Interview with TAdviser: Deputy Director of TFCMI MO Vadim Donbass - about import substitution projects and the difficulties of "perestroika" of the 21st century

Vadim Donbass: There are few import substitution projects. They require more labor and financial investments, so the process is much slower than we would like. One of the last interesting projects is the transition to the platform of combined communications CommuniGate Pro.

Vadim Donbass: With the help of the Digital Design team, we created a unified communications system based on the domestic CommuniGate Pro platform. This system is logged in: e-mail, file exchange subsystem, instant messaging. In addition, anti-virus and anti-spam systems were connected to the mail server. Our IT fleet was also complemented by a video conferencing system based on the Trueconf server - we needed reliable video communications for meetings with employees from different branches.

Vadim Donbass: Communication opportunities have changed, there are more tools for collaborating with employees. Now they are more reliable, secure and easy to use. This is important when you have to communicate with colleagues in 15 branches.

Previously, we could only work with mail messages from a local station, now we have switched to using the IMAP mail protocol. This allowed you to work with mail data without linking to the workplace, including mobile customers.

Vadim Donbass: Before that, we used the MDaemon mail server, which was not the best solution for our tasks. Its functionality is quite limited, in fact, it is only a postal service.

Vadim Donbass: In CommuniGate Pro, administration is much easier, in general, the system is easier to configure even without using contractors. It is a professional mail system with a high level of security and scalability.

Vadim Donbass: If we talk about system administrators, then, of course, they had to devote some time to studying the product, because it uses other consoles and rules. Here we were very helped by the contractor and directly the vendor himself - CommuniGate System. This is a Russian developer, so there were no problems with documentation in Russian and with the staff who were ready to come to the rescue when questions arose. The product documentation is very detailed. In addition, from each of its pages you can contact the support service.

As for ordinary users, training was not required, since CommuniGate Pro is easily integrated with any mail customers, including those already familiar to us.

Vadim Traditiov: We have implemented all the functions that we needed for the effective work of employees, and so far we do not feel the need to expand the capabilities of the system, although they are certainly very wide.

Vadim Traditiov: First of all, this is a translation of existing information systems, operating only as a desktop client in, OS Windows on the web version. This, in my opinion, is the easiest way to replace systems in the event of a further transition to Russian OS. It is also planned to switch databases SQL from Russian. DBMS Postgres

Vadim Donbass: It's too early to talk about visible results. We still have many projects to implement.

Vadim Donbass: Any transition to other rails carries many inconveniences, bugs, not to mention the significant financial investments that the "perestroika" of the 21st century requires. Some solutions do not support functions that are common and familiar to another system. In addition, it is very difficult to find qualified specialists, system administrators who can support the systems being implemented - they are few, and they are expensive.