My name is Stanislav Savvin, and today I would like to tell you how the infrastructure team of Rosbank managed to increase the number of remote connections by 7 times in 10 days and transfer more than 85% of employees to remote work, without affecting the efficiency of the organization.
All details under the cut.
Obviously, we didn't start from scratch. Several technological developments (VPN and terminal access) have already been made and successfully implemented. Before quarantine, Rosbank employees had the opportunity to work outside the office several days a week. By the end of February, about 1,500 people (and at the same time - no more than 800) used the remote control to one degree or another. The process of granting access was complicated, on average it took about 2 weeks to provide (4 departments took part in the process).
When in March it became clear that the task of scaling remote work technologies is the highest priority, since the bank, in fact, is moving to a new format of work, our team had 3 goals:
- infrastructure scaling;
- building Fast trek access provision;
- Organization of a new user support scheme.
Due to its easy scaling, Citrix was chosen as the main technology. We started by expanding the server farm and Internet bandwidth to handle the new load. In parallel with this, we purchased additional licenses, including for two-factor authentication. When the servers were ready, we began to connect users in stages. To speed up the process, work was carried out by one group of employees with coordination from one point. Thus, the time for receiving the remote was reduced to 24 hours, although from a technical point of view, the process remained quite complex. Access was provided to literally hundreds of users simultaneously.
We were able to quickly, on the quarantine flag, provide remote access to most of the employees, but the main challenge was ahead: the team had to maintain the continuous operation of the systems in the new conditions and proactively solve all user problems. We set ourselves an ambitious goal - to solve 90% of problems on the handset with the user within 15 minutes.
To do this, the following steps were initiated:
- round-the-clock monitoring of remote access systems based on automated dashboards;
- daily morning stand-up for monitoring remote access systems;
- many articles, instructions and life hacks have been prepared for the corporate social network and telegram channel;
- part of the support staff were in the office in shifts to solve technical problems with the onsite infrastructure;
- some of the support functions were transferred to the 1st support line with appropriate automation.
Now, after eliminating all the problems, during peak periods about 6,000 employees can simultaneously connect to the bank's systems in 4 different ways. There are practically no incidents on key remote access systems.
Since most of the bank was working remotely, it was clear that the remote access platform had become the main IT life-saving system. The same thing happened with systems that provide corporate communications (email, skype).
Problems that had to be solved during the adaptation of bank employees to the new realities of work:
- the quality of the local Internet connection on the hacienda of employees (instructive materials on how to diagnose, now we are preparing an automated tool);
- find additional equipment for working at home (more than 600 sets have been issued);
- Improving the quality of remote connections through Citrix (improved infrastructure);
- expanding the capacity of external telephone lines to connect employees by telephone;
- implementation of additional capabilities for remote connection to corporate mail;
- in the process of implementation - the function of connecting to corporate Skype from a mobile device.
In the short term, after the end of the pandemic and the self-isolation regime, we will have to meet other challenges:
- How to make an employee’s work on a remote site even more effective?
- What new and additional tools for communication and collaboration to offer him?
- How to optimize support processes for IT services in a remote work environment, to maximize the possibilities of self-service for the user?
But this is already a topic for the next article.