NxtGen - India Electoral Case Study
Summary
TLDRIn this Showcase interview, Guy Bartram, Director of Partner Marketing for cloud services, engages with Raj, CEO of NextGen, discussing the company's journey from a data center player to a cloud provider with a focus on vertical solutions. Raj highlights NextGen's tailored cloud offerings for government, healthcare, and financial services, emphasizing the importance of data sovereignty and compliance. The conversation delves into NextGen's role in the recent Indian elections, showcasing their scalable, secure infrastructure built on VMware's Sovereign Cloud, which handled massive digital traffic without outages, underlining the company's commitment to innovation and regulatory compliance.
Takeaways
- π Raj, the founder and CEO of NextGen, started the company in 2012 and has received investment from notable entities like Intel Capital and Iron Mountain.
- π NextGen began as a data center player but evolved into a cloud provider, leveraging Raj's experience from companies like Microsoft and Dell.
- π The company has transitioned from a general infrastructure service to building specific solutions for verticals such as government, healthcare, and financial services.
- π’ NextGen is focusing on creating a unified control framework to simplify compliance requirements for its clients across various regulated industries.
- π Data sovereignty and compliance are central to NextGen's offerings, especially in regulated verticals, as they help navigate the complex landscape of data protection laws.
- π NextGen's government cloud offering adheres to the principles of data jurisdiction, security, and compliance, which are crucial in a polarized global environment.
- π³οΈ NextGen played a significant role in the recent Indian elections by providing a scalable, secure, and stable platform for the Election Commission, handling a massive increase in load.
- π The success of NextGen's platform was evident in its ability to manage over 100 million searches and support the workflow for 30 million election workers during the elections.
- π» The company's use of VMware's Sovereign Cloud and Tanzu platform was instrumental in delivering the performance and security required for the election operations.
- π NextGen's strategy includes integrating VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation) to enable compliance and automation, which is crucial for regulated industries.
- π The company aims to make the cloud more accessible for mid-sized and small enterprises that may lack the resources to manage complex compliance requirements, offering them a cost-effective solution.
Q & A
Who is the founder and CEO of NextGen, as mentioned in the script?
-Raj is the founder and CEO of NextGen.
What year did NextGen start its operations?
-NextGen started its operations in 2012.
What was NextGen's initial business focus before transitioning to cloud services?
-NextGen initially started as a data center player before transitioning to cloud services in 2013.
Which companies has Raj worked for prior to founding NextGen?
-Raj has previously worked for companies like Microsoft and was also very early in Dell in India.
What are the three verticals that NextGen is currently focusing on for its cloud solutions?
-NextGen is currently focusing on Government, Healthcare, and Financial Services for its cloud solutions.
What does NextGen aim to achieve with its 'unified control framework'?
-The 'unified control framework' aims to simplify compliance requirements for its customers by building a responsibility matrix that clarifies what is expected and what needs to be done.
What is the significance of Sovereign Cloud in NextGen's offerings?
-Sovereign Cloud is significant in NextGen's offerings as it focuses on data classification, data jurisdiction, compliance, and security, which are crucial for regulated industries.
How did NextGen participate in the recent elections in India?
-NextGen participated in the recent elections in India by working with the Election Commission to modernize their applications and provide a scalable, secure, and stable platform for handling the election process.
What was the peak transaction load that NextGen handled during the election period?
-During the election period, NextGen handled a peak transaction load that was 21 times more than the regular traffic.
How did NextGen ensure the security and performance of the election platform?
-NextGen ensured the security and performance of the election platform by using a full stack VCF solution, which included load balancing, security measures like firewalls, and high-performance storage and compute capabilities.
What is NextGen's strategy for the future in terms of VCF and other domains?
-NextGen's strategy for the future involves building a unified controls framework that incorporates compliance into its technology implementations, focusing on making the cloud services more verticalized and tailored to specific industry regulations.
Outlines
π Introduction to NextGen's Journey and Vision
In this introductory paragraph, Guy Bartram, the director of partner marketing for cloud service providers, welcomes Raj, the founder and CEO of NextGen, to the Showcase. Raj provides an overview of his background and the evolution of NextGen from a data center player to a cloud provider. He mentions the company's support from investors like Intel and Iron Mountain and his own experience in the industry. Raj also discusses NextGen's transition to focusing on specific verticals such as government, healthcare, and financial services, aiming to build a unified control framework for compliance requirements.
π’ NextGen's Specialization in Vertical Markets
This paragraph delves into NextGen's strategic shift towards vertical markets. Raj explains the company's focus on building specific solutions for government, healthcare, and financial services sectors, highlighting the importance of compliance and the creation of a unified control framework. He discusses the complexities of delivering over 300 compliance parameters for financial services and the company's efforts to simplify these requirements for their customers. The paragraph also touches on NextGen's establishment of community clouds for government and financial services and its ongoing work in healthcare.
π The Principles of Sovereignty in Cloud Services
Raj discusses the concept of Sovereign cloud, emphasizing its focus on data classification, jurisdiction, compliance, and security. He addresses the educational aspect of the market's understanding of sovereignty and NextGen's role in educating customers about data sovereignty, especially in regulated industries. The paragraph also covers NextGen's approach to building a government community cloud and the importance of data protection laws in India, reflecting the country's neutral stance in a polarized world.
π NextGen's Success with India's Election Commission
In this paragraph, Raj shares the story of NextGen's involvement with the Election Commission of India, a project that began nine years prior. He details the modernization of the commission's applications and the move away from proprietary technologies towards open-source solutions orchestrated on the Tanzu platform. The paragraph highlights the challenges of scaling to meet the demands of the national elections, including handling a 21-fold increase in traffic, serving over 100 million searches, and facilitating workflows for 30 million workers. The success of this project underscores NextGen's ability to deliver on performance and security at scale.
π‘οΈ Security and Scalability in NextGen's Cloud Solutions
Raj emphasizes the importance of a secure and stable platform for NextGen's cloud solutions, particularly in the context of the Election Commission project. He discusses the company's preparedness for potential cyber threats from state-sponsored actors and the need for an integrated solution that includes load balancing, security, and performance. The paragraph also covers the technical aspects of handling millions of network sessions and the role of VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation) in delivering a full-stack solution that includes compute, storage, and networking capabilities.
π Automation and Compliance in NextGen's Future Strategy
The final paragraph outlines NextGen's future strategy, focusing on the automation of compliance-related technology implementations within VCF. Raj explains the company's efforts to convert regulations into actionable processes and technology implementations, aiming to make the cloud itself verticalized. He discusses the benefits of NextGen's approach for mid-sized and small enterprises that may lack the skills and resources to manage compliance in-house, positioning NextGen as a provider of high-quality, compliant solutions that can save customers from fines and reputational damage.
Mindmap
Keywords
π‘NextGen
π‘Cloud Provider
π‘Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
π‘Verticalization
π‘Compliance
π‘Sovereign Cloud
π‘Data Sovereignty
π‘VMware Tanzu
π‘Election Commission
π‘VCF (VMware Cloud Foundation)
Highlights
Introduction of Raj, the founder and CEO of NextGen, who started the company in 2012 with support from Intel IFC and Iron Mountain.
NextGen's transition from a data center player to a primarily cloud provider, leveraging Raj's experience in Microsoft and Dell.
The company's focus on building specific vertical solutions for Government, Healthcare, and Financial Services.
NextGen's development of a unified control framework to simplify compliance requirements for regulated industries.
The creation of specialized clouds for government, financial services, and the ongoing development for health services.
Raj's discussion on the evolution of cloud offerings from generic to industry-specific solutions.
NextGen's role as a VMware Sovereign cloud provider emphasizing data classification, jurisdiction, compliance, and security.
The importance of data sovereignty in regulated industries and NextGen's focus on this area.
NextGen's involvement with the Election Commission of India, modernizing applications for the digital enrollment of voters.
The successful handling of the scale and security requirements during the national elections in India.
The use of Tanzu for orchestrating applications from development to production, showcasing NextGen's technological capabilities.
The critical need for a stable and secure platform to protect against state-sponsored threats during the election process.
The massive scalability requirement of the election platform, handling up to 21 times the regular traffic.
The implementation of a full stack VCF solution, including NSX for load balancing and security.
NextGen's strategy for deploying VCF and its role in enabling compliance through automation and process integration.
The future plans of NextGen to build on the unified control framework and expand its services across different verticals.
The value proposition of NextGen's services for mid-sized and small enterprises in regulated environments, helping them avoid fines and maintain compliance.
Transcripts
hi and welcome to the Showcase my name
is Guy Bartram I'm director of partner
marketing for our cloud service
providers and I'm delighted to be joined
by Raj the founder and CEO of NextGen
welcome Raj why don't we start with just
an introduction of who you are and what
you do thanks guy I'm Raj I actually
started nexton in 2012 we got lucky got
investment from Intel IFC and now we
have a partner shareholder from us which
is Iron Mountain so basically we got
supported by pretty good set of
investors so we started off well started
off actually as a data center player but
you know very quickly we realized that
you know we don't deliver the full value
that an Enterprise expects so the things
were moving towards cloud and so in
2013 we started doing cloud and now
we've become a primarily cloud provider
previously I worked in companies like
Microsoft I was also very early
in Dell in India so we kind of started
the operations here so had a experience
across markets I mean in telicom
software and Hardware so kind of wanted
to use all that together and perhaps is
cloud is allowing me to do that
brilliant so it sounds like you kicked
it off at an opportune time and got the
the backing you needed and have been
through the the journey from data center
all the way to to cloud and Enterprise
applications so so can you tell me a
little bit about NextGen you know what
are the operating areas what sort of
size company is it what is there any
speci specific verticals that you
address just dive into what NextGen is
and how it
operates so when we started we were
actually we had a lot of opportunities
from uh uh my previous customers that I
have served before in you know other
organizations and that's how we got into
Cloud for a long time we really didn't
have a offering that was very specific
to any Market vertical since we are an
infrastructure player IAS I mean
infrastructure service pretty much what
we were offering was pretty uniform
across all but last few years I think
there's a lot of focus I mean it's also
built some clarity in terms of our own
understanding of what customers are
expecting and we started building
specific verticals solutions for
verticals such as Government I mean
we've got very big practice for
government now and then we are right now
focusing on Healthcare we've also got a
very good foothold into financial
services so what we're trying to do
there is that across all these three
verticals we're building what we call
unified control framework which
basically means that you know there are
hundreds of compliance requirements for
these customers we're trying to make it
simple we are kind of building a
responsibility metrix between us and our
customer what what is expected and what
we need to do and stuff like that and if
you take just Financial Services there
are over 300 parameters that we need to
deliver so that complexity of compliance
we're trying to solve so more or less we
now have a government Community Cloud we
have a financial services cloud and now
we are building a health services Cloud
so it's basically we are becoming
verticalized most of my customers most
of my business does lie in the public
Cloud across all verticals but as we go
along I think we will become more and
more verticalized yeah it's interesting
to see how Cloud providers have kind of
responded in the evolution of offerings
from you know a generic solution to
actually getting more industrialized
Cloud orientated to you know I guess
from your customers perspective this is
a really easy win for them because
they're going to get everything they
need lined to their vertical out the box
as an offering without having to kind of
build it first sort of thing um so let's
dive into the use case that we were
going to talk about today which kind of
aligns to Sovereign cloud and nextg
being a VMware Sovereign cloud provider
Sovereign is obviously heavily focused
on data classification data jurisdiction
compliance security Etc can you tell me
um how do those principles apply in say
for example your your government your
government offering that you have well
it's actually you know we are kind of
still educating the market I mean there
are still people grappling around
sovereignity in fact we ourselves
learned quite a lot over the past couple
of years but what is happening across
the globe especially in India in a
heavily polarized world I mean in a
world India is actually taking a pretty
neutral stand we have our own priorities
and kind of not aligned to one polarity
uh political poity in the world so kind
of what we are doing actually puts us in
a pretty sticky spot in quite a lot of
times in fact if you speak to any of the
government research and defense and any
other iCal they are actually worried
about sanctions they want to protect
themselves there are they government
they're doing quite a bit but government
is more focused on actually their data
protection laws and they wanted to see
how they comply to that before actually
you know forcing the industry to comply
to it and most of it most of the
countries are actually evolving their
own data protection laws so kind of what
we have focused now is about data
sovereignity we still are not in a
position where we really clearly
understand the customers clearly
understand a sovereign cloud in that
sense we're trying to educate them but
but data sovereignty is well established
and it's a big requirement especially in
all the regulated industry verticles so
that's one of the reasons why we are
focusing on these three Financial
Services as you know is heavily
regulated across the world and these
Sovereign Cloud plays a big role there
and then we also believe that it should
be the same for healthcare though in
India the healthare regulations are not
so mature but we taking the best
practices from across the globe we
actually serve the Ministry of Health
and Family welfare in India big way they
are one of our largest customers and
we're trying to work with them to kind
of build a regulation that suits
healthcare industry so a lot of work to
be done in with in the area of
sovereignity uh but I think one thing
that's clearly established is that I
think countries are now aware of
protecting their digital Destiny so it's
a conversation that they are willing to
have and it helps us to do a positioning
for The Sovereign Cloud yeah you're
absolutely right I mean one of the
things we struggle with is you know the
Market's interpretation of what
Sovereign is and some of the kind of
water muddying that's around the
overused term Sovereign regulation is
changing always and that's where I kind
of tend to focus my kind of sovereign
conversations about
you know understanding what data you
have how that's going to need compliance
and what regulatory controls are going
to need to be in place in audits to
underpin that and you're absolutely
right I mean you know you could suddenly
find yourself as a customer lacking the
necessary you know uh operational
control to to manage that compliance and
that can be a real sticking point for
customers so I wanted to zoom into a
particular success ESS you had recently
with the elections that were recently
held in India can you tell us how
NextGen participated in those elections
and and what was the solution that you
were offering and supporting well we
started working with the election
commission maybe nine years back so they
were a customer for long over a period
of time they've been developing
applications which are kind of
automating the workflow though there is
the process over a period of time
started from a pretty manual process of
enrolling voter to now almost you know
no touch fully digitally enrollment of
voter and these applications evolved
hundreds of
applications but about two years back
you know the customer decided that you
know they need to really prepare for the
upcoming elections and they would use
technology big time because of the scale
that at which it operates mean
technology could really help them so
they embarked on a pretty ambitious
project I mean they wanted to modernize
all their applications so they had a top
tier software application developer I
mean enrolled in this case it was TCS
and we worked along with them so the
first goal was you know we have to we
had to move away from proprietary
Technologies and put it into open source
and primarily because the application
was fresly being built so it was best
that you know it's built on a modern
architecture yeah so containers was was
what was being talked about and open
source was a very good choice uh so
that's how we started the convers ation
then when while we were having these
conversations around sovereignity one of
the big requirements was that to be able
to run a modern application so we were
able to Showcase tanzo to the customer
this entire application is actually
orchestrated from development to uat to
production fully on tanzo platform so so
customers really saw that you know when
he's actually experimenting with a new
application on open source which is very
not so well supported like an Enterprise
software they didn't they just wanted to
ensure that there is there are no Kings
left on the infrastructure side that we
didn't have many choices to going down
or anything like that so we wanted to
have a stable platform and having tanu
which is very well integrated into the
platform helped us quite a lot so for us
it's not just that Election Commission
is is just is Sovereign and it's and all
that it's kind of showcase for every
technology that that we deployed because
of the scale at which it operated and
the priorities that we had for example I
was briefed multiple times about
sponsored State actors bringing us down
I mean and you know a lot of things like
that and these are the things that we
were grappling with so it was very
important for us that we have a very
integrated a secure and a very stable
platform and that's what we delivered
for the election commission but I think
the primary Choice was that we wanted to
ensure or on the infrastructure side we
are absolutely topnotch in in terms of
being able to deliver the performance
and security required yeah I mean yeah
so a really key point you know militia
State actors acting against you to
change election results is a a very
serious business so just in terms of
scale what what are we talking here I
mean we're talking the whole population
of India it scale is actually I I don't
think there's another application which
delivered this scale in India especially
in such a short while while national
elections is is a two-month process I
mean it we just went through a
seven-phase election there elections
keep happening in the country because
there are 30 odd States and they go to
elections and there are other elections
that happen in the country so so we were
reasonably well prepared to do the
national elections but one of the first
most important things is that on the
election day typical to the usual
transaction load customers expectation
was to grow up to 21 times more so
that's what we have seen in terms of the
load we handled on particular days so
it's pretty easy to actually prepare for
30 40% demands but to prepare for
multiple times mean like not just 10
times right like I think the peak we
delivered was 21 times of regular
traffic so scalability was a massive
expectation and and we delivered on that
across all the voters for the voters to
search their details where they're going
to p and and stuff like that they we
served more than 100 million searches on
the platform it also ensures that there
is a workflow happening for nearly 30
million workers across the country so
it's uh it's security it is the process
automation there's a lot of things that
happen just to give you a perspective
polling happened in about 1.8 1.8 sorry
08 million polling boots so it's like
everything Works in millions and we
facilitated on the back end a lot of
workflow but I think what people see is
that we've actually delivered so many
search results at such great response
times to without any outages I mean
those are the things that that we are
very happy most important thing is the
two-year effort of preparation and and
this elections culmination we were able
to protect the reputation of the
institution you know that's the key
deliverable there so we we couldn't go
down for any reason and and we were just
keeping quiet that we run elections me
we were not telling anybody we were just
keeping quiet but the appreciation that
we got after we successfully completed
was pretty satisfying even the team that
delivered I mean it was pretty I mean it
was like we were on our tours for nearly
two three months I mean so it's kind of
pretty tough yeah I can imagine I can
imagine that's that's an incredible
scale to when you think about it because
it's not just you know tanzu and the
containers the processing you know this
compute requirements the performances
the networking it's managing everything
into to end to get that user experience
like I say you're going all digital it's
no good if the digital platform doesn't
respond and then of course this is all
built on full stack VCF that's correct
isn't it 100% so every component I mean
so the load balancing is done on NSX we
we had we had two layers of security and
we just didn't depend only on NSX
firewalls basically we had other
appliances deployed in in VCF but beyond
that I think everything else was
delivered through the VM de one of the
biggest success factors is visan because
the number of iops we had to deliver to
actually you know facilitate these
searches and the workflow was uh uh it's
because the transaction load in terms of
network is is pure sessions it is not
the amount of bandwidth it's number of
people and pure sessions so Network
session handling was pretty good on an
average we've handled 7 million Network
sessions per second so it's kind of
pretty big load on a consistent basis
and and and storage had storage had to
respond so it's it's it's a combination
of the compute storage and network that
delivered the required performance
across across board so more or less
every it helps to have a pretty
integrated solution you know the
observability is better you can actually
pretty well estimate where you will get
into trouble and you prepare for that so
so the integrated offering is one of the
biggest takeaways while we had so many
products I mean they were all pretty
well integrated and the observability
was very good so we were able to deliver
to the expectations of the commission
and I guess when you you're looking at
performance increase of what 21 times
the volume in a particular period you
you're heavily relying on automation to
deploy the new infrastructure to deploy
the new kubernetes clusters extend the
Clusters and and provide that processing
and networking and far Walling
capability obviously VCF is a heavily
automated stack I mean was where you
using all of the the native a Automation
and scaling capabilities within VCF yeah
I mean so there are at least three
layers of load balancing so depending on
the load the various things come up mean
for example even at the V or firewall I
mean we actually add capacity as as we
move on it's the same thing when it
comes to the containers that have to
serve and the read replicas of the
databases to actually serve the load
wherever it's required but more or less
I think it's not that you know you go
and operate it when you take the start
taking the load I mean it has to be
automated it cannot be a manual exercise
yeah the entire thing was prepared to
actually scale on its own as it takes
the load and and that's where automation
almost at every layer helped yeah
absolutely I mean if you you automating
in what it you say 31 regions local
networking capabilities I guess you're
using a lot of cellular communication as
well in as the back ho there or yeah I
mean so what we do actually is that
across all medium I mean all possible
connections that we can get we had
proxies sitting and actually pulling and
and kind of giving us
as to what the response times are
because this country is pretty large and
you need to have have so this is not
like a CDN right I mean this these are
all online transactions so so we had to
provide a uniform experience across the
country so so we me measuring latency
from different geographies and different
media like Broadband you know cellular
and host of others most of the voters
actually used an app so it's mobile
communication that that was really
required so we had people across the
country on different service providers
using the same app and then we're trying
to measure the latencies continuously so
that we can see what what can be
corrected as we go along so it was
pretty etic activity on the network side
yeah I guess so you built in all of the
kind of the app performance metrics
within the client app did you so you
could actually receive kind of live
visibility on the user experience yes I
mean so latency is the most important
thing we measured so because once things
start latency starts increasing you kind
of know that something is going wrong
and and so uh I think what we were
looking at latency was latency from
maybe few hundred inputs into the system
so that that's what we yeah fascinating
and of course uh you know VCF as a as a
a product is evolving and I guess your
your strategy of deploying VCF and how
you're using VCF is evolving as well in
your different verticals this is kind of
one use case which is a fantastic
success story and just highlights the
capability the NextGen has what do you
see for the future any any plans with
VCF in in other domains as well what's
nextgen's kind of plan look
like yeah so I talked about unified
controls framework right that we're
trying to build yeah most of the time
the regulation comes in in English I
mean so you need to convert it into an
actionable process or technology
implementation
so that's where actually a whole lot of
compliance related technology
implementations can be brought in so
we're putting that effort to convert
every regulation into either a process
or process or process I or technology
and process and you know just pure
technology implementation so VCF will
play quite a lot of role in actually
enabling that compliance piece because
there are controls that we can deploy at
various levels whether it's that the
network or the storage for example it's
encryption and you know a whole lot of
aspects that go into it key management
and and host of things that are related
to specific compliances they can be
built into the system so that the cloud
itself will become verticalized so
that's what we've done for government
and financial services and now we
focusing on Healthcare to do that so
it's it's what we derive from our
interpretation of the regulation and
then implement it as a Automation in or
a a process automation or a technology
implementation to actually deliver the
required compliance right so customers
who are in those verticals can come to
NextGen they can receive you know the
VCF instance the is compute that they
need they'll get the full stack and
they'll also get then the the next gen
value ad in terms of services and
capabilities like we just you just
mentioned the Regulatory Compliance out
of the box pretty much yeah I mean see
the larger customers if you take the
biggest bank I mean maybe top three four
five banks they have already got very
large skill levels and skill pools in in
their uh companies I mean in their
organizations but you know when it comes
to Mid and smaller Enterprises in these
verticals actually struggle it's the
same thing with you know smaller
government organizations I mean where
they don't have the skill sets at all
there is shortage of skill in India so
they especially on the security side
side and and and infrastructure
operations so you if you have to build
and manage all those skills within the
organization becomes very very expensive
so if a service provider actually builds
those into the baks it into the solution
offering and you amortise this cost of
skill over multiple customers you can
actually deliver pretty high quality
compliant solution which normally you
can't get to as a midsized or a
small-sized organization yeah yeah
especially in these regulated
environment so you see that in India
many of these mid and small Enterprises
actually end up paying lot of fines I
mean so the simple thing just the if you
can just save the the fines that they
pay I think we've delivered great deal
of value because it impacts both
financially and in terms of reputation
so it's a very important delivery that
we are trying to do for this vertical
yeah as you say the large companies and
the smaller companies they're all under
the same regulation kind of umbrella but
the the larger companies have the skills
and resources the mid and smaller
definitely don't and you know next J
makes a a perfect platform to help them
that and as you said the TCO is pretty
uh um sorry the ROI is pretty
self-explanatory if you're getting
fines Raj thank you very much for your
time today it's been a real pleasure to
talk to you and I'm so pleased to hear
that NextGen is providing these really
Innovative Services you know pushing
forward in the market with a full VCF
solution and and innovating with
Solutions like Tano so thank you very
much for your time thanks a lot K very
nice meeting you
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