What would it take to reduce the power consumption and TCO
of traditional PCs' by 70 percent? Incorporating the same technological specs
of a normal PC, however, at half the price? The answer was given by Raj Kosuri,
Founder and CEO of EcomNets, in the form of the famous Verdio line of Green
PCs'. The Verdio green PC ushered in the next generation of energy efficient
computers. The product was not an overnight phenomenon, but a result of the
amalgamation of the expertise and experience of Raj and his team at EcomNets, a
veteran provider of enterprise integration in the cloud, business process
management and IT governance consulting company in innovating the best green
technologies for a better world. Today, Kosuri has taken EcomNets to the next
level of green technology engagement and cloud enablement by leveraging a new
Data and Technology Innovation Center that spans over 27,000 sq ft of energy
efficient storage space in Danville, Virginia. Understanding the dire need for
companies to sustain their businesses through energy effective products,
EcomNets strives towards providing cloud solutions and IT sustainable
initiatives to create relationships that redefine interactions not just with
customers, but also with vendors, competitors, and employees as well.
Initiated as a pure disk-to-disk solution, EcomNets was
built by Kosuri to today be the only data protection platform that can be
consumed as a cloud service, deployed as on premise software or appliance, or
any other combination thereof. With most data transfer providers suffering from
slow speeds, which in turn pose a threat to cyber security, the organizations’
efficient and secure data transfer processes have been programmed to
automatically move backup data offsite to the customers cloud. The leverage of
flexibility built into the platform has given the customer the power to easily
switch deployments as an individual’s business grows. Started in 2000 with a
primary focus on sustainable IT solutions, Kosuri’s goal was to reduce power
consumptions and to increase energy efficiencies in IT and its data centers.
With IT companies spending over 20 percent of the power consumption in the
offices, companies like EcomNets are the need of the hour “We were in constant
talks with the CIOs of different companies explaining that the impact of the
shift to sustainable IT towards cutting down on their power consumption which
in turn can be utilized to buy hardware and software. So as we progressed we
helped companies reduce the carbon foot print and helped them increase the
bottom line in the budget,” explains Kosuri. The building of Verdio, the first
green PC in 2000 established EcomNets stronghold into the market. With the
sprawling green data center in Virginia as its backbone, the company today
provides top of the line services to Fortune 500 and global 2000 organizations.
“We integrate solutions on the desktop side and the virtual data side. We let
companies come to us and use our infrastructure to build their cloud computing
solutions. We are cloud computing enablers and we help companies get their own
cloud computing solutions,” says Kosuri.
Helping Enterprises
Move to the Cloud
Many businesses are combating the explosion of data and
constantly contemplate the question of cloud enablement. For the past 13 years,
EcomNets has been turning this vision into reality with the assistance of
complex consulting services which helps decision makers create a blueprint
depicting the end goal and the intermediate steps required to obtain the same.
The team then works on effective planning and governance across all cloud
services, to simultaneously establish and enforce controls and manage risk.
“While planning and managing systems; it is equally important to factor in the
‘people change’ effect — which is typically more demanding than the technology
issues,” points out Kosuri. The cloud platform was built by the team to provide
security for operating systems that include the likes of Microsoft Windows,
Macintosh, VMware, Linux (Red Hat and SUSE), IBM, IBM AIX, HP-UX, and Sun Solaris
to name a few. The applications secured are Oracle databases and Microsoft
SharePoint Server, Exchange Server, and SQL Server. The icing on the cake is
the ability to perform ‘Hot’ backups without closing the current work in
progress made possible by the EcomNets team to engage backing up of open files
and applications.
With organizations still stuck with traditional testing
limitations, EcomNets focuses to help customers leverage the benefits of cloud
testing and avoid being stuck with traditional testing restraints, the team at
EcomNets has offered two unique capabilities that are difficult to replicate
with traditional testing i.e. virtualization; and compatibility with cloud
services. Incomplete runs caused by scalability barriers severely hamper test
cases. Hence the cloud testing module on offer has been designed by the
EcomNets team to specifically target and avoid such incomplete test runs, hence
throwing new light onto traditional software testing strategies and enable a
number of unseen testing activities, such as the highest quality of testing
environments along with parallel development and testing activities. Apart from
traditional reviews, the company helps IT Disaster Recovery and Business
Continuity for Fortune 1000 and Global 2000 companies in the world leveraging
the tier III data center infrastructure located in Danville, VA. The Data and
Technology Innovation center backs up almost all of the processes designed and
staffed to be able to efficiently handle very large volumes of data serving
customers throughout the mid-Atlantic region. A testimony to the success of the
company’s solutions is EcomNets being conferred with the NVTC Green Award in
2010 and Inc 500 listing for 2010, both coveted recognitions.
The awards can also be reasoned to Kosuri ensuring that the
best advice and solutions are imparted to achieve a successful client’s
software deployment cycle. Realizing that each software project is different,
the team works hard to match the right solution and the right tools for every specific
stage of development. “We know what appeals to our network of financial
institutions and corporate, so we can minimize management distraction by
running a tight process to deploy software project on time and on budget,”
Kosuri adds. Focusing fully on the technology industry at all steps of the
value chain, EcomNets has identified six verticals with maximum traction
capabilities mainly– Government, Internet & New Media, Enterprise IT,
Telecom& Hardware, CleanTech & MedTech.
Eliminating Server
Sprawl and Increasing Utilization Rates
Another problem that organizations in the above mentioned
verticals face is the combat against server sprawl. When disproportionate
amounts of the physical server machines are running at very low rates of usage;
it wastes a lot of the data center's resources like power, cooling and space,
as well as the internal resources of each server such as CPU cycles, memory and
storage. To mitigate server sprawl, EcomNets has taken to the next step of
Virtualized Server Consolidation and eliminating the problem via deployment of
systems as virtual machines (VMs) that can run safely and move transparently
across shared hardware. The company has been successfully delivering increase
of server utilization rates from 5-15 percent to a whopping 60-80 percent. For
reducing the cost and complexity of business continuity, Kosuri has enabled a
high availability and disaster recovery solutions by encapsulating entire
systems into single files that can be replicated and restored on any target
server, thus helping companies that struggle with minimizing downtime. In a
combination of Microsoft’s virtualization software and the company’s own
propriety Green PC “Verdio”, EcomNets has enough artillery to replace PCs,
workstations and laptops without compromising end user autonomy by layering a
security policy in software around desktop virtual machines. “We will reduce
TCO at the desktop $1500 per PC, per year,” adds a confident Kosuri.
Enlightening
Organizations on the True Potential of Energy Efficiency
Almost every enterprise has the capability to consume less
power. To make firms realize the true potential of their energy and cost saving
abilities, EcomNets’s sustainable IT solutions have partnered with the most
advanced solutions for helping the user reduce PC network energy consumption to
the tune of saving $20 to $60 per PC, per year. EcomNets has partnered with
several Electronic Recyclers to provide On-Site Data Destruction and Electronic
Waste Recycling which gives the power to recycle computers, laptops, printers,
monitors, and other IT devices with almost a hundred percent zero export.
Although there are many aspects to designing a data center Kosuri ensured that
the green data center of the company was developed with the latest LED
certification standards. Close to ten percent of the data centers power comes
through renewable energy, which is one of the highest in the industry. Solar
power is used to power the light, while most of the hardware is built by the
green electronic council which makes the green initiative very sustainable by
not wasting any hardware which can save power. “Our electricity bill is 20 to
30 percent less than the other data centers. The reason for it is that it goes
all the way from the design. We also have a program which tells us if any
hardware is not being used for the past several years, these are the kind of
micro level management that saves us electricity,” explains Kosuri. Even when a
router, printer or a scanner is not being used, the company asks its engineers
to shut it down.
Unique Organizational
Culture
The continued success in a relatively unique field of
sustainable IT, can be related to a belief system that the work environment and
people characterize as one of a kind. Employees at EcomNets are constantly
given the chance to grow and understand the corporate culture in which they
work hence directly given the option to be able to comprehend organizational
goals.
EcomNets clearly understands the seriousness of retaining
quality talent to development of a company’s brand. “When individuals are
involved in defining culture they gain a strong corporate identity and
appropriate culture behaviors that support positive culture practices that are
conducive to corporate success,” explains Kosuri. Developing consistent and positive
culture practices has a huge role to play in the Green IT services provider’s
ability to attract and hire quality talent. The talent management team has been
built painstakingly to understand the core values that have been fundamental to
the company’s business identity, vision and success. The management team is
directly held accountable for sustaining a positive culture by staying aware of
the need for change or culture improvement. To put it in a line we believe in
developing, defining, and maintaining successful culture is an institutionalize
responsibility of all EcomNets members,” says Kosuri.
With an environment that fosters a culture that
inspires achievement and engagement in technology projects, Kosuri aims to
touch 50 million in revenue by 2016 and increase headcount to 500. With the all
the extensive importance on innovative green IT technologies, and judging by
the success streak of the organization, EcomNets looks set to break into one of
the top five cloud computing providers in the world while enabling midsized
companies realizing the true power of the cloud and the true potential of
Sustainable IT.