The new facility allows CRISIL to expand operations in line with its growth plans: to leverage technology effectively, and to attract and retain talent and customers. The building was built using recyclable, renewable and locally available material and has helped CRISIL reduce its energy consumption by 40 per cent.

Some of the significant steps from technology perspective that have been initiated in the new premises include reducing IT foot print by consolidation. This initiative involved consolidation of datacenter, and of servers using virtualisation technology.

Dhiren Savla, Director-Technology at CRISIL said, “Server virtualisation is an effective cost-saving strategy for datacenters, and involves replacing physical servers with virtual servers, and consolidation of multiple applications. The strategy has helped us reduce server count by half, currently. We expect to reduce the server count by another 25 per cent in the next couple of months.”

The datacenter infrastructure is scalable for significant future growth. It has UPS, power generator and controlled PAC airflow. Security and safety of infrastructure is ensured using fire detection and suppression systems, water leak detection systems, CCTV installation, thermal monitoring, and a two-tier biometric security system. Focused cooling has helped save on power consumption as well.

CRISIL’s presence in the information and knowledge business requires that focus on information security is of prime importance. The key initiatives undertaken by CRISIL IT to ensure information security include network access control (NAC), intrusion detection and prevention (IDP), content filtering, and data leak prevention (DLP) implementation. These forward-looking initiatives have helped CRISIL build infrastructure that is future-ready.

CRISIL hopes to obtain the highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification from the US Green Building Council for these new 211,000 square feet premise.