Hyperscale data centers are agile, scalable and provide high-quality performance: Rahi Systems

Founded in 2012, Rahi Systems, a leading global integrated tech solution provider, covers the full lifecycle of technology solutions -- from assessment, architecture, design, implementation, managed services, to professional services and support. Rahi focuses on creating a customized approach to meet every data centre's specific requirement and helps businesses scale and adopt technologies in a flexible and effective manner.

Rohit Singal, VP, India at Rahi, tells us more. Excerpts from an interview:

DQ: Tell us about Rahi, its specialization and the services that it offers.

Rohit Singal: Given the ever-changing environment, more so in recent years, technology has become increasingly dynamic, hence there is a need to understand a business’s requirements, and devise a resilient and agile architecture. To address this need gap, Rahi was co-founded in 2012 by Sushil Goyal, Tarun Raisoni, and Rashi Mehta. The purpose was to provide end-to-end global IT solutions that could help businesses convert long-term goals into success. The founders continue to focus on harnessing the ongoing evolution of technologies and facilitate building businesses with enhanced productivity and profitability.

We are providers of innovative technologies that are aligned with an organization’s IT needs and give a tailor-made solution. Rahi has a presence in 6 continents, across 22 countries, and 32 cities with 1,000+ customers, over a span of 10 years.

Rahi is elevating digital transformation to create integrated IT environments and drive competitive advantages. The company provides a full lifecycle of technology solutions, from assessment, architecture, design, implementation, and managed services, to professional services and support.

Our products and solutions comprise:

Data center: Our data center infrastructure solutions help enterprises build an IT environment to meet increasing business demands while factoring in agility and dependability.

Enterprise IT infrastructure: Our enterprise IT services extend from data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solutions, server consolidation, and virtualization to storage and asset management.

Networking and security: We provide assessments for security, simultaneously scanning the network for cyber breaches and delivering a threat intelligence report. We brief the clients about security incidents and provides a cyber threat assessment for better security measures.

Cloud infrastructure: Our expertise in designing and implementing private or hybrid cloud environments using existing or new infrastructure has helped many businesses maintain visibility and control of workloads ensuring performance.

Audio/video: We offer A/V products that can help to communicate, entertain and increase engagement and enhance collaboration. We enable businesses with flexible options that can be tailored to each specific environment.

Global services and logistics: We also offer logistics services that include product assembly, packaging, tracking and security. Together, these capabilities enable us to deliver multivendor IT solutions across geopolitical boundaries, helping customers operate efficiently and effectively in every market they serve.

DQ: What is the role of hyperscale data centers in reshaping India’s IT landscape?

Rohit Singal: A hyperscale data center is a large warehouse-like structure with its own servers, routers, storage system, powerhouse, and networks. Hyperscale data centers are used for big data and cloud-based applications.

According to Verified Market Research the hyperscale data center market size was valued at USD 64.6 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 327.7 billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 22.2% from 2021 to 2028.

The need for enhanced application performance, investment in data center technologies, adoption of cloud-based infrastructure, content delivery, software platforms and social media are responsible for the growth of hyperscale data centers which offer layered security solutions and protect data from cyberattacks. Hyperscale data centers are capable of managing a large volume of data. Hyperscale data centers are agile, scalable and provide high-quality performance to customers to meet business goals and provide customized solutions at affordable prices to customers.

Hyperscale data centers offer unique ways to save energy and functionality that makes them the preferred choice by many companies. These data centers distribute workload to different servers evenly, hence preventing servers from overheating. Hyperscale data centers are highly automated and require fewer engineers to look after hyperscale data centers.

DQ: How do you enhance customer experience by managing workload placement?

Rohit Singal: It is important to move workloads to the cloud to benefit from scalability and flexibility, and prepare for the future. Organizations have to assess and analyze suitable applications to move workloads for optimum business results. According to a survey by IDC, the key considerations that are taken into account when determining workload placement are security, performance, ease of management, availability and cost.

Organizations need hybrid cloud models apart from public and private cloud models to move workloads. The hybrid cloud allows organizations to choose the right infrastructure for the right workload. Organizations shouldn’t rely on what internal IT stores can offer but also on what is available in the market. We can shift some legacy applications to Software-as-a-Service solutions, but others can be hosted in colocation environments.

DQ: How do organizations protect their data against cyber-attacks on-premise and cloud?

Rohit Singal: According to Markets and Markets, the global cloud security market size is expected to grow from USD 40.8 billion in 2021 to USD 77.5 billion by 2026, at a CAGR of 13.7% from 2021 to 2026. Cloud security strategy should include accountability and ownership related to cloud security risks, compliance, identity controls and monitoring.

Organizations should encrypt data both at rest and in transit so that hackers cannot intercept and read it. Cloud firewall providers protect data by blocking malicious web traffic. Cloud firewalls are hosted in the cloud and create virtual security around cloud infrastructure.

Organizations should deploy identity and access management (IAM) products that decide on giving access to authorize users and denying access to unauthorized users. IAM solutions will help to reduce the threats of unwanted users from getting access to data. Cloud vendors offer 24X7 security monitoring and backup and disaster recovery policies.

Whereas, on-premise, it takes time and money investment to prevent physical theft. Organizations have to take care of user access policies, install firewalls, antivirus and guards to protect data from cyberattacks. Scans and security audits should happen regularly to identify and prevent potential threats.

DQ: What’s your view on the normalization and wide adoption of cloud-based data centers?

Rohit Singal: Organizations are increasingly opting for cloud-based data centers with the adoption of new technologies and digital transformation. Cloud-based data centers will play an important role in the computation, storage, maintenance and management of information.

Cloud-based data centers bring down the capex and opex costs because organizations don't have to pay for physical setup and do not require large IT teams for management and maintenance. Cloud- based data centers allow to scale easily as per the requirements without making significant investment in the physical infrastructure. These data centers are helpful for organizations with fluctuating bandwidth demands.

The cloud-based data centers conduct regular penetration tests and provide layered security to protect data from cyberthreats. They also look into other security aspects such as authentication, access control and encryption. A cloud-based data center is easily accessible via any devices to support a hybrid work environment.

The stored data can be recovered or processed quickly allowing employees to work 24x7 from any device or any part of the world. All updates and upgrades happen automatically in cloud-based data centers. This saves time and effort of team members in maintaining the infrastructure. Cloud-based data centers provide quick data back-up and recovery for all types of situations from natural calamities to power cuts.