Infotech

B u s i n e s s I n d i a u t h e m ag a z i n e o f t h e c o r p o r at e wo r l d

Safe storage

volumes about CtrlSs commitment

towards work.
With his company up and running, with a valuation of R500 crore
and a turnover of R100 crore, Pinnapureddy was confident back then
of doubling both these over two
years. Those plans have materialised, though there have been major
changes in execution, he says. We
are now the undisputed leader in the
high-end datacentre space, and
have a presence in all the
major cities with bigger and
Pinnapureddy
better facilities for our clihas an eye firmly
ents. Our people strength
on the future
has grown from 50 eight
years ago to 700, and well
cross 1,000 this year. And
our client list includes 10 of the
global Fortune 100 companies and
30 of Indias top 100, including the
Commitment to security and close to 100 per cent uptime make
leaders
of almost all the verticals.
CtrlS D a partner of choice
Over the years, CtrlS has also
worked successfully on energy contrlS Datacenters offers the Technologies, set up three years later, servation, and claims to be 20 per
highest level of security and he worked extensively with c-dac, cent more efficient than its leasta penalty-backed service-level the Sam Pitroda-led Centre for Devel- cost competitor. Yes, there is comagreement (sla) that provides as opment of Advanced Computing. petition: from the biggest of them
much as 99.995 per cent uptime, says After another venture, Pioneeron- of all, ibm to Tata Communicaone of its premier clients, dbs Bank. line, he found that getting into data- tions, Reliance and Airtel. The comThe Hyderabad-headquartered com- centres was a natural extension of pany also has over 200 innovations
to its credit, more than 20 of which
pany is also at the top of the league having been in it for so long.
have won national awards including
as it is the only Tier-4 datacentre in
the cii Green Building Councils. Its
India, points out Narayan Samant, Commitment towards work
senior vice-president & head, tech- That business was, however, still in founders only regret is that it is not
nology, dbs Bank. Our bank has its infancy in India and began to yet there in being adjudged among
been recognised as the safest in Asia become profitable only in 2008 when the best places to work.
For now, however, he continby (the New York-headquartered mag- the economy began to open up. But,
azine) Global Finance, adds Samant. though the industry was 30-40 per ues to concentrate on growth: with
We came across CtrlS in our search cent behind that in developed coun- operations in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengfor a datacentre that can host tries, Pinnapureddy saw the com- aluru and Chennai besides Hyderaour servers with the level of ing growth and new technologies bad, CtrlS is building bigger and
which would need huge datacen- bigger datacentres: against the induscommitment we require.
Other banks, which need high-se- tre space. Almost on schedule, CtrlS try norm of between 15,000 and
curity storage for their financial and began working with the top 30 com- 30,000 sq ft, its biggest yet is the one
client data, including Indias biggest panies, primarily for domestic data at Mhape in Navi Mumbai, which
State Bank of India (sbi) are also storage. More than half of these were is all of 150,000 sq ft. Its the largclients, as are large corporate entities overseas clients. In 2006, one of the est in the Asia-Pacific region all of
like mining and metals major Vedan- worlds largest telecommunications sbi could fit into half the area, Pintas subsidiary Sterlite Industries and companies asked us to set up a data- napureddy says. It will take a while
a slew of insurance, automotive, centre for them in India, he recalls. to fill up, because ours is a niche,
logistics, pharmaceutical and other We built it, and gained more insight slow business. But we need to plan
companies. Sridhar Pinnapureddy, and learning from the client. That for 10-15 years. After that, of course,
founder & chief executive offi- datacentre has been running with hell have to build bigger ones to cater
cer, CtrlS, began his entrepreneur- 100 per cent uptime, because our to his customers increasing need for
ial journey in a small way in 1992, slas are strict. The fact that this has increased security.
while he was still in college. With been a record for the 1,600-plus days,
u SE K HAR SESHAN
his first formal firm Pioneer Software says dbs Banks Samant, speaks
sekhar.seshan@businessindiagroup.com

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