Amol Mitra, VP and GM, HP Networking, HP Asia Pacific and Japan, talked to Mehak Chawla about the pressures that today’s networks faced
What are the trends in the networking space in India and what are HP’s ambitions in the region?
The emergence of the third wave of the Internet has resulted in a change in consumer behavior, with IT networks transforming to keep up with the pervasive trends such as mobility and the consumerization of IT. Today’s workplace is becoming more mobile than ever, powered by collaboration tools, mobile devices and Cloud-based services. This new virtual lifestyle is shifting the way in which businesses operate, putting higher demands on network connectivity.
Until the mid-1990s, IT experiences in the workplace were more advanced than those at home. However, this changed with the quantum leap that took place in the areas of wireless communications and mobile devices. Moreover, the concept of BYOD has brought a fresh set of challenges to the workplace, with employees expecting the same level of connectivity and multimedia services that they get at home.
While the Web has brought about globalization, taking the definition of scale to a much larger context, it has also brought about the centralization of resources. Despite the endless number of sites on the Web, the majority of the human population accesses sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. With billions of people logging on and following key trends or channels, there is bound to be a network overload.
The prevalence of the Cloud in the Indian market is the other big trend defining today’s networks. It will continue to evolve over time and will be seen as a disruptive technology as it moves to garner wider adoption.
How are video, social media and wireless changing the networking environment?
Clients are telling us that there is a significant sense of urgency to eliminate their inflexible, complex and expensive networks. Legacy network infrastructures typically lack the flexibility, scalability and automation to support the growing number of employee-owned devices connected across wired and wireless networks. Maintaining bandwidth-intensive rich media applications like Web conferencing and providing secure connectivity from site to site also pose problems within legacy networks. Companies embracing video are seeing their network capacity requirements expand by four times or more when compared to the historical rate. It is predicted that 50 billion devices will be connected to wireless networks by 2020. That puts tremendous pressure on companies to digitize and automate their networks.
Are technologies like virtualization, convergence and the Cloud affecting networks in a big way?
Networks must be faster and more flexible to support the needs of diverse mobile users, a fragmented security perimeter and a constantly changing set of applications and devices.
Virtualizing the network will create new levels of flexibility and efficiency that are essential for Cloud networks. A virtualized network is able to adapt seamlessly to the needs of different tenants, users, applications and devices.
Mobility is prompting organizations to reevaluate their networking strategy. What trends do you see in this space?
By 2014, over 90% percent of devices found on enterprise networks will be considered personal. Today, 60% plus of enterprises are unsure as to which mobile devices are on their network.
With users increasingly bringing their own devices to work, organizations must avoid risk to operations by ensuring that the on-boarding of devices on to the network is controlled and secured regardless of the type of device across wired and wireless connections.
HP is working with organizations across the region and in India to ensure they are able to transform their networks to securely embrace the demands of new devices and rich applications with a unified approach.
What are HP’s plans and go-to-market strategy in this segment and what’s the market share that you are targeting?
Organizations in India are building data centers of the future, where IT resources are integrated into pools of interoperable resources that can be leveraged on-demand to address changing market conditions.
We remain committed to the channel as a key element of our go-to-market strategy and will continue to invest in the channel as a core element of our mutual, long-term growth strategy.
Three recent examples of organizations using HP networking solutions today include AMD, which selected our networking and server solutions to improved business efficiency and streamlined operations by consolidating its worldwide data centers.
Haneda Airport also selected us to establish a WLAN that covers nearly all areas of the terminal spanning across 150,000 square meters.
IDC Frontier recently selected our solutions to enhance its network infrastructure so as to meet the increasing demand for Cloud services. To ensure seamless scalability for increased network bandwidth across its nine data centers, it selected the HP 5820 switch series.
