Cloud is a platform of choice for net new systems of innovation and differentiation, Mani Mulki, CIO, Tata Capital

A brief on certain achievements in the area of DCs by Tata Capital for e.g. reduction in power consumption; achievement of SDG goals for DCs, etc.
As part of DC modernization journey, private and public cloud infrastructure was adopted in a significant way. This laid the foundation for a highly scalable and agile DC infrastructure to effectively support the rising demands of our business.

Some of the key benefits realised were:
1) Improved availability and performance of infrastructure
2) Reduction in operational, maintenance & energy costs
3) Our ability to embrace new technologies
4) Safeguard against technology obsolescence

In that sense, what has been the impact of cloud adoption on DCs
Its about delivering compute resources to the business the best way possible. With the increasing adoption of cloud at a rapid pace, the traditional DCs are shrinking and significantly downsized. While systems of record continue to remain on on-prem DCs, cloud is increasingly the platform of choice for net new systems of innovation and systems of differentiation. This is also witnessing emergence of hybrid cloud setups. The systems that remain on-prem are on continuous review on possible migration to cloud or re-engineer applications to cloud platform.  In the event that systems need to continue on DCs, emphasis is on migrating systems from proprietary to open architectures and use of standard building blocks, so that they lend themselves to cloud.

Challenges on the way in making the data centre truely software defined ?
– To standardise components, processes, policies, tools and attaining synergies for cross functional roles for the organization.
– Skillsets of our team member to manage the migration to new layers of virtualization and up the learning curve of our teams to understand and implement  technologies & tools.
– Risks and downtimes that could be involved in re-architecting & migrating the existing infrastructure to the new model.

Emergence of Edge DCs in the times of the pandemic, when WFH and WFA will be a trend ?When the lockdown was announced last year due to the pandemic, majority of the workforce were WFH and WFA, almost the entire user access is outside-in over internet as opposed to majority user access from within the enterprise as in pre-pandemic BAU stage. In this scenario, where majority of users use their home broadband services, it was prudent to deliver network access and security as a cloud service directly to the source of incoming connection, rather than have them reach all the way up to the enterprise data centre.

This architecture combines network capabilities with cloud-native functions like secure web gateways, virtual private network, cloud access security brokers, firewalls, and zero-trust network access.

Usecases of AI in DCs and DCIM
– DCIM monitoring and event management, predict and prevent
– Capacity Analytics and modelling to predict capacity needs
– DC system and operational management incident detection, diagnosis and resolution, reduce MTTR
– Security events monitoring, correlation and remediation
– DC device risk management and anomalous behaviours for proactive actions
– Workflows across applications and tools to automate IT processes

How can companies decide on the right DC model to adopt ?
In order to decide on DC model, companies would evaluate aspects such as service quality, user experience and deployment & management model. The application needs such as – latency, reputation, service continuity, performance, security, compliance, RTO & DR, data protection – are considered to arrive at the right DC model. Typically systems of innovation and systems of differentiation could be right fit for cloud model whereas system of records could be retained at on premises DC.