Norilsk Nickel Sputnik reduces IT risks thanks to the introduction of the Russian zVirt virtualization system

2023: Commissioning of the Zvirt platform

Norilsk Nickel Sputnik has put into operation the domestic virtualization platform zVirt developer Orion soft as part of the import substitution process. The company reduces the negative impact of the departure of Western vendors: it creates the foundation for the future development of IT services and intends to develop installations across all branches. Orion soft announced this on December 11, 2024.

The company is a participant in the digital transformation of industry in Russia. Since 2015, it has been actively investing in technological development and import substitution, introducing AI systems, domestic developments in the field of robotics, infrastructure software (software).

The company's technological development program includes a large-scale renovation of IT systems. One of its priority tasks in 2022 was the choice of a virtualization platform as a fundamental component of the IT infrastructure that can replace solutions that have left Russia. Norilsk Nickel Sputnik experts stopped the phased process of choosing a corporate standard on the zVIrt system, and in 2023. Together with the vendor, it was possible to bring the installation in line with the requirements of the Company and put it into operation.

The Company is in the process of replacing sanctions-independent software. The development of IT systems on domestic OS should be accompanied by placement on domestic virtualization - the IT infrastructure adapts to the situation and thus we get a full-fledged effect from import substitution. In addition, for us, having full support directly from the vendor is an important part of risk management. We intend to gain experience in zVirt under load and develop domestic solutions in the future, taking into account the peculiarities of our IT - landscape, "said Victoria Podlovitsina, head of the IT infrastructure business department of NORTEH Moscow branch of Norilsk Nickel Sputnik LLC.

In the future, the company plans to increase the capacity of domestic zVirt virtualization to accommodate renovated IT systems that migrate to domestic operating systems. The plans for 2025 include scaling the implementation experience to branches: a new installation in the Polar Branch.

We see that for enterprise customers, the priority is the stability of the solution under load and in the long term. Therefore, we keep our focus on the possibilities of scaling the product architecture and regular updates that make the system more functional and reliable. For example, in the recently released zVirt 4.2 release, we implemented Hosted Engine duplication, which provides high fault tolerance for the cluster management node. Under one Hosted Engine in zVirt, as our testing showed, 3,500 hosts can work. In further cooperation with Norilsk Nickel, we are ready for any scaling tasks and guarantee that the company will receive a product that meets all the technological requirements of IT systems, - said Maxim Berezin, Business Development Director of Orion soft.