What IT tasks are relevant in Russia

Illustration of the scale of work: over the year we have implemented more than 2 thousand projects. CROC employs 2,155 staff members, plus specialists who are invited to perform individual tasks.

The major projects of 2013 (about which I can tell) are as follows:

• United Aircraft Corporation - we built a mobile data center. The data center is already used by JSC UAC as the main one and is loaded at 45-55%.
• M.Video - the accounting documentation was transferred to our “cloud”. The cost of using the service for five years on average is 2-3 times lower than the total cost of owning an electronic archive.
• Gazprom Mezhregiongaz St. Petersburg had problems in a complex software complex responsible for controlling and accounting for gas supplies. It was necessary to significantly optimize the execution time and identify the causes of a number of failures. We performed and revision, and search bottlenecks, and debug, plus worked at the architecture level.
• For OTP Bank, the call center was significantly improved. Actually, we are building a lot of “smart” call centers throughout the country (over the past few years, more than 60 large objects have been built).
• Aviadvigatel OJSC had difficulties with possible data leaks through employees' smartphones. We implemented protection .

Below are more examples of projects and a general description of what is required by a different company in a country.
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What and who needs: banks

The leading edge of IT in Russia is banks. Well, at least they are definitely one of the first.

The first thing banks need is the absence of failures. Accordingly, we are talking about building infrastructure (data centers, data processing nodes, communication channels), auditing the data center after the accident, and of course, a total backup, creating fast disaster recovery sites, as well as organizing geographically distributed clusters for fast migration of services, decentralized data storage and so on.

The second is the introduction of automated service systems , the organization of direct contact with the client by means of various communication channels. Here we are talking about the construction of contact centers and their integration with customer databases (ERP, ABS, etc.), the introduction of various call center systems. For example, in Uraltransbank, where we recently upgraded the call center platform, the Avaya solution helped evenly distribute the workload between operators, reducing the average customer waiting time by 3 times.

The third is information security . Including the solution of specific tasks, for example, audits of various kinds of standards or identification of operational risks of the bank.

And finally, the provision of cloud services. More often than not, this is either IaaS or startups, that is, testing new IT systems, for the benefit of which there is no definite certainty. And there is a certain interest not only in public “clouds”, but also in private ones. Here, for example, a topic about how a private cloud can be useful for testing new services.

Of the interesting last year, the banks showed great interest in the voice identification or voice fingerprint system. She clearly has great potential.

Telecom

In 2013, the following trends were most noticeable in the field of telecom:

• First of all, life in conditions of exponential growth of traffic. And this affects the mobile operators most significantly, especially considering that in Russia there are still a lot of localities where mobile communication is the only way to access the Internet. And the picture is the following: traffic is growing many times, you need to invest in network expansion (construction of 3G, LTE, etc.), while the tariffs need to be reduced, which naturally leads to the fact that the revenue of the operators suffers. Therefore, operators considered using various solutions to manage network load using traffic compression technologies, solutions to adapt it to devices, to receive conditions and subscribers' needs (to manage network load and to individual base stations).
• Second, the RF Government Decree “On Amendments to the Rules for the provision of mobile communication services” obliged operators to implement number portability ( MNP ). From December 1, the Big Three operators have already begun to provide the opportunity to switch to another operator while maintaining the number. And this requires a revision of the principle of traffic routing, changes in the network infrastructure, etc.
• Thirdly, in connection with the entry into force of the “anti-piracy” law, “on blacklists” and the law “On the protection of children from harmful information”, operators had to introduce appropriate solutions. Many solved this problem on the basis of already existing systems that see and process all traffic, such as Deep Packet Inspection ( DPI ), antivirus or parental control system. The filtering option based on DNS technologies is also applicable, but on the whole, solved the problem not efficiently enough, since in the standard version, besides illegal traffic, also blocks legitimate traffic, and requires additional technical refinement to prohibit only illegal content.
• And, of course, the competition between operators is only growing, and MNP only contributes to this. Therefore, solutions for predicting the behavior of subscribers become particularly relevant. For example, in 2013 we carried out a pilot project for one large telecom operator using Big Data technology, as a result we identified subscribers who were inclined to care and showed the possibility of reducing the cost of storing information units by 15-20 times.

Industry, energy and oil and gas industry

In the power industry, advanced accounting systems with automated collection of indicators are relevant now. The owners of distribution networks have finally calculated the losses from commercial losses of electricity and seriously engaged in restoring order. In addition, there is a lot of talk about situational analysis centers. The oil and gas systems require automated process control systems and advanced dispatching control with settlement and analytical functions plus an increasing number of energy efficiency projects, and not just energy metering, but serious systems tied to production processes are needed. The protection of technological networks has moved from conversations to real projects.

Traditional solutions, such as the transition to electronic document management or information security are also in demand.

Of the examples of projects, an electronic archive of engineering and construction documentation was created last year for one oil and gas company. And, as noted above, the St. Petersburg branch of Gazprom Mezhregiongaz helped to increase the productivity of their most critical dispatch control and gas metering system. Previously, failures in its work led to disruption of business processes, now the risks and losses of the company from system downtime are reduced significantly.

Gradually, there is an increase in demand for SaaS solutions by the industry (which is often more convenient and safer) for procurement planning, demand forecasting, warehouse management, logistics, manufacturing and repair services. For example, one of the largest Russian construction and manufacturing companies is currently using a demand forecast system for products based on Oracle Demantra from the CROC “cloud”, and has already improved the production planning system, optimized the flow of raw materials, finished products and transport. And all without the capital cost of purchasing equipment and software. At the end of the month, the customer is simply billed for the resources actually spent.

Retail and trade in general

Retail has now more than ever realized that good IT for network retail is a survival rate . The field of work is very wide here: this includes the routing of sales representatives , complete supply chain management, rental and creation of data centers, and outsourcing of technical support, and gradual migration to the “clouds” (here is a very good example ) and so on.

From the open examples of 2013: M.Video - implementation of the SAP BW system on SAP HANA to simplify the process of forming corporate reporting in different sections and creating a cloud archive of primary accounting documentation.

For navigation, entertainment and advertising purposes (attracting the attention of buyers to certain goods) new multimedia systems are needed in the trade. For example, in 2013, we equipped the World Trade Center with a unique system of 250 different audio and video media. These are displays, interactive kiosks and screens, including a large outdoor screen with an area of ​​about 11 square meters. They broadcast commercials and help visitors navigate through the center. There are still few audiovisual projects of this magnitude in Russia.

Other areas

We also work in medicine, education, transport and other areas - everywhere you need special software, electronic document management, often you need the IT infrastructure itself. Probably the most unusual example from practice is the sounding of the temple .


The sound of the temple

Of the major landmark projects, it is probably worth saying that we participated in the construction of the Unified Medical Information System of Moscow . In 2012, the IT infrastructure was deployed to 20 thousand health workers. Doctors were able to log into their personal profile in the system from a computer at any city clinic, and patients could remotely register for an appointment. In 2013, new facilities were connected, now it is more than 500 institutions. Continue to introduce new services. For example, extract sheets of disability, electronic prescriptions and referrals. I must say that even recently, the sphere could be called ultraconservative in terms of IT, so now it is very nice to see how things are changing.

What are you doing for yourself?

We are testing the new technologies in ourselves and on ourselves, including those that have not yet been used in Russia, and then we are already using them with an understanding of the pitfalls.

For example, in 2013 we introduced the Jive intra-corporate social network. It has a lot of chips that are not found in other systems, for example, full integration with MS Office and e-mail, content adaptation for mobile devices, etc. This is a system that can become a point of contact for many company IT solutions (for example, they already do connectors to ERP systems) or “single window service”, including with external resources - various sites, social networks.

In total, the system will be used by about 2,500 CRIC employees, representatives of partners and contractors (for the time being, 1,000, since we have specifically embarked on the path of unconstrained involvement of people). In addition to searching the system for information of interest, some, because of the convenience of the tool, even keep meeting minutes there, create and distribute tasks. Now access to the network is possible both from the company's internal resources and through the Internet, including the ability to access from mobile devices. An interesting point about the introduction: many of our tops say: “I don’t feel sorry for sharing information if I spend 5 seconds on this. If this can be done in 5 minutes, then I'm sorry. ” Therefore, the implementers had to fight for these 4 minutes and 55 seconds.

Also, not so long ago, we installed a BRMS system (Business Rules Management System, a business rules management system ), which greatly simplified the work of our financiers. If earlier the change in the calculation rules took several hours, now it is no more than 5 minutes. Financiers independently, without IT specialists, modify the calculations and make edits. Thus, the business rules for which you want to live are created and executed faster.

Another implementation — the Clarity project management system , which receives information from 13 other systems of the company — enabled CROC to better manage projects. Getting into cost and timing directly affects customer satisfaction, and tracking projects in stages allows for detailed financial accounting. In addition, it is possible to properly plan the project phases in such a way as to involve the right people for the specific situation in the project's focal points.

IT development and promotion

IT specialists from different cities of the country


Beginning of the competition "ethical hackers"

We have a lot of different activities designed for students and young professionals. This year the school of 3D-developers started (a very popular profession at nuclear power plants, for example); held a competition of autonomous flying robots (here are the results ) and on the eve of a new stage of the competition they even posted the source code of our team's robot to help participants; We recently held the traditional All - Russian Olympiad on administration * nix-system, last fall, together with Symantec, we held a security conference and the “ethical hackers” tournament Cyber ​​Readiness (here is a report from the conference with Kevin Mitnick and the victory of our “athlete” in the international final) , held the All-Russian Open Programming Championship .


From the finals competition flying robots

Well, and sometimes we also prepare, we publish in open access documents such as this useful package of service definitions for those who are engaged in outsourcing technical support or are its customer.