Adoption Of Remote Security Services Gaining Momentum

In an insightful interview with Biztech2.0, Sharad Sanghi, MD and CEO, Netmagic, talks about the company’s plans in the information security space and its future growth strategies.

What are Netmagic’s plans for the information security space?

One of the core new services that we are launching is Infrasecure, which has firewall log analysis. We are already offering some security services through our data centres such as managed firewalls and managed intrusion prevention, which offer comprehensive network attack management. We have also partnered with other companies to offer ethical hacking and penetration testing services. We are planning a significant amount of investment in the information security space.

What trends do you see in the information security space?

The most important and noticeable trend is the acceptance of remote security services. Earlier, a lot of customers were not aware of what a security incident could cost them but now with security attacks becoming frequent and widely publicised, people are becoming proactive about security. Today, sensitive government information is also prone to cyber terrorists’ attacks due to which these attacks have come into the public domain. An immediate result of this has been an increased realisation among customers about the impact of a security incident.

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What are Netmagic’s expansion plans?

We plan to expand geographically and not concentrate only on specific verticals. We are looking at the SME segment and are also planning to opt for a channel strategy to reach out to them. So far, a major vertical that we haven’t offered our services to is the government, which is a large IT spender. We plan to partner with companies that are already working closely with the government to provide services to them.

What trends do you see in the service providers’ space?

Service providers are looking at offering different modes of access. For instance, wireless access is set to become big with spectrum auction slated to happen shortly. An increasing number of large service providers are looking at widening their reach through wireless connectivity. We are also seeing a trend towards offering triple play services, which has voice, data and video in the same pipeline. As a service provider, a trend that we will follow is providing more managed services to our customers.

What is your strategy to reach out to B and C class cities?

We are planning to reach out to B and C class cities predominantly through channel partners. We have divided the country into three regions- North & East, West and South. We have channel managers for each of these regions.

What growth opportunities do you see in these cities?

If you look at Internet growth statistics, the maximum growth is happening in B and C class cities. The rate of growth in larger cities is not as high as that in B and C class cities. Some of these cities have low cost and abundant power available, which is an added advantage.

What is Netmagic’s green IT strategy?

All the investment we are making in data centres is towards making them more energy efficient, whether it be the layout, the kind of buildings that house the data centres, server technology, UPS systems or the air conditioning system, our intent is energy efficiency. Green IT promotes environmental preservation and business profitability.

Can you please highlight some trends in server design?

Today, we see more customers using blade servers as opposed to stand-alone servers. Servers now have more CPU power, more memory and IO packed in a smaller footprint. We also see a trend towards virtual servers and server consolidation. Traditionally, customers may have had multiple stand-alone servers, which they are now consolidating into a few blade or other servers. Companies are also consolidating storage spread across various servers into a single storage data network.

What are Netmagic’s key investment areas?

The data centre business is capital intensive so most of the funds that we raise will go towards building more data centres. On the other hand, RIMM is not so capital intensive. Thus, 80 percent of our investment this year will go towards building data centres while the remaining 20 percent will be directed towards value-added services like RIMM and the like.