EMC has set its sights on big data and on-demand storage as the next big avenues for growth. By Mehak Chawla
Big data technologies are in the limelight of late. Now that analytics over structured data is well rooted, analyzing unstructured data is expected to be the next wave in analytics.
According to Rajesh Janey, President, EMC India and SAARC, solutions around big data formed a major focus area for the vendor that was evolving from being an enterprise storage company into a Cloud and big data company.
The worldwide big data market is estimated to be around $3.2 billion growing at a CAGR of 39.4% to reach $16.9 billion by 2015. The advanced data analytics segment is expected to grow at over 25% up till 2015 even in India. “Big data systems will impact data center designs in a big way in the near future,” remarked Gupta.
A lot of vendors are gearing up to capitalize on this wave and so is EMC. The vendor announced two key launches, one a product and the other in the services sphere.
Automating the Government
The launch of Documentum xCP Saksham eGov Case Management, a process management solution aimed specifically at government departments and PSUs in India, was announced during the event. The solution developed by the EMC Center of Excellence in Bengaluru packs in archival, retrieval, retention and security features and comes with basic configurations, which can be modified as per the customer’s needs. The solution is aimed at automating the processes of government departments and agencies.
EMC is currently in the process of deploying the solution at two government offices, the names of which were not disclosed. These two implementations are expected to be completed by the end of this quarter.
EMC is looking at data intensive government projects including NREGA, UID, NIC and Passport Seva for this solution.
On-demand Cloud Storage
EMC and Tulip announced their tie-up to provide Cloud-based, on-demand storage services and back-up-as-a-service from Tulip’s data center in Bengaluru. According to Deepinder Bedi, Executive Director, Tulip Telecom, “Our Data Center in Bengaluru is a state of art data facility spread across 0.9 million square feet that has a capacity of up to 12,000 racks. It is from this data center that the two new services—hosted storage and backup on demand are being launched.”
Bedi explained that, as the offerings grew, Tulip would evaluate the possibility of offering them from its other data centers. The services will be offered on various models, including pay-per-use in order to appeal to SMBs. “The cost for a customer could be as low as sub Rs. 100 per month, per gigabyte,” revealed Janey.
As of now, EMC is looking to tap the existing customer base of the Tulip Data Center, about 2,500 customers, for these services.
Is India ready for the Cloud?
This was the question that the last leg of the event deliberated upon. Cloud computing is expected to generate close to a hundred thousand jobs in the next five years, but do we have a resource pool competent enough for this massive opportunity?
EMC has tied up with over 200 educational institutes in India in order to offer courses on Cloud computing and big data. “Last year, the firm trained 45,000 students from various engineering and management institutes and polytechnics,” revealed Janey.
Under its Academic Alliance Program, the company has trained over a hundred thousand students globally of which 75,000 are in India. The company started by offering courses in integrated storage management in 2005 and has now added Cloud computing and big data in the curriculum it offers.
NMIMS, Amity University and BITS Pilani, among others are a few of the institutes that have tied up with EMC.
mehak.chawla@expressindia.com