Cisco calls it ‘Unified Computing,’ while HP calls it ‘Converged Infrastructure. The name tags may be different, but the goal is similar—to deliver a unified architecture that will integrate silos of servers, storage and networks and help customers reduce costs.
 
A unified management system ensures savings due to reduced management time, improved efficiency and reduced energy costs. But even as the global giants battle it out, a relatively small Indian company, Zenith Infotech, is seeking its own place in the new battleground. The Mumbai-based firm has developed a private cloud computing platform, called ‘PROUD,’ that has been engineered by over 250 computer engineers across Belgium, Germany, Mumbai and Bangalore, at a total investment of over Rs 175 crore. 
 
Similar to other centralized computing systems, PROUD is positioned as a single centralized computing system that replaces the need for customers to buy computing and network hardware as separate and difficult-to-manage components. Customers can run their entire IT infrastructure as virtual machines within the cloud environment—be it desktops (which now run as virtual desktops), servers, as well as appliances such as firewalls, routers and VoIP systems.
 
Taking a lesson from players such as Google and Amazon, Zenith Infotech has added such advanced features as high-availability, instant failover, continuous backups, predictive failure monitoring and granular capacity management. These advanced features generally come at a premium in most servers; however, Zenith has bundled in these features free of cost in the PROUD platform.
 
“Our goal has been to create a completely different architecture that will change the way enterprises buy computing infrastructure today,” says Akash Saraf, CEO and MD, Zenith Infotech. The company’s vision is to create the business supercomputer, which enterprises can use to reap the benefits of cloud computing.

High availability is a core feature, as the OS image and storage is not tied to physical hardware. Using the concept of dispersed storage, the company claims that the system will function even if 50 percent of the hardware fails. In case of a hardware failure, the system automatically reconfigures the current storage and memory allotments to individual applications or virtual machines, as required. No downtime is required as virtual machines automatically shift to a live machine. This also means that enterprises need not discard old hardware—they can simply add incremental capacity as needed.
 
Open Source plays vital role
Open Source has played a key role in Zenith Infotech’s architecture. For example, for virtualization, the firm uses an open source virtualization solution from Sun Microsystems called Sun Virtualbox. For storage, the firm uses JuggernautDB, an open source data store that can scale massively while not compromising on performance.