Mr. Prem Rodrigues is the Director for Middle East, India and SAARC at The Siemon Company; a leading global network infrastructure specialist for Data Centers & Intelligent Building solutions.
Prem is a certified RCDD (Registered Communications Distribution Designer), and has more than 19 years of experience in the industry. He has worked at various organizations in the Middle East handling diverse roles and Projects. He started his tenure with Siemon in 2010 and has grown to be the Director of Sales and Marketing for Middle East, India and SAARC.
As the region head, Prem’s role is to drive profitability across the region, which is strategic market for Siemon worldwide.
A passionate leader, thinker and a hands-on manager, Prem brings a plethora of knowledge to the table. His colleagues describe him as a compassionate and positive leader who never ceases to motivate his teammates.
Although Prem manages the operations of three vast regions, he has always been a techie by heart and is curious to know more about latest technologies.
He has an in-depth technical and commercial expertise in areas such as Networking & Extra Low Voltage Systems, Data Centers, CCTV/Physical Security, Access Control System, SMATV, IP Telephony, Data Networking & Wireless.
Prem is a Computer Science graduate and a certified RCDD (Registered Communications Distribution Designer) by BICSI from Florida, United States. He also holds other certifications for sales & management trainings.
During his spare time, Prem likes to follow the stocks & commodity markets and has deep interests in international politics. He is a music lover and is trying a hand at Golf.
Techiexpert had a opportunity to interact with Prem Rodrigues on the Data Center Infrastructure
Major challenges to drive a successful data center infrastructure
One of the major challenges is designing which ensures the right power, cooling and cabling to ensure performance, reliability, efficiency and scalability
- The solutions include understanding of the power needed for equipment and choosing PDUs appropriately
- The use of aisle containment, thermal blanking solutions and/or use of cabinet fans for proper cooling
- Choosing low-loss fiber connectivity to ensure that fiber systems meet insertion loss requirements and choosing high-performance cabling solutions that offer plenty of headroom to ensure reliable data transmission
- Using pre-configured cabinets that can save upto 30% on time and labor since the components are premounted and designed in conjunction. It also significantly reduces the cardboard waste for a greener and more efficient approach
- Understanding the applications you plan to support today as well as those planned for tomorrow. Example: Preterm fiber solutions that support 10 Gb/s today with easy migration to 40/100 Gig tomorrow
What is your take on Go-Green Data center revolution
Going green is one of our key initiative. In fact, our company is not going green, but we already are. Siemon’s carbon reductions and offsets exceed the global actual emissions by over 179%.
Whilst some may sit back and rest on their accolades, the Siemon Company is still a committed driving force in support of environment policies and conservation. In our company we ensure the implementation of environmental policies through a global environmental management system certified according to ISO 14001.
In our company we ensure the implementation of environmental policies through a global environmental management system certified according to ISO 14001.
Go-green should be a must have policy for every futuristic datacenter. There are many ways to go green in the data center including selecting the right PDUs to ensure enough power for the equipment without having excess stranded ports that impact power usage efficiency (PUE).
You can implement thermal management solutions like aisle containment, blanking panels, chimneys and fans to prevent mixing of hot and cold air, resulting in lower temperatures and HVAC efficiency by preventing the need for over cooling.
We can also use pre-configured data center cabinets (like V-Built) that reduce cardboard waste and recycling, as well as reducing shipment of separate components.
Data center role in cloud adaptation
Many businesses are using a hybrid approach of placing less critical or temporary IT services in the cloud while maintaining their own critical applications in house. Cloud data centers are still just data centers and need to also ensure the right power, cooling, and cabling to ensure performance, reliability, efficiency and scalability.
Preconfigured cabinets are ideal for cloud data centers because they support modularity and cabinets can be designed and preloaded with components based on function, and easily rolled into place to support rapid deployments. Pre-terminated fiber solutions support advanced data center speed while supporting faster deployments due to their plug and play design.
Cloud data centers also need to consider incoming fiber from internet service providers and they need superior high-density fiber solutions that enable easy access and superior cable management. Solutions like LightStack and LC BladePatch with its push-pull activation for access in tight spaces are ideal for cloud data centers.
Cloud data centers need solutions from manufacturers with outstanding fiber and copper cabling expertise, with the ability and agility to develop innovative designs that support fast deployment and simplified maintenance, as well as the ability to develop custom solutions to meet individual cloud data center needs.
Raw material inventory planning and the capacity to respond immediate to needs is another benefit to cloud data centers that requires efficient logistics and local staging to ensure on-time delivery, as well as integrated manufacturing to deliver large quantities of infrastructure solutions with short lead times
Network challenges you face in emerging countries like INDIA
We more often witness, that a good number of organizations do not really look at a long-term value & future readiness while choosing their products or solutions. While companies do acknowledge the importance of getting premium products and implementation of global standards, often cost pressures forces them to settle down on lower options.
It is important that the organizations consider a long-term view on their investments. I think it is important to look ahead of time, especially when it comes to key infrastructure investments. You can see that adoption of cloud services is driving the growth in Data centers, which in turn increases the need for a scalable network infrastructure. There is focus on mobility, big data activities, analytics which also need a sizable network.
Indian government’s various initiatives like Digital India, Smart cities, Start-up India, etc will only increase the need for a future ready network. Social media consumption is increasing day by day and with affordable data plans in the country, demand for both video & audio content will only increase, which will need a network to drive that kind of speed.
You can also see India is slowly but surely moving towards a cashless society, which needs a sound & secure IT infrastructure. Market changes as the need to transmit, store and access more information increases and your physical infrastructure must be ready for these ever-changing dynamics.
Meanwhile, we also notice that there are many educated graduates in India, however we see that there is a lower availability of skilled work force which can be employable by the industry. India is certainly on the right track of growth and we can achieve even greater results in a shorter span of time when we have adequately skilled talents.
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