Outside Protection

In addition to assets, the work force and raw materials, information is becoming on of a company’s main resources. “In the event of crash, work at a company could be down for several days,” says Vladimir Chistunin, vice president for regional policies at Sibintech.” Therefore, information security is becoming a company’s main concern. In line with this, a simple and transparent outsourcing model provides one of a company’s main resources in a professional manner, he noted.
Nevertheless, in addition to the undeniable advantages, the conference participants noted also the clear disadvantages of IT outsourcing. Indeed, the incontestable positive aspect of this service – one-provider-one-contract – could turn out to be a monopoly in terms of the provided service when talking about a security service provider (SSP). “A company could become a hostage to one provider delivering protection to said company, and could end up negatively affecting its information delivered when changing providers,” noted Lysenko. Moreover, the limited spectrum of services provided, service not always corresponding to what has been promised, issues with SSP control (who could be defending the securer), long contracts (in excess of three years) for which the serviced company may not be prepared were cited among the other negative aspects.
Petr Kireev, commercial director at Stack Group, spoke about using data-center outsourcing. These centers offer services for leasing dedicated servers and collocation servers for companies. According to Kireev, Russian companies today must realize that it is more reliable to outsource their servers for servicing by professional companies offering uninterrupted operation and corresponding services. Companies operating their own servers run into a number of problems and dangers threatening their information security, problems which data centers are meant to resolve. A shortage of space to set up equipment (in connection with high lease payments in the city), the interruption of the electrical supply, round-the-clock climate-control conditions and searching for proper administrative specialists force a company to outsource these matters to professionals.
Recently, the problem of the shortage of electrical energy is becoming a very substantial matter. Indeed, U.S. analysts have shown that the demand for electrical energy on the part of corporations and outsourcers is growing by 20% annually. Analysts at the Garther analytical group believe that in 2008, half of the data centers in existence will run into problems with electricity, and this factor is worth paying attention to while still at the design stage of a specialized data area. “As a rule, data centers must be modernized three years following launch,” underscored Kireev. “A security control center designed without backup options must be re-equipped as such when constructing an additional area, thus an outsourcer’s operating costs significantly increase.”
A stable power supply is an issue for many IT firms. “The crash in May 2005 in Moscow fully paralyzed the operations of our central office,” said Alexei Goncharuk, head of the telecommunications system operations department at Rosgosstrakh holding company. “However, it did not affect the data center.” He noted that following the crash, requirements for the electrical supply of servers have changed, as today equipment must have two independent power lines – the main and the reserve lines, respectively. To compare the advantage of using data centers, he cited statistics of interruptions in the central office. Indeed, in 2006 there were 13 instances recorded of interruptions – two with climate control and 11 with an interruption in the power supply – while the data center did not experience the same problems.
IT outsourcing in Russia is developing at a rather quick pace, noted the conference participants; however, there are a number of factors delaying its development, such as a shortage of funds at small- and mid-sized companies. Moreover, outsourcers prefer today to work with large enterprises. Moreover, a system for insuring incidents in Russia has not been created and is not in operation; therefore, when serious equipment crashes occur as a fault of data centers, the losses suffered by the companies are not compensated.
Issues of IT outsourcing in connection with the development of a company’s business strategy, developing software, the set up of SOA and using these services at the work areas of state authorities were also discussed at the conference.