CtrlS: All geared up to meet the Hyper-scale data center demand in the country

In a chat with VARINDIA, Sridhar Pinnapureddy, Founder & CEO, CtrlS Data centers discusses on India becoming a hub for data centers, capacity to address data explosion, the uptime and round the clock availability and much more.

Do we have the colocation capacities in the country to address the expected data explosion?
Well, at the moment the country has about 6 million square feet of third party datacenter space supported by about 300+ MW of power. We need anywhere between 1.5GW to 3 GW of power to address the growing needs. This will translate to about 50 million square feet of data center (colocation) space in the next decade and a half.

We are told that CtrlS data centers are very unique. Can you throw some light on the same?
India, today does not have large hyperscale data centers with the exception of CtrlS. We are the country’s only fault tolerant, rated-4 hyperscale data center who is certified on all four parameters, telecommunications, electrical, architectural and mechanical built to scale-on-the-go and with a record 100% uptime. This is why we are trusted by 30 of the Fortune 100 Global MNCs and 3 of the Top 5 Hyperscalers in the world. We offer industry lowest PUE of 1.35, lowest power tariff, cost savings of 30% and above, LEED Platinum certified Green DC facilities, carrier-neutrality, dual-grid power sources for round the clock uninterrupted electricity, multi-path fibre networks combined with dual-fault-tolerant meet-me rooms, 6 to 9 zone military grade security to protect our customer data.

What is CtrlS approach to Customers?
As an organization, we believe in ‘Customer First’ philosophy. Every employee when inducted into the organization is briefed and trained on addressing the customer needs first while everything else comes next. We believe that happy employees make happy customers, and which is why CtrlS is a Great Place to Work. Our service delivery, DC Ops teams work closely to ensure the needs are assessed pro-actively, engage with customers to understand their pain-points and meet their expectations with the desired timelines. We follow the ITIL, CoBIT, PMP and ISO based standards to delight our customers, this is reflected in our NPS score which stands at 68, perhaps the best in the industry. We will continue to stay invest in new processes and methods to delight our customers, this will always be our top priority.

The key to any data center is its uptime and round the clock availability. How does CtrlS manage it?
Every IT Leader is tasked with the objective of ensuring the IT infrastructure and applications are available 24X7. Mission critical applications such as banking, financial services, telecommunications, utilities, e-commerce platforms etc require round-the-clock availability. At CtrlS, we follow TIA 942 Rated-4 standards. All our fault tolerant hyperscaledatacenters are rated-4 certified and they are equipped redundant capacity components and multiple independent distribution paths serving the computer equipment which all are active. The data center allows concurrent maintainability without causing downtime. We have N+N power lines, UPS, Gensets, multi-path fibre networks to ensure no downtime. We have had 100% uptime record since our inception. This is why we are trusted by 50 banks, stock exchanges, telecom, e-commerce players such as Flipkart and 3 of the world’s top 5 hyperscalers.

India is likely to become the largest global hub for data centers. What are your thoughts?
Indian becoming the largest hub for data centers could become a reality. Let me explain. It is important to appreciate that out of the 400 million SMEs across the globe, India is home to 64 million SMEs, that’s 16% of world’s SMEs operate in the country. They are rapidly adopting technologies to transform businesses. That includes basic services such as email services, websites, e-commerce portals, cloud, enterprise resource planning, disaster recovery, data back-up etc. This is one key driver for data explosion. Secondly, the country has one of the world’s largest base of active social media user base of 250 million, mobile user base exceeding 1 billion, 500 million smartphone users (20% of world’s base). 

India is a major destination for global multinationals including e-commerce, OTT players who are targeting the rich consumption base of middle class estimated at 300 to 350 million people. They are all engaging in digital transactions, online banking transactions. The per capita data consumption in India is growing. It is reported that India’s per user per month. This very change in consumer behaviour is also driving growth of data. 

Third, the hyperscalers are offering cloud services to large enterprises, mid-size enterprises and start-ups leading to mass scale consumption of cloud, be it public, private or hybrid cloud. Manufacturing sector is embarking on digital transformation with IoT, cloud, data analytics, AI/ML giving rise to large sets of data, requiring storage. The proposed Personal Data Protection (PDP) policy will compel the 4,500+ MNCs based in India to localize the data. All the factors stated by me will in all likelihood lead to India becoming the Global Data Center Hub.