VTB increases spending on PostgreSQL, Kubernetes and other popular open source software

In early March 2020, VTB chose an open source software support service provider, which is used in its VTB Business Online system - a remote banking system for legal entities^[1]. The maximum price that the bank is ready to pay for this was about 82 million rubles, and the term for providing services is 12 months. The contract following the tender was concluded with I-Teco in the amount of 79.8 million rubles.

The list of software with open source which you need to maintain is quite extensive. It also includes DBMS PostgreSQL the Patroni application for creating highly accessible clusters based on PostgreSQL, the container orchestration platform Kubernetes and for software Docker deploying container applications, several microservice creation frameworks, a search engine Elasticsearch , etc.

In addition to VTB Business Online, open source software is also used in a number of other VTB systems "(photo - VTB press service in the Irkutsk region)"

In 2018, VTB also bought open source software support for VTB Business Online for the same period. Then the bank set the maximum price for these services at about 54 million rubles. Thus, expenditures for these purposes have increased by more than half.

From the terms of reference for services, it follows that the number of copies of some open source software used in VTB Business Online has since increased: for example, for DBMS PostgreSQL - from 6 to 96, Kubernetes - from 12 to 24 copies.

The bank's strategy involves the active development of automated systems of its own development, based on open source software, said TAdviser at VTB.

For example, open source software is also used in the Big Data VTB project, where data storefronts based on Hadoop are formed for retail and the bank's financial department. The same project uses other open source components. The bank began to create big data tools on the basis of open source software back in 2017.

In addition, judging by the description of VTB's active vacancies as of February, VTB is working on the Digital Credit project, which creates a system for automating large business lending processes, mainly on the basis of open source software. It is built from scratch on microservice architecture and with Agile approach to replace the historical system.

Among the ACT products involved in Digital Credit are PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Docker, various frameworks for creating microservices and integrating applications, etc.

The costs of some open source products have also increased with Sberbank. As of February 2020, he is in the process of selecting a DBMS support provider PostgreSQL for 2,272 cores and Patroni applications for 324 cores. The maximum price that Sberbank is ready to pay for these services has more than doubled compared to the purchase of 2018 - up to 71 million rubles. The bank explained this to TAdviser by the growth of its automated systems on the DBMS PostgreSQL platform. More details here.

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