Description of the project: Enabling e-scholorship program from Sify Data Center .

A complete ICT solution on cloud computing technology. E-scholarship program was an extremely planned and unique initiative by the social justice department that enabled centralized management & distribution of scholarship grants for institutes & students across all Talukas & districs of Maharashtra. An exhaustive and massive scale project which covered almost 16 lac students across Maharashtra right from remotely placed north Maharashtra region to the non accessible eastern region GADCHIROLI. Being at par with latest technologies, the computerization involved developing multiple modules to cover end to end solution requirement: 1. 2. 3. 4. Application by Institute/College for Grants Approval and grant process by GOM, Application by individual students Final disbursement of scholarship amount to the student.

This project was a highly talked about project since its inception stage , and had lot of resistance from institutes, few other bodies. With humungous number of institutes in Maharashtra and the estimated figure of 16 lac students applying online, people felt this project would never fly. To computerize the entire process of scholarship program, needed a massive IT infrastructure set up. This set up would be used once in each year and investment for crores of rupees for this was difficult to justify. But with the vision & determination of the Social Justice department and with the cutting edge Cloud Computing Technology from Sify Technologies, this entire project was successfully launched and completed in a path breaking timeline. Estimating almost several Crores of IT Infrastructure cost and several resources dedicated to maintain the set up, Sify Technologies hosted the e-scholarship application on the state-of-art Cloud infrastructure at Sifys Data center. Best of Breed Servers, superior network, Tbs of Storage Space, Highest processing power, data back up facility and highest level of security was used on pay-per-use model . This exhaustive project needed highly skilled technical resources which could manage end to end project life cycle and our superior managed services provided proficiency throughout. The loads using this application was uneven and the IT infrastructure needed to manage this support well and help the user complete the entire modules without any hassle. This application was hosted in Sify data center and the application had to run in the remotest part of Maharashtra who were accessing this application. Any discontinuation in the project inbetween, was a failure on part of the entire project. When the loads were high, the infrastructure was scaled instantaneously to accommodate the request thus giving excellent end user experience. The Infrastucture was scaled multi times in processing power, storage, memory during the last days of registration when the application usage was very high.

In traditional technology, Social justice department had to invest into this bigger structure only for few days of high load. While using the cutting edge cloud services, Social justice paid for the minimum need and rest was scaled on Cloud on pay per use model. This reduced their Capital expenditure thus saving crores of Rupees. Not just cost saving, but the best of breed IT set up where this application was hosted gave highest performance, speed, accessibility and a excellent end user experience. Sify technologies top class end user experience reported minute details on end users usage, time taken on which module, network issues if any thus taking corrective action immediately. This enhanced the other user experience which ensured the entire project was executed smoothly. This end user experience report was first of its kind adopted by any govt body. This project was a success for the entire Social Justice departments determination to roll out this massive and exhaustive project successfully. With the application partners and the infrastructure partner Sify Technologies, we are happy to computerize and bring a transparent e-scholarship system. Why was the project started? Complete Computerization of the e-learning process for Maharashtra state. Online application and grant system to facilitate 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Complete Transparency in the process and entire system Full Monitoring and control of the entire scholarship grants Ease of scholarship request and reduced time for the entire execution Sophisticated system to ensure grants reach the right candidates and institutes Single window system for all the users till the end of granting scholarship fees to the candidates bank account.

This project is a state-of-art project which each Indian State should implement. Maharashtra Govt has taken lead and provided a true path to other states. Objective: To provide and manage the most advanced alternative to a massive IT infrastructure set up providing highest performance, security, availability and comprehensive reporting tools. Hosting and complete management of the e-scholarship project on Cloud infrastructure set up. In this set up server space, processing power, network, bandwidth was scaled on- demand in fraction of second. Advanced technology implementation and complete management in the field of scholarship for the first time in India that provides exceeding outputs and ensuring costs are low. Target Group : Matriculate Students of all districts and Talukas of Maharashtra Government Geographical Reach : Spanning a huge coverage of 16 lacs studends across entire Maharashtra covering the remotest location also. Date from which the project became operational: March 2011- first phase Nov 2011 second Phase

10 points that make the programme/project innovative 1. First of its kind project which was on a huge and gigantic scale to computerize the complete scholarship project covering all corners of the Maharashtra state 2. First of its kind system to use the most advanced, world leading technology Cloud Computing. 3. The humungous IT infrastructure was scaled ON-DEMAND, MULTIPLE times to accommodate the additional load received on the e scholarship application. 4. Complete management, execution and support to the project which ensured not a single user was discontinued in between. Zero discontinuity reporting on the application due to best of breed technology used. 5. Accurate predictability of the loads on the escholorship application thereby scaling the IT set up for right set of IT infrastructure. 6. Best of the breed technology of load balancing to ensure end user has excellent, smooth experience on the application till the end of the process. 7. Highest level of security provided on cloud set up as against traditional method. This security was scaled to ensure the higest level even when the IT infrastructure was scaled. No vulnerability issues were reported from any of the centers/ users in the application. 8. Social Justice Department has estimated a high IT infrastructure budget, but by using the cloud technology this project save around 100 crores of IT infrastructure cost. 9. First of its kind reporting system The Cutting edge 24x7 End user experience reporting was implemented which gave complete analysis of the application performance that helped take immediate corrective action. When people were raising hands and doubting how the project would success, this end user report gave complete analysis of how many people logged in, how many completed the form, how many dropped down. Why did they drop their network problem or project network problem issues. Corrective measures were immediately taken to get a positive end user experience report. A very detailed and exhaustive report which gives complete heath of the application and what does user think about the application. 10. Execution in Extremely Less time In a extremely short time this project was established, implemented, executed and managed till the completion. The target base was huge, requirement gathering was complex, loads were uneven, extra ordinary IT set up was needed. In all these challenges the project was executed excellently and saved 100 crores of rupees for Social Justice Department. List 5 achievements of the programme/project On-demand Scalability of the Unsurpassed IT Set Up : This application being hosted on our world class cloud infrastructure we scaled the total IT set up requirement in no time. The best of breed servers, network, storage, back up, security reporting was ensured while scaling this set up. Service level availability was signed and guaranteed performance was provided. Anticipation of the load and scaling right IT structure: The load on the application was uneven, it increased during last days of registration. Initially it was less and eventually users started flocking to the website/application for registrations. Unsurpassed IT structure was provided and scaled to meet the uneven loads. Sify Technologies complete IT expertise was involved in solutioning such a challenging infrastructure. The infrastructure included best of breed components : o Web and application server, Application and Database servers best of the breed processers, 2vCPUs* GB RAM,50GB server+ 100 GB SANStorage, firewall protection,DNS, IP Address.

OS and DB license Complete license management Load Balancing services, OS Management Managed local load balance with shared throughput and connection. OS Management and 24X7 support. o Internet Dedicated Information bandwidth with committed information rate. This was scaled to burstable bandwidth. o Back Up 1 TB Data back up per month o Monitoring tools 24x7 end user monitoring, performance monitoring and trend line reports. Such a robust set up was scaled multiple times to accommodate the fluctuating requirements on the application. End to End Management & Ease of e-scholarship project : While there was so reluctance to this project , there was a need to provide a smooth functioning and easy navigation of the applications. Institutes/students were explained during camps the importance of registration using online portal. Sify Technologies put its extensive ICT expert resources from storage, servers, network, back up and security field to provide the best in class solution. This solution was robust and our sify team did excellent management of this project to ensure smooth functioning and delivery of the application. No network issues or related IT issues were observed which would have caused failure to this existence of this project. Lower Total Cost Of Ownership ( TCO) : In traditional Infrastructure requirement a humungous IT set up was needed. Once used , the set up investment would have been locked for a period of one year. With the advanced cutting edge cloud technology, IT infrastructure set up only for scholarship project period was consuming technology. Social Justice saved huge amount of hardware money in tune of Rs. 100 crore with this leading technology. Implementation in path breaking time : This project was executed in record time of just 1 day (Saturday) and facilitated the launch of this scheme by the CM. We scaled the setup to multi-times to handle huge load. This is one of the best site on internet for any government project. We clocked : o o Total Registration Completed: 1539044 Total Application Created: 1462780

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List 5 key challenges faced while implementing the programme/project/initiative and how they were overcome? Complete resistance to such a computerization and online scholarship program internally. There were doubts about if such a gigantic scale project will scale or not. Getting the project approved, signed off and convinced that cloud infrastructure can delivery this world class results was a big challenge. Awareness of this program and training on the application spanning all talukas and districts of Maharashtra including remotest areas of cities like Gadchiroli was a challenge. Uneven load on the IT infrastructure. Our expertise was put on complete stake when creating a robust solution for such a challenging scenario. Confident of our expertise, we provided the best of technology solution that worked excellent at the time of delivery. It was a challenge had the anticipation not worked.

Highest level of Security was needed as critical data including bank account data was submitted in the application. Ensuring premium security and uniformity was needed and our enterprise grade cloud set up ensured the same. When scaled to higher level, more security systems were added thus maintaining the top level security. The access of the application had to be fast across all area/region level. In remote interiors , students had to be given same end user experience and data security.

List 5 points to elaborate on the scalability of the programme/project/initiative Scalability of the program is unlimited because of the cloud computing technology. This cloud computing technology provides scalability on demand with respect to infrastructure , platform, softwares. The best in class Data center infrastructure is available on pay per use model and any project/application can be set of the leading technology. This infrastructure can be scaled as per the requirements and scaled down if not required. The payment is also on OPEX model thus paying only for the service used. This reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) providing savings to customers.

List 5 points on how the programme can serve as a model that can be replicated or adapted by others? Cloud Computing is an alternative to traditional IT infrastructure spends. Organizations do not need to invest in huge infrastructures as same can be provided using cloud set ups. Any online applications can now run on similar scalable infrastructures while providing even higher performance, higher availability and security. Online lottery system, online education submissions, online travel portals, online shopping and similar projects are suitable for such structures.