Data the linchpin of strategic decisions firms are making: Radhika Krishnan, Chief Product Officer, Hitachi Vantara

With the world witnessing a data explosion, the value of data is being realised, leading to an increased focus on every step of its journey – from the point of capture till its monetisation and retirement, says Radhika Krishnan, chief product officer, Hitachi Vantara. With CIOs no longer reliant on traditional technologies, strategic business decisions are being driven by data, she tells Sudhir Chowdhary. Excerpts: What are some of the new skills being demanded by the tech industry? Digital transformation has opened up an avenue of opportunities for tech talent in the country.

When it comes to hard skills, engineering positions need hires who excel in maths, applied science and programming language. Currently, experience in containers, microservices, Python/Ruby/ Scala/R/Javascript, AI/ML and ui/ux are all in demand. Apart from technical skills, engineers are required to have soft skills that can enhance communications, leadership, processes and project management.

The data storage space is growing by leap and bounds… Yes, with the world witnessing a data explosion, the value of data is being realised, leading to an increased focus on every step of its journey – from the point of capture till its monetisation and retirement. With CIOs no longer reliant on traditional technologies, strategic business decisions are being driven by data. Hybrid cloud storage is growing in popularity as an option that provides all the benefits of cloud storage, such as data protection, reliable data availability, massive scale, cost efficiency, integrated tools like content indexing and metadata extraction, as well as multiple cloud services, so that IT has complete visibility and control over data, no matter where it is stored.

Organisations are adopting DataOps practices, which involve deploying resources, including people, processes and technology, to expand visibility, understand and integrate data, and enable access for analytics and operational workloads. This is followed by cataloguing of the data, thereby making it more accessible and available for usage. Data lakes are moving into architectures powered by object storage, providing superior security, efficiency, interoperability and speed.

Traditionally, infrastructure was bought in a capex model, but customers are increasingly preferring the pay-as-you-go model. What are some of the strategies that can be adopted by companies to derive maximum benefits from their newly embraced cloud journeys? Once organisations embrace a cloud journey, it is important to take a strategic approach to cloud operations (CloudOps). Careful planning is needed to decide which workloads can be offloaded to the cloud, which must remain on-premises, and identify the best approach to operate in a hybrid reality.

To extract maximum value from their cloud journey, organisations must assess whether their talent pool has the skills to operate and manage complex, distributed cloud environments. Enterprises must make knowledgeable resources a priority and decide what can be done in-house and as a service. How can DataOps help engineers achieve a competitive advantage for their organisations through dark data? The dark data problem is growing.

Data that is unused and untapped can be referred to as dark data. By 2025, IDC expects that the amount of data worldwide will grow to 175 trillion gigabytes. Most of this is unstructured data, out of which 90% remains unutilised.

With DataOps, enterprises are provided with the features of automated data discovery, a 360-view of the data, data correlation, and smooth integration of IT and OT. DataOps breaks down silos and enables integrated ways of working, delivering new products to the market at an accelerated cadence. How do you plan to leverage tech talent to expand your brand presence in India? With more than 3,500 employees and a third of its engineering force based in India, this market is a source of innovation and niche capabilities that propel our growth.

We have teams in Bengaluru, Pune and Hyderabad doing innovative work with cutting-edge technologies such as containers, automation, hybrid cloud, and microservices. The Hyderabad regional operations hub focuses on digital infrastructure product development and delivery, digital solutions delivery, cloud services, IoT technologies, managed services, and other global shared services. And the product development and innovation labs in Bengaluru and Pune are into R&D for hybrid cloud and AI products.

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