Development of the reserve computer center of corporate information system



Open Technologies, Russian system integrator and Kazakhtelecom JSC, national service provider of Kazakhstan, announced about completion of Reserve Computer Center (RC) project.

Open Technologies and its Kazakh partner, OT-Systems, and specialists of Kazakhtelecom JSC developed and successfully introduced the project of reserve center for protection of SAP R/3 data system in Kazakhtelecom JSC from losses during possible catastrophes. The RC creation included operations in the remote centers (1500 km) and low speed of data transfer along the existing communications channel at the early stage of project implementation.

This project, which was unique for the CIS, took 180 working days.

"The RC was needed because of the continuity of the company’s business processes supported by AP R/3", said Askar Bishigayev, Vice-President on Business Development at Kazakhtelecom JSC". - "It required a reliable protection of data from unprecedented catastrophic impacts. It should also be noted that the RC and a substantial part Kazakhtelecom JSC branches are located in earthquake zone.

On the first stage Open Technologies developed a concept of the RC creation and development. In its technical laboratory Open Technologies developed a special stand, where the system prototype was tested. The tests helped to take into account possible risks and check the correspondence of the proposed technical solution to the requirements of Kazakhtelecom JSC.

While developing the concept Open Technologies suggested 3 variants of the RC in Kazakhtelecom JSC.

  • use the opportunities of modern software and hardware offered by the producers of corporate data storage systems.
  • use the opportunities of software offered by the developers of a socialized system software for big enterprises.
  • Use the built-in options of the existing operational system, Oracle DBMS and SAP R/3 software without purchasing additional equipment and software.

The customer selected the third, the most economical variant, providing for an opportunity to develop the project in the future, when, say, faster channels of communication between the principal and the reserve centers appear.

"The following objectives were met during the design of the RC: the choice of the acceptable data reservation variants on the basis of the developed concept; testing the selected technical architecture in the laboratory conditions and developments of the Disaster Recovery Plan", pointed out Vyacheslav Kozlov, head of the project from Open Technologies.

The emergency restoration plan provides:

  • launch of the reserve center in Astana
  • switching all SAP/R3 users including the branches for working with Kazakhtelecom JSC RC.
  • launch of the RC after its recovery
  • switching all SAP/R3 users including the branches for working with the restored Kazakhtelecom JSC RC, Almaty

At the last stage of the project the company held a large-scale test of the entire complex with imitation of the computer center failure and switching all the users of Kazakhtelecom JSC for working with Kazakhtelecom JSC RC in Astana. After the test all the users were switched to the standing operational conditions of working with the computer center in Almaty. A thorough control of information security and confirmation of DB integrity was maintained throughout all stages of the job.

In compliance with the requirements of the emergency plan for technical personnel serving SAP/R3 computer complex, the current operational and service instructions will be complemented in order to reduce the downtime of software an hardware during the failure of the main computer center to the minimum", noted Marat Abdildabekov, director of the IT department at Kazakhtelecom JSC.

About computer system at Kazakhtelecom JSC

The computer system of Kazakhtelecom JSC includes 2 geographically distributed software and hardware complexes based on highly productive SUN Enterprise 10000 servers and Oracle DBMS in Almaty, where the principal computer center (CS) in located and Astana, where the reserve center (RC) is situated. In order to mange its financial and economic activity Kazakhtelecom JSC iu uses SAP R/3. The geographical distance between the CS and the RC is 1500 km.

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