Solution Champ 2014: Locuz Enterprise Solutions is the winner for Cloud Systems and Virtualization

We crown the stalwarts of this industry yet again in our prestigious solutions Champ issue. This includes 12 prominent technologies - Cloud Services and Virtualization, Data center optimization, Networking solutions and services, Enterprise Mobility, Enterprise Storage, Managed Security, Managed Print services, Structured Cabling, Unified Communications, Business Intellligence, Power Solutions, BI & Analytics. Also in a first-of-its-kind, we list listed the top 5 system integrators of cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Ahemedabad, Pune, Chennai, Kolkata and also 10 top SIs from across the country. Read these detailed analytical reports exclusively on DQ Channels.

Here are the top 5 solution providers of Cloud Systems and Virtualization:

Cloud Systems and Virtualization 

Locuz Enterprise Solutions

Vijay Wadhi, MD

Hyderabad based Locuz Enterprise Solutions stands as one of the biggest IT solution providers with its specialization in virtualization and Cloud infrastructure. Post the 3i Infotech diveshment of 26% stake in Locuz, the system integator has focused on market expansion and product innovations during 2014. The strategy turned beneficial for the company is terms of reach as well as growth. The company expanded it’s wings in the US market. It set up subsidiary in the US.

On the solution side, Locuz innovated ‘ClouTor’ by developing a hypervisor-agnostic Cloud Orchestration Platform on top of the Cloudstack API to manage cloud infrastructure for Enterprises. ClouTor provides automated self-service, dynamic workload management, secure multi-tenancy, metering and broad network virtualization support.

“Every business unit needed its own physical or virtual machines to meet their development needs. There was no track on systems usage and there was limited flexibility to add capacity on demand. ClouTor is helping them consolidate their workloads and dramatically helping improve utilization of IT”, says Vijay Wadhi, MD, Locuz Enterprise Solutions.

Significantly, all other cloud orchestration platforms that ClouTor competes with are from biggies such as Cisco, Oracle or VMware. The innovation won Locuz the most coveted ‘Innovation & Transformation’ Award at the Canalys Channel Forum event held at Shanghai in Nov’15.

The company witnessed 40 per cent growth during the year. Locuz aims to focus on business expansion plans in India as well as in the US market. At present Locuz has presence in 6 cities in India. It will more focus on Mumbai market in terms of reach during 2015.

Albion Infotel

Sanjeev Gupta, MD

This not only helped the company reduce costs and open itself to new markets, it also helped them significantly expand the base of SME clients across verticals like auto/logistics, IT/BPO, manufacturing and BFSI. The last two years had witnessed doubling up of cloud revenues, with 55,000+ international and 8,000 domestic users as customers for its cloud and managed services.Delhi-based Albion Infotel acknowledged the need to shift focus on cloud computing and managed services and accordingly started concentrating on enterprise customers in overseas markets in the US and UK as well as in India, using SaaS offerings like advanced antivirus (Albion Secure), computer management (Albion eComputect) and child protection (Kidsguard4U), besides commercial offerings like the Albion DataSafe cloud backup and DR solution.

Trident Information Systems

Anita Jain, CEO

Because the company built its cloud offerings around Microsoft’s Azure Platform, there was no need for upfront investment. But a major challenge was the fact that cloud-based ERP services did not have many takers but that changed with the maturity of cloud computing. Trident was also one of a handful of solution providers who ventured into Africa and focused on consulting-based projects globally.ealizing the need to shift its focus to cloud computing, Trident Information Systems of Delhi was quick to figure that buyers were no longer interested in traditional services and so it became one of the first cloud solution curators. This move also meant that the company needed to adopt a differential pricing strategy. Unlike traditional service, the cloud is a pay-per-use model and this thrilled Trident’s customers.

Futurenet Technologies

L Ashok, MD

In some of the major achievements, Futurenet helped Sterlite, a Vedanta Group Company to adopt next-gen client computing (VDI deployment). It also tied up with Oracle and successfully completed real time application clustering and disaster recovery using Oracle for a customer.Chennai based Futurenet Technologies is a leading cloud aggregator in Cloud Services & Virtualization domain. The company witnessed 10 per cent growth rate compared to last year. Futurenet Technologies underwent from new branding for its service offerings. It introduced new initiatives for its services business viz.TekOnRomte, TekOnSite, TekOnDemand & TekOnCloud.

In Virtualization, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDIs) and BYOD fetched great results to the company and helped it to march towards steady growth. Futurenet achieved 20 per cent growth rate during current financial year 2014-15. The company plans for geo-expansion and increase it’s foot print in the support services. The company will set up hands-on training lab for customer to taste the emerging technologies like cloud & virtualization next year.

Emicro Data Technologies

Sanjeev Khushu, CEO

Emicro Data Technologies was founded in 2009 at a time when Unified Storage and Virtualisation were emerging technologies. The domain was new to the industry and providers were few. Emicro identified the future potentials and market demand for the niche segments and designed its vision around it. At present Emicro holds a strong portfolio in Virtualization and Storage. Emicro has strong Virtualization Portfolio based on Citrix technologies. The company has strong skills on Server Virtualization based on Microsoft, VM Ware and Citrix products. It has been very successful in the Desktop Virtualization and Application Virtualization based on Citrix technologies.

Emicro’s strong focus on emerging technology areas like Flash, Software Defined Storage, Big Data, Cloud and Hybrid Cloud, Converged Systems gives it an edge over competitors. Also company’s focus on consulting and professional services gives it a place as a niche player and a big differentiator in the market.

Emicro has had a strong bottom line growth because of company’s focus on Virtualization and services in storage domains last fiscal. It has big growth and expansion plans lined up for FY 2015. The company expects bottom line will grow by 40% while as its top line will grow by 20-25% from the previous year. As part of expansion plan, Emicro recently setup branch in Pune and started alliances with HP, Microsoft and Cisco.

“We will grow overall in terms of operations, alliances, head count as well as revenue and bottom line. We have also put in a lot of focus on IBM flash technologies which we believe will give us a great edge in the coming times. We also focussed heavily on Services like Managed services and services around storage and desktop virtualization”, says Sanjiv Khushu, CEO and director.

Emicro will focus on making Security and Networking as a strong platform in the coming few years.