In 2013 The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation began to develop a plan for a unified informational and analytical support system capable of supporting all units of the Ministry. The goal was to give employees a complete solution for data access and exchange.
Previously, the Ministry utilized multiple different hardware-software solutions. This situation had many disadvantages: high costs, poor scalability, expensive maintenance and complicated administration issues. In order to eliminate these disadvantages, the Ministry decided to create a single unified video conferencing system to support all employees everywhere. This ambitious project had several specific requirements: the new communications system had to be secure and hosted within the Ministry’s own network, be able to provide stable performance across variable bandwidths, and integrate seamlessly with the systems of other Russian government agencies.
After an open tender, the Ministry of Internal Affairs chose TrueConf to provide their solution. In accordance with the Ministry’s needs, a specialized video conferencing system was developed. This later became known as SVKS-m.
The project began after signing a governmental contract in October 2013. SVKS-m was designed to support the simultaneous operation of 1 million users with possible future expansion. Taking into account the tremendous workload brought about by this number of users, elements of server infrastructure were installed in each regional center of the Russian Federation. Those elements were united into a common system, the Ministry’s cloud video conferencing system, which consists of over 85 servers.
The federation-wide SVKS-m system was officially brought into operation in December 2014, after several successful trials in five selected regions of Russia. The SVKS-m system is integrated with the Ministry’s online portal, telephony, other existing video conferencing systems, the user access database and the Ministry’s internal information systems. It is also integrated with the organizational and staff infrastructure of the Ministry, which allows the new system to maintain an updated address book for all employees. SVKS-m is also integrated with PC peripherals and mobile devices, adding a high level of convenience for the Ministry’s workers.
“Our extensive experience in development of high-load cloud video conferencing services allowed us to create this massive, distributed unified communications system for the Ministry of Internal Affairs in a very short time. The architecture of the SVKS-m has virtually unlimited scalability potential. The system has no counterparts in the world, and provided us with a unique development experience,” says Dmitry Odintsov, TrueConf CBDO.
Soon after the launch of the video conferencing system at the end of 2014, the Ministry’s employees were making up to 13,000 calls per week, using over 500,000 minutes in total. In 2015, usage reached 1 million minutes per week, or roughly 2 years of live communication.
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Very interesting article. Unified communications encompasses several communication systems or models including unified messaging, collaboration, and interaction systems; real-time and near real-time communications; and transactional applications. Tools like like webex, R-HUB web video conferencing servers, gotomeeting, gomeetnow etc.are used in unified communications.