Sberbank found supplier of PostgreSQL technical support

2021

Sberbank increased purchase of technical support services by 20% PostgreSQL

In April 2021, Sberbank signed an agreement with Postgres Professional Development to support DBMS PostgreSQL and Patroni software. The amount of the three-year contract is 254.18 million rubles, at the rate of 84.73 million per year. According to the press service, compared to the previous year, the bank increased the volume of procurement of DBMS support services created on the basis of free software by 20%.

Postgres Professional Development became the only company to apply for participation in the tender, so the tender was declared unsuccessful. And the tender commission entered into an agreement with the sole bidder, in accordance with the provisions on procurement of the bank, reducing the price from the declared 258.05 million. At the same time, according to TAdviser in the press service of Sberbank, in addition to PostgreSQL, other DBMS are used in the bank.

2020

Contractor Selection

On February 28, 2020, Sberbank selected the winner of the tender for the provision of technical support services to DBMS PostgreSQL. For the contract with the initial purchase price of 71 million rubles, 2 companies fought: Ppg Development (Postgres Professional) and Astronis.

At the initial stage, both companies offered their services at the maximum declared price, but as a result of the re-auction, Postgres Professional offered a lower price - about 69.7 million rubles. Sberbank plans to conclude an agreement with it.

Postgres Professional has previously provided similar services to Sberbank: in 2018, a contract was signed with it for support in the amount of 31.6 million rubles, and in 2017 - for about 9 million rubles (more details in the blocks below).

Sberbank more than 2 times increases PostgreSQL costs: new purchase

At the end of February 2020, Sberbank published the purchase of technical support services DBMS PostgreSQL^[1]. Compared to 2018, when the bank purchased similar services, the cost of the new contract more than doubled: the maximum price of the contract was about 71 million rubles against 31.6 million rubles earlier.

PostgreSQL used in Sberbank IT systems with different functionality "(photo - Sberbank)"

From the terms of reference it follows that Sberbank needs support for DBMS PostgreSQL on the x86 architecture platform for 2,272 cores and Patroni software on the x86 architecture platform for 324 cores. The latter is an application for creating highly available PostgreSQL clusters based on streaming replication.

Support services purchased by the bank include remote advice to its employees on the use, configuration and optimization of PostgreSQL and Patroni, access to the support hotline, troubleshooting, prevention and troubleshooting of these software products. A number of services must be provided at the customer's site, such as an audit of the DBMS status for a specific information system.

Sberbank told TAdviser that the increase in costs for supporting this software is due to the growth of automated bank systems on the DBMS PostgreSQL platform. The financial institution declined to comment on exactly what their systems use this DBMS.

According to the data contained on the Sberbank website, the Sberbank Business automated system, for example, works on the PostgreSQL. It is intended for data exchange between Sberbank and its customers. With the help of Sberbank Business, you can create, sign, send payment documents to the bank, receive bank statements, communicate with the bank, send salary registers to the bank, and much more.

Knowledge of PostgreSQL DBMS is specified also among requirements to some vacancies for IT specialists whom Sberbank employed and employs in 2019-2020. So, along with knowledge of Oracle DBMS, it is necessary for applicants for a position of the expert in databases of the high-loaded IT system which is responsible in bank for the direction of artificial intelligence.

Expert knowledge is PostgreSQL required for the database administrator in the new project of Sberbank to create a "new generation technological HR platform." The functions of this system in Sberbank at the time of publication were not specified by TAdviser.

Developers with knowledge of PostgreSQL were recruited also in SberData - department on data management of all Sberbank. His team promotes solutions based on the Greenplum DBMS, which, in turn, is based on PostgreSQL, and integrates solutions into the infrastructure of the bank's analytical platform.

2018: Increase in PostgreSQL support costs

At the beginning of October Sberbank summed up the competition results on support program obespecheniyasubd of PostgreSQL. The cost of services was estimated at 31.6 million rubles.^[2]

Sberbank tripled spending on DBMS PostgreSQL

Since only one bid was received, the procurement procedure was declared invalid. The only offer accepted from Postgres Professional was deemed to be in accordance with the requirements of the documentation. As a result, this company was declared the winner.

Subject of a competition were services in maintenance of freely extended (Open Source) of the software of PostgreSQL DBMS. According to the customer's terms, the contractor's technical support center team must have at least 2 specialists, each of whom has undergone training and certification at the "Administration PostgreSQL courses. Basic Course, "" Administration. PostgreSQL Advanced Course, "" Developing the Server Part of Applications. PostgreSQL The basic course" and also possesses personalized certificates of experts and has not less, than two years' experience of administration of PostgreSQL DBMS.

The Postgres Professional team will conduct remote consultations for Sberbank employees on the use of DBMS, find and eliminate malfunctions, carry out preventive work, as well as proactive and planned measures based on the results of the DBMS audit. In addition, bank employees should access the support hotline. All services are designed for 1 year.

The value of Sberbank's previous similar contract with Postgres Professional was about 9 million rubles.

2017: Selection of Postgres Support Contractor

Company Postgres Professional"" (PPG) for one year will provide To Sberbank support services for freely distributed DBMS PostgreSQL on the x86 architecture platform (OS,). Windows Red Hat Enterprise Linux The contract value, according to the protocol of the tender commission of June 30, 2017, will be about 9 million. rubles

Postgres Professional will provide Sberbank with support services PostgreSQL

The rival of PPG in the final part of the Sberbank tender was Arsientek. She estimated her services at a lower amount, however, the final estimate of the application of this company was still lower. AMT Group and Jet Infosystems also participated in the first part of the tender.

When evaluating applications, Sberbank, among other things, took into account how many employees of the procurement participant have the status of Major Contributors and will participate in the provision of services, as well as the potential contractor has its own DBMS improvements and their inclusion in the main branch of the PostgreSQL. In Russia, according to the official website of PostgreSQL, only three people have Major Contributors status, and they all work at Postgres Professional. These are Oleg Bartunov, Alexander Korotkov and Fedor Sigaev.

Judging by the tender procedures of Sberbank, this purchase is the first case of the bank's expenses for services directly related to the Postgres DBMS. Representatives of the contest participants, whom TAdviser asked to report on examples of the use of this DBMS in the bank, noted that they still have little idea of ​ ​ this situation.

The contract with the winner provides for five main blocks of services. The first is the consultation of the bank's employees on the use, configuration and optimization of the DBMS in accordance with the recommendations defined in the DBMS documentation and the project experience of the contractor's specialists. Advice is provided on administration and performance tuning, technical aspects of operation, performing updates or backups, etc.

The second block is access to the support hotline. Here, the contractor provides a single point of receipt of telephone calls, e-mail calls and through the web portal on the operation and use of the DBMS in the 24x7 mode;

The third block is the regular analysis of the state of the DBMS. As part of this process, the contractor will ensure that the system is functioning, provide recommendations for monitoring key performance parameters and correcting identified deficiencies, and provide patches, updates, and new versions of the DBMS or its components.

The fourth service block includes troubleshooting of DBMS. Here, the executor analyzes the applications of the bank's employees on the operation of the DBMS and looks for solutions to the indicated problems.

And the last fifth unit is the DBMS troubleshooting. The Contractor shall identify the causes of system inoperability, develop recommendations for their elimination, participate in preparation and application of the recovery solution. Restoration work can be carried out, including outside working hours, on weekends and holidays at the request of the customer.

For reference, the bank will spend about 50 times more funds on Oracle technical support in 2017 than on Postgres.

2015

Preparing for Migration

In November 2015, Sberbank informed TAdviser that they are exploring the capabilities of DBMS PostgreSQL to optimally position it in its infrastructure in terms of performance, reliability and integration.

According to the representative of Sberbank, testing is carried out for this, including with the involvement of external contractors and distribution companies of this DBMS. The issues of migration scenarios from Oracle and Microsoft SQL DBMS are being worked out, the scope and labor costs of making changes within the framework of these scenarios are evaluated, the maturity of local companies involved in the development of this DBMS and its service support are analyzed.

Servers Oracle at Sberbank's MegaData Center

At the same time, IT support services worked to integrate DBMS PostgreSQL into the existing infrastructure landscape of the bank. Data backup and status monitoring technologies were configured and debugged. Consultations were also held with companies that offer DBMS support services, a representative of Sberbank said.

A separate issue, he said, was ensuring fault tolerance, including in the event of a local disaster. This activity compared the pros and cons of the solutions offered by the DBMS itself with respect to classic cluster configuration technologies such as HP MC/Service Guard .

At test stands, the DBMS demonstrated compliance with the requirements for industrial DBMS. Final conclusions about the niche in which PostgreSQL can be used can be made after gaining experience in the industrial operation of one of the automated systems, a bank representative told TAdviser

Sberbank added that the final decision on a potential system which will be migrated by one of the first on PostgreSQL DBMS is not accepted yet.

Sberbank thinks about switching to PostgreSQL

The fact that Sberbank expects to transfer a number of its IT systems to the DBMS PostgreSQL for the first time TAdviser was told by the chief architect of IT bank Andrei Khlyzov in September 2015. When asked which systems are in question, he refused to answer. However, Khlyzov explained that these plans are associated with several reasons:

On the one hand, we and the Russian manufacturer want to support, and on the other, to protect ourselves from the sanctions risks that have arisen, "he said

Khlyzov added that Sberbank is very carefully and closely considering the use of free software (ACT), but it will not be used everywhere, because "there are problems here."

According to Andrei Khlyzov, Sberbank began studying the possibilities of Postgres back in 2015

As of September 2015, freely distributed software, according to Khlyzov, is widely used in Sberbank, for example, in solutions for big data processing tasks .

The chief architect of Sberbank IT also told TAdviser that against the background of sanctions risks in the field of IT, Sberbank has developed various kinds of plans in case IT products support from global vendors is stopped. These plans concern not only DBMS, but also iron, decision-making in situations where the use of foreign products is difficult, as well as the recruitment of additional staff, if necessary.

Andrei Khlyzov added in a conversation with TAdviser that the issue of switching from IT solutions of large world vendors to alternative solutions, Sberbank was puzzled even before the sanctions: "even before the crisis broke out, we realized that we did not plan to sit on the decisions of the world's largest vendors until the death of the world." This was connected then, first of all, with economic issues, he explained.

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