Acceleron Labs Pvt Ltd: simplifying the future of datacenters with its deftness in Hyper-Converged Infrastructure(HCI) space

The climate of the business landscape is changing. Incited by the convoluted data centre environment nestling a myriad of servers that must be managed and monitored. New business models and evolving digitization phase has not settled well with the traditional IT structure and hence, it stands scanty to meet the rising business demands.

Companies are looking for a change to cut down the operational costs, reduce complexity while running on a more agile IT architecture. To curtail these problems companies are now calculating one space- Hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI).

A software-based IT framework, HCI benefits organizations to optimize various elements of storage and compute components for collectively working on a single commodity appliance supported by one single vendor, thus reducing the expenditure of purchasing various servers and software(s).

With all the years passing by, HCI has become a mainstream technology for the modern data center, whose growth has been fuelled by steady acceptance of cloud, mobility and Internet of Things (IoT). Clarity, ease of scaling and cost efficiencies has added to the value of HCI for large and mid-size enterprise organizations.

Currently witnessing a significant growth, HCI market is preparing itself to grow at CAGR of 45%.

Extending the reach of HCI infrastructure to every business site and ensuring customer delight in transforming their IT Infrastructure, Acceleron Labs Pvt. Ltdwas incorporated in 2014 by L.K.Prasad with five of his friends to develop 'Accelerated Green Cloud Computing and Storage' system products for the modern business framework.

Inception of the leader

Increasing the productivity, scalability and also reducing the footprint in businesses' data center through its HCI adroitness, Acceleron Labs is the only Indian company engaged in hyper-converged infrastructure products. The brand has created a unique bouquet of offerings within Hyper-converged infrastructure by utilizing heterogeneous computing capability.

A pioneer in Heterogeneous computing, Acceleron Labs has created a landmark in the industry with its Mini-Data Center (MDC) concept. The organization coined new concepts under the umbrella of hybrid computing, hybrid storage, acceleration virtualization and software-defined acceleration in data center space.

Acceleron labs' MDC stimulates micro-server, storage and network access. Available as MDC400 and MDC1000, these products are built on MDC Super Compute Fabric, having a maximum of 9.6 terabits of switching capacity and minimum 140 ns latency.

True hyper-convergence gives the user the flexibility to assign compute resource with storage, network, memory, other computing resources and acceleration. Current solutions available in the market address a small set of these parameters.

Hyper-Converged acceleration and heterogeneous computing need low latency network and hardware virtualization features.  Also, certain workloads like AI and ML can only be accelerated using heterogeneous computing with FPGA, GPU and TPUs etc. Acceleron MDC enables hyper-converged heterogeneous computing features with low latency network and hardware virtualization.

Sharing expensive hardware resources across the compute nodes are one of the main USP of Acceleron MDC. Acceleron MDC achieves this functionality with patent pending MDC supper compute fabric, without compromising efficiency and performance.

Today the firm has become a trusted and recognized brand in a very short period of time along with a proven track record of rendering high-end HCI products. And the growth has been fuelled up by the earnest efforts of Mr L.K.Prasad, a serial entrepreneur homing an expertise od 25+years of experience in telecom and computing industry.

Astounded by the brand's journey, we spoke to Mr Prasad to gain inputs over a host of issues in line with Acceleron. Here are the edited excerpts.

With such a fast growing team, how do you make sure everybody stays motivated and how do you support the corporate culture?

Every team member is entrusted with very important roles and responsibilities. Their importance in the organization while working towards the organizations' goal keep them motivated. Regular project reviews, team meetings, performance appraisals etc. helps us to support corporate culture.

Throw some light over the firm's clientele.

Our clientele encircles around Cloud Service providers, Data Centre, On-Premises cloud for Enterprises, Analytics box for SAS service providers, AI and ML data scientists and NFV (Network Function Virtualization) for Telecom Companies as our esteemed clients. Currently, we are targeting both Private and Govt. sectors.

What are the big achievements?

We proud ourselves to be a part of "PM Modi's Champion of change 2017". We have recently started a Joint Venture company with Kerala Government (COCONICS PVT LTD) to manufacture Laptops and servers in India.

What are the big milestones you are looking to achieve in 2018 and beyond?

We are looking forward to gaining more customer acquisition and rolling out different variants of MDC. We want to create AL and ML based computing product offerings for Enterprise customers. Establish Edge data centre across Tier-2/3 cities in India with partnering with right investors and partners. We are planning to expand our operations in USA, Middle East and Europe.

How do you learn in your life and what is your biggest dream?

I would like to drive the Next Generation Computing requirements like AI, ML from India. My dream is to develop appropriate ecosystems to enable AI and ML Technology in India.

The road ahead?

Heterogeneous cloud computing will be a segment which will get boosted during 2018-19 due to the advent of AI and ML technologies. Hence, Acceleron will be focusing on AI and ML segments while utilizing heterogeneous computing boxes (MDC410-X).

We want to work with 5-10 Tier-1 customers by the end of 2019-20.  We are looking forward to addressing the NFV requirements of 5G Technology using Acceleron Technology. By combining all the ingredients, we want to establish "Acceleron" brand for computing and storage segments.

Tell us how you've approached change.

Journey as an entrepreneur is an enlightening experience with lots of hardships. Most of the time, you are chasing a dream which is very hard to achieve. You may fail multiple times, may not even see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Keeping up entrepreneurial spirit is one of the key qualities which all of you should have. First and chief thing is to believe in what you are doing, even though you may face uphill tasks during the course of your execution.

What was the most difficult lesson you have learned as an entrepreneur?

The transition from a Start up to Enterprise is a big Challenge. Most of the start-ups fail during this phase. 'Go-to-market' phase is the most challenging chapter in the journey of a start-up. Beyond shadow of a doubt our product stands exclusive, however finding the apt market and buyers was a challenge I faced as an entrepreneur during the initial stage.

In India, albeit the funding ecosystem for hardware start-ups is microscopic, yet the budding entrepreneurs can avail seed capital or angel money through friends and relative and small time angel investors to accelerate the growth of the industry. Building a proper GTM plan is key to your success.

Building partnerships with established players will be the best method to manage your risk in GTM strategy. Understanding and pitching the correct portrait of your product for the market is the key to optimize the marketing effort.

What advice can you give entrepreneurs who want to venture into the same domain in the future?

Go-To-Market is very difficult in this hardware segment, so plan your Go-To-Market well in advance. Also, early-stage funding for hardware start-ups is very difficult. Plan your strategy based on these facts. Hardware segment is very capital intensive, finding right investor will be the key to pursue your dream.