Solution Champ: Enterprise Storage

Top 5 Players:
QUANTM
Futuresoft Solutions
iValue InfoSolutions
Ashtech Infotech
22 by 7 Solutions

 

Solution Champ: QUANTM

Gurgaon-based QuantM has been strong player in the storage solution segment. The system integrator has witnessed significant business due to an increase in demand for converged infrastructure and managed DR solutions.

QuantM believes data will continue to increase and this trend is not going to stop. As the problem is increasing day by day the solutions to stay ahead are also getting advanced. Storage technologies which will create their impact in 2014 are flash storage or SSD, software defined storage, unified storage, managed DR solutions and converged infrastructure as per the solution provider.

Going ahead in the coming fiscal, Flash, SDS and Managed DR solution will be the key focus areas, as the company now has set up its own data center which is first green and ANSI / TIA-942 Certified, Tier - III Data Center in North India, which is in Seismic Zone 2.

As per QuantM, there are many customers who are looking for DR, however, do not want to make capex investment, to cater this set of audience the company is now offering its customer solutions on opex model.
North and West regions in India have been the key areas for the system integrator wherein 80% overall revenue comes from North while the rest from the West.

Futuresoft Solutions

New Delhi-based Futuresoft Solutions has witnessed BFSI as its biggest contributor as well as has helped the company to expand in Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities. The company indicates that a lot had happened in the enterprise storage segment, however, two trends specifically stand out creating impact in 2013. One being SSD Drives wherein Solid State Drives were termed as the best storage media to be used as the primary storage within the Enterprise Storage scheme for the organisation. SSD offers 100,000-500,000 (PCle based flash) IOPS as compared to SAS drives offering just 250 IOPS and hence continues to be the craze in data centre environments. And secondly, Unified Storage wherein File -based and Block-based access coming out from a single platform was a hit straightaway. NAS + SAN services from a single Enterprise Storage box was not only economical but also complimented consolidation drive.

For the system integrator, North region has been the primary contributors with about 55% while the rest comes from west i.e 45% contribution. The company is yet to expand its footprints into East and South markets.

With regards to channel, the system integrator states, vendors across board need to focus on standard practices for support and pricing. Focus on GTM is clearly through channels but their continuous attitude to deal with similar requirements as an individual transaction becomes a larger issue to handle because customers have a good view on what their peers are doing and how much its costing them to establish a specific setup if oem's address this issue will help in shortening the sales cycle a great deal.

iValue InfoSolutions

Technology enabler, iValue InfoSolutions drives adoption of cutting edge technology solution and services through the entire life cycle stages for IT Security, Storage & Managed enterprise wireless space. The system integrator states that data is growing at a pace unlike never before. Machine data growth is the fastest growing at 100X followed by manmade data at 10X, slowest being structured data like ERP/CRM/SCM/HRMS at 2-3X.

To manage such growth rates and to draw intelligence from this vast pool of data requires different mindset, architecture and approach. Unified storage, Virtual storage platform and de-duplication of data at source and destination are some of the hot technologies in demand due to this trend. With most of the storage in virtual mode, protection of virtual instance is in demand. SSD deployments are gaining momentum due to the performance demands. Single instancing to manage data explosion is another compelling area.

The system integrator works with a mission to empower organizations effectively manage their "Digital Assets" which are critical business differentiators, for protecting and growing the business, iValue offers solutions and services that are aligned and optimized for customer business needs through its partnerships. For iValue, BFSI is the fastest growing vertical along with eGovernance projects due to Datacenter consolidation. Entertainment and media is a promising vertical due to high data volume and performance need. In addition, scientific and research due to real time data generation is another high spender on storage front.

Ashtech Infotech

Mumbai-based Ashtech Infotech, formed in the year 1993, is one of the leading IT infrastructure solution providers in India. The company has now strong focus in SMB segment and is now catering to customers across multiple verticals, which aided the growth of the system integrator in the recent past.

Ashtech employees about 250 employees and this team comprises of resources certified/ trained in Solaris Administration, Cisco, HP, IBM, Citrix, Windows Administration, Veritas, Oracle/ SQL Database. In addition to this, we encourage Customers to train our resources in inhouse application support so that we take on additional responsibility & make more time available for the customer to focus on their key focus areas. The company has alliance and partnership with some of the software companies such as Apple, Acer, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, IBM and Microsoft.HP, Oracle, IBM, VMware, EMC, HDS, NetApp, Cisco, Emerson, Schneider Electric, Cyberoam, Microsoft, Kaseya, Symantec, Ruckus Wireless.

Ashtech offers products that include computing platforms, storage solutions, network security and enterprise management solutions, and packaged software's. The services provided by the company are infrastructure management, system integration service, and technology consulting services. It also provides various computing solutions such as computing platforms, storage solutions, network security, backup infrastructure, business continuity, enterprise management solutions and packages solution.

22 by 7 Solutions

22by7 Solutions is one of the recognized players in the network security and storage solutions and software development domains in Bengaluru. Relatively a new entrant, the company has completed deployments in most of the top corporations and a couple of Defence organizations in its client list.

Besides Bengaluru, Hyderabad is also a key region wherein 22by7's significant contribution of about 45% for IT-ITeS, 25-30% from hospitality, while R&D adds to 15-20%, comes. The other key contributors include education segment.
The system integrator will increase its focus towards manufacturing and hospitality segment along with R&D segment in the coming times. Also, in the next fiscal, it wants to expand into Chennai region as well as Tier-2 cities.

22by7 provides IT solutions to Enterprises in Infosec and Storage domains. In addition, it also develops and deploys cost-efficient and tailor-made software tools which enable businesses to be managed effectively with high levels of productivity
The company offers information lifecycle and cloud solutions wherein it has tied up with EMC, Netapp and Symantec, for virtualization it has partnership with VMware and Citrix and for information security it has tie up with Fortinet, Juniper, and Symantec.

Other leading players
- Ablaze Infosys
- Computers Network & Telecom India
- VDA Infosolutions
- Unified Data Tech - Leon Computers