"Provincial pharmacies" change MS AD to ALD Pro directory service

2024: Implementation of ALD Pro

Astra Group on December 25, 2024 announced the introduction of the ALD Pro directory service in the IT landscape of the state pharmacy network of Provincial Pharmacies JSC, which serves dozens of cities and settlements of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. Migration from MS Active Directory is one of the stages of a large-scale import substitution project that affects all divisions of the company: pharmacies, pharmacy and kiosks, optics and orthopedics salons, veterinary and production pharmacies, central office and warehouse complex. The customer seeks to build a reliable functional IT circuit on the basis of domestic products and ensure such a level of stability and efficiency of business processes so that residents of the region always have access to the medicines they need.

Provincial Pharmacies JSC successfully uses non-import-dependent technologies, including OCAstra Linux, and the transition to the ALD Pro catalog service was a logical continuation of cooperation with the vendor. The first stage in the domain introduced the first part of the servers and workplaces of users. In 2025, migration will continue, and in addition, the remaining servers and workplaces, including cash desks, will be introduced into the ALD Pro domain.

When choosing a new directory service, the specialists of "Provincial Pharmacies" were guided by several criteria. The prerequisites included fault tolerance, native work with client Linux hosts, horizontal scalability and the ability to seamlessly migrate with MS AD.

The performance of pharmacies and the availability of drugs are critical, so we have taken the issue of replacing software extremely seriously. First, they chose Astra Linux, and when they were convinced of its quality and convenience, they began to actively transfer servers in the data center to it. At the same time, we started looking for a directory service, and it turned out that the best option for us is ALD Pro. It is based on FreeIPA and suits us more than Samba-based counterparts, since, in addition to managing computer settings and user accounts, we use many other functions that are found in ALD Pro. This is a centralized configuration through Salt, in which scripts give unlimited capabilities, and monitoring hosts, and installing the OS over the network, which is very convenient for a large-scale implementation. As of December 2024, part of our infrastructure is already working with ALD Pro, and in 2025 we will continue migration, "said Pavel Gustov, director of IT infrastructure and information security at Provincial Pharmacies JSC.

The fact that the ALD Pro catalog service is chosen not only by large customers, but also by SMB organizations suggests that the solution is ready to close the needs of a fairly wide range. IT infrastructures If in a large company administrators are already familiar with Linux, then in the SMB market, most administrators previously worked exclusively for. And Windows we are confident that the choice in favor of ALD Pro is strategically correct, since our software product is focused on building a reliable Linux infrastructure, and continuity with MS AD in terms of the graphical interface will allow Windows administrators to learn how to work with the system easier and faster, - said Evgeny Pautov, Development Director server ON of Astra Group.