VTB has accelerated import substitution of virtual infrastructure by five times

2025: Accelerate import substitution of virtual infrastructure by a factor of five

VTB Bank transferred 11 thousand virtual workplaces to the domestic Basis Workplace platform using the MIND Software tool. The average migration rate increased fivefold compared to the manual migration process and amounted to more than 3 thousand virtual machines per month. The bank announced this on July 22, 2025.

It was critical for us to migrate virtual desktops as seamlessly and quickly as possible, while ensuring the full availability of banking systems. Thanks to MIND Software tools, migration has become a predictable, understandable, time-predictable process, so we plan to transfer not only virtual desktops, but also virtual servers with their help in the future, - said Vladimir Dergachev, head of infrastructure development department - senior vice president of VTB.

VTB is implementing a large-scale project to migrate a significant part of virtual workplaces from the foreign Citrix solution to the domestic VDI Basis Workplace platform. The technological tool - Mind Migrate software - made it possible to significantly optimize the migration process: specialists adjusted the software to meet the requirements of the bank and ensured a high degree of automation of all routine operations. As a result, the created migration process allows you to work with a minimum number of employees.

The Bank is also considering integrating the MIND Software solution into its own VTB Cloud cloud platform, which will enrich its functionality. This will increase the efficiency of virtual infrastructure management without the need to spend time and resources developing their own mobility tools within the platform. The cooperation development plans provide for the adaptation of MIND Software products to the needs of the bank and their use to move virtual machines between clusters.

{{quote "We are pleased that our products allow VTB to accelerate the import substitution process and focus on the development of key business areas. Within the framework of our technological cooperation, we are ready to continue to support the development of the VTB Cloud platform in accordance with the requirements and needs of the bank, - said Anton Gruzdev, CEO of MIND Software. }}

In 2025, MIND Software will continue to support VTB in implementing its import substitution strategy. The plans for 2025 include the migration of a large cluster with a volume of about 8 thousand virtual machines. The key task is to make the process as invisible as possible to end users, which is made possible by the high automation and functionality of MIND Software tools.

Huge infrastructure, increased requirements for its availability and scaling, a professional team with which you need to be on a par - all this has become a challenge for us as a supplier of system software in the VTB project. We coped with this challenge and successfully helped import substitution of Citrix's solution in the bank's infrastructure, but not only - we also gained new relevant experience and at the same time made our product even better, - commented David Martirosov, CEO of Basis.

2024

Transition from Citrix to Basis Workplace

More than half of VTB employees switched to using Russian virtualization solutions - the VTB.Cloud virtualization platform and the Basis Workplace virtual desktop creation and management system (VDI). This was announced on September 9, 2024 by Sergei Bezbogov, deputy head of the technological block - senior vice president of VTB.

Until recently, a foreign virtualization platform has been used to solve work problems. Citrix The transition of most VTB employees to domestic alternatives is expected by the end of 2024.

For the transition, VTB acquired a package of licenses for the Basis Workplace solution from the Russian developer of the Basis system software. Within the framework of the concluded contract, Bazis IT specialists will support the solution until the end of 2025. T1 Integration (part of T1 Holding) is engaged in work on the migration of users to a domestic solution.

To accelerate the pace of migration, a tool was developed and implemented that allows you to automatically transfer desktops from an imported virtualization solution to a domestic one, which is especially important for the bank as part of achieving technological sovereignty. Thus, it became possible to move up to 500 virtual workplaces of employees per week, or up to 2,500 seats per month, saving all user documents, as well as setting up their work places.This made it possible to significantly reduce the time, reduce the burden on administrators, make migration comfortable and seamless for users and reduce the number of errors, - said Sergey Bezbogov, deputy head of the technological unit - senior vice president of VTB.

Huge infrastructure, increased requirements for its availability and scaling, a professional team with which you need to be on a par - all this has become a challenge for us as a supplier of system software in the VTB project. We coped with this challenge and helped import substitution of a foreign solution in the bank's infrastructure, but not only - we also gained new relevant experience and at the same time made our product better, - said David Martirosov, CEO of Basis.

Specialists T1 Integration helped to build a highly available fault-tolerant virtual seat infrastructure in VTB's technological landscape based on the Basis Workplace and the bank's cloud platform.

Business is in need of flexible, highly scalable systems implemented on a secure technology stack. Replacing Western software with domestic VTB.Cloud and Basis Workplace solutions will allow a financial institution to reduce dependence on foreign solutions and gain access to technical support from the manufacturer. As of September 2024, our experts migrated to a solution with the lowest possible downtime of half of VTB employees' virtual workplaces. Engineers T1 Integration solves end-user issues related to the transition to this software product, and also supports the functioning of the infrastructure, ensuring its catastrophic stability while maintaining the usual functionality, - said Mikhail Knigin, Executive Director of T1 Integration.

VTB employees move to Basis Workplace

Basis, a leading developer of dynamic infrastructure, virtual desktops and cloud services, has become a provider of infrastructure software for VTB. The domestic desktop virtualization platform Basis Workplace will replace a foreign solution in the organization's infrastructure. Read more here.