RIM Benefit Number 3: Responsiveness

December 1st, 2011 No Comments

Hi, welcome to my next edition of Remote Infrastructure Management blog. In this edition of the blog we will discuss how outsourcing your managed services can result in increased responsiveness and improved efficiency.

Over the time, IT infrastructure has grown too complex to compete with the dynamism of today’s business. An organization spends an average of 70% of its IT investment on infrastructure leaving little space for innovation (Source: VMware). With users demanding faster response and management lower IT costs, your IT infrastructure no doubt needs a better strategy.

Outsourcing IT infrastructure can help you enhance its responsiveness.  IT responsiveness and agility can add an extra edge to your business.

Outsourcing IT infrastructure enhances responsiveness

With the growth of new technologies, processes, RIM is becoming an effective tool for the CIOs to arbitrage labor without compromising the quality of the service, security and network performance.  RIM services are poised for strong growth as companies are looking to leverage a global delivery model to support their business needs.  RIM, in fact, enhances the responsiveness and efficiency of your IT management. When you outsource, your infrastructure responds better and faster.

Following are the few factors responsible for the enhanced responsiveness of your IT infrastructure:

  • 24x7x365 monitoring: Because of proactive monitoring and mature support processes problems are identified, reported and resolved faster. As a result, your infrastructure becomes more efficient as issues which may affect the stability are identified early and remediated before they become a detriment to its efficiency.
  • Enhanced SLAs: Developing the right SLA is important for you and your service provider. Outsourcing your managed services provide better visibility and management of your SLAs that increases the security, stability and availability of your IT infrastructure. Moreover, your service provider is accountable for any downtime. SLAs play a significant role in increasing the responsiveness of your IT infrastructure.
  • Focus on core business: Outsourcing managed services enables your staff to concentrate more on their core business rather than spending time on IT infrastructural needs. This improved operational efficiency increases your business growth.
  • Reduced TCO: With a regular and predictable service charge that covers all the preventive and proactive maintenance of your IT infrastructure, RIM outsourcing can bring down the cost of your IT management services significantly. It also decreases the cost and challenges of managing your own IT environments.

Why choose GSS Infotech?

Outsourcing your IT management services to a trusted partner like, GSS Infotech will not will increase its quality and security but you can also expect your IT infrastructure to respond faster. Increased responsiveness is another important attribute of RIM outsourcing. GSS Infotech’s remote infrastructure management services can add value to your services in some of the following ways:

  • Improves infrastructure availability 24x7x365
  • Proactive monitoring and management solution for server, storage, network and middleware
  • Enables you to focus on your core business and leave IT management to certified and experienced professionals
  • Lowers operational costs
  • Access to the right combination of specialized remote competency centers and on-site capabilities

With the advancement in processes and tools and the maturity of the delivery model for IT Infrastructure Management Services, RIM today has become a strategy for the CIOs across the globe keen to take advantage of labor arbitrage without compromising the quality and responsiveness of the service.

In the next edition of this blog series I will discuss how you can increase the satisfaction of your customers by outsourcing your managed service. In the meantime, you can read my last blog post on 10 Reasons to outsource your IT Infrastructure Management

Ranga

 

Rangababu Thota
Practice Head: Remote Infrastructure Management
Reach me at:
Rangababu.thota@gssinfotech.com
USA: + 1 312-428-3331
APAC: +91 40 44552006

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RIM Benefit number 2: Impenetrable Security

November 15th, 2011 No Comments

Hi, I am back again with my next post on Remote Infrastructure Management. As promised, today’s post will discuss security practices and its importance in IT infrastructure management outsourcing.

IT infrastructure is at the heart of your enterprise and you will never want a breach. A premium security practice is a prerequisite for any organization considering IT outsourcing. When entrusting all or part of your infrastructure management to a third party you need to have the confidence in your IT partner that their security practice is robust, secure and constantly monitored, after all any breach in their security system can prove fatal for your business.

A Breach in security can cost you dearly

Any breach in security can cost you dearly. It mars your public reputation, loses customer confidence and the actual financial loss is staggering. McAfee recently conducted MSI international survey among 900 companies and reported that an average midsize company has lost $43,000 in 2008 because of security breach. Outsource your IT infrastructure to give away a headache!  The right IT partner can secure your infrastructure outsourcing in addition to significant cost reduction.

A balance between security and usability

Organizations generally have a stance on security and typically it comes down to a tradeoff between security and usability. It’s a balancing act on a see-saw – the farther you go towards the security side of the see-saw the less usability you get.

For example, organizations could lock down all USB flash ports to restrict sharing of sensitive information by employees.  Use of unprotected USB flash drives is a threat to the security to an organization because users can either accidentally lose the device or purposefully give the information to an unauthorized person.

Another common security practice is the firewall rules. The “most” secure way of approaching the configuration of a firewall would be to block everything and then allow what you know is required. Of course, this isn’t practical in almost every use case.

The result would be a deluge of calls to the helpdesk with users complaining that they can’t access something. To avoid these calls organizations often configure the firewall to allow all traffic and then restrict what they know should be restricted.

But do they really know what should be restricted?   

So, the question is where and how should you apply security?

Security applies to every device in your environment, the physical security and security policy. There are many things to consider in the security world and understanding the characteristics and objectives of the organization is key to making appropriate security recommendations. Does “Best Practice” apply to every organization? NO!

Your managed service provider needs to be asking you questions to understand where your organization sits on the security see-saw. If they don’t, then the security measures and management that your Managed Service Provider puts in place could be misaligned and can cause your organization more harm than good. When you are talking security it needs to be right, the risks are too great…

Some of the things (depending upon the level of service) a Managed Service Provider should give your business from a security standpoint include:

  1. Vulnerability Assessment Services
  2. Security Review and Recommendations (at a Business Level with IT detail to back it up)
  3. Managed Firewall Services
  4. Regular Configuration Reviews
  5. Regular patches on all your devices
  6. Regular firmware and other devices updates
  7. AV/Spyware/SPAM

If you’re not getting the type of service you need look elsewhere, and if you are looking for an IT partner to help you manage your environment make sure you are getting the services and recommendations that are right for your organization.

A few security measures

In addition you should consider certain security measures while deciding on outsourcing:

Compliance Issue: Regulatory compliance mandates change rapidly so make sure you look for ISO certifications in your service providers.

Security and disaster recovery plan: You should also ensure that your service provider has a proper security and disaster recovery plan. Lack of security and disaster recovery plan causes serious security breach and can also result in service discontinuity.

Cultural and communication issues: It is also necessary that you understand the work culture of your service provider’s geographies. If you are working with a partner in a different time zone then at times communication becomes a challenge. Typically your IT partner should be working around the clock to make sure you systems are up.

GSS Infotech’s approach to Secure Infrastructure Management

At GSS Infotech, we follow a stringent security practice that includes:

  • Security policies, procedures, and Compliance (PP)

We have a set of documented security policies that are periodically reviewed, updated and enforced. Our client can review these policies and provide specific security policies as a part of the RFP. Moreover, our services are ISO complaint to ensure optimum quality and security.   We have regular internal audits and yearly external certification/surveillance audit by TUV to conform to ISMS standards.

Our service has the following ISO certifications:

  1. ISO 27001: 2005 (formerly known as ISO 17799:2005) specifies the practice of Information Security Management
  2. ISO 20000 – 1: 2005 specifies the requirements of a service provider to deliver managed services
  3. ISO 9001: 2008 specifies requirements for a quality management system in an organization
  • Contingency planning: security and disaster recovery (DR)

We have an effective business continuity and disaster recovery plan that is periodically reviewed, tested and implemented.  We also have a regular schedule of backups for both software and data to avoid loss of valuable time during any emergency.

  • Physical security (PS)

At GSS Infotech, we control physical access to information, and IT services. Staff goes through layers of security check and biometric scanning before accessing any information. Moreover, we implement firewalls, anti-virus protection and encryption methodologies to secure clients’ information.

  • Seven Safe harbor Principles

GSS Infotech follows Seven Safe Harbor Principles to maintain integrity, privacy of clients’ information and prevent the risk of accidental disclosure or loss of any information.

In the coming weeks, I will further explore the benefits of RIM outsourcing. I will explore all the 10 benefits of RIM outsourcing  to show outsourcing managed services does not only mean cost savings but also better efficiency, responsiveness and reliability.

If you have any questions on best practice security options for your organizations please get in touch or comment on this blog.

Ranga

Rangababu Thota
Practice Head: Remote Infrastructure Management
Reach me at:
Rangababu.thota@gssinfotech.com
USA: + 1 312-428-3331
APAC:  +91 40 44552006

 

 

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Press Release: GSS Infotech achieves Symantec End Point Management Master Specialization

November 10th, 2011 No Comments

GSS Infotech Recognized by Symantec for Expertise in End Point Management

GSS Infotech announced today that it has achieved Symantec Master Specialization in the area of End Point Management. Symantec Master Specialization recognizes partners with a proven expertise in a particular area of business and empowers them with the IT skills and experience required to deliver differentiated services to customers.

“By achieving this Master Specialization, GSS Infotech has demonstrated an investment and expertise in Symantec End Point Management.” said Siva Kumar Nuti, GSS Infotech COO. He continued, “Symantec Master Specialization enables GSS Infotech to build upon our already comprehensive solution set in this area of our business, and complements our existing capabilities for End User Computing services.

“The Symantec End Point Management Master Specializations recognizes GSS Infotech’s ability to deliver advanced consulting, technical expertise and service to their customers,” said Randy Cochran, Vice President, North America Channel Sales Americas, Symantec Corp.  “Master Specialist partners have demonstrated deep investment in Symantec and an expertise in delivering advanced services and solutions to protect customers’ most critical information.”

Mike Dunham, VP of Infrastructure Solutions commented, “This achievement is a real feather in the GSS Infotech cap, and reinforces our commitment and belief in the Symantec product set.” He went on to say, “We will continue to offer solutions, consulting and training services around the Symantec / Altiris product portfolio and continue to develop our already formidable Symantec expertise.”

For more information contact:

Mike Dunham
GSS Infotech
Phone: +1 651 604 5742
E-mail: mike.dunham@gssinfotech.com
or visit us at http://www.gssinfotech.com

 

About GSS Infotech:

GSS Infotech is a pioneer in providing enterprise level service delivery to a global market.  Founded in 1999, GSS operates worldwide through offices in the U.S., India, Singapore, and the Middle East. GSS Infotech provides business transformation services, cloud enablement services and innovative approaches to IT service delivery in the enterprise. To learn more visit, http://www.gssinfotech.com

About Symantec

Symantec is a global leader in providing security; storage and systems management solutions to help consumers and organizations secure and manage their information-driven world.  Symantec software and services protect against more risks at more points, more completely and efficiently, enabling confidence wherever information is used or stored.  More information is available at www.symantec.com

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RIM Benefit number 1: Optimized Quality

October 5th, 2011 No Comments

Hi!!! Welcome back to my next post on Remote Infrastructure Management. Today in this blog we will discuss how RIM adds value to your business by improving the quality of your IT infrastructure and processes.

Complex IT infrastructure requires specialized expertise. To remain competitive, you have to improve your operational efficiency and become more flexible to quickly adapt, grow and change. But with the limited budget to retain skilled IT specialists, it is difficult to manage complex IT infrastructure to support mission critical projects.

Outsource your IT infrastructure! RIM can value add to your business in more than one way: it enhances the quality of your IT infrastructure and also provides skilled IT specialists for your business.

Getting access to skilled IT professionals is difficult

The success of an IT organization depends on the efficiency and productivity of its IT staff. So, it is necessary that your IT professionals are trained in the most recent technologies to provide optimized performance and quality. But accessing such a group of skilled IT engineers is difficult. Moreover, it is expensive to retain them.

It is also equally important to train your IT professionals on a regular schedule to update their skills and enhance their performance. Training is crucial for any IT professionals and is also quite expensive. HR magazine estimates that companies spend an average of $1,500 per IT staff per year for updating skills.

Outsource your managed services to give away a headache. Best service at a reduced cost is what you get by outsourcing. Also, you don’t have to bother about training the IT professionals.

Outsource your IT infrastructure for better service delivery

When you outsource your IT infrastructure, it is at the care of a team of skilled certified IT professionals.  They monitor, manage and support your IT infrastructure 24x7x365.

Now you do not need to spend time for your IT infrastructure. Leave it to the experts and concentrate on what you do the best- your core business.

Outsourcing your managed services also helps you to achieve your SLAs better. Internally you might not achieve your all your IT infrastructure SLAs all the time. But when you are outsourcing your managed services, achieving SLA is an important factor for your managed service provider.

Choose the right outsourcing partner

When choosing a partner to outsource make sure they are dedicated, and have mature frameworks and processes developed. The success of your outsourcing is largely dependent on your business partner. A right outsourcing partner is an asset for your business. A trusted partner like GSS Infotech optimizes, manages and maintains your IT infrastructure so you can direct all your energies to attain your desired business goal.

Quality is the hallmark of all the services we provide. Our certifications are a testimony to our continuous strives to provide quality services to our clients. GSS Infotech (then known as GSS America) got its first ISO certification in 2007. In the subsequent years our processes achieved ITSM and ISMS certification: ISO 9001, 20000 and 27001.

Following is a brief overview of our quality journey:

  • In 2006, GSS Infotech started its own Process Performance Improvement (PPI) and Assessment program, known as QPledge™
  • In 2007 GSS Infotech attained ISO 9001
  • In that same year, we achieved CMMI Level 3
  • Since 2007, GSS Infotech started following ITIL (IT Infrastructure Library) version 3, the latest best practices publication of  IT Services Management
  • In 2008, we achieved ISO 27001
  • In 2010,we achieved ISO 20000

In March 2011 GSS Infotech achieved the highest standard of Capability Maturity Model Integration: CMMI Level 5. CMMI is a process improvement approach that provides organizations the essential elements of effective processes, which also improves their performance.

Why choose GSS Infotech?

  • Regular external audits to satisfy our service delivery excellence
  • Resource capacity, Availability and Security Management
  • Proven Process Performance Metrics measured against baselines

In the coming weeks, I will further work on the different benefits of Remote Infrastructure Management.  If you wish to get the most of your existing IT infrastructure outsourcing, is a compelling option. In my coming blogs I will further elaborate on how outsourcing assures better security, responsiveness, efficiency and cost reduction.

Keep watching this space for my next post. In case if you have missed my last post you can check it here:

http://blog.gssinfotech.com/2011/08/05/10-reasons-to-outsource-your-it-infrastructure-management/

 

Ranga

 

Rangababu Thota
Practice Head: Remote Infrastructure Management
Reach me at:
rangababu.thota@gssinfotech.com
USA: + 1 312-428-3331
APAC:  +91 40 44552006

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10 Reasons to Outsource your IT Infrastructure Management

August 5th, 2011 No Comments


Hi I am Rangababu Thota, Head of Remote Infrastructure Management at GSS Infotech. As part of my role I speak to many organizations looking to find efficiencies in the way they support and manage their IT infrastructures.

All of them are looking to save money and deliver the same (and usually better) service levels to their customers, whether they are internal or external. This blog series will cover some of the benefits of outsourcing the infrastructure to a trusted partner like GSS Infotech and over the coming weeks will touch on benefits and identify methodologies that can help smooth the transition.

So, let’s begin:

Organizations always find it difficult to decide on their outsourcing strategy. The main reason is that companies often struggle to understand what services that could and should be outsourced.

There are certain things that are crucial for your business success and yet not part of your core business functions. IT infrastructure management is a prime candidate. It’s a service that your business needs like a utility but not one you need to produce yourself.

The analogy I often call on is of electricity. You consume electricity but you don’t generate it. It’s cheaper and more efficient to have the service provided by a trusted supplier.

Managed Services: It’s not all about saving money

There is a misconception that outsourcing IT is all about how much money you can save, but outsourcing IT management has a raft of benefits which I have listed below (and will come to in future blogs.) Some of the reasons companies choose to outsource include

  • Challenges with centralization
  • Person dependent processes hampering productivity
  • Lack of cost control
  • Poor Internal service levels
  • Frequent system or service failure
  • Absence of reliable disaster recovery solutions

As a result, the global RIM industry has grown at more than 80% CAGR from $2 billion in 2006 to $6 billion to $7 billion in 2008. McKinsey & Company in one of its studies pegged the total market for RIM services between $96 -$104 billion, of which $26 billion to $28 billion is likely to be realized by 2013.

The growth in the RIM market is followed by an expansion in its services. Remote infrastructure management is no longer restricted to offloading of routine jobs, like helpdesk management but includes a host of other services,

ECAR in one of its studies reported that 64% of organizations are faced with increased pressure to reduce IT cost. I would argue that in reality it’s probably closer to 100%

Gartner estimates “70% of IT support for infrastructure services can be performed from a remote location …. and can reduce labor costs by 10% to 50%.”

Outsourced IT Management is not just for enterprise

Larger organizations often face the challenge of managing IT resources spread over distributed networks. The need for RIM outsourcing is especially high among these organizations, though small and medium sized businesses also opt for better efficiency, management, and cost reduction.

Large organizations outsource IT management for the following benefits:

  • Transaction based pricing model for better support and maintenance
  • More cost savings through Pay-as-you-go models
  • More options to choose from catalog based pricing models
  • Unit of Work (UoW) based pricing models for immediate cost benefit of up to 15% reduction in OPEX
  • Managed Application operations model for better monitoring and maintenance
  • Optimized workplace productivity through cloud

Does RIM have the same benefits for Small and Medium Enterprise as it does for a large enterprise?

If you think RIM is relevant only for larger enterprises, then think again. It is equally significant for small and medium businesses.  In fact, it is relevant for businesses operating with strict financial margins.

Benefits for Medium Sized Business:

So, how does a medium enterprise benefit from RIM?

  • Infrastructure Consolidation: Medium-sized businesses use RIM to consolidate application infrastructure and also leverage virtualization.
  • Enterprise Architecture Consolidation: RIM helps the CIOs to assess the application platform and build long and near term strategies to consolidate and guide organizations towards next generation architecture.
  • Standardize IT processes and operations: RIM helps the CIOs to bring in service management best practices, like Six Sigma and lean principles to streamline maintenance and support processes. An organization can save 5%-10% of its IT operational cost by implementing these standards.

Benefits for Small Business:

  • Better Costs Visibility:  Managed Services gives customers fixed monthly costs and a steady state pricing. This ensures significant cost reduction and doesn’t give you any unplanned financial surprises.
  • Skills and Competencies: Outsourcing provides access to IT expertise across a range of technologies that small companies (and even larger organizations) simply cannot invest in.
  • Service and speed: If you have had downtime for more than a few minutes you are losing money. Utilizing the support processes of a larger organization means you get less downtime because your IT is being managed proactively. Rather than the traditional Break Fix model where systems go down then are repaired, IT Infrastructure is managed and monitored, to provide early indicators of potential issues before they affect your business.

In the coming weeks, I will further examine the role of RIM outsourcing. I will draw upon the advantages mentioned in the list above and provide real world examples to demonstrate why outsourcing IT is a “No-Brainer” for many organizations.

I’ll be covering:

  1. Optimized quality
  2. Better security practices
  3. Responsiveness
  4. Better Work Efficiency
  5. Improved customer satisfaction
  6. More accountability
  7. Greater reliability
  8. Risk reduction
  9. Cost reduction
  10. Best Practices

Watch this space for the next installment. Please reach out to me if you have any questions on anything of the topics covered in this blog.

 

 

 

Rangababu Thota – Head, Remote Infrastructure Management
Reach me at:
rangababu.thota@gssinfotech.com
USA: + 1312-428-3331
APAC:  +9140 44552006


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GSS delivers Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP) System and world-class Data Centre

June 14th, 2011 No Comments

Hyderabad, India (June 2, 2011), saw the inauguration of the much-awaited National Electronic Government Procurement (e-GP)System by the Honorable Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina, in the presence of Planning Minister Mr. AK Khandker, Science and Information & Communication Technology Minister Mr. Yeafesh Osman, World Bank Country Director (Dhaka Office) Ms. Allen Goldstein, IMED Secretary Mr. Md. Habib Ullah Majumder, and Director General of Central Procurement Technical Unit (CPTU) Mr. Amulya Kumar Debnath.

Funded by World Bank, the e-GP System is an online platform to carry out procurement activities by the public agencies in Bangladesh, Procuring Agencies (PAs) and Procuring Entities (PEs), and Bidder and the Tenderer community will also participate online. The purpose of e-GP is twofold; to ensure smooth, transparent, secure and hassle free public procurement processes and also to manage the complete contract life cycle after the contract is awarded. The e-GP System will provide transparency and accountability in public procurement. The e-Tendering is part of Phase 1 of e-GP and it is live now. Contract Management System will be implemented in Phase 2 of e-GP and it is in development.

As a Lead Partner of the consortium and System Integrator, GSS was responsible for the overall e-GP System Program Management and management of, and coordination between vendors, partners, sub-contractors and all stakeholders.

The e-GP Software, designed, developed and implemented by GSS, is a one stop web portal for all e-procurement activities related to public money. The PAs and PEs will be required to use a dedicated secure web based dashboard for this purpose. Also many nationalized Banks have registered with e-GP to provide payment facility. Bidder and Tenderer can register in the portal and participate in the-Tendering process. The e-GP System provides a portfolio of tools to all users to make e-Tendering easy.

GSS designed, developed implemented and commissioned the e-GP Data Centre, end-to-end process and management capabilities. This work included civil works, electrical works, procurement of hardware and software, configuration, testing, handover.

To start with, the e-tendering will be introduced in four target agencies under the Public Procurement Reform Project -2 (PPR-II), a mission supported by World Bank. These target agencies are Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), Roads and Highways Department (RHD), Bangladesh Water Development Board (BWDB) and Rural Electrification Board (REB).

“GSS is proud to be part to be part of this historic moment.” Said Mr.Bhargav Marepally, CEO, GSS Infotech”. He added that the e-GP system will benefit public procurement and also help us to expand further in the Asia Pacific region, which has a strong potential.

Ramesh Yerramsetti, the Managing Director of GSS Infotech, who was present at the e-GP inauguration in Dhaka, said, “It gives me immense pleasure today to announce that GSS has brought about a revolutionary change in e- procurement process.”

While launching the new web portal in presence of huge audience at Bangabandhu International Conference Centre (BICC) in Dhaka, Honorable Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina said “Around 75% money of the annual development program is used for public procurement. The government is accountable to the people for ensuring standard of the procured goods and service and usage of the public money. Tender manipulation in public procurement would come to an end with the launching of the e-GP. The opening of e-GP is another addition to our march towards building digital Bangladesh”.

To know more, please visit us at www.gssinfotech.com

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Sandy Cohn nominated by Excelsior College as a key Partner in Lifelong Learning

May 17th, 2011 No Comments

GSS is proud to announce that Sandy Cohn has been nominated by Excelsior College as one of their key Partners in Lifelong Learning  Scholarship Event. As a part of its celebrations for the 40th anniversary Excelsior College decided to honor 20 Capital Region leaders who have significant contribution to Excelsior College  in terms of professional talent, personal commitment, or financial support that have helped the institution grow from its roots in 1971 into a 21st century role-model for non-profit distance education for students worldwide. Sanford A. Cohn, better known as Sandy Cohn, Senior Vice President, Technology Solutions, GSS Infotech and an Excelsior alumnus, was selected as one of the honoraries of 2011.

Sandy Cohn has more than 40 years in the IT industry. He started his career working with mainframe and minicomputer operations and programming in companies like IBM, DEC, and Prime Computer. In the early 80s, Cohn started his first company that centered on the integration of distributed systems primarily around Novell’s architecture. Cohn started his second company in nineties around Microsoft’s new server OS and Citrix’s Thin Client Computing. In 2000, he joined Atec Group as the manager of professional services, and has played a pivotal role in propelling Atec Group to one of the top regional integration players in the rapidly growing virtualization market, with partners like VMware and NetApp.

Today, working as the Senior Vice President, Technology Solutions, GSS Infotech, Cohn is the key decision maker in sales, and service delivery of Infrastructure Technology Solutions (ITS) division in US. With his commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused efforts he aspires to make the organization a global IT player.

Sandy holds a degree in Electronics AAS from Community College of the Air Force and holds a BS degree in Math and Computer Science from State University of New York. He has pursued his Masters in Computer Science from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Sandy’s relationship with Excelsior began when he earned a bachelor’s degree from Excelsior in 1980. He has proven to be an outstanding partner as Excelsior has worked with Atec Group and now with GSS Infotech.

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A Proactive Automated Approach to Remote Infrastructure Management Services

April 7th, 2011 No Comments

The case for Remote Infrastructure Management Services (RIMS) for Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) has been made many times over. Put simply, the outsourcing of the management of IT infrastructure (Servers, Desktops, and Network and Storage devices) to a specialist third party who accesses the systems remotely has several benefits. An intelligent approach to RIMS could save you up to 40% of your IT operations costs, give you access to a diversified skilled resource pool, reduce the costs and efforts associated with recruiting and training people to handle these tasks and free up those resources to focus on your core business. Applying service delivery best practices from ITIL and tight measurement of the SLAs being delivered are the two key elements to deriving the maximum from RIMS.

Tool based IT infrastructure management is a growing trend that makes RIMS more proactive in its approach. Not only do these tools perform recurring tasks automatically, they provide for proactive identification of possible problems and resolve them before they occur. In the quest to create an effective RIMS framework the identification of these tools is the first step.

Some of the critical functions of proactive RIMS tools are outlined below. These should form part of your checklist while you evaluate your investment in RIMS.

  • Monitoring & Automated Ticketing Tools: Does the RIMS tool provide for monitoring of user defined parameters such as CPU load, disk space with the use of integrated dashboards? This is essential to a business where different IT users come with different requirements based on business needs. The monitoring system should also issue automated notifications (emails, SMS alerts) and generate automated tickets. Monitoring of performance across the system should also be enabled with the option of generating reports that provide actionable information.
  • Patch Management: Can the management of patches being deployed be made human interaction independent? So also the task of making antivirus updates. These greatly reduce the load on human resources and are a more efficient way of handling recurring tasks.
  • Remote Access, Control and Monitoring: Does the system allow remote access to the affected servers or desktops to enable support staff to directly trouble shoot and resolve the issues? The ability to support heterogeneous environments is a desirable feature as well.

In following blogs we will examine the role of ITIL in effective management of RIMS, drawing upon the basic requirement of aligning IT and business objectives.

To know more about how GSS assists in setting up proactive RIMS frameworks for your business click here www.gssinfotech.com

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Evolution of RIM

April 7th, 2011 No Comments

The Evolution of Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM) has not happened overnight. It is the result of years of thinking that transformed basic labor arbitrage into meaningful business solutions. Though the primary intention was to reduce cost, the benefits of RIM go far beyond than that. With rapid advancement in tools, processes and technologies (the advent of robust enterprise tools, ubiquitous broadband coverage and highly skilled technicians, etc), RIM offshoring is fast becoming an effective solution and strategy for CIOs wanting to better use of labor arbitrage, providing reliable IT services without compromising on service quality or network performance.

The primary customer pain points that made IT managers sit up and find RIM as a better alternative were:

  • Lack of centralization and person-dependent processes hampering productivity
  • Unclear or undefined pricing models
  • Lack of service level commitment
  • Frequent system or service failure
  • Absence of disaster recovery solutions

With RIM, they saw higher productivity, lower cost, and of course better resource utilization and process improvement. In addition, RIM offshoring also empowered them with technology, tool, and resource availability 24/7/365.

RIM has evolved from tools for device management to integrated offerings that are capable of supporting end-to-end IT services. This has led to a major paradigm shift in remote infrastructure management —hardware utilization, procurement, and financial capabilities to IT architecture flexibility and productivity.

RIM services provide a single window that caters to all IT infrastructure needs and aims at transforming the IT infrastructure of customers that not only ensure a well managed Infrastructure support services but also provide competitive advantage by delivering more value to the end user.

Remote Infrastructure Management Offerings
Remote Infrastructure Management offered by most companies includes:

  • Remote monitoring services
  • Administration
  • Reporting
  • Vendor co-ordination
  • Trend-based consulting
  • 24×7 infrastructure management

Remote Infrastructure Management and Cloud
Speaking on these lines, it is worth mentioning that RIM outsourcing and cloud can go a long way together. Considering that today’s businesses are waking up to the multifarious benefits of Cloud are have already started moving their applications (like email, ERP, and CRM suites) on to the cloud means good news for RIMS providers. Companies are now planning to manage and monitor private clouds long term and turn to RIM outsourcing as a solution.

For More Information Visit: www.gssinfotech.com

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GSS Infotech Achieves CMMI Level 5

April 5th, 2011 No Comments

GSS Infotech, a leading IT managed services provider with headquarters in Hyderabad, India today announced that it has been successfully assessed at the highest maturity Level 5 of the SEI CMMI-DEV model.

The appraisal was conducted by SITARA Technologies Pvt Ltd., in accordance with theStandard CMMI Appraisal Method for Process Improvement(SCAMPI)methodology and assessed the software development process within the Application Development & Maintenance, (AD&M) Unit, GSS America Infotech Ltd*, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, at the Maturity Level-5 (Optimizing Level) of CMMI-DEV v1.2.

On this accomplishment, Mr. Bhargav Marepally, GSS Infotech CEO, said that,“the high maturity journey of GSS has ensured alignment of business objectives and software processes with the CMMI-DEV v1.2 based process improvement model. The Level 5 achievement recognizes our abilities to delight customers as an elite partner and deliver significant business benefits.”

The MD of GSS Infotech, Mr. Ramesh Yerramsetti stated that,“The assessment at Level 5 is the assurance of our continued commitment to deliver cost effective, time-bound and high quality services to all our customers.”

Mr. Siva Kumar Nuti, GSS COO, said that the“CMMI Level 5 achievement is a true reflection of our focus on process optimization and innovation in service delivery.” He went on to say, “This is a key milestone in our quality journey and going forward, our endeavor is to sustain this momentum and drive continuous improvements.”

Commenting on this appraisal, Mr. Raghav Nandyal, the SEI Certified High Maturity Lead Appraiser, observed that, “the AD&M unit of GSS America Infotech* successfully demonstrated the required capability to operate at higher levels of software development maturity. This process capability, coupled with leadership team’s commitment and support for a clearly defined vision and mission supported by quantitative goals, sets this organizational unit apart from the many in the same category.”

GSS strongly believes and recognize processes and systems form the backbone of any people intensive IT services organization. GSS started its quality journey with the certifications of ISO 9001 and CMMI Level 3 in 2007. The business processes have been certified to ISO 9001: 2008, ITSM (ISO 20000: 2005) and ISMS (ISO 27001:2005) quality standards and now assessed at Maturity Level 5 of SEI CMMI-DEV v1.2.

*At the time of appraisal, GSS Infotech was known as GSS America Infotech Ltd.

About GSS Infotech:

Founded in 1999 GSS Infotech is a pioneer in applying innovative, technology-based solutions to common business problems. GSS helps organizations leverage the power of virtualization, cloud computing and outsourced models of technology services delivery. Utilizing these technologies, we help organizations gain competitive advantage, reduce costs, ensure system stability, and improve efficiency.

Learn more at: http://www.gssinfotech.com

About CMMI:

Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) is a process improvement approach that helps organizations improve their performance. CMMI can be used to guide process improvement across a project, a division, or an entire organization. CMMI was developed by experts from industry, government, and the Software Engineering Institute (SEI) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), USA. CMMI models provide guidance for developing or improving processes that meet the business goals of an organization. A CMMI model may also be used as a framework for appraising the process maturity of the organization.

About SITARA:

SITARA Technologies is a professional services company with core competencies in strategic management consulting, and high maturity process assessments using the Software CMM, People CMM, and the CMMI. SITARA Technologies, Inc., in the USA, is a dedicated research and development center conducting pioneering research in Software Strategies, Competency Management, Software Metrics, Process Automation, and building self-sustaining process improvement programs. SITARA’s proprietary work products and professional services have been rendered in world-class companies such as Affiliated Computer Services, LG-EDS Systems, Inc (South Korea), Motorola (India, Malaysia), Satyam Computer Services Ltd., Network Solutions Ltd. (India), and Visteon Software Operations (India), to name a few. SITARA specializes in high maturity process appraisals. SITARA provides SEI authorized Introduction to CMMI.

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