By Praveen Nair, General Manager for DCD,
Mumbai, India
In November 2016, the
Government of India announced it would demonetize the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000
banknotes of the Mahatma Gandhi Series. The bold move of swiftly taking the
notes out of circulation set off a chain reaction of events that led to a
period of uncertainty and chaos throughout the nation. Now that the dust has
settled and life has returned to normal in most cities, we examine how data
centers were central in ensuring that across the country, the average person
could still go about their lives with minimal disruption.
Fast growth in digital
Since demonetization,
government statistics say digital transactions have increased between 400 to
1000 percent with a huge growth in business from 52 Crores to 191 Crores. The
surge in data traffic has in turn increased investment in data centers, with
data center players increasing their data capabilities and capacities. The
Internet & Mobile Association of India has estimated India’s data center
business will touch US$4.5 Billion by 2018, which makes it the 2nd largest in
the Asia Pacific region.
At the recent DCD >
Focus On Hyderabad conference, Srinivas Muppaneni, CIO of Andhra Pradesh State
Cooperative Bank and Telangana State Cooperative Bank spoke about the
importance of data centers especially post demonetization. He asserted:
“Demonetization has forced many banks including ours to provide digital service
in villages. For instance, post demonetization many villages in Telangana state
have gone digital.”
The increase in
digitization of the processes led to huge demand of storage especially from the
BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), telecom, and IT/ITES sectors.
These sectors were unable to fulfill the sudden and huge demand of storage from
their existing infrastructure and hence they were looking at data center
providers. Muppaneni shared his bank’s experience. He said, “Being from the
BFSI sector, post demonetization, we were worried whether our existing infrastructure
would be able to handle the huge digital transactions or would our systems
crash?”
Storage demands
Today, industries are
looking at a place where massive amounts of data can be stored and utilized
with security and efficiency. Hence it is crucial for today’s data centers to
have the right storage, processing and security capabilities. But according to
Muppaneni, data centers in India are not yet ready to handle the huge data
traffic and there are very few data centers located in India. He asserted: “Data
centers in India are not yet ready to take up the increased data volumes and
being from a BFSI sector, due to security norms, we cannot host our data in the
data centers that do not have a physical presence in India. Hence localization
of huge data centers with all the required storage, processing and security
capabilities is vital.”
Demonetization had an
adverse effect on many businesses, but for data center players, business has
been good as there has been an increase in data traffic, usage of network
infrastructure and storage space. The data center players are realizing the
importance of the Indian market and they are trying to fulfill the demand of
Indian companies. However, demand is still outstripping supply.
Some experts in the industry have told us we
are currently at a stage whereby the need for more data centers in India is a
cause for concern. So what could be done? For starters, State Governments would
do well to emulate the Telangana State Government by coming out with a data center
policy which encourages more data centers to be set up by ensuring the entire
process is free from bureaucratic red tape, and also ensuring the availability
of power and connectivity. Existing data centers should be refurbished and
upgraded, data center practitioners educated and trained with a comprehensive
framework in mind and finally, data centers should be audited and certified as
to meeting key standards.
DCD>Webscale Bangalore 2017
To know more about the impact of demonetization and how data centers
are an integral part of the digital economy, join us on the July 19-20 at DCD>Webscale Bangalore at the
Sheraton The Grand, Bangalore.
This year we have a conference packed with international and
local experts discussing the latest trends and technologies, networking
opportunities and break-away sessions. To register for the conference or for
more information, please visit www.dcd-india.com
