RS: Creation of information systems

Complex approach and flexible model of development

The large companies and corporations, government institutions of federal level and other big organizations require special management tools. Standard corporate applications or standard boxed business solutions will not help here, they are simply not intended for such unique business processes. Support of thousands of divisions and branches distributed across all territory of the Russian Federation and beyond its limits; hundreds of thousands of users from whom tens of thousands work in a system at the same time; thousands of transactions every second; hundreds terabyte stored and the processed data with an annual gain — all this cannot do to standard shrink-wrapped software products. And personnel, customer interaction and partners only modern scalable corporate information systems (CIS) are capable to provide complex automation of the primary and business activities, tangible asset management. Certainly, custom development of such systems are always the difficult and large-scale process including millions of man-hours of work and tens of millions of source code lines.

The first CIS appeared still in the mid-nineties last century, and information and communication technologies, program and the hardware which were relevant at that time were the cornerstone of them. Those years customers, as a rule, did not think neither of conceptual design of business processes, nor of complex automation in general, and solved local problems. Afterwards much of them had to face effects of "scrappy" or "island" automation. For last decades at the enterprises and in the organizations the set not only physically, but also technology outdated hardware and software systems constructed, as a rule, on client-server or on monolithic architecture collected.

Users had to face a number of problems among which need to work at once in several systems along with manual data transfer between them, duplication of data and big time frames at their updating. Applications at the same time communicate by the principle "everyone with everyone" that of course complicates creation of a uniform information picture. In the absence of virtualization each application works on the separate physical server which annual average loading makes no more than 5-10% that involves unnecessary expenses on infrastructure and its support. Quite often in the organizations the large number of the outdated systems which were any more not supported by developers at the same time accumulates very limited number of employees uses them. To support such systems in operating state, customers should support developers in the state, or to sign the agreement on support with the third-party contractor that, besides, pours out in considerable expenses for the IT budget. As a result the company is forced to interact with a large number of contractors in the absence of uniform technology standards of regulations, and completion of the available software not only costs '"pretty penny", but also takes quite long time.

The world changed, and it is already simply impossible to work at low technologies today. For last decades in IT there were significant shifts which, undoubtedly, could not but affect development processes of corporate information systems. So, the cost of unit of capacity of communication channels fell significantly, at the same time capacity grows on average for 50 percent annually. Cloud technologies help the organizations to unify infrastructure standards today and to provide to applications necessary for them IT infrastructure as service on model IaaS. Clouds give the chance to scale as fast as possible and to dynamically change the computing resources selected to applications that allows IT departments to go on the most courageous experiments, to try any innovative solutions without prejudice to the budget of the company. At last, and the technical architecture becomes simpler and more clear, thanks to the unified components. Many changes happened for these years and in a hardware segment. Smart devices based on Internet of Things (IoT), high-speed data transmission technologies - Wi-Fi LTE satellite internet telematic standards GLONASSGPS,/, video surveillance with video analytics became a daily reality today. The software based on an open source code which in the 90th years was considered as destiny of small community of enthusiasts develops and supported today by large IT corporations and used as an industry standard as its quality does not concede to commercial analogs for a long time. It is enough to remind of the research of testingovy company Coverity conducted together with the American Department of national security. Its results showed that the open source code is not of a lower quality than proprietary. The most qualitative Linux PHP PostgreSQL projects (2.6, 5.3 and 9.1), have number of defects per thousand of code lines — 0.62, 0.20, and 0.21 respectively.

For all components of the proprietary software there are already analogs in the world of the open code. Moreover, perspective technology platforms, such as Hadoop, OpenStack, Docker, Unikernel which on the functionality exceed commercial solutions appeared, or at all are unique, not having proprietary analogs.

At design of corporate information systems complex approach should be applied, and CIS should be perceived as the system of systems (SOS) which includes computing infrastructure and DWH, software (automation of the primary and management activity, analytics and the reporting, NSI, business process management, etc.) and organizational support (integration with external systems, the situational center, a client service, PR, HR, etc.), the telecommunication and electrotechnical equipment, taking into account all interdependence and interrelations. At complex approach CIS is considered as the joint organization at which are present both customer representatives, and employees of the contractor. All of them together for an appreciable length of time implement the program from hundreds of interconnected IT projects. The most effective process on design and creation of CIS should be based on flexible iterative and incremental approach. Analysis phases, design, development and deployment will cyclically repeat, and adding in systems which are in continuous operation new demanded by users of functions and also work quality improvement will become result of each cycle. What is the time each iteration can borrow? It depends on complexity of tasks, but this term usually averages from one to several months.

Whether flexible, iterative and incremental approach contradicts state standard specifications which how it is considered, provide exclusively "waterfall" model of development? Actually, no, and that is why. If you develop Technical specifications according to GOST 34.602-89, you need to register most in detail nonfunctional requirements to CIS because they define system architecture. As for functional requirements, and they at the same time are described at rather high level. On the next stage the architecture which is described in the Engineering design in accordance with GOST 34.201-89 and RD 50-34.698-90 is projected. Iterative and incremental development is in parallel started. On each iteration functional requirements in the form of scenarios of use in the documents "Project Solutions" in accordance with GOST 34.003-90 which in process of readiness are approved by the customer are specified, and then they are put to the Engineering design. So flexible, iterative and incremental approach is implemented.

The corporate information systems of new generation developed according to modern standards using the latest information and communication technologies, and according to complex approach, give to the customer a number of advantages. The organization receives the common information space allowing to solve problems and providing data access in real time. Infrastructure becomes flexible and scalable, and it means that for the next 15-20 years issues of integration available and creations of new information systems will be solved quickly and without serious consequences. Level of business process automation and the state functions will increase, and partner interaction, clients and partners will become easier and simpler, as well as administrative and technology procedures. Modern instruments of monitoring of work of systems and the equipment will allow not only to manage far off infrastructure, but also to predict incidents, timely warning them. Thanks to uniform standards, regulations and tools, lifecycle of CIS will become more transparent and predictable. At last, due to energy efficient technologies and application of the open source software the total ownership cost of CIS and costs for service staff will decrease.

As a practical example, we will tell about two projects on creation of CIS implemented by specialists of RedSys company. The Pension Fund of the Russian Federation which number of employees exceeds 140 thousand people and makes quantity of points of presence in all subjects of the Russian Federation 2800, performed the large-scale project on implementation of Automated information system of new generation (AIS RPF-2) during which new infrastructure which provides a possibility of accomplishment of all functions at any level was developed and created.

Our information system consists of 25 subsystems — the vice-president of board of the Pension fund Nikolay Elistratov told. — Some of them on the volumes and parameters are worthy to be called sound ICs even at the federal level. As a result of RPF received modern instruments of internal interaction for an operational response to all requests and fast acceptance of management decisions and also a common information space and the unique channel for communication with citizens and the organizations.

When the Crimea and Sevastopol were annexed to Russia, the RPF could develop in new regions standard complexes on providing pension services within two weeks.

During upgrade of ICT infrastructure in Rostekhnadzor, the separate systems were replaced by the end-to-end system of informatization (ETESI) integrating about 17 absolutely different subsystems with the different number of users.

Part of them is directed to automation the main, and a part — a management activity of department. At the same time all systems are integrated among themselves. In general in it about 2 thousand users from 150 thousand persons under surveillance of the organizations work — the adviser of department of management of special security of Rostekhnadzor Marina Makarchuk notes. — After implementation of KSI in department the uniform base of the organizations and the uniform methodological principles of maintaining registers, automation of state services, uniform base of access to specifications, protocols and technical specifications appeared.