NASA uses only ProCurve Switches :By - Subhodeep Bhattacharya India Country Manager, ProCurve Networking Business, ProCurve Networking, a Division of HP

After Gartner rated ProCurve as the legitimate challenger to Cisco in its Magic Quadrant for Networking, it becomes compelling for every media to take note of ProCurve’s progress, and VARIndia is no exception. On top of it, recently, ProCurve Networking has been named a leader in the wireless local area network (WLAN) infrastructure by Forrester Research.

To know more about ProCurve in India, VARIndia spoke to Subhodeep Bhattacharya, India Country Manager, ProCurve Networking Business, ProCurve Networking, a Division of HP.

As per our understanding, ProCurve is bringing out differentiated value to the table. The advantage of ProCurve is that it has the support of the entire channel network of HP India. The company is able to leverage the brand name of HP. The disadvantage is that it is a fairly new brand with less awareness in the SMBs and it is up against the ensconced positions of Juniper, Nortel, 3Com, Huawei, etc. I would not agree with Gartner on their point of Cisco Systems being the greatest challenge as far as India is concerned. 

Subhodeep says, “In India, ProCurve is sold through the HP channel network and is also supported by the same network. And, therefore it is part and parcel of the HP product bouquet.”

It means any channel partner of HP can sell ProCurve. However, ProCurve has partnership classifications, i.e. ProCurve Elite, ProCurve Professional, ProCurve Specialist and ProCurve Select Partners. These partners are capable of delivering complex solutions. They have sales and technical team and capable of delivering turnkey networking solutions.

To enable these partners, there are two distributors, i.e. Ingram Micro and SES Technologies, which are engaged by ProCurve. The company has its own personnel deployed in every major city, including Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Delhi and Kolkata. Besides this, the ProCurve partners are present in all the satellite and smaller places, which makes the company present literally in all the locations in the country.

ProCurve has end-to-end solutions for the enterprises. Subhodeep says, “We are an enterprise-class LAN, switching and routing data networking company. Our products are capable of handling triple play (voice, video and data).” He adds, “We have all the ranges of switches, including unmanaged, managed and web-managed switches, which can be managed remotely over the web. And, the switches can be with various configurations, including 8 port, 28 port, 48 port, etc. The company also offers different permutations and combinations of products with fibre optic and copper interfaces.”

Besides, ProCurve product profile boasts of having routers, WLAN, management software, etc. As part of its offering in terms of management software, the company provides ProCurve Manager (PCM). The company also offers ProCurve identity Driven Manager (IDM) and ProCurve Network Immunity Manager. ProCurve Network Immunity Manager is a security management application that delivers intelligent network threat management, detection and response to help protect against threats such as virus attacks. ProCurve also plans to deliver the ProCurve Network Access Controller 800, an easy-to-use appliance that adds endpoint integrity to the company’s secure access control solution.

The company also offers free upgrade to the ProCurve Identity Driven Manager (IDM) 2.2 for existing IDM 2.0 customers.

Besides, network security provider Fortinet has joined the ProCurve Alliance, a formalized interoperability testing and certification program that provides comprehensive, pre-qualified solutions for resellers and customers worldwide. The combination of Fortinet’s FortiGate multi-threat security appliances and ProCurve Network Immunity Manager provides a unified network security architecture that allows customers to cost-effectively improve their overall security.

In fact, the security aspect of ProCurve Solutions differentiates it from the competition. Subhodeep adds, “We have a concept call adaptive edge network. Part of this strategy, ProCurve switching platform can be pushed into the edge of the network as the products are intelligent enough to handle the requirements. Besides, ProCurve has developed a unique product called ProVision ASIC. This network chipset sitting on the edge switches makes them intelligent enough to filter data at the point of contact of the network. It has the capability to detect a virus and quarantine a port. If there is any virus coming into the switch, this chipset can detect it and quickly quarantine the port. At the same time, it shuts it off and sends a report to the network manager as an aberration. Subhodeep says,““Normally, the virus gets detected inside the network, but prior to its being caught, the virus infects many nodes. On the other hand, ProVision ASIC makes ProCurve network more secure. Along with other security protocols, we are able to fortify our network.” ProCurve has also given QoS to the edge so that the switches are capable of sensing whether the incoming signal is data, voice or video. Depending on that, it can dynamically allocate bandwidth to the particular port so that the individual application never suffers from bad quality.

The other speciality of ProCurve is that the company cannot be played in the home and SoHo space. All its products, according to Subhodeep, are completely designed by HP. Even the ASICs used are designed by HP also. Subhodeep adds, “On top of it, we provide this product with best value proposition. We provide life-time warranty on all our products.” He maintains, “As long as the customers use the products, we will stand by them. And, if that goes out of order, we will replace it.” This is precisely the value which lures more and more enterprises to adopt ProCurve network. Subhodeep adds, “We have very good case studies in India. In the last two years’ time, we have been able to acquire many customers and the number can typically touch 450 approximately.” The credibility of the brand can be measured from the fact that, as per Subhodeep, ProCurve switch is the only switch that has been used by NASA. As per NASA requirements, the ProCurve switch is capable of functioning properly in the space. According to them, in terms of emission norms, radiation norms as well as in terms of mean time between failure and average failure rate, ProCurve is the best. Subhodeep maintains, “It is not a specially built switch, rather an off-the-shelf product.”

In its go-to-market approach, Channel is the basic conduit of ProCurve in India. To empower the channel networks, ProCurve is planning to launch training programmes very soon. The biggest gain for the partners is that the products coming from the ProCurve kitty are plug & play and standards-based. Therefore, from the scalability, manageability and interoperability perspective, these products are really very good. So, partner integrating systems or reselling networking products can really find good value and margin opportunity as well. ProCurve follows all the norms of channel engagements and incentivises them.

If that does not impress you, ProCurve also has an R&D centre at Bangalore, wherein at least 45-plus engineers are working only for software development part of the solutions. This is the second largest after the US ones. Besides, the company has a concept centre for ProCurve switches there, where all the models of ProCurve switches have been showcased.

As an entrant to this huge geography, Subhodeep agrees that the awareness of ProCurve definitely can be better in channel and end-users. Therefore, the plan is that the company will take multiple approaches, including talking to the media, engaging tele-callers, rolling out schemes, rolling out roadshows and seminars, launching advertisements, blasting EDMS, etc.

Finally…

According to the industry pundits, 2007 has been dubbed as the year of broadband. Th erefore, the avenue is quite big and every vendor has a space to grow. ProCurve also feels along the same lines. Subhodeep feels that ProCurve will grow over 100 per cent this year.