Sify Enterprise Solutions :: Extensity Newsletter

Pantaloon today is a leading manufacturer-retailer in the country with 13 Pantaloon stores, 9 Hypermarkets, 13 Food Bazaars and 2 Central operations across the country.

Incorporated in the year 1987, the retail major currently operates multiple format stores like Pantaloons - The Family Store, Big Bazaar, The Discount Hypermarket & Food Bazaar, Food & Grocery Super Market. The company recently launched Central -- India's first seamless mall chain, spread across 1.5 lakh square feet in Bangalore & in Hyderabad followed by Pune.

In line with its exponential growth plans, Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd., one of the country's major players in the retailing segment, entered into a major IT deployment drive by revamping its back-end operations.

Commenting on Pantaloon's connectivity requirement, Mr. Jitendra Sarode, IT Infrastructure Head said, "Pantaloon was looking for an IP based VPN solution to establish network connectivity between its central location at Mumbai (Jogeshwari) and the branch offices and stores located across India. The main application servers were to be located at Mumbai and the primary data interchange was for accessing the Oracle Financial Applications, Messaging, Video Conferencing, VOIP & Intranet.

Pantaloon was looking for a robust, redundant and secure network for connecting its remote locations to the central location for running its data applications".

The set-up before the VPN deployment consisted of Individual PSTN Dial-up connections at stores and branch offices and the Central Warehouse at Tarapore, connected through ISDN Dialup. Daily sales reports were sent to HO, via e-mail and were consolidated at HO. ORACLE Financials and in-house developed package Retail Enterprise Manager /MIS were the applications running on these lines.

After discussions with officials, four issues emerged in relation to the earlier connectivity:

Moreover, Pantaloon was in the process of rolling out its Oracle Financial application & was in need of a robust, scalable, cost effective and highly reliable Last Mile connectivity solution.

Pantaloon evaluated many options like Last Mile Leased Line and Wireless before zeroing in on the solution presented by Sify.

Says Mr. Jitendra Sarode, IT Infrastructure Head: "Our criteria for selecting a service provider was based on several criterias, (a) The service provider should have had experience in implementing the technology solution presented to us (b) Expertise in Last Mile solution (c) Robust Infrastructure (d) The right price-value proposition and (e) Service infrastructure.

Sify was chosen because they are one of the leaders in implementing Last Mile wireless solutions, a fail-safe infrastructure with extensive presence in the country"

Sify proposed an IP VPN solution on its countrywide backbone for connecting the branch offices of Pantaloon to the central location in Jogeshwari, Mumbai.

Sify recommended Pantaloon to go in for an IP VPN solution as this technology offers the best features and functions of the technologies, viz ATM /Frame Relay. The implementation was performed at the ISP's edge, thereby providing greater control and management while maintaining complete customer transparency, as in the case of ATM / Frame Relay.

Sify connected all branch offices to the central office location in Jogeshwari, Mumbai. All the critical servers of Pantaloon were to be located in Jogeshwari office and all the branch locations / stores were to access this server through tunnels created on a IP based VPN network of Sify.

The central office in Mumbai would connect to the nearest Sify NOC in Mumbai on a 2 Mbps Wireless Link. Sify provisioned 2 Mbps of VPN bandwidth in Mumbai, which was to be used by the branch offices for accessing the servers at Mumbai, with provision for a 512 kbps of ISDN backup to ensure high availability.

Sify has a fully meshed Tier 1 network and thus the data from all the offices of Pantaloon could access the central office through the IP tunnels created on the Sify backbone. Sify provided adequate VPN bandwidth ports at all these locations to access the central servers in Mumbai.

Sify also configured IP tunnels between the branch offices and the central location at Mumbai. All data traffic originating at each of these offices would travel through the IP tunnels to the central server location of Pantaloon.

Sify also provided Pantaloon with a web-based tool for monitoring the bandwidth utilisation on these links. Pantaloon could thus augment the bandwidth at the central location in case the link utilization reached the threshold limit.

a) Very quick implementation meant that several of the applications were up and running with minimum disruption b) Productivity and efficiency of the IT team was considerably enhanced by outsourcing the VPN network management to Sify. c) Additional value added services such as VOIP, Video conferencing can be implemented on the current network. Pantaloon is also looking forward to implementing the same soon, which would lead to a greater interactivity and communication within the organisation.

Organon (a part of the Akzo Nobel) - headquartered in Roseland, NJ, USA - creates and markets prescription medicines that improve the health and quality of human life. Organon products are sold in over 100 countries, of which more than 60 have an Organon subsidiary.

In India, OIL - Organon India Ltd (Now known as "Infar") is headquartered in Mumbai and has been in India for more than 35 years. It has 2 factories in and around Calcutta involved in making bulk drugs and pharmaceuticals. And a sales and distribution team spread across the country with regional offices in Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai. OIL has offices in Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi, Chennai and Hyderabad. Its datacenter is independently situated in Mumbai.

All business critical resources have been located in the Data Center. These include: * ERP application, which runs on IBM AS/400 mainframe platform. (All users located around the country log on to AS/400 to perform updating of data, orders and other ERP related operations using Citrix.) * Mailing solution * Internal workflow applications and DNS servers.

The OIL WAN (Wide Area Network) rides on the Sify Network to connect its offices across the country and the data center. The WAN is an IP based VPN with a judicious mix of leased lines and broadband as the last mile to each of OIL's offices. OIL has Internet connectivity in Calcutta & Mumbai. It has an IPLC between the Mumbai datacenter and its OSAKA (Japan) headquarters. The IPLC has been outsourced to provide access to specific applications and for users to interact with the Japan office.

Over the past few years, OIL has used IT as a means of increasing operational efficiencies and as a business driver. Therefore the company has invested substantially in the following:

IT infrastructure, Line building, Implementing ERP systems, e-mail and other workflow applications. As an increasing number of people were gaining access to business critical resources through the growing use of information technology, security became a real concern for the top management.

As a corporate that relies first and foremost on its expertise in R&D, information assurance was high on the priority list of the CTO. The challenge therefore, was to gain an edge over competition by providing higher levels of access to Business Critical Resources & the Internet to its employees across the organization, while maintaining an acceptable information assurance.

i) Assessment: As the first step a detailed information technology infrastructure review was performed by Sify consultants. This involved:

Vulnerability Assessment and analysis of the OIL infrastructure
Detailed study of OIL's internal policies
Processes and procedures pertaining mostly towards Information Technology
GAP Analysis for OIL was conducted to uncover the inadequacies of the current processes, procedures and practices in accordance to the BS7799 standard for information security. The scope for this study was the Information Technology functions of OIL. Many documents that formed the network study, security policies, technical procedures and process related documents were included in the scope for this study.

All the IT processes, both at the practical day-to-day implementation and policy/guideline levels of OIL were studied and analyzed. This included OIL's security policies, change control processes, configuration management, third party and internal supply and service level agreements and any other necessary relevant areas

ii) Information Resource Risk Assessment was the next step, where the respective threats and vulnerabilities were identified for the resources. The assessment was done using best of breed commercial as well as open source tools while the processes were assessed with BS 7799 as a reference.

iii) Security Architecture Design To mitigate these risks, detailed and in-depth security architecture design was recommended.

Supply & Deployments: Best of breed products were recommended to support the security architecture design proposed for OIL infrastructure. These products were in the later stage supplied to OIL. Once the OIL management approved recommendations, the technical security architecture was deployed. This included:

The above technical architecture was backed up by best practice policies as well as processes to ensure mitigation of risks discovered during the assess phase.

Several benefits accrued to OIL after recommendation of Sify Security architecture Design was implemented

Ability to open the network to the Internet, while ensuring that the network is secure, and the performance is not compromised
Increasing the productivity of the employees by ensuring that during official hours only the resources relevant to accomplishing their key result areas are made available
Better resource management (such as bandwidth) through prioritizing traffic
Real time monitoring of traffic accessing the business critical resources, thereby avoiding malicious activity by internal users while assuring higher levels of access to the critical resources
Increasing the efficiencies (with respect to time and effort saved) of the IT team by integrating a firewall log analyzer within the infrastructure

Whirlpool of India Limited (WOIL) was planning to shift its ERP and other application servers to their HQ at Michigan, US, from their present position at Delhi. Their existing set up was made up of connecting all WOIL locations (around 40 of them nationally) to Sify, locally (using different mediums of dedicated last mile connectivity, viz 2 Mbps LL, 64 Kbps LL, BB, RF - each with ISDN back ups) and accessing their Head Office (HO) in New Delhi, centrally. The HO was connected to SIFY NOC on 2 Mbps LL (primary) and BB (Secondary). Besides this, 40 PSTN dial up users also accessed their HO. Applications running at the HO included SAP, Mail main server and a couple of small applications. The HO also had 256 Kbps Internet access and their Pondicherry factory had 128 Kbps Internet access. Both these locations used a common last mile for Internet as well as VPN.

a) High availability for WOIL servers at USA primarily for accessing their SAP server (hosted in HQ, from their India Locations), Mail Server application, other Intranet applications and proposed VOIP or Video conferencing

b) Redundancy on Sify's proposed Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific gateways in the case of a STM-1 failure on either of the gateway links

International MPLS Bandwidth requirements were proposed at 3.0 Mbps. Currently WOIL's HO in Delhi is establishing IP Sec tunnel with their US office, using Sify's International bandwidth routed through the primary path of Trans Atlantic fiber gateway in Mumbai (Hot back-up being Trans-Pacific). The proposed solution is an overlay network for WOIL on Sify's IP backbone. Sify's network is MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) enabled and its partner-Beyond the Network Access (BtNA), a premium International service provider would be providing MPLS WAN services to WOIL in Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Sify proposed the Layer 3 MPLS enabled VPN from WOIL co-located and aggregated point in Mumbai to their International office in Michigan. The key benefit offered by MPLS WAN is that it imparts a strong security feature to the WOIL network. MPLS VPNs use a technique called route distinguishers to provide traffic separation between VPNs of different customers. These are assigned automatically when the VPN is provisioned, and are unique for a given customer.

Sify's strong value proposition for providing International MPLS connectivity services played a critical role in WOIL adopting its network. Sify's critical differentiators were:

A strong and robust domestic backbone in India for providing MPLS Layer 2 and Layer 3 VPN services for enterprises with full redundancies built at all levels, which included carrier diversity on the backbone as well as on the last mile
Redundant fiber bandwidth gateways for providing high availability MPLS VPNs to any international destination
Co-located Points of Presence in Hong Kong, London, New York, and Los Angeles while peering with premier service providers in these locations
Millions of man-hours of experience in building business critical networks for corporates in India
Wide acceptance
Sify's services are used by international service providers such as Cable & Wireless, MCI and ETT as their preferred partners in India. And most importantly the key benefit offered by the Sify MPLS WAN architecture was that it imparted a strong security feature for the WOIL International network, besides providing WOIL with a most cost effective solution.

Max HealthScribe (MH) is one of India's largest Business Process Outsourcing Companies focused on the healthcare sector. It employs over a thousand medical language specialists with committed in-house doctors, with a reputation of quality service and consistent delivery.

Based in Bangalore, MH's requirement was to connect its Bangalore office to its office in Virginia, USA for seamless data applications exchange.

Sify proposed its GlobalSiteConnectª MPLS-based VPN service to Max HealthScribe. Sify's network provides seamless connectivity, as its network is MPLS (Multi Protocol Label Switching) enabled. Additionally Sify partnered with an International service provider for the purpose of providing MPLS WAN services to Max HealthScribe in Virginia. Sify also provided the Layer 3 MPLS enabled VPN to connect the locations in India to their International office in Virginia.

The Max HealthScribe Office in Bangalore was provided connection to the Sify NOC in Bangalore on a 2 Mbps leased line. The location was provisioned with ISDN back up to ensure high availability. A robust, high capacity, fully meshed MPLS backbone ensured high uptime and bandwidth availability on the Sify backbone. This also provided uninterrupted bandwidth delivery to Max HealthScribe.

For connectivity from Sify's co-located POP to the customer office in Virginia, the Max HealthScribe traffic in the US was handed over to Sify's partner network in the US. Sify has peering relations with a number of International service providers in the US. Sify is also running an inter AS MPLS network between Sify MPLS backbone and partner MPLS backbone. The Max HealthScribe location in the US was connected to the Sify partner PoP in US over T1 leased circuits on the last mile.

Max HealthScribe had strong reasons to choose Sify MPLS solutions over IPLCs for its requirements. Sify MPLS solutions provided:

Dedicated virtual circuits through co-location facilities on the West Coast and on the East Coast in the US
"Any-to-any" meshed connection
Easy to scale even if the number of locations increase as this is an IP link
Last mile redundancy: Multiple redundancies can be built on the last mile using different access media such as Leased Line and ISDN
NOC level redundancy: In all major cities we have dual NOCs for the purpose of providing NOC level redundancy. This ensures higher bandwidth availability to the customer in India
Backbone redundancy: Robust bandwidth delivery mechanism on the Sify national backbone ensures that the availability of bandwidth is very high; we guarantee uptime of 99% on the backbone
Alternate oceanic routes: Oceanic path redundancy can be built up and automated in the case of an International MPLS WAN. This can be provided through our redundant Internet gateways, which are built on different oceanic routes and terminate at different co-location facilities in the US. This however is a paid service and is not available by default
Significant savings (approximately 20 %) as compared to IPLCs
Shorter service deployment lead time, local connection to the nearest POP site. The availability of Internet bandwidth at the India end is immediate

Coupled with stringent SLAs, Sify MPLS provided the most effective solution for Max HealthScribe Ltd.