Information technology

29

billion KZT income received from the amount of projects of Kazakhtelecom JSC using the data center infrastructure

12.9

billion KZT revenue in the ICT direction in 2022

In addition, projects of national and social significance are provided based on the data center infrastructure, and the placement of Facebook, Yandex, Netflix, Akamai, and Google caching servers in the data centers of Kazakhtelecom JSC allows the company to significantly save on international traffic.

According to the P&L report for the last year, the profitability of the IT business was about 50%, which is perhaps the highest indicator among all the company’s services. Also, the solvency of the IT-direction is evidenced by such indicators as asset turnover, operating profit and others. For example, the asset turnover ratio of the IT business is more than 15% higher than that of the Group of Companies, which characterizes the Division as a mature and efficient business.

At the end of last year, revenue in the ICT direction amounted to KZT 12.9 billion, while income received from the amount of projects of Kazakhtelecom JSC using the data center infrastructure amounted to KZT 29 billion, including such projects as Cloud Video Surveillance, IoT, services Intellectual platform, “Marking and traceability of goods”.

In terms of services, the main revenues at the end of the year were brought by basic data center services, revenue drivers were: IaaS (infrastructure as a service), rack rental, virtual data center, as well as services for hosting server equipment.

27

data centers in large cities and regional centers of the republic

>1,600

racks in data centers

The outgoing year allowed the company to consolidate its position as a leading player in the information storage market. Kazakhtelecom JSC remains the leading ICT provider in the commercial data center market with a market share of 54%. Today, the Company maintains a network of 27 data centers in large cities and regional centers of the republic. This is more than 1,600 racks. The overall utilization of data center resources reaches an average of 95-98%, data center services are in high demand among telecom operator customers. Today, this is a critical percentage, therefore, in the next three years, the Information Technology Division intends to increase the company’s data center network by 428 racks. So, in 2023, two data center modules in Almaty for 84 racks will be introduced, in 2024 it is planned to expand the data center in Akkol by 42 racks, and in 2025 it is planned to build a new data center in the capital with a capacity of 300 racks with a TIER III availability level. In addition, next year ITS will begin work on upgrading the current data center infrastructure using highly efficient “green” solutions. The priority is to connect the modular data center in Almaty to renewable energy sources within the framework of the ESG program and obtain a “green” passport.

30% the average income growth rate over the past five years, which corresponds to market rates both within Kazakhstan and in the world as a whole

It is worth noting that today the income from products and projects implemented based on the company’s data centers has paid off the investments invested in their construction and development by almost three times. The share of income from ICT services and projects based on the data center is more than 10% in the income of Kazakhtelecom JSC and this value is constantly growing. Over the past 12 years, revenues from data center-based services amounted to KZT 152 billion. Of these, direct income — KZT 120 billion and indirect — KZT 32 billion.

Traditionally, the main data center services are physical hosting services such as Co-location, Dedicated, Rent a Rack, infrastructure rental and additional services. However, it is worth noting that the demand for the Company’s virtual resources is increasing on average four times every three years, and the performance of computing over the past five years has grown 10 times. For example, the increase in revenues from the IaaS service “Virtual Data Center” over the past year amounted to 23%.

Due to the growing demand for virtual computing resources in the Kazakhstan market, in the near future the company’s IT department plans to expand the range of digital services and increase the capacity of data centers to provide cloud services. By the way, 50% of future data center resources will be used for the development of clouds.

It should be noted that today the Company provides cloud solutions for all market segments — both small and medium-sized businesses and large corporate clients, and positions itself as a reliable supplier that meets all quality and safety standards.

As part of the development of partner services together with Kazakhstani and international IT companies and cloud providers, in July last year, the Information Technology Division signed a memorandum of cooperation with IT Grad 1 Cloud LLP, one of the leading providers of digital, media and telecommunications services in Russia. To implement and bring new products to the market, the division plans to combine the technical resources of Kazakhtelecom JSC with the innovative technologies of the Russian service provider, as well as use its own communication channels, data center capacities, IT infrastructure, expertise in the development and launch of cloud products and services, sales channels for cloud solutions and competencies for the development of national IT marketplaces.

So, as part of the first stage of a large interaction between the two operators, a new page “Cloud Solutions” was launched last year on ISMET.KZ. Other, more in-depth stages of cooperation are currently being worked out.

Also in 2022, the IT department of the company began active work on the transfer of ICT products to the full digital self-service format. Now the main part of the IT Division services can be purchased at ISMET.KZ by leaving a request, and individual products can be connected independently, without the need to call the manager and send any documents. In 2023, work on the program for the development of digital products will continue, next year DIT plans to move to the next stage of providing quality services to its customers.

The pandemic has had a significant impact on the development of digital trends, accelerating their growth and boosting business. Over the past two years, the formats of interaction with clients have changed dramatically in the Company, new digital solutions have been introduced, which increasingly demanded from the IT department of Kazakhtelecom JSC a flexible and scalable IT infrastructure, which is the foundation for any digital transformation.

In this regard, the IT department of the Company initiated a three-year project for high-quality global modernization of corporate infrastructure, the first stage of which was successfully completed last year.

The modernization project affected three main areas: the engineering infrastructure of data processing centers, where the company’s corporate information systems are located, the republican corporate data transmission network and computing virtual platforms.

As part of the implementation of the first stage of the project, the air conditioning and uninterruptible power systems in the data center of Astana were completely updated. The main nodes of the corporate network were replaced in all regions of the country, outdated server equipment was completely modernized at virtual computing sites in Almaty and Pavlodar. Already in the first half of 2023, the company’s IT department plans to transfer the most critical IT systems to new sites.

In addition, the Company’s first project was implemented to geo-reserve highly critical information systems that are involved in the processes of interaction with the client. The georeserve was built on the basis of two data processing centers in Astana and Akkol using MetroCluster technology.

By 2024, the IT department of the company plans to fully complete the global modernization, and the IT infrastructure will fully meet business expectations in terms of fault tolerance, reliability, performance and speed of response to changes in business requirements.

In addition, next year the Division of Information Technologies plans to pass the international certification for compliance with the requirements of the ISO/IEC 20000 standard. This is the first international standard for managing the quality of IT services. To date, the Company has already developed and approved regulatory documentation, implemented all the processes prescribed by the standard, DIT employees have undergone the necessary training, and an audit team has been trained.

One of the important results of the outgoing year was the transition to a microservice IT architecture and the introduction of Development and Operation (DevOps) practices into development processes. The main advantage of moving to a microservice architecture is the ability of IT components to adapt to changes in business rules. Thanks to the microservice architecture, the Company receives easily scalable, flexible and cross-platform applications that can be quickly changed for any user tasks, while contact with other microservices occurs through open APIs. In a word, the company’s IT direction is building a new architecture focused on maximum openness to the external environment, which will allow not only the telecom operator to quickly launch new services and services, but also provide the opportunity for the company’s partners to connect to it in order to provide services together with Kazakhtelecom JSC. The ongoing work will allow the Company to release new products and services in digital format faster, improve their quality, and respond more actively to customer needs in accordance with the new requirements for ­Time-to-Market.

It should be noted that at the end of last year, the main part of such monolithic systems as Siebel CRM, Oracle ASAP, part of the BMC Remedy and Amdocs modules, the Human Resources Management System, telecom.kz and ismet.kz corporate portals have already been transferred to microservices.