Croc: Virtual Data Center (IaaS)

Virtual data center - a set of virtual computing resources (servers, disks, networks) available through the Internet or through dedicated communication channels.

History of development

2024: Arenadata Product Availability

Croc Cloud Services and Arenadata entered into a partnership agreement under which Arenadata products became part of the services provided to customers on the basis of Clouds CROC. In particular, provider the flagship system for storage and processing is now available to cloud customers - Big Data Arenadata DB (ADB) an analytical, distributed, DBMS built on an MPP system with [[open source 'open source]] Greenplum. CROC announced this on January 17, 2024.

Compared to the implementation of on-premium solutions, the use of Arenadata DB in the CROC Cloud will allow customers to reduce the cost of building infrastructure and the time spent on developing and testing new business solutions. The use of cloud systems of the Big Data class does not require customers to invest in the operation and modernization of their own computing resources and makes it possible to pay for them monthly.

In addition to significant savings on infrastructure costs, the partnership between CROC Cloud services and Arenadata has other advantages. First, if customers have questions, they will all be quickly resolved in one window mode. Secondly, thanks to closer cooperation, we will be able to more efficiently adapt the vendor's solutions to the requirements of our customers, thereby ensuring the maximum return on products, "said Sergey Zinkevich, director of the CROC Cloud Services business unit.

All Arenadata products have high technical maturity and functionality and can to be used as an alternative to foreign solutions that have ceased to operate in Russia. In particular, in addition to Arenadata DB, other vendor products will also be provided from the CROC Cloud, such as:

• Arenadata Hadoop (ADH) - a distribution based on Apache Hadoop, adapted for corporate use;
• Arenadata QuickMarts (ADQM) - a cluster column database management system based on ClickHouse;
• Arenadata Streaming (ADS) is a scalable fault-tolerant system for real-time streaming based on Apache Kafka and Apache Nifi;
• Arenadata Cluster Manager (ADCM) is a versatile orchestrator of the hybrid landscape.

{{quote 'We are close to the approach of CROC Cloud services. Our partner is constantly transforming in response to market demands. But at the same time it uses exclusively proven technologies that can bring the maximum return to the customer. Arenadata products are now among these solutions. It is equally important for us that CROC Cloud Services is an expert in the field of implementing Arenadata solutions and closes the entire customer cycle: from deploying the project to its technical support, - said Anton Martynov, director of partner relations at Arenadata. }}

2023

StormWall Solution Availability

and CROC StormWall entered into a cooperation agreement. Now customers cloudy provider have access to all solutions and services of the vendor to protect sites, networks and services according to the payment model upon consumption. StormWall announced this on September 18, 2023.

In 2023, the number of complex DDoS attacks, as well as the number of attacks at the level of web applications (L7), increased in Russia. Thus, according to StormWall experts, the number of DDoS attacks in Russia in the second quarter of 2023 increased by 28% compared to the same period in 2022. Effective protection against DDoS attacks at the L7 level can only be created by combining various filtering methods and using large computing resources.

The decision to cooperate the CROC Cloud with StormWall was made for a number of reasons. First of all, StormWall provides comprehensive business protection against DDoS attacks, including protection against L7 attacks. In addition, the provider has the ability to quickly connect services in conditions of attacks, and also has a convenient and informative personal account. All this makes the vendor's solutions very relevant to ensure uninterrupted business protection.

The company's portfolio of solutions available in the CROC Cloud includes protection against DDoS attacks, WAF, AntiBot, CDN, hosting, which help ensure comprehensive protection of web resources. The cooperation agreement with StormWall expands the security capabilities of the cloud provider.

Ensuring the smooth operation of our resources in the face of the growing threat of cyber attacks is becoming more important for our customers. Therefore, we, together with StormWall, are committed to offering an expanded range of services to support continuous operation, IT infrastructures including reliable protection of web resources. Our partnership will allow customers to choose the optimal solution to ensure the security of their business, "said the director of the CROC Cloud Services business unit. Sergey Zinkevich

{{quote "We are very proud that the company CROC Cloud Services has chosen our professional solutions to increase the level of protection of its customers from DDoS attacks. We sought to create services that would allow Russian companies to repel even the most powerful attacks. Hackers are very inventive, they launch increasingly destructive attacks, so it is important for any company to have professional protection, "said Sergey Lakhin, Commercial Director of StormWall. }}

Nova Container Platform Availability

CROC Cloud Services"" announced on June 22, 2023, availability in its cloud the Russian orchestration platform containers Nova Container Platform from. Orion soft The solution allows you to accelerate the development ON and operation of container applications by more than 40%, as well as reduce Time To Market by more than 30%.

2022

Add Nvidia GPUs

The portfolio CROC Cloud Services has been replenished with graphic ones. processors Nvidia The company CROC announced this on April 21, 2022. Their application allows you to repeatedly speed up the solution of tasks that require a large amount of calculations. GPU as a Service is provided on the basis of instances virtual machines with NVIDIA GPUs and provides monthly payment for the computing power used. Users receive all necessary technical support in 24/7 mode.

The CROC Cloud uses several models of NVIDIA graphics cards. Each of them customers CROC Cloud services will be able to test to make sure of all the advantages for business. In particular, a A100 video card is available. It provides an order of magnitude more performance than previous generation solutions. Together with infrastructure capabilities and support services provided by CROC Cloud services, this service will help customers perform data analysis faster, predict demand, optimize logistics and other production and business tasks without purchasing expensive equipment.

The cloud service can also be in demand by customers who use and develop systems based on machine learning, artificial intelligence, video analytics, and in addition work with 3D graphics and design in AutoCad, AutoDesk and other similar applications.

Many loads require GPUs, so introducing them into our cloud was an absolutely logical step. We see the growing popularity of machine learning among banks and retailers. They, by running transactions through models, increase cross-sales and affect consumer loyalty. In industry, especially in the mining industry and mechanical engineering, GPUs are also becoming more and more in demand - without them, in fact, it is no longer possible to achieve high speed and quality of design and survey work. In addition, against the background of difficulties with the supply of equipment, the proposal to use the latest generation video cards as a service will be more relevant than ever for a very large circle of customers, "said Maxim Berezin, director of business development for CROC Cloud Services clients.

Provide access to the SAS Optimization-based business portfolio

The company Croc Cloud Services"" entered into a partnership with, SAS a global developer in the field of analytics data and. artificial intelligence The companies signed an agreement to provide access Clouds from CROC to a portfolio of business solutions based on SAS Optimization. The service allows customers to cloudy provider get started faster with enterprise analytics tools, improve the quality of analysis, and at the same time reduce the need for their own computing resources. This was announced on February 17, 2022 by the company "." CROC More. here

2021

Certification for compliance with the requirements of the FSTEC of Russia for the processing of personal data

On December 30, 2021, the Croc Cloud Services cloudy "" team received a certificate that confirms the highest (first) level of platform security for. processing of any types of personal data This enables customers, such as medical organizations, to take full advantage of flexibility public cloud , scalability, and pay-on-demand capabilities with clear compliance. The company "" CROC Cloud services announced this on January 31, 2022. More. here

Launch of MVNO-operator GPB Mobile in CROC cloud

Gazprombank's mobile operator GPB Mobile has earned in the protected circuit of the CROC cloud. The goal of the project is to accelerate the work of the site, mobile application and analytical platform, as well as scale the infrastructure of the MVNO operator as the demand for services grows. This was announced on July 22, 2021 by the CROC company. Read more here.

2020

Scale with Dell Technologies

July 2, 2020 it became known that with the help of products Dell Technologies modernized and scaled - Cloud CROC a platform of its own development "." Croc Cloud Services The platform was created in 2009 on the basis of Dell Technologies solutions, and one of its features is the compatibility of the software interface () API of implemented services with the API. Amazon Web Services

The Russian market, according to analysts (IDC), is growing twice as fast as in the world. It is becoming more and more popular for both Russian and international clients who are developing a branch network here and launching a business. The request from customers for high-performance capacity leads to an increase in computing resources for cloud providers. In 2019, under the influence of the growing needs of users, the hardware infrastructure of the CROC Cloud was scaled by 70%. In addition, the disk subsystem has been upgraded and a different storage tier for demanding applications has been presented to clients. One of its characteristics is the ability to manage performance over time, without suspending the virtual machine.

The growth of the CROC Cloud is also planned for 2020. Dell Technologies infrastructure solutions will also serve as the basis for upgrading the provider's platform.

Within the framework of the partnership, data centers are expanding, on the basis of which CROC Cloud Services provides services. As of June 2020, the company has three data centers in Russia (one of them is the Compressor data center with Tier III status "Gold Certification of Operational Sustainability" Uptime Institute, the other is the Volochaevskaya-2 data center with Tier III Certification of Design Documents status) and two partner centers in Turkey and Russia (Kalininsky data center). The CROC cloud is built with Dell EMC PowerEdge servers and Dell EMC Scale IO software-defined solution.

CROC Cloud services provide resources for both hosting services and business applications, as well as for deploying environments for testing and developing customer products and client services.

Security, scalability, and platform performance from Dell Technologies are important components of the CROC Cloud that our customers rely on. says Sergey Zinkevich, director of services development at CROC Cloud Services.

Dell Technologies has been cooperating with the IT company CROC, whose business unit is CROC Cloud Services, for about twenty years. We highly appreciate the professionalism of the partner team and are glad that this is mutual. Choosing the Dell Technologies platform as the basis of the CROC Cloud is proof of its performance and reliability, said representative Mikhail Orlenko, director of server and network solutions at Dell Technologies in Russia.

Cloud CROC - in the portfolio of express solutions for remote work

On March 23, 2020, the CROC IT company announced a set of solutions that will allow employers to quickly and "seamlessly" transfer employees to remote work. The portfolio includes all the necessary services so that companies can minimize or completely avoid losses from transferring employees to a remote format. Among them is a set of technologies for ensuring information security and providing infrastructure for rent (CROC cloud, IaaS). Read more here.

2019: Registration of the CROC cloud in the register of domestic software

On June 19, 2019, it became known that full localization Clouds CROC and its protection against external risks were confirmed. Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media RUSSIAN FEDERATION The development of CROC, Cloud services combining proprietary services and integrated open source products, is registered in. Unified Register of Russian Software

The use of Russian-made products is relevant not only for state customers, who are legally prescribed to use mainly domestic systems, but also for commercial organizations. The location of a network of data centers in Russia and complete localization, including the presence of source code in the country, allows you to protect cloud customers from possible force majeure.

The modular architecture of our cloud platform and the use of open source solutions in its composition give us the opportunity to work regardless of the global political situation and mitigate the risks of disconnection from third-party support. Continuous improvement of the platform in response to customer needs and its full technical support lie on the shoulders of more than 40 certified CROC specialists Cloud services,

The platform architecture consists of many components of its own design, such as billing, monitoring, as well as subsystems for managing virtual machines, networks, disks. The software interface (API) of services implemented in the CROC Cloud is compatible with the Amazon Web Services API, a standard for users of cloud services around the world. Thanks to this, Russian customers and foreign clients who open representative offices in Russia can conveniently use the usual services.

The CROC cloud platform has several distinctive characteristics. Guaranteed disk performance reaches 100,000 IOPS, which ensures the continuous operation of even the most demanding applications critical to the business: processing systems, client services running 24x7, financial systems, business process management systems. The fault tolerance of the CROC Cloud is achieved, among other things, by the territorial distribution of the data center network.

The inclusion of the CROC Cloud in the register of Russian software was preceded by a long preparation. During this time, the CROC Cloud Services development team prepared a full set of documents for the regulator and registered the platform with the Federal Intellectual Property Service. The document confirms that the platform is based on complex network technologies and algorithms for maximum utilization of computing resources.

2018

Start Generic Storage Service

As part of the "smart storage" concept, CROC began offering its cloud customers a "universal" storage tier that replaced the "standard" tier based on previous generation DSS. To launch the service, the CROC cloud infrastructure in Russia was upgraded using the Dell EMCScaleIO Software-defined storage (SDS) solution .

Previously, the CROC cloud used two types of storage media. For high-load databases and performance-critical business applications, All-flash was used, and for systems less demanding on performance, traditional DSS with SATA drives.

Confidence in cloud services has grown, and the tasks that began to be transferred to our cloud have become more complicated. It became clear that you need a storage tier that combines the main advantages of slow drives and all-flash: relatively low cost and high performance. Therefore, the modernization of the infrastructure and the complete replacement of the storage level allowed us to increase satisfaction with the cloud service among our customers, - said Maxim Berezin, director of cloud services development at CROC.

Universal storage ensures 500 IOPS performance per terabyte. It is optimal for hosting office, infrastructure applications, as well as small web services and databases.

We have carefully approached the issue of using Dell EMC software to accelerate and improve the reliability of our server hardware. Before starting to offer customers a service based on modernized infrastructure, they conducted thorough testing. And only after obtaining consistently excellent results, the service was transferred to combat operation, - said Sergey Zinkevich, an expert in the field of cloud services at CROC.

The Dell EMC ScaleIO software-defined solution enables you to combine disparate drives into a high-performance cluster. With decentralized I/O flow within the cluster, combined with intelligent distribution of created SDS volumes, they are several times more efficient than classic solutions, the speed of which is increased by adding disks. By dividing servers within the cluster into many pools, the data inside of which is duplicated, the failure of single nodes or an entire pool does not affect the operation of the entire storage, explained in Dell EMC. ScaleIO makes your infrastructure easily scalable and adapts quickly to your current environment and customer needs.

Launch of the service for safe work with PD

The company CROC"" in February 2018 announced the launch of a managed service that simplifies work with personal data (PD). It is based on a dedicated segment clouds "CROC," certified according to the requirements of the 152-FZ "On Personal Data" and by-laws. The level of data security is confirmed by a certificate FSTEC of compliance with the requirements for the security of state information systems and personal data.

The certified segment is designed for information systems with increased security requirements - systems of the HRMS (human resources management), CRM (customer interaction), ECM (corporate content management) class, etc. To provide service, CROC uses a set of specialized solutions certified by the FSTEC and the FSB. Among them: firewall systems, communication channel protection, antivirus protection, countering unauthorized access, vulnerability analysis.

According to CROC, the service allows trading, logistics and transport companies, international organizations, online service providers to save 30% or more in comparison with the creation of a secure IT infrastructure on their own site. At the same time, the customer does not have to spend on software and hardware for storing, processing and protecting personal data, his own staff of specialists to create and maintain a safe environment.

The managed model allows customers to choose the right service volume - according to their needs and the desired cost level. The basic format involves placing customer information systems in a certified segment, ensuring secure processing and storage of data using a set of certified tools. Advanced options may include an initial audit of PD processing processes to meet 152-FZ requirements, making recommendations to eliminate identified non-conformities, and developing the necessary organizational and administrative documentation for PD processing.

Customers receive all the capabilities of the CROC cloud located on their own network data centers - fault tolerance according to the Uptime Institute Tier III Gold Certification of Operational Sustainability standard, 24-hour support for infrastructure and security services. The Croc cloud uses processors the latest generation to provide high performance hosted solutions. The most demanding information systems work without delay thanks to the ability to connect an external communication channel at speeds up to 10 Gbps, the company said.

2017

Data Lake platform based on Informatica products

On October 19, 2017, CROC announced the launch of a Data Lake platform based on Informatica products from its cloud in a managed service format. The service allows the customer to obtain a solution and expertise for integrating or migrating data of any format from cloud and business systems, even in conditions of insufficient capacity of their own infrastructure for storing and processing large amounts of data.

The Informatica-based cloud service is designed to help customer IT teams manage data flows from both internal and external open sources. In addition, IT professionals will be able to provide their business units with a ready-made analytical platform for working with large amounts of data, as well as to create their own version of Data Lake, which will store data from the sources necessary for each division.

Marketers, product managers, risk specialists of organizations with a large number of customers who connected the service will be able to predict the outflow of customers, manage risks, analyze in more detail the behavior of visitors to the corporate site and social networks, conduct narrower segmentation of customers, improve loyalty programs, and form targeted targeted offers.

According to CROC, the service is interesting, first of all, for large companies with a branch structure, sellers of franchises and co-branding projects, since it allows you to centralize large amounts of data, as well as create a single database of analytical requests from geographically distributed companies.

With the exponential growth of enterprise data, IT teams at large companies must have the expertise to handle and migrate large data arrays. But the content of such a highly professional staff is not always effective and economically justified, - commented on the launch of the product Roman Baranov, head of analytics at CROC. - Managed service based on Informatica products allows you to quickly, economically, and most importantly, without involving highly specialized IT personnel, perform work on the description of metadata.

The platform is the basis for work on data migration, synchronization and replication, building enterprise data warehouses, master data management (MDM), data exchange between business partners and the creation of integration centers (ICC).

The managed service is deployed in the CROC cloud, which meets the requirements of 152 FZ. Throughout the entire lease period of Informatica software products, CROC specialists ensure the operability of the solution, carry out the necessary setup, installation and maintenance work. Technical support of the service is carried out in 24/7 mode.

Self-service portal. File Exchange and Synchronization Service

(Data current as of February 2017)

Infrastructure with Personal Data

• Audit and protection according to individual threat model
• Certification assistance in FSTEC

File Exchange and Synchronization Service

• Key features:
• Manageability - AD Integration and Account Control
• Simplicity - Customers for Fixed and Mobile Platforms
• Availability - Save versions and delegate rights
• Security - Transfer over HTTPS

2016: Implementation of SDS technology

On March 15, 2016, CROC announced the modernization of the cloud through the introduction of SDS technology (Software-defined storage, software-defined DSS)^[1]

The upgraded technology level of the CROC cloud will help customers - get additional guarantees for ensuring disaster tolerance of systems, simplify the creation of hybrid infrastructures.

According to the company, with the introduction of SDS, the level of data security has increased: when information is placed in the storage, any file is divided into many blocks, each of which is recorded on at least two independent servers in different sites of the CROC data center network. This approach guarantees access to data in any force majeure.

The kernel of the SDS solution is the Ceph file system. According to the company:

• it is best suited for geographically distributed cloud environments, which is important when building hybrid infrastructures.
• Easily integrates with Mellanox switching solutions that help you create software-defined DSS. Mellanox's Infiniband technology was the foundation of the optimized network of the CROC virtual data center in 2014. With its introduction, the bandwidth of the communication channels of the virtual data center has increased fivefold.

author = Oleg Senchenko, head of the IT department of Positive Technologies, cloud user "CROC" Cloud infrastructure has been simplified. Now we can quickly "on demand" connect cloud resources to our data center and build hybrid infrastructures. With them, we will increase the flexibility of the business and the speed of response to a changing situation.

Thanks to the transition to Ceph, we also optimized the storage infrastructure in our own 'cloud'. Through the integration of Mellanox and Ceph technologies, we have the ability to flexibly grow storage without the additional cost of Infiniband communications.

2015: Virtual Data Center Properties and Capabilities

According to September 2015, resources virtual data center are managed by the customer through the self-service portal, which allows you to control all IT services located in the cloud, not depending on the technical support of the service provider.

Virtual Server Structure, 2014

Data in the cloud is not stored on local server drives. Only centralized data stores are used to create disks. In particular, full-flash DSS available, on the basis of which it is possible to create disks with guaranteed performance up to 100,000 IOPS per each.

Virtual Data Center Properties:

• Virtual machine (VM) configurations are available from microinstances (1/32 vCPU and 120MB RAM) for small infrastructure tasks to powerful VMs (32 vCPU and 256 GB RAM), focused on high-load databases, etc.;
• VM management is carried out through the self-service portal;
• Computing resources (CPU, RAM) are allocated guaranteed (without re-signing);
• The power of 1 vCPU is equivalent to the power of one physical core of the Intel Xeon x5650 2,6Ghz processor;
• The main server unit of the cloud is Dell R720 (2 CPU Intel Xeon E5-2670 3.0Ghz and 64-256GB RAM);
• Switching on, off, removal, selection of data center for VM start is performed through self-service portal;
• By default, High Availability functionality is provided for the operation of VM customers. Since customer VM data is not stored on local server disks, in the event of a server hardware failure, all VMs operating on it at the time of the accident are restarted on free platform servers using the data stored on the DSS;
• VMs with pre-installed system and application software are available: Microsoft, Cisco, Red Hat, Citrix, Oracle. The listed software is provided as part of subscription programs from the relevant vendors.

In virtual data center CROC , it is possible:

• Create any number of isolated networks through the self-service portal.
• Control access to networks over various ports and protocols from other networks via the built-in firewall. By default, everything that is not allowed is prohibited;
• NAT service (assignment of external static IP addresses to internal addresses), as well as routing services, DNS, DHCP;
• Create horizontal L2 networks between two cloud sites CROC
• organization of L3 networks between the CROC cloud and the customer's site;
• creation of virtual switches for organization of direct L2 connection of 2 and more VMs.

Switches are used, for example, to organize service connections, such as a cluster heartbeat, directly connecting two or more virtual machines to each other. Connecting to the switch is equivalent to creating an additional VM network interface.

One of the additional services of the CROC cloud is the ability to integrate virtual networks of the cloud platform and private networks of the customer, that is, create an isolated virtual network environment VPC (Virtual private cloud).

Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)

• VPC is a completely isolated segment of the cloud platform and is available only from outside the cloud;
• Within the framework of VPC, it is possible to arbitrarily configure internal addressing of networks, which allows you to configure the address space in the cloud in a familiar or convenient way for the customer;
• The ability to automatically create IPsec VPN tunnels by generating a connection configuration through a self-service portal;
• The ability to configure static and dynamic routing (BGP) through the self-service portal.

Disaster Tolerant Solutions (DRaaS)

To ensure the continuity of the customer's IT infrastructure, CROC deploys customized disaster tolerance solutions offered as a service (DRaaS). The solutions are based on several cloud sites combined by optical communication channels, as well as having access to M9, M10.

CROC owns three of its own data centers:

• DPC "Volochaevskaya-1";
• DPC "Volochaevskaya-2";
• DPC "Compressor."

Two of them contain clusters of the cloud platform.

• Data center Compressor - one of three Tier Uptime Institute III certified sites in. Russia
• When starting the server, creating a disk or network through the self-service portal, it is possible to select on which cloud arm the service will be launched;
• Communication between data centers is organized through its own optical communication channels and is free;
• The two-site configuration allows:
  • Build distributed failover clusters;
  • Post live data and backups between sites;
  • Configure replication at the application software level between sites;

• It is possible to select communication providers in such a way that they enter the data center along two different routes.

Backup (BaaS)

The company CROC offers the use of backup system resources from its own Virtual Data Center. This approach, Backup-as-a-service (Backup-as-a-service), BaaS ensures that data is safe for any emergencies that may occur at the customer's site.

BaaS Properties:

• Disaster-proof remote backup storage, no physical equipment on site, and reduced capital costs
• Minimizing the burden on the people administering the backup system
• The ability to flexibly configure the system for the available amount of backup data, controlling the costs of the entire backup process.

Notes