Enterprises adopt DR as SMEs stay away

Disaster Recovery is an area that is now noticed by CEOs too. As large enterprises, banks and oil companies have decided to go in for DR solutions, the potential for DR implementation has increased immensely in India. The market for DR is expected to increase substantially in the coming years, says ABHINAV SINGH

Ashish Kumar says in an e-business marketplace it is essential for companies to assess the risks and quantify their financial and intangible impact on the business

Once upon a time, Disaster Recovery (DR) in India used to mean a tape backup stored at a different location. Today, a DR implementation has become a part of the policy of many large scale organisations that just cannot afford to do without a DR plan. Realising its importance, the top management in some Indian companies are constantly stressing on the need to allocate a separate budget for DR implementation.

Yet, compared to the West, the domestic market is still nascent and has to go a long way to reach the levels of its western counterparts. The demand for Disaster Recovery Services and Solutions in the Asia-Pacific region has seen consistent growth of approximately 20 percent per year, over the last two years. According to IDC, China and India will be the fastest-growing markets for DR services in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan), with a CAGR of 46 percent and 36 percent respectively, during the next five years.

What is driving DR in India?
Factors driving DR’s popularity among Indian users include increasing threats in the business environment (terrorist strikes, war, earthquakes) and the 24x7 nature of today’s business operations. V Vivekanand, Hitachi Data Systems’ business development manager says, "Companies in India are embarking on DR initiatives to gain an edge over competitors. More and more Indian firms are now operating in a 24x7 environment, especially large enterprises, where global operations are the norm. E-commerce also requires organisations to implement a DR strategy."

For banks, the complexity of huge amount of data they generate is spurring them on. Large banks like ICICI, HDFC Global Trust have millions of customers spread across the country who carry out daily transactions. The large number of transactions translate to massive volumes of data. To maintain customer confidence, banks have to maintain the sensitive, complex data, which has to be at the disposal of its customers at all times.

Oil and natural gas companies like BPCL and ONGC have gone in for large DR implementations too. ONGC, which is into oil exploration, generates huge amounts of seismic and exploratory data. Hence, it becomes necessary to maintain the integrity and the criticality of the data for future explorations. BPCL’s DR implementation was undertaken by HP. Avijit Basu, HP India’s marketing manager for Network Storage Solutions says, "BPCL has more than 4,500 petrol dealers and more than 1,000 kerosene dealers across the country. The company has to maintain a continuous link in order to maintain its credibility and integrity. It went in for storage consolidation and later implemented a DR site."

Similarly, for the manufacturing segment running ERP, CRM and supply chain solutions, DR is helpful in maintaining the criticality and integrity of the system. For such companies, losing data due to any unforeseen eventuality can mean a huge loss to their business.

In India, recent times have shown that an increase in the level of competition and market demands, together with increased dependence on technology for core business processes have necessitated the need for DR by companies.

Recent years have also seen a tremendous growth in the software and the ITES sector in India, which are also going in for DR services in a big way. Says Rana Dutta, APACregional director at Movinture Storage Networks, "A disaster could mean a huge loss of manhours, specially for the ITES sector, and hence it is of utmost importance for this sector to go in for DR. For the ITES sector the whole revenue model is built around the volume of calls they receive and make. They have to be in constant touch with their customers round-the- clock. A slight break in communication lines can prove detrimental to their businesses; hence they are going in for DR. "For instance, GE’s call centre division in India has gone in for DR in a big way. Anal K Jain, Network Appliance’s managing director for India & SAARC says, "We have implemented five DR sites for GE’s BPO division. The sites are spread across five Indian cities. All these DR sites are linked and act as a backup for each other in case of a disaster."

DR planning by Indian companies
Due to the increasing popularity of DR in India, many Indian companies are going in for DR planning before the actual DR implementation. Ashish Kumar, country services executive for India at IBM Global Services says, "We offer services to help companies assess the impact a disruption could have on their critical business processes. As the technology environment has changed to accommodate the e-business marketplace, companies are assessing the associated risks and quantifying the financial and intangible impact on their business. Our consultants provide business impact and risk management analysis services to help determine an organisation’s most critical processes, vital assets and gravest threats."

Similarly, Dutta remarks, "The planning process in business recovery planning in case of a disaster attempts to identify all the possible adverse incidents and develop a series of specific actions to be taken before an incident occurs to facilitate the resumption of business activities following the incident."

Targeted verticals
The banking and financial sector has been one of the strongest verticals opting for DR in a big way and is expected to grow by leaps and bounds in the near future. Citibank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and the National Stock Exchange have all adopted DR. Besides, DR has assumed immense significance amongst the oil and petroleum sectors. Many telecom companies, data
centres, software development centres in India have also had DR implementations. The manufacturing, health, travel, and hospitality sectors in India are also gradually implementing these solutions.

M S Sidhu says high infrastructure cost and expensive bandwidth have slowed the adoption rate of DR in India

What the future holds?
Although Indian users have shown keen interest in adopting DR, much needs to be achieved in terms of attaining parity with western markets. Says Raghu Prasad, Exabyte’s business development manager, "The Indian market is growing and the customers have realised the importance of DR, but the adaptability of new techniques among Indian users has been a bit slow. That needs to shoot up if the Indian market wants to compete with the West in terms of DR implementations."

Apara’s managing director M S Sidhu says, "Data generation by Indian companies is low when compared to that in western countries. DR implementations have therefore been on a smaller scale. Moreover, due to the limited bandwidth at high rates, few companies are going in for DR on a large scale." High infrastructure costs and expensive bandwidth, which are both prerequisites to have an efficient and effective DR, are one of the primary reasons behind the slow adoption of DR in India.

Despite the fact that latest DR techniques are now available in the Indian market, it is estimated that a majority of Indian customers are still relying on tape backup for DR. While SMEs cannot afford the huge investments that DR entails, large enterprises have shown keen interest in DR. EMC’s country manager T Srinivasan says, "For each DR implementation the cost varies as it depends on the requirement of each company. Most of them start with storage consolidation before going in for DR implementations." But it is expected that in the coming years bandwidth rates and infrastructure costs will come down in India which will give a further boost to the domestic DR market.