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A CONVERGED FUTURE

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10 years ago

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Updated : April 5, 2015 00:31  am,
By Editor

img55Converged infrastructure promises to do away with many challenges of traditional datacenter architecture as it offers scalable integrated solutions

Converged infrastructure promises ease of deployment, central management, and optimization as it brings together storage, servers, networking, and management together. Leading vendors have been rolling out new converged infrastructure systems. Their objective is to offer a new way of integrated IT that radically redefines the way IT infrastructure is built and maintained and is geared to support cloud ready environments.

The value-propositions are quite appealing for both SMB and enterprise customers. It helps meet Technology expectations such as eliminate silos, simplify systems management, adopt efficiencies and effectiveness through virtualization, improve TCO alongside reduced footprints, improve automation as well as make the infrastructure far more agile.

Shams Hasan, Enterprise Product Manager, Middle East at Dell says, “Converged infrastructure is one of the fastest-growing segments of the IT industry.  Integrated infrastructure delivers ease of deployment, reduces capital equipment expenses, facilitates scalability and reduces management complexity.  Converged solutions are being widely adopted by large enterprises where infrastructure sprawl has chewed up budgets and made scalability a challenge, and as a method to speed delivery of IT services. They are also proving to be beneficial to IT-strapped small and mid-sized organizations, which often lack the skills and resources to keep up with increased business demands for IT services.”

According to Kartik Shankar, Senior Sales Manager, StorIT Distribution, as data centres and storage solutions continue to evolve, converged infrastructure is also taking the centre stage in modernization. Organizations that have invested in software-defined technologies for their data centre transformation are seeing value in converged infrastructure solutions.

He adds, “The trend towards converged infrastructure is primarily driven by TCO and performance objectives demands of emerging technology solutions. Sizing key components of the IT system infrastructure gets highly complex and challenging to meet the objective through the traditional way. Currently converged infrastructure is the most matured approach to address these challenges and backbone/infrastructure backbone of web 3.0.”

The traditional datacenters have seen the sprawl of technology silos of storage, networking, compute as separate racks. This is addressed through taking the convergence route to IT deployment.

Suda Srinivasan, Director for Product Marketing at Nutanix says, “Enterprise datacenters have become incredibly complex over the years. Every aspect of the legacy infrastructure lifecycle is a challenge, from buying and deploying to managing, scaling and support. At the heart of the problem is the traditional three-tier infrastructure model, with servers connected over a network to a shared scale-up storage solution. Converged infrastructure, or more specifically hyperconverged infrastructure, addresses this problem of complexity.”

There are two approaches to achieving the integrated systems infrastructure deployment. VCE, part of the EMC Federation champions the hardware-focused, building-block approach which is categorised as converged infrastructure whereas Nutanix, SimpliVity and recently VMware etc offer hyper-converged infrastructure, taking the software defined route. While converged systems are in general separate components that are designed to work well together, hyper-converged systems are modular. Hyperconverged solutions integrate compute and storage resources in a single x86-based server deployed in scale-out clusters.

Hyperconvergence in the ascent

Virtualization has pretty much become a standard for enterprise infrastructure except for a few legacy business critical applications. Converged or hyper-converged infrastructure can help realize greater benefits of virtualization.

Karthik says, “We can find enterprise setups managing both virtual and physical environment in many cases. This is majorly due to the limitations in the traditional infrastructure approach and support/compatibility challenges from the application vendor, etc. This is where converged infrastructure plays a major game changing role by providing custom engineered system components fine-tuned to run even legacy applications. This approach helps to balance and align the right system components to meet the business requirement, with improved performance and ease of infrastructure management.”

Hyperconverged infrastructure uses the webscale approach that is modular and scales up as required. This is well aligned with the needs of virtualization and cloud based infrastructure.

Shams says, “Once deployed, with web scale, the converged compute and local storage platform with distributed software technology can create extremely dynamic data centers that can easily be scaled.  This strategy and capability is crucial for the modern data center.”

According to Jan Ursi, Senior Director, Channel Sales & Marketing for EMEA and India at Nutanix, the traditional datacenter architecture with multiple components that need to be glued together manually is not built for virtualization or cloud. It is too complex, too rigid, scales in too large increments and slows down provisioning of new applications

He adds, “Virtualization is the default vehicle to Cloud, but the underlying IT infrastructure needs to change, learning from the most successful web companies like Google, Amazon, Azure, Facebook, etc. Simplifying the datacenter by virtualizing without a SAN, using a converged webscale virtual computing platform is critical for Virtualization and Cloud projects to live up to their promise.”

Nutanix, the leader in the hyperconverged space deploys more hyperconverged infrastructure than all other players in this space together with a 52% market share, according to IDC. The EMEA region represents around 25% of the global Nutanix footprint.

“Hundreds of datacenters rely on Nutanix to run their critical applications already for many years. The Nutanix projects are a mix of size and verticals, serving SMB enterprises like ADD in Belgium to large organizations like Orange Business Services. The uses vary from running critical tier-1 server workloads like Microsoft SQL, Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft Exchange to others like VDI, Big Data, Branch Office and Disaster Recovery projects,” says Jan Ursi, Sr. Director, Channel Sales & Marketing for EMEA and India at Nutanix.

Nutanix offers a software-defined solution that does not rely on any purpose built hardware. The Nutanix solution runs on a commodity server architecture on top of any industry standard hypervisor (VMware, Microsoft hyper-v or KVM).

However, customers can also choose between a wide portfolio of Nutanix nodes with a different mix of compute and storage resources on board. Next to the native Nutanix NX series appliances, customers can also opt to source the Dell XC series converged webscale appliances powered by the Nutanix software.

Some divergence with the convergence

There are two approaches for converged infrastructure. One where a single vendor owns all the technology, bundles it, tests it and then sells it as a single bundled solution to the customer. The second approach is when different vendors collaborate to bring the latest and best solutions based around a validated reference architecture that describe configurations of server/storage/networking products, which is integrated into one unified solution that is assembled, integrated and tested before selling it to the customer.

The converged infrastructure space is populated by many of the large sized vendors including some new start-ups. The vendors in the fray include EMC, NetApp, Cisco IBM, Hitachi, HP, Dell, Oracle etc. Reference architecture offerings include NetApp’s Flexpod and EMC’s VSPEX. Hitachi offers both pre-fabricated solutions and reference architectures under its Unified Compute Platform (UCP).

The flexpods

Flexpod is a reference architecture that uses technology from NetApp and Cisco Systems. The FlexPod solution portfolio combines NetApp storage systems, Cisco Unified Computing System servers, and Cisco Nexus fabric into a single, flexible architecture.

“The FlexPod, is a combination of networking servers from Cisco, NetApp storage with software from VMware for virtualization. The result is an integrated stack which solves the problems companies had in the past of buying and building their solutions and trying to make them work. The FlexPod is configured to work from the get go and is typically used by customers wishing to build a private cloud and then start to move towards a hybrid public,” says Graham Porter MENA Channel Manager.

The Flexpod converged portfolio has three offerings. Flexpod Datacentre is designed for large environments. FlexPod Express is targeted at small and medium-sized businesses. Finally, there is FlexPod Select, which is targeted at high performance workloads, including Hadoop big data analytics. According to NetApp, FlexPod has seen a sharp uptake in deployments and is an area of growth for the company moving forward.

Fadi Kanafani Regional Director, MENA and Pakistan at NetAPP says, “We have 50 validated designs between us and Cisco for this integrated stack which makes it the number one converged cloud-based solution in the market now, a market that now exceeds 3B dollars globally. We have in excess of 4000 customers on the FlexPod which is showing over 80% growth from 2013 to 2014. ”

The VCE way

VCE, one of the key players in converged infrastructure, is a company founded by EMC, VMware and Cisco and now owned largely by EMC. The company has an appliance based approach and offers Vblocks that are prefabricated in their factories according to customer requirements.

Tom O’Reilly, CTO – Middle East & Africa at VCE says, “Vblock is a highly engineered single product. We have determined the best possible way to configure networking, storage, software, compute and virtualization altogether into one product. We manufacture our Vblocks in the factory, where we build not only the physical box, wherein we rack, stack, power and cable everything but we also logically configure the entire v-block for a customer’s datacenter. We also do logical configuration survey (LCS) at the customer site before that to understand the environment as to how they want use the Vblock. So when our v-blocks arrive at the site, they are ready to powered on, connected to the switches, to the networking and all ready to deploy mission critical applications.”

The company provides customers support through the full lifecycle. It provides a one window support for different elements of the vblock.

He adds further, “Each v-block is a single product to us and since we built it, we are best placed to provide the support. We do the support for the entire stack that includes networking, storage, compute, networking, virtualization etc.”

VCE also have a proprietary software called pro vision intelligent operations (Vision IO). This helps customers to manage the Vblocks as a single set of resources rather than have a tool to manage software, storage, networking etc separately. It gives them a view of the entire datacenter. In addition, VCE also has the Release Configuration Matrix (RCM) – essentially a firmware level for the v-block.

Tom says, “When we ship the vblocks from our factory, they are in a known good state; we know that they have been configured correctly and everything has been tested and validated. When a release is come from EMC, Cisco or VMware, customers may want to do updates for security or performance reasons whatever, we on a regular basis release a RCM – so that customer can have an entire firmware level update for the v-block instead of customers teasing and doing each update on their own. We do the testing and validation in our labs before we release the RCM so that spares the customer the hassle. This is true convergence as we approach it.”

The EMC Federation appears poised to take advantage of the growing demand for converged systems, especially in data centres. So the companies that are part of the Federation operate as separate entities while they have integrated product development.

Tom adds, “When we became part of EMC, anything that was part of converging technologies was put under the VCE umbrella. Today there is EMC VSPEX- which is reference architecture, EMC VSPEX blue- which is their hyper converged solution that they just announced and is built upon VMware’s EVO:RAIL,  and then there is the VCE Vblock. These solutions all provide some rapid ways of achieving some standard goals from customers and wrap the customer expectations around the solutions. The go to market strategy remain the same- VSPEX and VSPEX blue remain EMC products – it is just that their Marketing and Engineering will be under the VCE umbrella and report to the VCE Management. They go through the EMC channel. Our go to market stays the same with the VCE channel.”

VCE is now expanding its lineup of integrated infrastructure solutions with the VCE Foundation for Federation Enterprise Hybrid Cloud. This integrates VMware’s NSX network virtualization technology and vRealize management and orchestration software. In addition, the solution includes EMC’s ViPR software-defined storage (SDS) product.

Tom adds, “We are going to offer VCE foundation for enterprise hybrid cloud. Software defined storage, software defined networking and management orchestration tools will be pre-fabricated in a v-block from our factory. That will speed up the customer’s path to deploying enterprise hybrid cloud. That will be offered to the channel.”

The outlook

Adopting either of the key approaches, through convergence or hyperconvergence, the end goals are better alignment of the IT infrastructure in line with need to rapidly provision computing resources but only as required, to reduce footprint and eliminate sprawl, achieve pooling of resources in a seamless way and have the ability to scale. Vendors are betting on significant growth in terms of demand for such integrated systems.

MarketsandMarkets forecasts the converged infrastructure market to grow from $11.53 billion in 2014 to $ 33.89 billion in 2019 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 24.1%. MEA is also expected to experience significant growth during the forecast period. For the channel, those who have a strategic client base and have a great understanding of their client’s organization and their business needs, will hold the interest of value add distributor and vendors looking to take these solutions to market.

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Features

Redefining Real Estate: The Rise of Wellness-Centric Spaces

Published

2 months ago

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March 14, 2025

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By Mark Phoenix – CEO of Sankari

The way we think about real estate is evolving, and at the heart of this change is a renewed focus on wellness. As we become more aware of the profound impact our living environments have on our health and well-being, it’s clear that real estate must go beyond aesthetics and luxury—it must support a lifestyle of vitality and longevity. To me, true luxury is no longer defined solely by opulence but by spaces that promote health, balance, and connection.

The demand for wellness-oriented spaces is growing rapidly, and real estate developers must rise to meet it. Today’s buyers are looking for more than just high-end finishes and exclusive locations—they want environments that enhance their well-being. Integrating wellness features such as fitness centers, yoga studios, meditation areas, and holistic health services is no longer an option; it’s a necessity. These spaces don’t just add value to a property; they create communities that create physical health, mental clarity, and social engagement.

Wellness-centric design is about more than just adding amenities—it’s about creating environments that encourage movement, relaxation, and human connection. By prioritizing well-being in real estate, developers can offer residents a lifestyle that aligns with modern values and aspirations. These spaces cultivate a sense of belonging, allowing people to come together in ways that enrich their lives beyond the walls of their homes.

Beyond individual benefits, wellness-focused communities have a lasting impact on society. As more people seek out homes that support their health, the real estate industry has an opportunity to lead this cultural shift. Developments that incorporate sustainable materials, biophilic design, and eco-friendly building practices not only benefit residents but also contribute to a healthier planet.

In the ultra-luxury segment, this focus on wellness is especially meaningful. The most sought-after properties are no longer just about extravagance—they are about creating a sanctuary where people can rejuvenate both physically and mentally. True luxury lies in thoughtful, health-driven design that enhances everyday life in meaningful ways.

Designing for wellness also means partnering with visionary architects and designers who understand the importance of both form and function. In regions with challenging climates, for example, innovative solutions can help reduce environmental impact while enhancing comfort and efficiency. Securing sustainability certifications like LEED further reinforces a commitment to responsible development and aligns with the global movement toward eco-conscious living.

For me, integrating wellness into real estate is more than just a trend—it’s a deeply personal mission and a strategic imperative. The places we live should do more than just shelter us; they should actively contribute to our health and happiness. By embedding wellness into the very foundation of luxury real estate, we’re not just shaping beautiful spaces—we’re shaping better lives.

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We are bringing tradition to every table in just five minutes

Published

3 months ago

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February 20, 2025

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Kerala breakfast

Exclusive Interview with Ashvin Subramanyam, CEO International Business, Orkla India

In this exclusive interview, Ashvin Subramanyam, CEO of International Business at Orkla India, shares insights on the brand’s participation at Gulfood 2025 and its mission to blend tradition with innovation in the Middle East. With the launch of Eastern’s 5-Minute Breakfast range and a refreshed Arabic spice portfolio, Orkla IMEA is redefining convenience without compromising on authenticity.

What can we expect from Orkla IMEA’s presence at Gulfood 2025, and how significant is this event for your brand’s growth in the region?

At Gulfood 2025, Orkla IMEA, subsidiary of Orkla India, is set to make a strong impact by unveiling the Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range, designed to bring the authentic flavors of Kerala to the fast-growing ready-to-cook market in the Middle East. In addition, visitors can expect a refreshed Arabic spice portfolio, reflecting Orkla India’s continued commitment to catering to the diverse culinary preferences of the region.

Gulfood is a key platform for us as it enables us to showcase our latest innovations to a global audience, including retailers, distributors, and food industry leaders. The Middle East is a strategic market for our expansion. By blending tradition with convenience, our goal through this event is to become a household name across diverse communities in the region, reinforcing our commitment to quality, authenticity, and innovation in packaged foods.

How does Gulfood help Orkla IMEA connect with new markets, consumers, and industry partners, particularly in the Middle East?

Gulfood serves as a vital gateway for Orkla India to connect with new markets, consumers, and industry partners through its subsidiary Orkla IMEA in the Middle East. As one of the world’s largest food and beverage trade exhibitions, it provides an unparalleled opportunity to engage directly with key stakeholders, including retailers, distributors, and hospitality businesses, facilitating strategic partnerships and market expansion.

For Orkla India, this event is instrumental in understanding regional consumer trends, preferences, and evolving dietary habits, particularly in the fast-growing packaged food sector. The launch of the Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range and refreshed Arabic spice portfolio at Gulfood allows us to showcase our innovation in convenience-driven yet authentic culinary solutions.

By participating in Gulfood, we strengthen our brand presence, foster collaborations with regional partners, and position ourselves as a trusted name in ethnic and mainstream food categories. It’s a key milestone in our vision to become a household name in the Middle East.

Eastern is set to unveil its preservative-free quick South Indian 5-Minute Breakfast range. What was the inspiration behind this concept?

The Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range was inspired by the growing need for convenient, time-saving meal solutions that do not compromise on authentic taste and quality. South Indian breakfasts, particularly Kerala’s traditional dishes, are deeply rooted in culture, requiring significant time and effort to prepare. However, with modern lifestyles becoming increasingly fast-paced, many consumers struggle to recreate these meals from scratch.

Recognizing this shift, Eastern set out to bridge the gap between tradition and convenience by crafting a range that retains the authentic flavours and textures of Kerala’s most-loved breakfasts while eliminating the long preparation time. The preservative-free formula ensures that consumers enjoy fresh, wholesome meals made from high-quality ingredients in just three easy steps, ready in five minutes.

With this innovation, Eastern empowers busy professionals, young families, and expatriates to stay connected to their culinary heritage without compromising on their schedules, making traditional breakfast accessible anytime, anywhere in just 5 minutes.

Can you give us an insight into the development process behind this 5-Minute Breakfast range, especially in maintaining authentic South Indian flavors without preservatives?

The development process for our 5-Minute Breakfast range began with a deep understanding of our consumers’ evolving lifestyles and their desire for authentic Kerala-style breakfasts that eliminate a lengthy preparation process. We identified a unique need-gap: while traditional dishes like Puttu, Appam, and Idiyappam are much-loved, the time and effort they require can be challenging in today’s fast-paced world.

Our journey involved benchmarking these dishes to the traditional methods used by homemakers, capturing the essence of how an amma would prepare them at home. This set the standard for the flavor profiles we aimed to achieve. The challenge was to replicate the authentic taste and texture while ensuring our products were preservative-free.

Our R&D team worked tirelessly, conducting extensive trials to balance authenticity and convenience. Through our innovation center we crafted recipes that retain the goodness of traditional Kerala breakfasts while being ready in just five minutes. With this range, Eastern redefines breakfast convenience, allowing families to savor the true flavors of Kerala in a fraction of time.

With over one million Keralites in the UAE, how does Eastern plan to cater to both the traditional tastes of this community and the broader multicultural audience?

With almost two million Keralites in the UAE, Eastern understands the deep emotional and cultural connection this community has with its traditional cuisine. The Eastern 5-Minute Breakfast range is designed to preserve the authentic flavours of Kerala while offering a convenient solution for modern lifestyles. By using high-quality ingredients and a preservative-free formula, the range ensures that the taste and texture remain true to tradition, making it an ideal choice for Malayalees longing for home-cooked meals.

While there are other instant and ready-to-eat options in the market, Eastern’s range stands out by offering dishes like Puttu and Palappam, which traditionally require culinary expertise and time-consuming preparation. These dishes are not widely available in the quick- convenience food category.

At the same time, Eastern is expanding its reach to a broader multicultural audience by showcasing South Indian cuisine as a flavourful, nutritious, and easy-to-prepare option for all. The simplicity of the 3 Easy Steps preparation makes these dishes accessible to non-South Indian consumers who are eager to explore new flavours. Through strategic retail partnerships, digital outreach and and aggressive in-store sampling, Eastern aims to introduce and establish South Indian breakfast as a preferred choice for consumers in this region.

What’s one thing about Orkla IMEA that people might not know but should?

While Orkla IMEA was incorporated recently, we have been in the region for over 25 years now, through our brand Eastern.

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Features

2025 Hospitality Tech Trends

Published

3 months ago

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February 12, 2025

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By Prince Thampi, Founder and CEO, Hudini

As we approach 2025, the hospitality industry is poised for transformational growth, driven by evolving traveller preferences and advancements in technology. The future of hospitality promises enhanced convenience, personalisation and sustainability, with a significant focus on creating memorable experiences for guests. Let’s dive into five key trends that will shape the hospitality tech landscape in 2025 and beyond.

  1. The Continued Rise of Frictionless Technology

The increased demand for frictionless experiences is set to dominate the industry, with more and more travellers preferring hotels that offer touch-free check-in, check-out, and room access via mobile apps. This trend reflects a broader shift towards easy interactions powered by seamless digital integration. Mobile apps have been an essential tool for a few years now, enabling guests to manage their stays, order room service, and access hotel information effortlessly. With the introduction of Gen AI, those apps have become more powerful than ever and are now able to provide highly personalised recommendations and speak in different languages.

Hotels embracing this trend will gain a competitive edge, as tech-savvy travellers prioritise convenience and efficiency during their stay. According to a recent survey by Deloitte, around 72% of travellers are more likely to choose a hotel that offers mobile check-in and check-out services over those that don’t.

  • Hyper Personalised Guest Experiences

In 2025, personalisation will continue to be at the core of hospitality services but will finally be taken to the next level thanks to Gen AI. Guests expect hotels to anticipate their needs and offer tailored experiences, from customised room settings to personalised dining recommendations. Apps powered by AI are now able to predict guest needs based on a wealth of data, ingested from the hotel systems or fed externally.

Leveraging guest data and insights, hotels can create unique offerings that cater to individual preferences. This level of personalisation not only enhances guest satisfaction but also fosters loyalty and repeat bookings. According to Oracle’s findings, biometrics and AI are set to play pivotal roles, with 62% of guests valuing automated recognition for personalised interactions. Biometrics will experience a breakthrough into mainstream hospitality in 2025. Facial recognition technology has matured significantly and is ready to be weaved into the guest experience. It will enable better security and guest recognition while protecting their privacy at the same time.

  • AI-Enabled Customer Service

Artificial intelligence is revolutionising every aspect of the hospitality industry, but will be by itself a new way of providing customer service. Chatbots and virtual assistants are becoming standard tools for handling common queries, offering instant support, and streamlining operations at any time and in any language.

AI-driven solutions not only enhance efficiency but also provide guests with 24/7 assistance, ensuring a smoother and more satisfying experience. By integrating AI technologies, hotels can free up staff to focus on delivering exceptional in-person service.

  • Sustainability and Eco-Friendly Practices

Sustainability is no longer optional, it’s a necessity often enforced by regulation. Travellers are increasingly favouring hotels that adopt eco-friendly practices, such as using locally sourced food, implementing energy-efficient operations, and reducing waste.

By prioritising sustainability, hotels not only meet guest expectations but also contribute positively to the environment. This commitment to green initiatives enhances brand reputation and attracts environmentally conscious travellers. A recent survey by Booking.com found that 83% of global respondents believe more sustainable travel is vital, with 49% believing there aren’t enough sustainable travel options and 53% saying they get annoyed when a hotel prevents them from being sustainable.

Smart use of technology is key in the sustainability journey of hotels. Technology can accurately measure the reduction in carbon footprint, it will help reduce energy and adopt renewable energy sources, and will enable the effective management of food waste. Many hospitality apps allow guests to apply green energy settings to a room, some will even exchange your energy savings to loyalty points.

  • The return of ‘real’

With Gen Z – the first generation grown up with everything digital – becoming the next large group to travel, the craving for ‘real’ experiences is bigger than it ever was. Hotels focusing on truly unique and hyper local experiences; a great meal, cultural outing, or wellness treatment will win the hearts of this generation.

Fortunately hotel apps, AI, automation of processes, sustainability tech and the removal of cumbersome processes like checking-in and studying paper manuals will free up hotel staff to allow them to do what they do best: providing unforgettable, personalised and sustainable experiences.

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