Tricolor TV (National Satellite Company) (Microsoft Business Intelligence)

Situation

At the beginning of the formation when the number of clients was still not really high, the Tricolor TV company could manage quite standard means for accounting of the registered equipment and incoming payments. Provision of services was performed only on prepaid cards with the fixed validity period upon termination of which it was necessary to activate the new card. Over time the number of users began to grow promptly that resulted in need of implementation of automatic system of accounting of payments and the registered equipment.

Solution

Work on the project was begun in March, 2007. Six months later the basic version of the software was tested. Absolutely new system of billing "PayTracker" working at MS SQL of 2005 was developed. New billing allowed to accumulate better funds in a system and to carry out the accounting of the payments arriving from different payment systems. In addition, billing gave quantum leap in relationship with subscribers. Subscribers could carry out payment of services not only by means of prepaid cards now, but also by means of popular payment systems and terminals. The transparent and available scheme of payment of services together with the growing demand for services of satellite television brought the company to a new stage of development.

Input of personal offices for the dealers extending services of Tricolor TV in different regions of Russia and also for subscribers was the next stage. The personal office allowed dealers to keep account of the connected receivers and the registered payments. Subscribers, in turn, had an opportunity to manage services, to keep track of their status (is active/is inactive), to monitor a status of the accounts and also to manage own means, redistributing them between accounts. At creation of a system the method of "thin client" was used: dealers or subscribers do not use hardware resources of the server for accomplishment of the tasks and can be connected to a personal office far off, using the web interface.

In 2009 the number of the viewers of Tricolor TV increased by 3 million and reached a point of 6.5 million families. Average amount of data was 250 GB, the monthly volume of transactions - more than 2 million, the number of dealers reached 10,000. The used solution closes all current demands of the company now and is ready to implementation of new tasks of expansion of a range of the services provided to subscribers.

• Amount of data 250 Gb
• Total number of dealers 10,000
• Total number of subscribers 6,500,000
• Number of at the same time working users 2500
• Number of transactions More than 2,000,000 in a month
• Gain of amount of data 20 GB monthly

Hardware platform of the IC:

• 3x Intel SR1550ALSAS (2x XEON [5050]/2x1024/2x73SAS) – 2 WEB servers + the application server
• Intel SR1530 (P4 3,2/2x1024/2x250SATA) is Mail the server
• Intel SR1550ALSAS (2x XEON [E5420]/2x2048/8x73SAS) is an application server reserve
• 2x IBM x3950 M2 (4x XEON [X7350]/64Gb/3x73SAS) – the main and reserve DB servers (a cold reserve)
• 2x IBM Express DS4700 Model (16x 73GB FC) is the main and standby system of data storage (a cold reserve)
• Infortrand S16E-G1130 (16x 1TB SATA) is a system storage of backup copies of data.

Software:

• Microsoft SQL Server 2005
• Microsoft Visual Studio® 2008
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003

Advantages

Practical use of a new system of billing showed advantage of its main parties: reliability, ease of use, modularity.

• Reliability

In an automated system of billing the possibility of use of distribution of the scheme of calculations is implemented that allows to increase power and to put into operation new services without stopping of work of all system in general.

• The billing system underwent the procedure of certification ordered by normative regulating documents of Ministry of Communications and is capable to support 20 million users. With fast-growing number of clients such reliability is simply necessary for the company.

• Ease of use

With the advent of personal offices subscribers got access to control and management of services and means on accounts. It significantly reduced load of customer support department of the company. At emergence of new rates, services or their currency units it is possible to implement quickly in a system, using the built-in editors.

• Modularity

In case of introduction of new service or a new payment method there is no need to rewrite the program. It is enough to add the new module to already available structure. The possibility of fast evolution and expansion of the program under any tasks allows Tricolor TV to remain the most dynamic and modern company in the market of services of digital television.

Conclusion

The solution based on MS SQL 2005 helped fast-growing company "Tricolor TV" to solve a problem of accounting of the registered equipment and payments with ease, stimulated emergence of new services for subscribers and solutions on business improvement.

Now the company conducts assessment of usefulness and costs upon transition to MS SQL platform 2008 R2. Advantage of transition to SQL Server R2 is the possibility of use of the newest and high-performance platform of data storage from Microsoft, simpler in administration (especially within the high-loaded korprorativny system, a billing class), with richer opportunities for processing of data bulks and a business intelligence