutions (DMS)?

We are not looking merely at cost of entry but at the management of total
cost of ownership (TCO). What our vendors call products, we call agents that
give our customers competitive advantage, especially because it offers a
full-embodied suite that encompasses backup to archival to replication. Our
products are multi-platform, which means that they can cut down on the number of
operators manning it.

We offer a single screen to manage our suite, which again means that their IT
team is freed up for other activities. We are cutting down complications as part
of our effort to bring down the TCO.

What is your channel structure in India?

InFlow Technologies is our national value-added distributor. We have an OEM
agreement with Hitachi, which rebrands our products available in India through
Ingram Micro. We are looking at having 14 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on
board and will ensure that they have the requisite training to implement our
solutions.

What is the profile of solution providers (SPs) Commvault is working with
in India?

In India we work with a lot of tier-2 partners like Ashtech Infotech and
Kinfotech. So far, we have signed 10 SPs and we will add another 14 shortly. But
we don't want to go on a partner-signing spree. We want them to understand the
benefits of working with us.

Within DM, which are the technologies that customers most prefer in India?

I think customers in India are more concerned about backup and then move
forward to archival and within this there are several flavors like e-mail
archival, file system archival, etc. Incidentally, Microsoft endorses Commvault
for its archival technology. In enterprises, there are different operating
systems and the data storage management setup is also varied. Therefore these
companies need different strategies when it comes to planning their data
archival.

What about your Indian operations?

We have offices in Mumbai and New Delhi. There's also a development and
support center in Hyderabad, which is our second support center in the world
(the other one being in New Jersey). We have 125 people in the Hyderabad
facility and an equal number in the US unit. This shows how important India is
in our overall business planning. We have OEM partnerships with Dell and Sun is
our reseller partners. We also sell strategically with network appliance.

VINITA BHATIA

vinitavs@cybermedia.co.in