In Focus

Rajesh Pathak, Country Manager

India and SAARC, Accedian

Network performance monitoring lets CIOs maximize network’s potential, cut risks.

The scope of digital transformation is not just confined to the use of new technologies. Instead, this transformation encompasses a whole new journey that requires enterprises to maximize the potential of new-age technologies by obtaining complete network visibility across on-premise and cloud environments.

With continuous monitoring and deeper insights into various applications’ performance, IT professionals can proactively identify any network anomalies before they impact business operations and adapt to their users’ unique needs.

In a recent interaction with Jatinder Singh of Better World, Rajesh Pathak, Country Manager for India and SAARC, Accedian, outlines the key challenges faced by enterprises in their digital transformation journey and the role of network and application performance management solutions in the post-pandemic reality

Pathak also shares the best practices that organizations can adopt to convert the new normal position into the winning position.

Better World: The disruption caused by COVID-19 has compelled enterprises to reimagine their overall tech implementation strategies to meet the changing consumer expectations and remain competitive. What are the key challenges that enterprises are facing given this changing landscape?

Rajesh Pathak: The rapidly increasing number of new remote users has posed significant challenges for businesses. They have had to adjust by building and rebuilding capacity while controlling their networks 24/7. The distributed workforce has exacerbated this by increasing the number of endpoints, requiring specific performance and security management.  (See: How is digital transformation shaping the new future?)

Companies need to be adaptable and flexible when scaling their networks as their business needs evolve. In short, the ability to rapidly deploy and accurately monitor services for performance and security while also maintaining SLAs consistently has become much more complicated. This challenge can be solved through greater visibility and insight into network and application performance. This type of technology solves for needs to be prioritized – it should no longer be written off as a capacity issue but critical to business continuity and success.

Better World: What is the importance of performance analytics in enabling enterprises to respond to the post-pandemic world?

Rajesh Pathak: As businesses continue to navigate these unprecedented times, network performance analytics has become a critical tool to manage disruption. Network and application performance management (NAPM) and security are pivotal to any business looking to optimize their network to maintain business continuity. It also is an essential part of preparing the network for the post-pandemic reality, whether that’s seeing an uplift in traffic, identifying a behavioral anomaly that might refer to a security issue, or pinpointing the cause of degradation. Businesses will want their networks to be ready to support enterprises and end-users in the post-COVID world.

Enterprises should turn to solutions that incorporate intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to understand the customer experience better. These technologies can look at large amounts of data, analyze them in a fraction of a second that a human could, and identify patterns that help with network preparation and management. They’re a huge advantage in managing end-to-end services and can ensure enterprises remain competitive by offering guaranteed performance to their customers. (See: CIOs’ digital transformation focus accelerates recovery for IT firms)

Better World: With remote working environments likely to continue for a longer time, how can organizations securely accelerate their digital transformation initiatives?

Rajesh Pathak: Companies can continue on their path toward digital transformation. They need to do so safely. This means that every company should be adopting tools that help them become more cyber-resilient: the ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from cyber-attacks. As we have seen this year, the distributed workforce has lent itself to more excellent opportunities for hackers, and it seems like every week, a new exploit or exposure is unearthed. A report from the fall of 2020 found that every endpoint connected to the Web faces 1.5 attacks per minute.

Rajesh Pathak, Country Manager, India and SAARC, Accedian 

Rajesh Pathak is a transformational leader who believes in big picture thinking for exceptional results with over two decades of solid experience in both enterprise and service provider domains. At Accedian, a performance analytics and end-user experience solutions company, Rajesh Pathak shoulders a massive responsibility of accelerating Accedian’s growth plans in India and SAARC.
Before joining Accedian, Rajesh Pathak held leadership roles at BT India, Agnity, Alcatel-Lucent, and Ciena. He is an avid risk-taker and firmly believes that consistent hard work leads to success.

Expertise

  • Leadership development, general management, and strategic leadership
  • Mentoring and coaching
  • Revenue growth, sales P&L
  • Partnership and channel alliances
  • Technical solution sales, business development
  • Practice development

Education

  • BE in Electronics and Telecommunications, Amravati University, 1992–96.

Many solutions need to be considered when it comes to cybersecurity, behavior-based intrusion detection. The tool utilizes network traffic analysis to view 100% of all transactions and identify behavioral anomalies raised to IT teams before affecting the end-user. Cyber-resiliency is about complete visibility across your network, which gives IT teams a greater understanding of patterns and trends in the traffic and sound insight into what might be out of the ordinary.

Better World: What are the key learnings that technology leaders can apply to unlock the true potential of their networks? How are you helping businesses in this direction?

Rajesh Pathak: Network and application performance monitoring (NAPM) gives control back to CIOs and allows them to understand and maximize their network’s potential while reducing risk. This is particularly important because networks are becoming more complex to manage, and CIOs oversee multiple environments, including cloud, private cloud, and legacy infrastructure. With NAPM, CIOs can monitor their network’s performance, identify outages that could cause bottlenecks, recognize potential security threats, pinpoint the root cause of issues in real-time, and resolve them quickly. This information will allow their workflows to be more efficient, customer experiences to be more seamless, and improved business outcomes.

Better World: Many of the AI-based implementations require cultural shifts to scale and collaborate. What are some of the best practices for businesses to adopt AI amid crisis?

Rajesh Pathak: Adopting new technology is only successful if you make sure your team is onboard the tools and is equipped with the proper knowledge to use them properly. This requires the development of a broad understanding of new tools through training and educational collateral. But it also requires a focus on creating a culture that supports this change. This is done through frequent company-wide communication, from the start of the process to the finish – have teams weigh in on new tech adoption, understanding the pain points that led to this and how the new tool can help with some of these challenges.

By bringing your people along with you, they’ll feel more invested in the technology from the start and will have a complete understanding of why it was adopted and how it can improve processes and work. Then, it’s about making sure they have the correct information to use it successfully, which eases the onboarding process and helps them see firsthand the value of tech from the moment they start using it.

Better World: What are your strategic focus areas for the Indian market this year?

Rajesh Pathak: India continues to be a growing market for us due to recent investments in tech infrastructure. It’s crucial to have this foundation to adopt the tools they need to stay agile and prioritize security. This past year, we saw a massive uptick in cyber breaches, making IT teams reconsider their tech stack as they navigated connecting distributed and remote end-users in a safe way.

In 2021, we look forward to continuing to bring expanded tools and services to the area, driven by technologies like cloud, AI, ML, and 5G. 5G, in particular, will prove significantly impactful, especially for enterprises looking to achieve rapid growth while working with the realities of distributed workforces. We believe that NAPM technology can fully transform how enterprises and end-users manage their workflows and will be a critical part of India’s role in the age of global business.

MORE FROM BETTER WORLD

Wind power companies to get lease rent waiver

Wind power companies to get lease rent waiver

The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate change has decided to relax the mandatory charging of lease rent of Rs 30,000 per MW for wind power projects.

In a review meeting Union Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar took a conscious decision to relax the condition of charging the lease rent of Rs 30,000 per MW for wind power projects. Javadekar said that it is expected that this step will boost the investment in wind power projects and will help in providing wind power at cheaper rate.

“The government envisages to meet maximum energy requirement by tapping renewal energy resources and, to achieve the target of clean energy in a time bound manner, various policies and regulations are being constantly updated,” said the Environment minister.

Currently, to establish wind power project over forest land, the existing procedure requires payment of mandatory charges for compensatory afforestation and Net Present value (NPV). In addition to mandatory charges, the wind power companies had to pay additional lease rent of Rs 30,000 per MW. This additional cost is not mandatory for other renewal energy projects such as solar power and hydel electric projects. Additional cost for generation of clean energy through wind power, in turn escalates the per unit cost of power at consumer level.

Promotions of such projects are part of Government of India’s growing commitments towards International Agreements. One of the National Commitment pledged in Paris in 2015 was to have 40% of the power from renewable resources by 2030 .It is noteworthy that currently India has over achieved the target and is well on track to ensure that more than 50% of the installed capacity will come from renewable by 2030.

Karnataka tops rooftop solar ranking index

Karnataka tops rooftop solar ranking index

RK Singh, Union Minister of State for Power and New & Renewable Energy (IC) and Skill Development & Entrepreneurship, launched the State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index (SARAL) in New Delhi yesterday. The State of Karnataka has been placed at the first rank in the Index that evaluates Indian states based on their attractiveness for rooftop development. Telangana, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh have got 2nd, 3rd, and 4th ranks, respectively.

Launching the Index, RK Singh said that it would incentivize rooftop solar by creating healthy competition among the states. He encouraged all states to adopt the best practices being followed by top ranking states.

SARAL has been designed collaboratively by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (SSEF), Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), and Ernst & Young (EY). It was launched during the Review Planning and Monitoring (RPM) Meeting with states and state power utilities. SARAL currently captures five key aspects:

  1. Robustness of policy framework
  2. Implementation environment
  3. Investment climate
  4. Consumer experience
  5. Business ecosystem

It encourages each state to assess the initiatives taken so far, and what it can do to improve its solar rooftop ecosystem. This will help states to channelize investments that can eventually help the sector grow. In addition, such an exercise is likely to create a more conducive environment for solar rooftop installations, encourage investment and lead to accelerated growth of the sector.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has set a target of 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2022, of which 100 GW solar power is to be operational by March 2022, of which 40 GW is expected to come from grid connected solar rooftops. The Indian Grid Connected Rooftop PV (GRPV) segment is slowly gaining momentum with substantial interest from entrepreneurs, developers, financial institutions, development banks, end users and government entities. On a very positive note, rooftop solar PV has already achieved grid parity for commercial and industrial consumers and is fast becoming attractive for residential consumers as well.

To achieve our rooftop solar targets, it is important to develop an ecosystem that ensures information symmetry, access to financing and clear market signals. Thus, the MNRE has developed the State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index–SARAL that evaluates Indian states based on their attractiveness for rooftop development. SARAL is the first of its kind index to provide a comprehensive overview of state-level measures adopted to facilitate rooftop solar deployment.

Review, Planning & Monitoring Meeting held
Power Minister RK Singh chaired the Review Planning and Monitoring (RPM) Meeting with states and state power utilities. In his address to the state representatives, he emphasized the need to make power sector sustainable and viable so as to ensure 24/7 power supply to all consumers. The meeting discussed various schemes and issues pertaining to the sector such as Deen Dayal Upadhyay Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY), Integrated Power Distribution Scheme (IPDS), UDAY, 24/7 power supply, etc, said the PIB release.

The meeting was attended by the Secretary, Power, Subhash Chandra Garg, Secretary, MNRE, Anand Kumar, Special Secretary, Power, Sanjiv Nandan Sahai, Senior officers of the Ministry of Power & MNRE, Principal Secretaries/Secretaries (Energy) of States, CMDs & MDs of Discoms and Power Sector PSUs.

 

Drive to eliminate single use plastic gathers pace

Drive to eliminate single use plastic gathers pace

A day after Lok Sabha Secretariat said it has banned the use of single-use plastic within the Parliament complex, Ministry of Railways has already issued a circular to ban single-use plastics, while Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying under Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry & Dairying, has also initiated steps in the direction.

Ministry of Railways issues a circular
Ministry of Railways has directed all Railway units to enforce ban on single use plastic material, with less than 50 micron thickness from 2 October 2019. Emphasis is on making necessary arrangements to minimize generation of plastic waste and its eco- friendly disposal.

In this regard, the Ministry has issued a circular stating the following instructions are to be enforced:

  • Ban on single use plastic material
  • All railway vendors to avoid use of plastic carry bags
  • Staff should reduce, reuse and refuse plastic products and to use inexpensive reusable bags to reduce plastic footprint.
  • IRCTC to implement return of plastic drinking water bottles as part of Extended Producer Responsibility.
  • Plastic Bottle crushing machines to be provided expeditiously.

Strict enforcement of these instructions is to be from 2 October, to give enough time to all concerned to prepare for “Plastic Free Railway,” said a release from the Ministry.

Ministry of Railways has also instructed its Railway units that a pledge can be administered on 2 October 2019 to cut use of plastics. Also, Information, Education & Communication (IEC) measures are to be adapted to create awareness among railway users.

Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying’s move
The Secretary, Department of Animal Husbandry & Dairying has requested Major Dairy Federations like Gujarat Milk Federation (Amul), Karnataka Milk Federation (Nandini), Punjab Milk Federation (Verka), Maharashtra Milk Federation (Mahanand) to encourage reuse of plastic milk pouches, in a campaign mode, with 3R strategy – Reduce, Rebate and Reuse. i.e. REDUCE consumption of plastics by subsidizing price of 1 litre pack over ½ litre pack, REBATE to customers for bringing back plastics, REUSE of pouches for users such as Road construction, recyclers.

Secretary, Animal Husbandry and Dairying has requested all Cooperative Milk Federations and Private Dairies to at least halve plastic use by 2 October.  Media was requested to start a campaign like Swachcha Bharat to discourage plastics and thereby improve environment.

AMUL and Mother Dairy were requested to formulate action plan/protocol to recycle milk pouches and share with Department of Animal Husbandry and Dairying for circulation to other Milk Federations for implementation.

NPC holds meet on sustainable food safety

NPC holds meet on sustainable food safety

A two-day National Conference on Capacity Building of Sustainable Food Value Chains for Enhanced Food Safety and Quality organized by National Productivity Council (NPC) in collaboration with Asian Productivity Organization, Tokyo, Japan began in New Delhi today. The Conference was inaugurated by Secretary, Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce & Industry and Chairman of NPC, Dr. Guruprasad Mohapatra. In his inaugural address, Dr. Mohapatra highlighted the relevance of sustainable food value chains and the international standards enacted through the Food Safety and Security Act, 2006. He also acknowledged the demand for food safety assurances leading to proliferation of food safety and quality assurance programs, a PIB release said.

Director General, NPC, Arun Kumar Jha, in his address, emphasized on the importance and potential of food processing industry. Chairperson, Food Safety and Standards Authority of India, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Rita Teaotia, in her keynote address said that there is a need to develop the mitigation strategies for curbing food wastages, enhancing food security and food quality.

Dr. Manickam Asaithambi, Asian Productivity Organization, Japan, lauded the efforts of NPC to organize this program on sustainable food value chains which is an international phenomenon. Dr. Manickam Asaithambi expressed hope that the outcomes of the conference will lead to developing sustainable strategies for food safety in India. Technical sessions on various aspects of food value chains, food safety and quality will be conducted during the conference which will conclude tomorrow.

Environment min opens draft NREP for comments

Environment min opens draft NREP for comments

Natural resources form the backbone of any economic development. India, as one of the fastest growing economies with GDP at 2.6 trillion USD, has increased its material consumption to six times, from 1.18 billion tonnes (BT) in 1970 to 7 BT in 2015. The material consumption is expected to increase further to provide for an increasing population, rapid urbanization and growing aspirations. Enhancing resource efficiency and promoting the use of secondary raw materials has emerged as a strategy for ensuring that the potential trade-off between growth, resource constraints and environmental well-being can be minimized.

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change released Draft National Resource Efficiency Policy, 2019 on 25 July 2019 inviting comments and suggestions from stakeholders including public/private organizations, experts and concerned citizens on the draft policy.

The Draft National Resource Efficiency Policy (NREP) envisions a future with environmentally sustainable and equitable economic growth, resource security, healthy environment (air, water and land), and restored ecosystems with rich ecology and biodiversity. The Draft National Resource Efficiency Policy is guided by the principles of (i) reduction in primary resource consumption to ‘sustainable’ levels, in keeping with achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and staying within the planetary boundaries, (ii) creation of higher value with less material through resource efficient and circular approaches, (iii) waste minimization, (iv) material security, and creation of employment opportunities and business models beneficial to the cause of environment protection and restoration.

The Draft National Resource Efficiency Policy provides an overarching collaborative framework for resource efficiency across all sectors in the country, covering both biotic and abiotic resources and life cycle stages and aspires for cross-sectoral stakeholder partnerships for the cause of resource efficiency for sustainable development.

The Draft National Resource Efficiency Policy (NREP) is available online on Ministry’s website at http://moef.gov.in/draft-national-resource-efficiency-policy2019-inviting-comments-and-suggestions-of-stakeholders-including-publicprivate-organization-experts-and-concerned-citizens/.

Comments and suggestions in prescribed format will be accepted till 24 August 2019.

MoHUA workshop lays focus on tech usage

MoHUA workshop lays focus on tech usage

Dr. Thawar Chand Gehlot, Union Minister, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (MoSJ&E) has stated that the Government is fully committed to eradicate manual scavenging through the ‘The Prevention of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.’ He was speaking at the national Workshop Cum Exhibition on Sustainable Sanitation organized by MoSJ&E and the Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in Delhi today.

Through a series of panel discussions through the day, the workshop saw discussions and presentation of best practices on topics such as Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) based biomethanation under Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) initiative of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoP&NG), MSW to Bio-CNG through biomethanation and cotreatment of organic fraction of MSW with sludge.

The national workshop aimed at providing a comprehensive roadmap for ensuring sustainable sanitation in urban areas. (Image tweeted by @HardeepSPuri)

The day long interaction among stakeholders is aimed at providing a comprehensive roadmap for ensuring sustainable sanitation in urban areas. States and ULBs will take these insights into their respective areas to further strengthen their strategy for achieving safe, sustainable and holistic sanitation.

Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (I/C) for Housing & Urban Affairs, Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MohUA, Nilam Sawhney, Secretary, MoSJ&E and more than 500 representatives including the Principal Secretaries (UD), Mission Directors of AMRUT & Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) in States/Union Territories, Municipal Commissioners of 500 cities with population of 1 lakh and above and development partners besides senior official from both the ministries attended the workshop.

Gehlot added that the Government has been laying increasing emphasis on mechanical cleaning and preventing human entry into sewer and septic tanks to the extent possible through the use of modern technologies. Further, he said, “Through the National Safai Karmacharis Finance and Development Corporation (NSKFDC) formal integration of these workers is being done through the disbursement of grants, provision of loans and livelihood training programs. I am happy to see that this workshop cum exhibition today will showcase the varied measures, best practices and technologies available that will go a long way in preventing fatalities due to hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks. Swachh Bharat is indeed the first step towards Swasth Bharat.”

Addressing the gathering Puri said, “Our Ministry has consistently made efforts to devise efficient systems, processes and technologies for mechanical cleaning of sewer and septic tanks. The Ministry has undertaken various initiatives to eliminate human entry into septic tanks and sewers and create an ecosystem for sustainable sanitation – the publication of documents such as the CPHEEO Manual on Sewerage and Sewage Treatment Systems (2013) and Standard Operating Procedures for Cleaning of Sewers and Septic Tanks (2018) or organizing of the Global Technology Challenge, being some of them. The workshop today will be another step in this direction. The launch of the guidance document on “Emergency Response Sanitation Unit (ERSU) will go a long way in preventing fatalities of sanitation workers and guarantee their safety and well-being.”

He further added, “The Manual on Stormwater Drainage Systems, 2019 released today, shall add a feather to the recently launched Jal Shakti Abhiyan by the Government and help cities and towns in water conservation, protection from flooding and water security. The Ministry is fully committed to support the endeavors of States & Urban Local Bodies as they progress towards total sanitation or Sampoorna Swachhata.”

Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, MoHUA said, “While the Directory of Sewer & Septage Cleaning Equipment launched today will be a guiding book for Urban Local Bodies as well as practitioners, the exhibition by prominent manufacturers and vendors showcasing emerging technologies, equipment and best practices on sewer and septic tank management will help provide customized solutions to city specific requirements in this area.”

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