There has been a decline in COVID cases and no lockdown-related business disruptions over the past several months, yet business continues with hybrid work solutions. This has been done to support the business to continue operating even when the next wave of Covid hits. This hybrid mode of work has increased the demand for remote management tools and various proposals for data center parks. We interacted with Anjani Komisetti, Country Manager – India and SAARC, Raritan and ServerTech to learn more about Next Gen Data Center Infrastructure Management, Remote Maintenance and more.
Read the full interview here:
TimesTech: Kindly brief us about Raritan, its specialization, and the product portfolio.
Anjani: Raritan has been always in the center of the data center with our IP KVMs and intelligent PDUs. And now being a part of LDCS, Raritan’s customer has access to many more products and solutions. LDCS has been formed with the objective of understanding what a customer wants and helping them set up data centres tailored to their specific requirements, right from the design stage onwards. Our approach is very flexible, and we combine or mix our solutions to offer the right services to customers. On the component side, we are probably one of the very few companies that offer one-stop end-to-end data centre solutions. We differentiate ourselves by being a product-plus solution provider – end-to-end data centre experts.
We also offer a selection of KVM-over-IP Switches that use modern Ethernet and TCP/IP networks to give remote access, control, and administration at any time and from any location. Our Dominion KVM-over-IP switches provide rack-level access in addition to unrestricted IP access and control through LAN, WAN, and the Internet. Raritan is the market leader when it comes to KVM-over-IP switches. It can be used in both small labs and large business data centers.
Our rack power distribution units (rack PDUs), inline metres, transfer switches, and branch circuit monitoring systems. Using the Xerus Technology Platform, all Raritan power distribution systems increase uptime and availability by facilitating remote deployment, control, and administration of power management devices across many sites. Raritan power distribution systems work right out of the box with DCIM software. This makes it easy to add more environmental monitoring and access control devices and collect data that can be used to make faster, better decisions.
Lastly, Raritan provides a vast selection of rack solutions to enhance the administration of your rack-level essential IT equipment. Raritan provides a solution that will match your demands, ranging from intelligent asset tags to a comprehensive range of environmental sensors for monitoring your data center’s climate to physical security at the rack. Visit Smart Rack Solutions to discover more about how these intelligent rack solutions operate together.
TimesTech: With what mission and objectives were the company set up? Tell us about your contributions to the company.
Anjani: Raritan’s mission is to help customers in developing smarter ways to use data centre resources, whether they are servers or active components within the data center, power or cooling resources or human resources. With this objective as our guiding philosophy, we provide intelligence to data centers in a variety of ways, allowing them to optimise and utilise the resources better than before. We cover physical space, power supply, cooling, and human/skills availability. If you look at the APAC region, customers are today looking for out-of-the-box solutions. We continuously challenge ourselves to offer more than what is usually required. Over the past 10 years, we have been quite strong in the market, serving various customers in different segments including data center and design labs, defense and government customers, manufacturing customers, etc.
We provide service to consumers on a multi-level basis. Raritan is the first in the industry to introduce Multiple Interface Modules, whether it’s HDMI, DP, or the newest USBC product. All of this is based on feedback from design labs or customers who are developing products for the future. We have created a strong channel over the last ten years to provide better service to our customers.
TimesTech: What are Raritan’s key learnings from 2021 and what are some key predictions for the future?
Anjani: 2021 has seen a lot of digitization in sales and service approaches, whether it is online POCs or providing very effective online support. The data center business is growing very quickly and has experienced the adoption of the intelligence at the rack level, not just in terms of power management but beyond that.
Going forward, we foresee more IoT racks in the data center space, even edge data centers are demanding for it, and we are advancing towards that. Due to unexpected digitization during pandemic, almost all functions are now digital, which has increased the need of edge data center. Preferences have changed and people like to access everything at their fingertips.
As consumer behaviour continues to evolve, demand for better solutions, their availability, and performance have turned the Indian business landscape into a racing ground. The massive surge in data size with increased usage of IoT devices, virtual communication platforms, digital payments, growing demand for OTT content, etc. has led to enterprises gradually shifting to edge computing which happens at close proximity of the customers, thus lowering latency by reducing data flow. Compared to edge, computing at the cloud or core is a more tedious and time-consuming process as the data has to travel back and forth from a central server, that affects the decision-making capabilities of any business.
TimesTech: Kindly share your point of view on the next generation data canter infrastructure management, and how it can leverage AI, cloud and edge technologies?
Anjani: We as a company are working towards integrating AI and ML as an integral part of our product ecosystem. Today, every device that goes inside the data center has to have some kind intelligent built into it. The challenge is that, sometimes these interfaces do not support more than one kind of protocol, making it difficult to integrate with any third-party platform or infrastructure.
However, at Raritan we have developed intelligent PDU/controllers that could talk to different types of sensors, thereby, simplifying integration. This has many advantages in terms of communicating with interactive interfaces or gathering information and making proactive decisions with the help of this infrastructure for providing information. That is what the industry is moving towards. With the openness of integrating with third-party infrastructure, which every vendor is working towards, we will see more and more interfaces and various tools and applications that will emerge over time.
TimesTech: How equipped is India’s data center infrastructure market to implement 5G technology?
Anjani: India’s data center industry is expected to double in capacity in the next coming years, especially with the rollout of 5G technology. Demand for data centers has been growing due to increasing digital usage emerging from distributed workforce, growing data security concerns and business disruptions. The digital delivery of entertainment, healthcare, education also as goods and services is on the rise. Besides, the pandemic has had an enormous impact on remote and hybrid work setup, demanding more investments to be put in cloud-based services and mobile technologies. This will significantly increase the demand within the country for data centres, specifically the foremost advanced tier-3 and tier-4 infrastructures which might benefit the Indian market tremendously within the near future.
TimesTech: What are the opportunities for the industry in terms of the government setting up data center parks?
Anjani: This is indeed a welcome move as it will give an impetus to rapid expansion for the business, especially since everything in India is moving towards digitization and cloud. India today is a start-up hub and the need for data centres is only expected to go up. The data centre space seeing increasing traction everyday with new players coming in, including real estate players. New entrants as well as existing players will find that getting funding from government is going to be easier and faster which will aid overall industry growth.
Additionally, as a result of the impact of the pandemic, India’s technology comprehensiveness has taken a ten year leap. Indian government has plans to establish data centre parks in various cities. Businesses are more committed to developing infrastructure to reach their target audience better, which is where data centre parks come in. These are beneficial in gaining access to a large audience and providing superior services, whether in the healthcare, retail or financial services industries.
With the setting up of data center parks, it will also create more job opportunities. Companies like Amazon, Google and other global giants are already setting up huge data centers and we are seeing better streamlined operations.
