Deputy General Director of Russian Railways spoke about the upcoming plan to completely get rid of SAP

Main article: Information technologies in Russian Railways

2022: Deputy General Director of Russian Railways spoke about the upcoming plan to completely get rid of SAP

Russian Railways, together with the government, is developing a roadmap for the migration of Russian state-owned companies with the ERP of the German vendor SAP to domestic solutions. Deputy [1] General Director of Russian Railways Yevgeny Charkin spoke about this on May 31 at TAdviser Summit 2022 . According to him, work on the road map will be completed in the near future. Russian Railways will be the first state corporations to implement the transition from SAP to Russian software.

Evgeny Charkin, answering the question "When Russian Railways will not have a single line of SAP code," said that the exact dates will become known when the creation of the roadmap is completed. According to him, the roadmap is being developed not only for Russian Railways, but for the entire market. A working group led by Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko creates an optimal migration mechanism from SAP to domestic solutions, which will be applicable to all government agencies and state corporations.

Russian Railways will be the first state corporations to implement the transition from SAP to Russian software. The photo is TAdviser

As Yevgeny Charkin noted, in 2017, at the III Railway Congress of Russian Railways, they received a direct order from the country's President Vladimir Putin on the need for import substitution.

We have been systematically engaged in import substitution for a long time. The import substitution process is built into the digital transformation strategy of Russian Railways. Twice a year, we report to the country's leadership on this matter, so Russian Railways were ready for the realities of today. We did not have to rebuild our work, - said the deputy general director of Russian Railways.

According to him, Russian Railways has drawn up a plan and developed KPIs for 50 classes of software. Moreover, in 2017, when the company began the process of import substitution in Russia, there were neither testing methods nor practical migration experience. Therefore, everything had to be created from scratch, and the developments of the state corporation formed the basis of many system documents. As Yevgeny Charkin notes, it was important that the transition to domestic solutions did not affect the reliability and efficiency of the processes of the railway industry. Therefore, all systems and solutions were tested multiple times.

As a result, since 2019, Russian Railways has studied and tested 114 solutions of domestic developers. At the same time, 14 Russian Railways systems are included in the register of domestic software, another 9 decisions are at the registration stage.

According to Evgeny Charkin, in 2021 in Russian Railways:

• a project on import substitution of corporate data storage (CDS) was implemented;
• 80% of Russian Railways system and application software are included in the register of domestic software;
• purchased an unlimited license for the Postgres Pro Enterprise DBMS;
• Express corporate messenger [2] is installed at 56 thousand. AWS;
• CommuniGate Pro mail system is used for 259 thousand. AWS;
• Kaspersky anti-virus is used for 224 thousand. AWS;
• Yandex.Browser costs 192 thousand. AWS;
• Safeinspect remote work security tool is installed on 59,000 AWS;
• 5150 AWS have been transferred to the domestic OS.

In Russian Railways, the share of expenses for domestic software at the end of 2021 was 33%, and in the first quarter of 2022 it increased to 63%. The share of expenses for domestic electronic products in the first quarter of 2022 reached 85%. The company announced the purchase in 2022 of 60 thousand personal computers based on Russian processors Baikal and Elbrus.

Russian Railways implements end-to-end projects for the transition to Russian solutions in which Russian Railways acts as an anchor customer for Russian companies, guaranteeing them the volume of the order. The transition to AWS created using domestic processors has already been launched. Documents of the end-to-end project for the introduction of domestic equipment in the field of the Internet of Things have been prepared. An end-to-end transition to domestic LTE and 5G telecommunications equipment has started. In addition, according to Yevgeny Charkin, a proposal is being formed for the participation of Russian Railways as an anchor customer for the use of domestic information security equipment.

TAdviser SummIT took place on May 31, 2022 in Moscow. The event was attended by more than 900 delegates, more than 100 reports were made. Among the key speakers are the Minister of Digital Development of the Russian Federation Maksut Shadayev, Deputy General Director of RZDEvgeniy Charkin, [3] Chief information officer UralhimValeriy Fokin, Vice President for IT of Eurasholding Artem Natrusov, [4] Chief information officer LentySergey Sergeyev and others.

2021: Russian Railways is ripe for a large-scale rejection of ERP SAP. A road map is being prepared

Russian Railways is working to create a roadmap for the transition from SAP to Russian ERP solutions, said Russian Railways Deputy General Director Yevgeny Charkin during a public discussion on June 4, 2021.

We have a huge installation of solutions based on SAP technologies - 260 thousand users, and now we are jointly developing a roadmap for how to switch to domestic solutions in this regard, "Charkin said.

Together, this implies the work of Russian Railways in this area with the Ministry of Digital Industry and the Center for Import Substitution Competencies in the ICT sector. With them, work was carried out in the field of software for production processes, production management. According to Yevgeny Charkin, Russian Railways uses everything domestic. The company interacted with these organizations so that it could legally call this software Russian - that is, entering it into the register of domestic software.

What kind of domestic decisions Russian Railways considers as an alternative to SAP, the top manager did not specify during the discussion. But earlier, the company has repeatedly pointed to 1C products as a possible alternative. The products of the Galaxy were also mentioned.

The topic of the transition of Russian Railways from SAP to domestic ERP solutions has been raised for several years, but the development of a comprehensive roadmap has not yet been discussed in public space. For example, in 2016 there was information that Russian Railways could completely abandon the products of the German developer^[1].

And in 2017, Evgeny Charkin spoke about plans to partially replace SAP with domestic platforms - at small Russian Railways enterprises with typical processes. Then he explained that in the future Russian Railways is ready to look at domestic analogues of SAP and for use in large enterprises. The company was going to wait until Russian developers have products that can replace the German vendor's software on such a scale and complexity of processes as that of Russian Railways (for more details, see the block below for 2017).

During a public discussion on June 4, 2021, Yevgeny Charkin noted that Russian Railways is moving towards technological independence. The company has a program for import substitution of software, although at the same time they think in Russian Railways not only about software, but also about microelectronics.

But, speaking of import substitution, you need not just to replace, but to switch to more competitive solutions, Yevgeny Charkin is sure. And this requires joint efforts of large companies, the state, because in addition to stimulating state-owned companies and government agencies, it is necessary to stimulate the market in various ways. Both financial and responsibility. You need to think about personnel in the field of "numbers," starting with school education. The exchange of best practices is also important.

We say that we need to have our own solution that will be no less competitive than, for example, the SAP solution. 100% agree. But for this we need to go this way in a time frame that is several times less than the best companies in the world that have given their business process templates to the SAP developer, and on their basis he made the solutions on which everyone now works, "Charkin explained. - We need to do all this in a radically shorter time frame.

To do this, the top manager of Russian Railways repeated, joint efforts of large companies are needed to form templates for business processes, the state and the IT market, says the deputy general director of Russian Railways.

2018

Russian Railways is considering the possibility of a complete rejection of SAP

Russian Railways is considering the possibility of completely abandoning SAP as part of import substitution plans, a source in Russian Railways told TAdviser. The state-owned company has not yet decided on a specific domestic platform for migration, but with a high probability it will be "1C," he believes.

Earlier, there was no talk of a complete rejection of SAP. So, in May 2017, the state corporation announced to TAdviser plans to only partially replace SAP with domestic platforms (see the block below "Russian Railways will transfer its enterprises from SAP to 1C in order to import substitution and save money").

According to the interlocutor of TAdviser from Russian Railways, the plans for import substitution existing in the state corporation as of September still resemble, rather, "declarations" for 5-7 years in advance. Specific measures for the implementation of these plans are in the formation stage, "there is a discussion, discussions are underway."

In 2016 and 2017, Russian Railways spoke only about the possible partial replacement of SAP with domestic ERPs "(photo - zdbilety.ru)"

SAP in Russian Railways is used by the financial and economic unit and the human resources unit. Earlier, the Russian Railways corporate newspaper in its publication designated the number of SAP users in these blocks as about 200 thousand and 125 thousand, respectively^[2]. Russian Railways enterprises using SAP centrally gain access to the platform deployed in several data centers.

It is difficult to estimate how much money for all the time Russian Railways spent on the implementation and support of SAP solutions, but in the market they are definitely known as very expensive. Speaking about the need to invest in a new ERP, a TAdviser source noted that when it comes to the political field, money comes to the background.

The interlocutor of TAdviser assesses the level of automation of Russian Railways as not high enough, therefore, he believes, it would be possible to automate the processes of a state-owned company on almost any industrial ERP platform available on the market.

The official representative of Russian Railways, Director of Information Technology Yevgeny Charkin, regarding the replacement of SAP, told TAdviser that "so far there is nothing to comment on - we are considering options."

According to the interlocutor of TAdviser from Russian Railways, the state-owned company plans to abandon import solutions to the maximum. In addition to SAP, it also classifies SAS and Microsoft products, including operating systems packages, as software that the state corporation does not exclude from in favor of domestic products.

2017

Galactica will help Russian Railways implement a strategy for import substitution of foreign software

On November 9, 2017, Galactica Corporation announced the conclusion of an agreement with Russian Railways on cooperation in the field of informatization. The document was signed by Evgeny Charkin, Information Technology Director of Russian Railways, and Anton Malkov, member of the board of Galactica Corporation .

Russian Railways will transfer its enterprises from SAP to 1C in order to import substitution and save

In May 2017, on St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) RUSSIAN RAILWAY and "" 1C signed a cooperation agreement. It is aimed at supporting the implementation of the foreign import substitution strategy, ON the development and implementation of solutions on the "" platform in 1C: Enterprise Russian Railways, follows from the official message of the companies.

The chief information officer of Russian Railways Evgeny Charkin told TAdviser that Russian Railways plans to replace SAP it with parts of its enterprises by implementing a two-level strategy in the region. ERP It provides for the use of SAP in large enterprises with complex processes, and 1C in small enterprises with typical processes.

Russian Railways will transfer part of enterprises to 1C

A similar two-tier strategy was implemented at Rosatom, where Charkin worked as a Chief information officer earlier. In large enterprises, SAP is also used there, and in small ones - "1C."

In addition to the exchange rate for import substitution, Russian Railways also calls another incentive to replace part of SAP software with "1C."

Using SAP everywhere is not economically feasible for your company. There are large companies with complex business processes, and here SAP is doing great. But putting SAP-level solutions on small enterprises is too expensive and not very correct, - explained the Chief information officer of Russian Railways TAdviser.

Under the agreement, Russian Railways, together with 1C, will work out new solutions specifically for industry enterprises. Russian Railways plans to unify processes in small enterprises and introduce standard solutions there. At the same time, Charkin notes, it is almost impossible to cover all processes with one system, so it is possible that some things will remain on SAP.

Russian Railways is one of the largest SAP customers in the world. The company employs about 250 thousand users with SAP, Evgeny Charkin cited TAdviser data.

He found it difficult to tell TAdviser how many users will move from SAP to 1C in the future. Only by starting to implement directly, it will be possible to know this, he noted. At the time of signing the agreement with 1C, the strategy and plan for the implementation of solutions has not yet been worked out.

One of the first enterprises where the introduction of 1C is being worked out is the Railway Trading Company (ZhTK) of Russian Railways.

To one degree or another, old versions of 1C products are already used in small enterprises in Russian Railways together with SAP, Charkin told TAdviser. In addition to vendor solutions, small enterprises also use self-written systems to automate processes.

Evgeny Charkin added that in the future, Russian Railways is ready to look at domestic analogues of SAP for use in large enterprises, but not now. The company will wait for Russian developers to have products that can replace the German vendor's software on such scales and complexity of processes as that of Russian Railways, Charkin noted.

The fact that Russian Railways is considering the possibility of replacing part of SAP software with domestic solutions became known at the end of 2015, but the vendor was not selected for these purposes then. Russian Railways also evaluated the decisions of the Galaxy company to replace SAP.

As before, we look at the solutions of the Galaxy, primarily in terms of asset management, repairs. Colleagues have quite strong competencies in this area. We continue to cooperate with them, - said the Chief information officer of Russian Railways in a conversation with TAdviser.

2015: Russian Railways saw risks in using SAP. Replacement can be "1C" or "Galaxy"

Russian Railways is choosing a replacement for SAP products, for which they intend to evaluate the solutions of Galactica and 1C. TAdviser was told about this in the Galaxy Corporation.

Russian Railways is considering the possibility of migration from SAP to Russian solutions

In connection with the release of the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation of November 16, 2015 No. 1236 "On the establishment of a ban on the admission of software, originating from foreign countries, for the purposes of procurement to meet state and municipal needs, " and taking into account the risks of working with Western software manufacturers, The Department of Informatization of Russian Railways is working on issues related to the phased transition to domestic software for conducting financial and economic activities, the Galaxy Corporation told TAdviser.

Russian Railways held a number of meetings with representatives of Galactica and 1C, as a result, the parties reached an agreement on the creation of a joint laboratory for a pilot project, within the framework of which functional and load testing of platforms will be carried out at the Russian Railways facilities, Galactica added.

According to the results of testing in the first half of 2016, it is planned to assess the timing and economic effects of the transfer of Russian Railways financial and economic systems from SAP to Russian platforms, says a representative of the corporation.

The number of users of the ERP system based on the Russian solution, according to the interlocutor of TAdviser, can be about 200 thousand Russian Railways employees. The specific functional composition will be determined based on the results of the pilot project.

Russian Railways is one of the largest SAP customers in Europe. The introduction of the German ERP system began in 1999, the main composition was implemented by 2007. On the basis of SAP, Russian Railways operates two large ERP systems - for financial management and labor resources. The key contractor of the enterprise for the creation of both systems was Technoserv (more on the project).

Links

• Regulation of public procurement of domestic software
• Regulation of public procurement of domestic telecommunications equipment
• Regulation of public procurement of domestic computer equipment and microelectronics

Notes