Getting SMART

style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;"> href="http://www.dqweek.com/Kaseya-to-penetrate-into-tier-2-and-3-cities">Kaseya
India has developed unique methodologies (SMART SLA and SMART
Services) and a standard (Automated Managed Services) to cater to the
IT challenges faced by the CIOs today. One big challenge that CIOs
encounter is how to consume and deliver services and how to track
measure and report the services consumed to ensure their
effectiveness and enhance efficiency. Automated Managed
Services with its innovative SMART Services, backed by its SMART SLA
methodology solves
this problem. Even as CIOs work to ensure better efficiency of the
enterprise's IT infrastructure, several critical activities continue
to be managed ad-hoc, whose importance is realized only in the event
of a failure. This is where standard services can be deployed by the
CIOs to make a big difference.

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SLA

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SMART
Service Level Agreement (SLA) is a revolutionary methodology
designed by Kaseya India to ensure that the business receives high
quality, dependable and predictable IT services. Kaseya SMART SLA
eliminates all the disadvantages of traditional SLA like response
time, reaction time and resolution time and replaces them with
business centric and a simple to implement SLA model. Kaseya
SMART SLA allows service providers and CIOs to define and track SLA's
to the lowest level
of business processes and related IT activities; track and measure
any IT activity and performance of any services, in real time; and
render and receive services that are specific and measurable, which
are aligned to business that are realistic in nature and more
importantly delivered on time.

style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">Girish
Krishnamurthy,
MD, Kaseya India, pointed out, “SMART SLA ensures
that the deliverables are measurable, assessable, and time bound
giving the customer a clear picture of what can be expected from the
service provider and what can be delivered to the end users.” Some
of the SMART Services for which Kaseya provides a SMART SLA are —
Antivirus Management, wherein all the managed IT assets will be
protected by the antivirus with a committed SMART SLA of 99 percent
ensuring high
availability of all IT assets and business applications; Advanced
Backup and Disaster Recovery Services, wherein for all managed IT
assets that require backup and restore, 90 percent of them will be
successfully backed up and restored; and Hard Disk Optimization,
wherein all hard disks and storage devices in the organization will
be optimized at the highest level to the extent of 99 percent. Also,
SMART SLA ensures high quality performance of hard disk and storage
devices increasing availability and delivering no-downtime of the
business application and IT systems. The other services include
Information Security Management, wherein the security policies will
be applied, monitored and enforced
to be compliant with security standards; Inventory Management,
wherein physical hardware details and the software licenses along
with any changes are tracked and reported. In Mail/Exchange Server
Management, this SMART service ensures high accessibility of business
critical mailing applications
and uninterrupted communication channels across an organization. In
Operating System
Upgrade, it ensures immediate availability of the new OS to all users
enabling quicker business deliverables. This SMART service simplifies
the task of the IT administrator, enhancing efficiency.

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far
as Patch Management is concerned, on all the managed IT assets,
the approved patches will be installed automatically with a committed
SMART SLA of 99 percent; in Server Monitoring and Management, this
SMART service ensures high accessibility of business critical
applications, uninterrupted server operation, and high uptime of the
servers; in Software Deployment, it ensures immediate availability of
new applications to all users enabling effective business
deliverables. This SMART
service simplifies the task of the IT administrators and enhances
efficiency. And lastly, in Standard Operating Environment (SOE)
Management, all managed IT assets will conform to the approved
organizational SOE policies with a SMART SLA commitment of 99
percent. Also, all the
policies will be applied, monitored and enforced to be compliant with
the o r g a n i z a t i o n s security
standards. “By greatly minimizing the disadvantages of traditional
SLA like response, reaction, and
resolution time and replacing them w i t h a business centric and
simple to implement SLA model, the Kaseya SMART SLA allows you to
define, track, and measure the performance of any IT activity in real
time,” added Krishnamurthy.

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MANAGED
SERVICES

style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">Automated
Managed
Services (AMS) has become the de-facto standard in managing
the IT infrastructure activities of any organization. Kaseya with an
in-depth understanding of the IT infrastructure management space
offers tools that automate these activities, ensuring hassle-free
management with no user intervention and minimal IT administration.
The unique Kaseya AMS lets one eliminate the barriers between IT
resources and end users, delivering strategic benefits, boost in
uptime, slash in costs, and enhances decision making. AMS also
ensures that the entire IT infrastructure is
automated, tracked, measured, and reported in a single dashboard.
Krishnamurthy said, “Automated Managed Services is a standard which
allows service providers or CIOs to provide high quality managed
services with more than 90 percent of IT activities automated. Now,
when we provide the services, we have to ensure that services are
rendered through a proper methodology and it is always measured to
see that the benefits and quality of services are good.” “AMS is
going to revolutionize the service providers' business and their
graph margin will go up by more than 60 percent. From the CIO
perspective, he will be in a position to provide high quality
services irrespective of any user in the business in a consistent and
predictable manner. CIOs will also increase the benefit by two-fold.
One is by reducing the IT infrastructure management cost by minimum
30 percent and secondly, by giving SMART SLA based assurance to the
users for all critical applications and infrastructure as such,”
added Krishnamurthy. The traditional IT infrastructure management
addresses issues only when they happen, the typical 'break-fix'
model. AMS, on the other hand, goes a step ahead to preempt the
issue, offering a remedial approach and ensure 'issues are not
allowed to happen'. “By the end of this year, more than 10,000
companies will switch over to AMS and by 2012, I am expecting more
than 12,000 companies to shift to AMS. We are entering into a new era
on two-fold. For the cloud to become rain, it will take
about three years time. Where as in terms of managed services, AMS
standard will pick up speed starting
this year and it will be a matured model where all the organizations
will be on AMS by 2015-16. Four years down the line, we will see that
the whole industry has changed to AMS,” concluded Krishnamurthy.

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INDIA
2020

style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 0%; -moz-background-clip: border; -moz-background-origin: padding; -moz-background-inline-policy: continuous;">Krishnamurthy
has
also suggested a five point program for the Indian solution
providers, which he believes that they need to follow in the next 10
years to keep pace with the changing times and remain one step ahead
of the competition. To begin with, solution providers have to
recognize the fact that world is moving towards centralization from
decentralization era. There are three primary reasons that decide
either of these eras—geo-political scenario, macro economical
factors, and need of the business. From 2005, centralization era has
begun and it will remain so till 2025. But currently if one looks at
the solution providers, most of them entered and became businessmen
during the decentralization era, which
means that their businesses are based on decentralization model. Now,
they have to go back to the whiteboard and look at how businesses
were conducted in centralization era and start preparing themselves
accordingly. His second recommendation to the solution providers is
that till now, they all were
operating in the mode of transaction, wherein they were representing
principals who were setting the process and they just followed those
processes. This means that solution providers were operating more as
transactional traders. But now, a new model is coming in where they
have to take 360 degree view of the customers and build an overall
holistic business model, which will be services focused.

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third
point program focuses on the solution providers who are in the
age group 40-55. The business model, business practices, and their
personal priorities is not leading to a very healthy life. They have
become sandwich between the principal and customers. So, they have to
come out of the sandwich model and build their own value proposition
model. The fourth program is related to technological advancements.
Today, size has reduced, speed has increased, and usability has
changed. The important aspect here is the application of the
usability and applying into business. Solution providers need to know
how they can apply any technology for a particular situation. The
usability application is very critical because till now SPs were not
focusing on it; they were focusing mainly on transaction and deals.
They need to understand the customers better and use the technology
in the usability aspect of it. The
fifth and last program is related to core competency. Today, the core
competency of a solution provider is very critical. For example, they
have a core competency of managing the vendor, customer relationship.
Some has competency in managing operational processes. So, they got
to decide what is that core competency that is bringing them the
business. And build the holistic organization around that core
competency, which should be based on centralized services and
customer-focus.