40 thousand calls per hour: Features of Uniform telecommunication space of Gazprom Neft

In Gazprom Neft the Uniform telecommunication space, in fact — corporate telecom operator is created. Its task — to render communication services to all divisions of the company, having replaced with itself dozens of local operators with whom it was necessary to deal earlier. Such organization of the communication system not only will perform function of one window, but also becomes reliable infrastructure for implementation of the innovative technologies and digital transformation^[1].

Critical service

To estimate scales of telecommunications at the companies, there are enough several digits. Each hour in Gazprom Neft is executed nearly 40 thousand phone calls, more than 30 thousand e-mails go, in corporate business systems more than 800 thousand different documents form, and in data processing centers about 700 Tb of information remain. Growth of these indicators is not less than 10% a year, and on separate points, we will tell the number of sessions of a video conferencing — more than 40%.

At the same time at different blocks and divisions the situation differs. So, for the corporate functions and oil processing assets working in megalopolises there is always an opportunity to organize communication services almost instantly as there are tens if not hundreds of telecom operators. It is only necessary to make a right choice of a ratio price/quality/reliability. Mining divisions, especially in the region of the Far North, provision essentially — there telecom operators can not have other absolutely. And then it is necessary to create necessary communication networks.

One integrates both situations — both in that and in other case it is simpler to solve assigned tasks, relying on competences of uniform corporate telecom operator.

In 2015 within strategy implementation of development of IT infrastructure based on Noyabrskneftegazsvyaz subsidiary company ("NNGS") the decision to create the operator of Uniform telecommunication space of Gazprom Neft was made. The strategy purpose — transfer of services of communication, critical for business, in perimeter of Gazprom Neft. It would allow not only to increase reliability of the rendered communication services, but also to implement end-to-end parameters and the quality standards, to reduce the specific cost of services and, the most important, to create competence center on a telecom, capable to develop communication services and to implement technology innovations, occasionally being ahead of the market.

Creation of ETP includes three key directions: technologies, people/competence and partners. The first direction is connected with development of technology advantages to the company and creation of effective business processes and also projects implementation in the field of import substitution and an importooperezheniye. The second — with consolidation of all necessary competences within one organizational structure. And the third — with building of effective partner relations — telecom operators and vendors.

Project Features

The practical stage of creation of Uniform telecommunication space started at the beginning of 2015. For creation of infrastructure own reference network of Gazprom Neft — a geographically distributed core from 16 reserved regional nodes in the key cities of presence of business of Gazprom Neft was designed and built. Trunk channels between communication hubs are brought together.

The architecture of network is constructed on the ring model that allows (unlike the star model) essentially to increase reliability of the solution: communication is provided not only at shutdown of the basic or alternative channel going to a regional node but also the node or even several — due to switching of traffic to other route.

All works on creation of IT infrastructure were successfully completed in 2017 then on own reference network transfer of channels of a corporate data network of Gazprom Neft and a multiservice communication network of gas station is begun.

Creation of ETP allowed to integrate all communication channels and information transfers, providing more than 100 organizations entering into group, high-quality telecommunication services including data transmission, the Internet, telephony and others. Besides, existence of ETP helps to solve the whole complex of business challenges — from cost reduction on a telecom before increase in level of information security.

Thanks to existence of own infrastructure (in particular, regional communication hubs — see fig.) the operator of ETP — NNGS company — had an opportunity in practice to implement the marketing principle "the power of the buyer" for business customers of Gazprom Neft: creating a competitive field among suppliers of telecommunication services and selecting the most interesting offers in terms of a set of services, service and pricing. For today NNGS signed more than 50 contracts with telecom operators — it quite enough to minimize influence of an environment and regional features of the market and also to provide necessary reliability of deliverable services.

The company receives additional economy for the account of centralization of wholesale purchases of communication channels. For users NNGS becomes a single window on work with all types of service. Especially it is relevant for new divisions of the company — the question of their connection to telecommunications is minimized time and finance costs.

Also technical advantages are important. At the expense of system implementation of active monitoring the quality of the provided services increases, and the scalability and adaptivity of the equipment ensure safety of capital investments at accumulation of number of subscribers.

And at last, creation of ETP allows to provide observance of requirements of information security that is extremely important in the conditions of the increasing competition and stable growth of the company.

Konstantin Kravchenko, Head of the Moscow Department of Information Technology, automation and telecommunications of Gazprom Neft: The main role of Uniform telecommunication space — support of processes of digital transformation and ensuring technology independence of the company of any external factors, whether it be political or economic sanctions, changes in work of vendors and telecom operators. In this sense of ETP it is possible to consider the base for further technology breakthrough. Thanks to creation of ETP we had an opportunity to organize information exchange between different IT-systems, to enter the unified directory of services and the unified rates for these services, to ensure information security and to implement new services. Finally ETP will provide consumers with all necessary services irrespective of the fact which communication channels or technologies are used. At the same time all solutions will be easily scaled on any number of users, and the flexibility of a system will allow to build in easily it the new technologies and products which are so rapidly appearing in the market.

Plan of break

Emergence of ETP urges on development existing and implementation of new technologies. So, NNGS is engaged in studying of new communication services, such as FMC (fix mobile convergence) which allows to integrate a cellular and internal telephone network uniform numbering. Also in a zone of interests there are alternative technologies of providing a video conferencing. And within Technopark work on projects in the field of import substitution for the subsequent replacement of the most critical elements of infrastructure is conducted.

In addition, in the long term each employee irrespective of whether he works at office or "in the field", will get access to new services: to the electronic address directory with a direct call, to indicators of the status of the subscriber and exchange of fast messages, video telephony, an opportunity to organize the integrated audio-and web conferences, conference calls.

Gulevich Ruslan, CEO of NNGS: Implementation of ETP assumes considerable corporate discounts for communication services. The expected economy in the long term can make not less than 15% of the existing costs. The command of NNGS already today, at a stage of creation of the operator of ETP, managed to bring the measured benefits to the customers. So, for example, switching to communication channels of NNGS of a multiservice communication network of Gazpromneft gas Station allowed the customer to increase cardinally quality of service — the SLA parameters (the agreement on the level of service) grew to 99.8% — and to reduce idle times by 30 (!) times. Thanks to smoothly running work with operators-suppliers it is possible to increase availability of services and to reduce idle times. The implemented business process of passing of requests for the organization and provision of services allowed to reduce terms of study and to completely document the provided services. We are sure that till 2019 we will manage to implement the business strategy of the company, to execute the planned projects and in full to provide to all "subsidiaries" of Gazprom Neft services, critical for their business, with the competitive price and the managed quality.

However creation of the uniform telecom operator for exploration and production block (BRD) will become the main and major problem of the operator of Uniform telecommunication space of Gazprom Neft for the next years. Within this program in cooperation with partners Gazprom Neft considers the possibilities of application on trade platforms of the wireless technologies of new generation (first of all 4+/5G) opening opportunities for approbation of solutions in the field of the industrial Internet and other elements "Industries 4.0".

Notes