Tan Choon Huat, the manager of the regional data center facilities of an insurance major in Singapore, talks to Hot Aisle about how the IT infrastructure domain has evolved, and what’s up ahead
Meet Tan Choon Huat. He heads the data center facilities for a large insurance company in Singapore. He started his career as a customer service engineer with IBM in 1991. He went on to join a telecommunications company where he headed the customer service delivery, and then moved on to become the data center manager. Recently he joined a large insurance company and looks after their regional data center.
You could call him a veteran—with over 22 years of experience in various roles of IT service delivery under his belt, he is nothing less. And he continues to be an eager learner. He has worked in very different industries, where the challenges and focus areas are very different. “I look at them as great learning opportunities,” he says.
We ask him about the changes he has seen over the years in the IT infrastructure industry. “Earlier the focus was on investing in a lot of infrastructure in countries where the businesses exist, and the total cost of ownership was high,” Tan says. “And when the economy is not doing well, IT is usually among the first departments to get affected.”
“Now you see the convergence of IT and telecom happening. Global companies are consolidating their IT infrastructure. Earlier companies followed a distributed model and now they have a centralized approach, that is they have a consolidated data center that brings down the cost of ownership and lowers the operating expenses, yet maintain the communication links to their businesses in different part of the world,” he says.
All the IT expertise required to manage the infrastructure may not exist within companies, so there is a lot of thrust on managing remotely and outsourcing. “The entire business model for IT has changed, it’s no more about what is the product we can sell, it’s all about the kind of services we can offer,” says Tan.
Tan goes on to discuss the challenges faced by the data center manager of today. There is a need to reduce operating expenses, for one. Playing catch-up with technology that changes every 3-6 months, is another, he says. “Being environmentally conscious, ensuring availability of services, and staff retention are some other key challenges.”
With an outsourced model, a company can leverage the expertise of service providers, as internal staff retention is a huge challenge. Earlier we were focused on providing hands and legs to address the customer’s IT challenges; now it’s more about managing the operations efficiently. Hence tools and processes become critical, according to Tan.
“There is a need to increase efficiencies through technology and automation. Virtualization is one of the examples. Real estate costs are huge. With aggressive virtualization, you can reduce the need for real estate by as much as 75%. You can lower operating costs, reduce the need for new hardware and decrease power consumption,” he adds.
Energy utilization is another key challenge for the global corporates, he adds. There is a lot of focus on energy consumption, recycling and green IT.
In the Future
We ask Tan to share his thoughts on what the future is going to be about.
“We have seen a lot of virtualization in the server space. It’s the turn of storage now. The energy consumption of storage is very high, so I expect storage-as-a-service to grow in a big way,” says Tan. He also expects to see the rise of data center services (similar to cloud computing services) that will help SMEs to make use of data centers resources easily through low capital expenditure. And over years, big corporations may even embrace the concept, helping them transfer the risk of maintaining a data center, and thus reduce costs significantly. Tan highlights big data as another area of growth because of the huge thrust by companies to understand the different demographics and consumer behavior.
“The shift is from ‘doing’ to ‘managing’,” says Tan. And that means you need to have a good set of tools to help you. Data center infrastructure management tools like dcTrack and PowerIQ help you with power management, capacity planning and change management in a data center. System and network monitoring tools help you track the health of servers and the network. And security devices become a critical component of the infrastructure to detect and deter IT risks. So management tools are very important, going forward, he insists.
Approach to Work, and Life
How does he manage the array of challenges he faces every day. He answers, “I use three things to manage my work—People, Policy and Tools. You must have the right people, develop and train them properly. Policy helps us put processes and procedures in place. And with the right tools you can manage the entire show.”
“I follow the PDCA—Plan, Do, Check, Act—approach religiously. I am a big believer in processes, because processes lead to efficiencies, but they should not also become roadblocks or constraints. The processes should be able to address 80% of the situation in your data center, the other 20% can then be managed with the right approaches,” Tan elaborates.
So what advice would he give to the upcoming generation of IT infrastructure professionals? “I would tell them that there is no right or wrong answer to a problem, but what it takes to make it right. Try to look at the problem in different ways and arrive at different solutions. Also be humble and eager to learn, whether from a senior or junior person. By doing these things you will build a good foundation for yourself, which will help you not just in the professional space but also personally. And try to look ahead, and focus on long-term gains. Don’t be taken up with the short term,” he says.
Very good advice indeed, we tell him. And how does he unwind after a long day at work? “I like to spend my free time with the family. I play computer and console games. I like swimming.
“I have recently started running with my son to help him prepare for his army service. I like to lead by example,” he says with a smile in his voice.