June 25, 2015 at 17:58Ready-made solutions # 4. Pavel Barketov
Away - Pavel Barketov
Presenter - Sergey Gorshenin
Dear friends, I am glad to welcome you to the studio of the program program “Ready-made solutions”. We continue to invite interesting and famous people of our industry to the studio. And today our guest is Pavel Barketov, Technical Director of SoftPoint. Hello paul
Hello Sergey, hello friends.
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Barketov Pavel Anatolyevich was born in Smolensk in 1981, in his youth he was fond of mathematics, computer science and history, a participant and winner of regional competitions. He graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute with a degree in ACS. In 2005, he became one of the founders of SoftPoint, whose technical director is to this day.
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Pasha, in the last show, Alexander Belov was visiting us, and his story is interesting because he graduated from the Faculty of Oceanology and then somehow came to the field of information technology. What is your story? How did you get into IT?
Everything is quite simple for me: I got higher education in the specialization of ACS, in the IT industry, but I had different options. That is, I considered both information technology and alternative, and absolutely opposite areas - for example, law. I loved history very much and, moreover, even entered the Law Academy and, literally by the will of fate, did not become a prosecutor. Therefore, you see, there can always be turning points in life, but now I do not regret how everything turned out.
That is, you consciously chose IT. And what made you choose information technology and give up the right?
You know, at such a young age, making a conscious decision was difficult, but there were some small factors that worked. For example, one of them is that I loved mathematics, computer science, participated in olympiads, won, and this despite the fact that I acquired my personal computer already in the third year of college.
That is, in principle, it does not matter what tools you have, it is important who you are and how you develop. At some point, I even had to find a computer in laboratories, with friends, and so on. It is clear that everyone in the first year has tasks and they need to be completed somehow.
You can say that you are a researcher to some extent.
Yes. I am a researcher, and even the style of our organization proves this. But to be honest, I don’t know the root cause that I’m a researcher, because I was born in a family of hereditary aircraft manufacturers, and if it weren’t for the hard time I grew up, I would stay in this industry. And, most likely, my parents gave me a craving for research and invention, and I tried to do something that others did not do or solve the problem in a way that they do not solve in the textbook. This has been traced throughout my life and I am very glad that I can now be realized in this direction.
Do you remember what was one of the first tasks that you did not solve as expected by others?
Such an example was still in school. The textbook contains several versions of the proofs of theorems on geometry, and I tried to prove it by my own methods, that is, I searched for logic in the proofs, and did not use the solutions from the textbook. And, by the way, in life this helps and restrains, because teachers do not always like students who go a little out of format ...
... White crows?
No, not even that, but those who invent the bicycle. You're kind of an inventor, but the minus is that you're not like everyone else. And in life this played a negative role: gold medals and some awards left me behind because of such a peculiar solution to any problems. This is also evident in the institute. But among the mass of teachers there are those who give you wings, who see talent in you, and this gives an impetus to development.
So, you graduated from the institute, and what was your first job, and what task, goal did you set for yourself? They told you - here is your job description, please work?
I started working from the first year of the institute, despite the fact that I studied full-time. And the funny thing is that my first work was in the field of journalism. I worked as a correspondent for a youth newspaper for over a year, my friends and I wrote articles, held events, and this experience came in handy. The first job in the specialty was the work of a programmer in the transport company Sovtransavto, then I was in my third year ...
I wrote an information system. Looking ahead, I’ll say that later I returned to this company, but already as the IT director of the Moscow office. It turned out that the program developed by me in Smolensk was recognized as one of the best, I was found and offered this position, in which I worked for a year and a half, having been not only from the supplier, but also from the customer, I looked at the IT world on the other hand.
What was the turning point forcing the transition from the role of the customer to the role of the supplier?
If you look at the chronology of my work, it turns out that I just worked as a programmer, then I went to work in SoftPoint, then I left SoftPoint, worked as an IT director, and returned to SoftPoint's technical director. It turns out that in the workbook of my main works - these are two works where I systematically rose due to certain successes. I like to create rather than serve, because after all, you cannot develop creatively with the customer, everything should be systemic there and your unit should be serving.
You are at the customer within certain limits.
Yes. You are a serving element of a large business, and in the current situation it is convenient that you are this business. Your price and role are clear.
And what was SoftPoint like when you got there?
SoftPoint was a room measuring 10 square meters and 3 like-minded people who were just starting a business, that is, there were a lot of ambitious ideas, but I would not say that these ideas were about the technologies that we have developed at the moment, because human thought evolving too.
From that platform, we thought that it would be completely different and could not expect that we could develop such large infrastructure solutions. It was unattainable - to compete with such large corporations as Microsoft, IBM ... This feeling, when a startup just starts and you are not sure of anything, you need to survive.
Well, Google also once started with a little room, and now it is one of the largest Internet giants. In preparation for this interview, I looked at your site and saw that in fact there are two sites - SoftPoint.ru and SoftPointplus.ru. Why two sites, what is the difference between them?
SoftPoint.ru is a corporate site that presents our main decisions, information about our company’s policy, by development vector, by strategy, there is various partner information, and SoftPointplus.ru is a company’s blog.
In order not to mix our research and development on the main site, we specially developed a separate news feed so that people could be enlightened and engaged in discussions using the blog. There is a certain corporate style and corporate standard, and there is a certain news blog that will describe our solutions and technologies, because often we have many developments that will never translate into solutions, and we understand this. The developments are interesting to the masses of people and the masses of specialists, but at the same time, we cannot publish them on the corporate website.
From transfer to transfer, we have a question about domain names. Why SoftPointplus, and not, for example, Blog.SoftPoint.ru? Why is this not a third-level domain in relation to your primary domain, but a separate domain name?
Our company has a lot of solutions, scientific research, 50% of the company's resources work according to standard research (research work) and, naturally, these works have a certain result. They are always valuable, even in case of failure. Therefore, we decided to publish this information on another domain and it is a kind of application, that is, plusSoftPoint is valuable information for specialists. Specialists have the opportunity to even see what developments were being carried out at all, perhaps they will take this information into service and will not start from the initial point of view, but will be able to continue research.
In fact, you have separated the commercial part from the research part. And who is the main audience for your blog?
A full-fledged study has not been conducted here, but I can assume that these are people who, firstly, are interested in the field of performance optimization, and this area is becoming more and more important, and this, even from accountants, is yes, and there is information for them , information refers to the fact that there are certain solutions that will help them in their work, and ending with IT directors.
When you understand that the level of maturity of an IT company and the level of scientific research are large enough, you trust it, because there are no solutions degenerated by a practical case. We are trying to show that the solutions flowed out of the research work.
Then the question begs. And if you didn’t think about broadcasting this blog on the Infostart portal, still the audience of Infostart is really very diverse, from accountants to technical directors, IT directors and even general directors.
I have a profile on Infostart, there are several rather interesting articles about our research, moreover, these articles are not in the blog. That is, Infostart is considered by us as one of the platforms for placing such information. It’s just that studies are not always associated with 1C, they are not always even somehow indirectly mated, but everything related to 1C is interesting for us to place on the Infostart site, we did it and will do it.
We heard what SoftPoint was like at the very beginning. By the way, what years were these, how old are you today?
We are the eleventh year, 2004 is the year of SoftPoint’s formation, it was a typical start-up, just at that time a number of large Russian companies finally reached the level where they were seriously confronted with performance problems on Microsoft loop servers, and that was the time, when these decisions began to loom. Because until this time, performance problems were solved by buying more powerful iron.
More iron, more memory, more processors.
Rather, I would say that the processor frequency increased, that is, it was first X-86, then Pentium, and so on. And at each turn, the number of transistors increased, the processor frequency increased. This means that the speed of that server and the program that runs on the server increased linearly. But at some point, we reached the ceiling of the processor frequency. And multicore systems went.
I personally associate just such a start for the company with the fact that multicore systems went and it was no longer possible - and now it is impossible - to fix some fundamental problems by buying some powerful server. It turns out that the properties of the system must be used to the maximum.
Well, in fact, the question arose about the correct and competent parallelization of processes.
Parallelizing the process, point settings, is a complex task.
This year you are 11 years old. You have celebrated a decade. Ten years is, especially for an IT company, a considerable period, few live up to it, and if they survive, they take some significant step forward in relation to where they started. What is SoftPoint right now?
Now SoftPoint is a very dynamically developing company, I can say that over the past year, 2014, our level of development is somewhere around 70-80%.
Is it a year? Every year?
This is a year. We are actively launching an affiliate network, because we ourselves can not cope with the needs of the business. That is, we are trying to scale our sales, our business, our customer loyalty. Plus, we are technology partners of a number of world leading companies. Among them is just Microsoft. She is our leading strategic partner, we interact very actively in terms of technology, we complement Microsoft technologies with our solutions. The fundamental difference: in the main, we do not create solutions using Microsoft technologies, but solutions that allow you to add add-ons to make better use of Microsoft technologies.
It is said on your site that you are a partner of the Data Platform, and what does this mean?
Data Platform is a sign of the company's competence in data processing and management. In Russia there are only fifteen gold partners in the Data Platform.
But in the whole world? To understand the ratio ...
In the world there are, of course, several hundred of them. But most importantly, there are less than a dozen of Russian companies with Dta Platform Gold. Most of these 10 companies have representative offices in Russia.
Well, that is, fifteen - this is essentially the amount that is calculated not in tenths of a percent, but in percent. This, as I understand it, is from 3 to 5 percent.
Yes. And Microsoft is very clear about which companies are pursuing this status. In principle, any company can achieve this, but it should have excellent customer references - once, then you need to get at least four engineers, and two of them must be competent enough, about 14 exams must be passed to Microsoft.
Decent amount.
But there is a second option, which is exactly what our company is doing. If the company has solutions worthy of the Gold Data Platform, then the developer company may not train the necessary number of employees, but achieve status by its development, which will be recognized by Microsoft testing at an appropriately high rank. We are the only company in Russia that has taken this path. That is, we have certified one of the solutions as a solution corresponding to this high level.
Are these solutions positioned only on the domestic market, or are they operated abroad?
The decisions of our company are just created so that there are no restrictions in terms of geography, in terms of industries, implementation, and so on. That is, decisions are positioned mainly according to the policy of each particular company. It can be domestic, maybe foreign. It is no secret that many companies now pursue a policy of centralizing the database, that is, they are trying to bring all users into one database store in order to work together. This provides an advantage for business development. There are companies that, on the contrary, decentralize databases. At the same time, they have to service the exchange. We focus on these vectors. That is, we know that we have solutions for the centralization vector - when it is necessary to ensure the performance of a large number of users in a single system. There are, for example, such exchange decisions,
And how flexible are the settings? In other words, how much the consumer himself, in the course of work, can make this reconfiguration without your participation?
Reconfiguration in terms of centralization?
Centralization, for example, on decentralization, and vice versa. That is, will he need, for example, a complete reinstallation of the entire system, the entire infrastructure, or some significant changes, will he need to invite your specialists for this, or can he, having trained his employee, one or two, do it on his own?
Usually the customer makes the decision to switch to centralization or decentralization, of course, himself. It is important that, since we have a range of solutions from two areas, we do not intervene in its specific solution, that is, we help both there and there. And at the same time, we can objectively assess which option is acceptable to him. Therefore, the efforts that he will spend on changing the architecture do not even relate to our decisions, we just then provide this architecture, that is, the transition itself, it is assumed, it can make on its own.
Earlier, we talked about the fact that you have a commercial component and a scientific component, which, in fact, follows the classical R&D scheme. And how is the development process in the company? Development, research, new discoveries.
We have a core in terms of development, there are employees who are the intellectual property of our company. And teams are working on various projects, no more than five people. This is a metric that is selected for optimal technology movement. Previously, we had teams and 12 people each, there were teams of 2-3 people, and we developed this universal form for ourselves, when there is a team, there is a team leader, there are selected programmers and various analysts, and these teams are the locomotive for developing these solutions . Each team has a number of solutions where development is underway. And the invention itself is generally subtle matter, because I must admit that even with all the desire, not all people are able to do this. Not everyone is able to look a few steps forward, to see an advantage that we do not even dream about. And here, in our company, there are not many such people, but they are few in other companies. There are very strong developers who provide us with unique technologies, but these are system developers mainly, all this is the level of writing drivers.
Well, that is, those that form a certain basis, a certain substrate for all other solutions.
Yes.
Do I understand correctly that the teams are essentially project teams, that is, if we say that there are some unique specialists, then they are "ported" from project to project.
Not. I would say that there are project teams to provide services to the client, then this is really some kind of temporary team that gathers employees from different directions so that the project is delivered on time and efficiently. And in terms of development, teams are usually well-established, and employees can communicate as efficiently as possible, and interact already within the framework of this team. It does not crumble.
And how and by what principle were these teams formed? Indeed, IT-specialists are a separate category of specialists for whom the comfort of interacting with each other is very important, because each of us is a specialist and each of us is individual in its own way. How did you go about this stage?
I agree with you that an IT specialist is a kind of artist, creator, that is, he can create something that did not exist before him, some element did not work before him, and after that he earned it. Here I can say that the teams evolved evolutionarily. That is, there are no teams on the market that can be recruited through recruitment agencies.
... That is, this is a certain combination of circumstances?
That's right. Plus, it’s still very important that in the teams, as you rightly said, there must be communication, all players must be team. If there is a “star”, that is, a person who has unique knowledge, but he will not have command, we have met such people, then of course he will not take root.
The paradox is that he alone lacks knowledge, and he cannot interact to create a synergistic effect with other specialists. These are some “homemade products” that like to work autonomously, there are tasks on the market for such people, but they are not for large-scale development. That is, the product should be as reliable and stable as possible. Therefore, communication and potential are more important for us than his current skills. Current skills can be gained. It is important that there are two first criteria.
As far as I know, at the moment you have patented solutions in the field of horizontal scaling, data depersonalization and full replication, briefly talk about these solutions and what kind of products.
Oh sure. As I said, the products do not appear immediately, we just fill the needs of the business if we see a white spot in some technology. Business understands efficiency, is ready for implementation, but no one does it. Because it is difficult, disadvantageous in the first stage, and so on. And this is a kind of prerequisite to develop.
In particular, the technology of horizontal scaling Data-cluster - we developed this technology in 2007, when there was not always-on, in order to synchronize the cluster nodes, but was just lock-shipping.
In my opinion, in 2012 only the version appeared.
Yes. And here it turns out, there was a solution on the market, but there was no demand, because the first circumstances of the company did not reach this point. And the second is that lock-shipping was imperfect. It was a technology quite difficult to maintain. And it turns out that when a new version was released in 2012 and this unique technology appeared, which, by the way, put the Loop Server on a par with ORACLE and so on in terms of capabilities. Such technology was clearly not enough, and we had ready-made solutions. We have raised this world on the market, adapted it to always, and two months later already tested with the Thunder company.
In fact, your proactivity shot 100% ...
Yes. All that research does not pass, they never pass in vain. You still have an edge over your competitors. Further on, the replication of solutions is also a unique situation where there are a number of technologies on the market, but at the same time they are imperfect in some aspects: in terms of performance, in terms of ease of setup, and in terms of ease of maintenance. By the way, this is a very important point - with the current situation of maintenance, because it has the most expenses. And we took, and, given these circumstances, developed a technology that would have the best features. That is, they took the best from one, the best from the other, the best existing from the third, and got rid of the mistakes that they had.
Good. Let's say I'm a potential customer. Where can I meet your company and get information about it except on sites? How public is your company?
The company is fully public. We are open to communicate with the customer, for large customers we hold individual seminars, plus last year about 30 performances at various events. These events are the Infostart conference, and some specialized 1C conferences, Microsoft technology conferences, including one of the famous ones - DevCon, a conference for developers. Then, specialized in industry events, IT in retail, in energy and so on are held.
Plus - I’ll reveal a little secret. Somewhere 80% of our customers came on word of mouth. This is the best advertising that can exist on the market. There is a certain pool of satisfied customers with implemented solutions, and they advise business neighbors who to contact. And therefore, the reputation in the market is the most expensive that is, and the reputation helps you in moving. 20% are all other customers: this is a site, these are events and any other forms.
I have a somewhat personal question related to the topic of conferences. What is your favorite topic to talk about?
A really tricky question. All the technologies that I talk about are well known to me. And after some time it’s not so interesting to tell me about them. Most likely, I would have preferred such technological presentations to have a round table, we kind of opened the curtain of one of the technologies, and really - such a technological, technical conversation, to which I would like to attract the maximum number of experts, because I see that the value of this knowledge is very high. I really like such events. Because marketing is always a little crafty. Here, when technology and experts, you will not hide.
Here you can’t get off with marketing alone.
That's right. Specialists will immediately open. You should be aware of your question.
Last year, you won the Microsoft International Award. Moreover, along with companies such as DSP, HP, CSK. Could you elaborate on this? That is - what kind of award is it and what does it mean to be a laureate of this award?
After testing and a number of implementations, Microsoft offered us to participate in this competition. The first stage of the competition is the Russian competition of partner solutions for the Data Platform, that is, those solutions that are somehow connected with the loop server.
Do I understand correctly that this is essentially what we spoke about a little earlier - that you can certify your decision and still get partnership in this area?
Not. This is an additional activity. And we did not hope that we could win in the world. Because decision-making in Russia is mainly the responsibility of Russian experts. It is clear that we were familiar in a certain area, or they somehow knew about our decisions, so there could be some element ...
... Subjectivity ...
... And here in the world, the delegate of each country votes for the decision. The solution is described in English, cases are described, the principle of this solution is described, and experts from all countries, not knowing where the solution came from, give ratings - how much they consider the solution to be good.
That is, in fact, the solution is presented anonymously, and the experts are not aware of the decision of whose company and from which country?
Yes. You could say that. The delegates who vote for this decision are not biased, because each represents his own country, for each victory of his country's decision is an element of prestige. And here, due to the difficult geopolitical situation, we must admit that indeed our decision came to the end unexpectedly. Of course, when the decision reaches the final, I would like it to win.
Courage like that.
Yes. There were about 400 decisions in this nomination from around the world. And there are 3 decisions in the final.
Please tell me personally what you think it means to be a participant in this award.
We went to Washington for a nomination. And this is an indescribable feeling when an audience of 10 thousand IT specialists gathers at the stadium, such, you know, there was a “show-performance of the artist" conference, and those who won, Microsoft President personally congratulates everyone at a business breakfast.
By the way, one of the Russian companies won one of the nominations - this is a web factory, and we were personally congratulated by the President of Microsoft Russia and a number of senior executives. And this, of course, is the pride that what we are doing is required not only in Russia, in a confined space, but really global.
That is, what you do, you do in the right direction.
Yes. And most importantly - it gives strength, inspires, and then you already work like a motor to create a new one, you understand that you can not stop. Plus, given that our company is constantly developing and not everything goes as part of the solution, we must do this endlessly - such an endless scientific work, an endless scientific process.
Good. But, given the specifics of the company, given the commercial component and the research component, given the number of customers that you have, you cannot work without any standards for interacting with customers. Could you elaborate on these standards?
Firstly, the majority of clients are clients with whom we are not even familiar, throughout Russia and the CIS, that is, we only know in absentia by telephone or through modern communication - Skype and so on.
Second: in order for us to work, we have specially developed tools that are our eyes and ears in some kind of customer information environment. Thus, we have a streamlined technological map of project management. That is, we send some kind of monitoring - performance monitoring, we get information about what is really happening at the client, thereby eliminating human errors - that is, the usual standard approach is questioning, questions and so on. It is easier from a technological point of view to get this information in the machine. This will be the most reliable information.
I understand that the decision is yours. And the idea itself - was it originally yours or did you take and modify some other idea?
Not. The basic idea was ours, moreover, it initially did not even translate into a commercial product, this toolkit.
That is, this, in fact, an auxiliary tool for conducting the main project, it turns out?
To provide those steps that lead to quality improvement. That is, you take and put some kind of objective control tool, and you refine it when you need to get more in-depth information about the system. And at some point we realized that this tool - it allows customers even without our participation to find pitfalls, bottlenecks and problem points, and you only need to train. That is, of course, when there is a lot of data, training plays a big role.
And it turns out that he grew from our local tool into a commercial product, where in most cases the client simply rents or buys and conducts training for his employees. That is, he conducts training not on courses, but on real data, seeing his own problems, moreover, he sees it 24x7 - monitoring works, - and without load on the current system.
And where is the guarantee that after staging it live, this whole thing will not fall then? Demo booth is a demo booth. Here you can do anything as you like, anywhere, but on live data - this is another question.
We monitor the quality of the product, that is, the product is stable and completely separated from the working system. Its fall should not lead to a loss of operability of the current information system. But at the same time, performance monitoring itself measures its load, measures itself.
That is, it is a service that measures third-party services, and on the other, it is a service that measures itself as a service.
Yes. And the most important thing in our work is not to mislead the client and not to deceive ourselves. This is a very valuable statement, which is not only for our area of productivity, but also for anyone - automation, business planning and so on. It happens that in a life's routine you make such miscalculations that you yourself, believing in what you are doing, don’t check, step on the rake and get the wrong result. And this is the worst, because from the point of view of customer loyalty, this is a loss of the customer.
Well, yes, and especially considering word of mouth.
That's right. Moreover, in the age of the Internet, one, two, three miscalculations can hit a very round amount for the company, then you need to rehabilitate yourself. Everyone knows that mostly on the Internet we write negative more often than positive, and here it will be necessary to collect an order of magnitude more positive in order to really fix the situation.
Your company has been a participant in Infostart conferences. Are there any significant differences between infostart conferences and conferences of the same Microsoft or other IT companies, or specialized IT conferences?
There are, of course. As an independent expert, I can note that the Infostart conference has a very friendly atmosphere - an environment that is rarely organized at such formal events. In general, official events are formal: there are speakers, there are clients, there are partners for these clients, and this, it turns out, is a kind of policy.
And Infostart is an open area where informal communication smooths out this officiality. On Infostart, they are more soulful about the organization, this is felt. And that’s why he likes him, that’s why there is an audience of 600 people - it’s rare when such a number of people can be gathered for a conference, all the more paid. Just like the setting itself. In terms of reports - not all topics may be of interest to me, of course, and this is normal. Everyone comes to the conference for themselves. Some come to listen, others to eat and relax, and others - something else. Everyone chooses a direction for himself.
In conclusion, I would like to ask some personal questions. You said that work brings you pleasure. And what exactly helps to get these positive emotions?
The solution to a difficult task.
The invention of the bicycle?
A bicycle cannot be invented at all)) This is the wrong policy. I am pleased when a customer, a representative of the largest company in Russia, sends a letter saying that “we didn’t contact you in vain, thank you, you showed real professionalism”, and there were more than one such letter.
Prior to this, no one in the country could solve the problem of companies when a business stops because some elements have stopped working, and since the structure is huge, a system analysis is needed to understand where the bottleneck is. And no one could, but we were able and received such gratitude. Winning is a pleasure, and even if it is a small victory, it is a great pleasure. And plus you solve the problem using the same technologies, because they are at your fingertips.
And what promising technologies that may shoot in the future are you developing now?
That's just this year the technology for depersonalization appeared. We have already patented it. It is associated with the fact that with minimal effort it was possible to store personal information in secure data centers in Russia.
Is that for 152-FZ?
This is a law that will enter into force in September, it was supposed to enter into force on January 2015, everything is postponed. And it is postponed because there are not many solutions to this issue on the market. We took an ambitious task: to create a technology that would implement this at a technological level. This means that you have a database, you have personal information in the database structures, and without altering the applications that use the database, you could split it into two components: an impersonal database in the clouds or anywhere, and personal information in any data center that is certified and protected.
And it turns out that we do not consider the task itself as narrowly as the law. The law in other countries is approximately similar. Both in Germany and in other countries countries are tightening personal information due to geopolitics in order to store personal data with us. And here we are looking forward to a global market solutions, and the solution will be applicable to other tasks. Or, for example, the inverse problem. There is a state law, and there are business requirements. Business wants to defend itself ...
What is called a trade secret?
Yes. Or, for example, wants to defend itself against competitors - by splitting the data, having received one of the anonymized data arrays, the competitor will not be able to use it. That is, the semantics of this data, integrity, accuracy are sharply reduced.
And, probably, the last question - what are the plans for the future: personal and companies in general?
We are going to enter the international market this year, we are actively working on redesigning and describing our technologies. We really did it in the last years. The technologies were unique, but in order to properly position products, tools on the market, a beautiful wrapper is required. We are actively working on this.
Next, we are developing a number of new technologies for depersonalization and the creation of hybrid databases. This means that we will create a kind of kernel that will interact with both relational databases and non-relational sources: these are Big data and other things. Moreover, our principle will work anyway. We assume that the technology will allow this synchronization to be achieved without software development. Due to a certain intermediate layer in the form of our technologies. Well, I see myself most likely with sleeves rolled up in terms of creation. I'm interested.
Have you found your own niche?
Yes. These are technological issues. "As long as we burn with freedom, while hearts for life are alive." As long as there is strength and energy, I believe that it is necessary to use them where it gives the maximum effect. Therefore, in this direction I will develop.
By tradition, each guest gives our viewers some advice and recommendations on how to achieve the desired results. What can you advise our viewers, novice developers, young startups?
Dear startupers))) Based on my internal values, I would advise you in life more audacity so that you do not always go after the mass, for some opinion, but ruin the templates. It seems to me that the main value of the work is in this direction. Therefore, invent and do not be afraid to make mistakes, mistakes themselves will find you, but successes and achievements too.
Pavel, thank you for the conversation. The end of the procedure.
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Presenter - Sergey Gorshenin
Dear friends, I am glad to welcome you to the studio of the program program “Ready-made solutions”. We continue to invite interesting and famous people of our industry to the studio. And today our guest is Pavel Barketov, Technical Director of SoftPoint. Hello paul
Hello Sergey, hello friends.
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Chronological note
Barketov Pavel Anatolyevich was born in Smolensk in 1981, in his youth he was fond of mathematics, computer science and history, a participant and winner of regional competitions. He graduated from the Moscow Power Engineering Institute with a degree in ACS. In 2005, he became one of the founders of SoftPoint, whose technical director is to this day.
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About the twists of fate
Pasha, in the last show, Alexander Belov was visiting us, and his story is interesting because he graduated from the Faculty of Oceanology and then somehow came to the field of information technology. What is your story? How did you get into IT?
Everything is quite simple for me: I got higher education in the specialization of ACS, in the IT industry, but I had different options. That is, I considered both information technology and alternative, and absolutely opposite areas - for example, law. I loved history very much and, moreover, even entered the Law Academy and, literally by the will of fate, did not become a prosecutor. Therefore, you see, there can always be turning points in life, but now I do not regret how everything turned out.
That is, you consciously chose IT. And what made you choose information technology and give up the right?
You know, at such a young age, making a conscious decision was difficult, but there were some small factors that worked. For example, one of them is that I loved mathematics, computer science, participated in olympiads, won, and this despite the fact that I acquired my personal computer already in the third year of college.
That is, in principle, it does not matter what tools you have, it is important who you are and how you develop. At some point, I even had to find a computer in laboratories, with friends, and so on. It is clear that everyone in the first year has tasks and they need to be completed somehow.
“IT DOESN’T IMPORTANT WHICH TOOLS YOU ARE LOCATING, IT IS IMPORTANT WHO YOU ARE AND HOW TO DEVELOP”
About research
You can say that you are a researcher to some extent.
Yes. I am a researcher, and even the style of our organization proves this. But to be honest, I don’t know the root cause that I’m a researcher, because I was born in a family of hereditary aircraft manufacturers, and if it weren’t for the hard time I grew up, I would stay in this industry. And, most likely, my parents gave me a craving for research and invention, and I tried to do something that others did not do or solve the problem in a way that they do not solve in the textbook. This has been traced throughout my life and I am very glad that I can now be realized in this direction.
Do you remember what was one of the first tasks that you did not solve as expected by others?
Such an example was still in school. The textbook contains several versions of the proofs of theorems on geometry, and I tried to prove it by my own methods, that is, I searched for logic in the proofs, and did not use the solutions from the textbook. And, by the way, in life this helps and restrains, because teachers do not always like students who go a little out of format ...
... White crows?
No, not even that, but those who invent the bicycle. You're kind of an inventor, but the minus is that you're not like everyone else. And in life this played a negative role: gold medals and some awards left me behind because of such a peculiar solution to any problems. This is also evident in the institute. But among the mass of teachers there are those who give you wings, who see talent in you, and this gives an impetus to development.
“TEACHERS DO NOT ALWAYS LIKE WHITE CROWS”
About the first job
So, you graduated from the institute, and what was your first job, and what task, goal did you set for yourself? They told you - here is your job description, please work?
I started working from the first year of the institute, despite the fact that I studied full-time. And the funny thing is that my first work was in the field of journalism. I worked as a correspondent for a youth newspaper for over a year, my friends and I wrote articles, held events, and this experience came in handy. The first job in the specialty was the work of a programmer in the transport company Sovtransavto, then I was in my third year ...
I wrote an information system. Looking ahead, I’ll say that later I returned to this company, but already as the IT director of the Moscow office. It turned out that the program developed by me in Smolensk was recognized as one of the best, I was found and offered this position, in which I worked for a year and a half, having been not only from the supplier, but also from the customer, I looked at the IT world on the other hand.
From Softpoint to ... Softpoint
What was the turning point forcing the transition from the role of the customer to the role of the supplier?
If you look at the chronology of my work, it turns out that I just worked as a programmer, then I went to work in SoftPoint, then I left SoftPoint, worked as an IT director, and returned to SoftPoint's technical director. It turns out that in the workbook of my main works - these are two works where I systematically rose due to certain successes. I like to create rather than serve, because after all, you cannot develop creatively with the customer, everything should be systemic there and your unit should be serving.
You are at the customer within certain limits.
Yes. You are a serving element of a large business, and in the current situation it is convenient that you are this business. Your price and role are clear.
And what was SoftPoint like when you got there?
“Softpoint was a room measuring 10 square meters”
SoftPoint was a room measuring 10 square meters and 3 like-minded people who were just starting a business, that is, there were a lot of ambitious ideas, but I would not say that these ideas were about the technologies that we have developed at the moment, because human thought evolving too.
From that platform, we thought that it would be completely different and could not expect that we could develop such large infrastructure solutions. It was unattainable - to compete with such large corporations as Microsoft, IBM ... This feeling, when a startup just starts and you are not sure of anything, you need to survive.
Well, Google also once started with a little room, and now it is one of the largest Internet giants. In preparation for this interview, I looked at your site and saw that in fact there are two sites - SoftPoint.ru and SoftPointplus.ru. Why two sites, what is the difference between them?
SoftPoint.ru is a corporate site that presents our main decisions, information about our company’s policy, by development vector, by strategy, there is various partner information, and SoftPointplus.ru is a company’s blog.
In order not to mix our research and development on the main site, we specially developed a separate news feed so that people could be enlightened and engaged in discussions using the blog. There is a certain corporate style and corporate standard, and there is a certain news blog that will describe our solutions and technologies, because often we have many developments that will never translate into solutions, and we understand this. The developments are interesting to the masses of people and the masses of specialists, but at the same time, we cannot publish them on the corporate website.
From transfer to transfer, we have a question about domain names. Why SoftPointplus, and not, for example, Blog.SoftPoint.ru? Why is this not a third-level domain in relation to your primary domain, but a separate domain name?
Our company has a lot of solutions, scientific research, 50% of the company's resources work according to standard research (research work) and, naturally, these works have a certain result. They are always valuable, even in case of failure. Therefore, we decided to publish this information on another domain and it is a kind of application, that is, plusSoftPoint is valuable information for specialists. Specialists have the opportunity to even see what developments were being carried out at all, perhaps they will take this information into service and will not start from the initial point of view, but will be able to continue research.
About Softpoint Blog Audience
In fact, you have separated the commercial part from the research part. And who is the main audience for your blog?
A full-fledged study has not been conducted here, but I can assume that these are people who, firstly, are interested in the field of performance optimization, and this area is becoming more and more important, and this, even from accountants, is yes, and there is information for them , information refers to the fact that there are certain solutions that will help them in their work, and ending with IT directors.
When you understand that the level of maturity of an IT company and the level of scientific research are large enough, you trust it, because there are no solutions degenerated by a practical case. We are trying to show that the solutions flowed out of the research work.
Then the question begs. And if you didn’t think about broadcasting this blog on the Infostart portal, still the audience of Infostart is really very diverse, from accountants to technical directors, IT directors and even general directors.
I have a profile on Infostart, there are several rather interesting articles about our research, moreover, these articles are not in the blog. That is, Infostart is considered by us as one of the platforms for placing such information. It’s just that studies are not always associated with 1C, they are not always even somehow indirectly mated, but everything related to 1C is interesting for us to place on the Infostart site, we did it and will do it.
We heard what SoftPoint was like at the very beginning. By the way, what years were these, how old are you today?
We are the eleventh year, 2004 is the year of SoftPoint’s formation, it was a typical start-up, just at that time a number of large Russian companies finally reached the level where they were seriously confronted with performance problems on Microsoft loop servers, and that was the time, when these decisions began to loom. Because until this time, performance problems were solved by buying more powerful iron.
More iron, more memory, more processors.
Rather, I would say that the processor frequency increased, that is, it was first X-86, then Pentium, and so on. And at each turn, the number of transistors increased, the processor frequency increased. This means that the speed of that server and the program that runs on the server increased linearly. But at some point, we reached the ceiling of the processor frequency. And multicore systems went.
I personally associate just such a start for the company with the fact that multicore systems went and it was no longer possible - and now it is impossible - to fix some fundamental problems by buying some powerful server. It turns out that the properties of the system must be used to the maximum.
“IT IS NOT POSSIBLE TO CORRECT THE PROBLEM OF PURCHASING A MORE POWERFUL SERVER”
Well, in fact, the question arose about the correct and competent parallelization of processes.
Parallelizing the process, point settings, is a complex task.
About company development
This year you are 11 years old. You have celebrated a decade. Ten years is, especially for an IT company, a considerable period, few live up to it, and if they survive, they take some significant step forward in relation to where they started. What is SoftPoint right now?
Now SoftPoint is a very dynamically developing company, I can say that over the past year, 2014, our level of development is somewhere around 70-80%.
Is it a year? Every year?
This is a year. We are actively launching an affiliate network, because we ourselves can not cope with the needs of the business. That is, we are trying to scale our sales, our business, our customer loyalty. Plus, we are technology partners of a number of world leading companies. Among them is just Microsoft. She is our leading strategic partner, we interact very actively in terms of technology, we complement Microsoft technologies with our solutions. The fundamental difference: in the main, we do not create solutions using Microsoft technologies, but solutions that allow you to add add-ons to make better use of Microsoft technologies.
About Data Platform
It is said on your site that you are a partner of the Data Platform, and what does this mean?
Data Platform is a sign of the company's competence in data processing and management. In Russia there are only fifteen gold partners in the Data Platform.
But in the whole world? To understand the ratio ...
In the world there are, of course, several hundred of them. But most importantly, there are less than a dozen of Russian companies with Dta Platform Gold. Most of these 10 companies have representative offices in Russia.
Well, that is, fifteen - this is essentially the amount that is calculated not in tenths of a percent, but in percent. This, as I understand it, is from 3 to 5 percent.
Yes. And Microsoft is very clear about which companies are pursuing this status. In principle, any company can achieve this, but it should have excellent customer references - once, then you need to get at least four engineers, and two of them must be competent enough, about 14 exams must be passed to Microsoft.
Decent amount.
But there is a second option, which is exactly what our company is doing. If the company has solutions worthy of the Gold Data Platform, then the developer company may not train the necessary number of employees, but achieve status by its development, which will be recognized by Microsoft testing at an appropriately high rank. We are the only company in Russia that has taken this path. That is, we have certified one of the solutions as a solution corresponding to this high level.
Are these solutions positioned only on the domestic market, or are they operated abroad?
The decisions of our company are just created so that there are no restrictions in terms of geography, in terms of industries, implementation, and so on. That is, decisions are positioned mainly according to the policy of each particular company. It can be domestic, maybe foreign. It is no secret that many companies now pursue a policy of centralizing the database, that is, they are trying to bring all users into one database store in order to work together. This provides an advantage for business development. There are companies that, on the contrary, decentralize databases. At the same time, they have to service the exchange. We focus on these vectors. That is, we know that we have solutions for the centralization vector - when it is necessary to ensure the performance of a large number of users in a single system. There are, for example, such exchange decisions,
And how flexible are the settings? In other words, how much the consumer himself, in the course of work, can make this reconfiguration without your participation?
Reconfiguration in terms of centralization?
Centralization, for example, on decentralization, and vice versa. That is, will he need, for example, a complete reinstallation of the entire system, the entire infrastructure, or some significant changes, will he need to invite your specialists for this, or can he, having trained his employee, one or two, do it on his own?
Usually the customer makes the decision to switch to centralization or decentralization, of course, himself. It is important that, since we have a range of solutions from two areas, we do not intervene in its specific solution, that is, we help both there and there. And at the same time, we can objectively assess which option is acceptable to him. Therefore, the efforts that he will spend on changing the architecture do not even relate to our decisions, we just then provide this architecture, that is, the transition itself, it is assumed, it can make on its own.
About the development process
Earlier, we talked about the fact that you have a commercial component and a scientific component, which, in fact, follows the classical R&D scheme. And how is the development process in the company? Development, research, new discoveries.
We have a core in terms of development, there are employees who are the intellectual property of our company. And teams are working on various projects, no more than five people. This is a metric that is selected for optimal technology movement. Previously, we had teams and 12 people each, there were teams of 2-3 people, and we developed this universal form for ourselves, when there is a team, there is a team leader, there are selected programmers and various analysts, and these teams are the locomotive for developing these solutions . Each team has a number of solutions where development is underway. And the invention itself is generally subtle matter, because I must admit that even with all the desire, not all people are able to do this. Not everyone is able to look a few steps forward, to see an advantage that we do not even dream about. And here, in our company, there are not many such people, but they are few in other companies. There are very strong developers who provide us with unique technologies, but these are system developers mainly, all this is the level of writing drivers.
Well, that is, those that form a certain basis, a certain substrate for all other solutions.
Yes.
Do I understand correctly that the teams are essentially project teams, that is, if we say that there are some unique specialists, then they are "ported" from project to project.
Not. I would say that there are project teams to provide services to the client, then this is really some kind of temporary team that gathers employees from different directions so that the project is delivered on time and efficiently. And in terms of development, teams are usually well-established, and employees can communicate as efficiently as possible, and interact already within the framework of this team. It does not crumble.
And how and by what principle were these teams formed? Indeed, IT-specialists are a separate category of specialists for whom the comfort of interacting with each other is very important, because each of us is a specialist and each of us is individual in its own way. How did you go about this stage?
“An IT specialist is a kind of artist, creator”
I agree with you that an IT specialist is a kind of artist, creator, that is, he can create something that did not exist before him, some element did not work before him, and after that he earned it. Here I can say that the teams evolved evolutionarily. That is, there are no teams on the market that can be recruited through recruitment agencies.
... That is, this is a certain combination of circumstances?
That's right. Plus, it’s still very important that in the teams, as you rightly said, there must be communication, all players must be team. If there is a “star”, that is, a person who has unique knowledge, but he will not have command, we have met such people, then of course he will not take root.
The paradox is that he alone lacks knowledge, and he cannot interact to create a synergistic effect with other specialists. These are some “homemade products” that like to work autonomously, there are tasks on the market for such people, but they are not for large-scale development. That is, the product should be as reliable and stable as possible. Therefore, communication and potential are more important for us than his current skills. Current skills can be gained. It is important that there are two first criteria.
As far as I know, at the moment you have patented solutions in the field of horizontal scaling, data depersonalization and full replication, briefly talk about these solutions and what kind of products.
Oh sure. As I said, the products do not appear immediately, we just fill the needs of the business if we see a white spot in some technology. Business understands efficiency, is ready for implementation, but no one does it. Because it is difficult, disadvantageous in the first stage, and so on. And this is a kind of prerequisite to develop.
In particular, the technology of horizontal scaling Data-cluster - we developed this technology in 2007, when there was not always-on, in order to synchronize the cluster nodes, but was just lock-shipping.
In my opinion, in 2012 only the version appeared.
Yes. And here it turns out, there was a solution on the market, but there was no demand, because the first circumstances of the company did not reach this point. And the second is that lock-shipping was imperfect. It was a technology quite difficult to maintain. And it turns out that when a new version was released in 2012 and this unique technology appeared, which, by the way, put the Loop Server on a par with ORACLE and so on in terms of capabilities. Such technology was clearly not enough, and we had ready-made solutions. We have raised this world on the market, adapted it to always, and two months later already tested with the Thunder company.
In fact, your proactivity shot 100% ...
Yes. All that research does not pass, they never pass in vain. You still have an edge over your competitors. Further on, the replication of solutions is also a unique situation where there are a number of technologies on the market, but at the same time they are imperfect in some aspects: in terms of performance, in terms of ease of setup, and in terms of ease of maintenance. By the way, this is a very important point - with the current situation of maintenance, because it has the most expenses. And we took, and, given these circumstances, developed a technology that would have the best features. That is, they took the best from one, the best from the other, the best existing from the third, and got rid of the mistakes that they had.
About company publicity
Good. Let's say I'm a potential customer. Where can I meet your company and get information about it except on sites? How public is your company?
The company is fully public. We are open to communicate with the customer, for large customers we hold individual seminars, plus last year about 30 performances at various events. These events are the Infostart conference, and some specialized 1C conferences, Microsoft technology conferences, including one of the famous ones - DevCon, a conference for developers. Then, specialized in industry events, IT in retail, in energy and so on are held.
Plus - I’ll reveal a little secret. Somewhere 80% of our customers came on word of mouth. This is the best advertising that can exist on the market. There is a certain pool of satisfied customers with implemented solutions, and they advise business neighbors who to contact. And therefore, the reputation in the market is the most expensive that is, and the reputation helps you in moving. 20% are all other customers: this is a site, these are events and any other forms.
"SARAHFAN RADIO - THE BEST ADVERTISEMENT"
I have a somewhat personal question related to the topic of conferences. What is your favorite topic to talk about?
A really tricky question. All the technologies that I talk about are well known to me. And after some time it’s not so interesting to tell me about them. Most likely, I would have preferred such technological presentations to have a round table, we kind of opened the curtain of one of the technologies, and really - such a technological, technical conversation, to which I would like to attract the maximum number of experts, because I see that the value of this knowledge is very high. I really like such events. Because marketing is always a little crafty. Here, when technology and experts, you will not hide.
Here you can’t get off with marketing alone.
That's right. Specialists will immediately open. You should be aware of your question.
About receiving the Microsoft International Award
Last year, you won the Microsoft International Award. Moreover, along with companies such as DSP, HP, CSK. Could you elaborate on this? That is - what kind of award is it and what does it mean to be a laureate of this award?
After testing and a number of implementations, Microsoft offered us to participate in this competition. The first stage of the competition is the Russian competition of partner solutions for the Data Platform, that is, those solutions that are somehow connected with the loop server.
Do I understand correctly that this is essentially what we spoke about a little earlier - that you can certify your decision and still get partnership in this area?
Not. This is an additional activity. And we did not hope that we could win in the world. Because decision-making in Russia is mainly the responsibility of Russian experts. It is clear that we were familiar in a certain area, or they somehow knew about our decisions, so there could be some element ...
... Subjectivity ...
... And here in the world, the delegate of each country votes for the decision. The solution is described in English, cases are described, the principle of this solution is described, and experts from all countries, not knowing where the solution came from, give ratings - how much they consider the solution to be good.
That is, in fact, the solution is presented anonymously, and the experts are not aware of the decision of whose company and from which country?
Yes. You could say that. The delegates who vote for this decision are not biased, because each represents his own country, for each victory of his country's decision is an element of prestige. And here, due to the difficult geopolitical situation, we must admit that indeed our decision came to the end unexpectedly. Of course, when the decision reaches the final, I would like it to win.
Courage like that.
Yes. There were about 400 decisions in this nomination from around the world. And there are 3 decisions in the final.
Please tell me personally what you think it means to be a participant in this award.
We went to Washington for a nomination. And this is an indescribable feeling when an audience of 10 thousand IT specialists gathers at the stadium, such, you know, there was a “show-performance of the artist" conference, and those who won, Microsoft President personally congratulates everyone at a business breakfast.
By the way, one of the Russian companies won one of the nominations - this is a web factory, and we were personally congratulated by the President of Microsoft Russia and a number of senior executives. And this, of course, is the pride that what we are doing is required not only in Russia, in a confined space, but really global.
That is, what you do, you do in the right direction.
Yes. And most importantly - it gives strength, inspires, and then you already work like a motor to create a new one, you understand that you can not stop. Plus, given that our company is constantly developing and not everything goes as part of the solution, we must do this endlessly - such an endless scientific work, an endless scientific process.
About customer engagement standards
Good. But, given the specifics of the company, given the commercial component and the research component, given the number of customers that you have, you cannot work without any standards for interacting with customers. Could you elaborate on these standards?
Firstly, the majority of clients are clients with whom we are not even familiar, throughout Russia and the CIS, that is, we only know in absentia by telephone or through modern communication - Skype and so on.
Second: in order for us to work, we have specially developed tools that are our eyes and ears in some kind of customer information environment. Thus, we have a streamlined technological map of project management. That is, we send some kind of monitoring - performance monitoring, we get information about what is really happening at the client, thereby eliminating human errors - that is, the usual standard approach is questioning, questions and so on. It is easier from a technological point of view to get this information in the machine. This will be the most reliable information.
I understand that the decision is yours. And the idea itself - was it originally yours or did you take and modify some other idea?
Not. The basic idea was ours, moreover, it initially did not even translate into a commercial product, this toolkit.
That is, this, in fact, an auxiliary tool for conducting the main project, it turns out?
To provide those steps that lead to quality improvement. That is, you take and put some kind of objective control tool, and you refine it when you need to get more in-depth information about the system. And at some point we realized that this tool - it allows customers even without our participation to find pitfalls, bottlenecks and problem points, and you only need to train. That is, of course, when there is a lot of data, training plays a big role.
And it turns out that he grew from our local tool into a commercial product, where in most cases the client simply rents or buys and conducts training for his employees. That is, he conducts training not on courses, but on real data, seeing his own problems, moreover, he sees it 24x7 - monitoring works, - and without load on the current system.
And where is the guarantee that after staging it live, this whole thing will not fall then? Demo booth is a demo booth. Here you can do anything as you like, anywhere, but on live data - this is another question.
We monitor the quality of the product, that is, the product is stable and completely separated from the working system. Its fall should not lead to a loss of operability of the current information system. But at the same time, performance monitoring itself measures its load, measures itself.
That is, it is a service that measures third-party services, and on the other, it is a service that measures itself as a service.
Yes. And the most important thing in our work is not to mislead the client and not to deceive ourselves. This is a very valuable statement, which is not only for our area of productivity, but also for anyone - automation, business planning and so on. It happens that in a life's routine you make such miscalculations that you yourself, believing in what you are doing, don’t check, step on the rake and get the wrong result. And this is the worst, because from the point of view of customer loyalty, this is a loss of the customer.
“DO NOT DECLINE THE CLIENT'S MISSURE AND DO NOT DECEIVE YOURSELF”
Well, yes, and especially considering word of mouth.
That's right. Moreover, in the age of the Internet, one, two, three miscalculations can hit a very round amount for the company, then you need to rehabilitate yourself. Everyone knows that mostly on the Internet we write negative more often than positive, and here it will be necessary to collect an order of magnitude more positive in order to really fix the situation.
About professional conferences
Your company has been a participant in Infostart conferences. Are there any significant differences between infostart conferences and conferences of the same Microsoft or other IT companies, or specialized IT conferences?
There are, of course. As an independent expert, I can note that the Infostart conference has a very friendly atmosphere - an environment that is rarely organized at such formal events. In general, official events are formal: there are speakers, there are clients, there are partners for these clients, and this, it turns out, is a kind of policy.
And Infostart is an open area where informal communication smooths out this officiality. On Infostart, they are more soulful about the organization, this is felt. And that’s why he likes him, that’s why there is an audience of 600 people - it’s rare when such a number of people can be gathered for a conference, all the more paid. Just like the setting itself. In terms of reports - not all topics may be of interest to me, of course, and this is normal. Everyone comes to the conference for themselves. Some come to listen, others to eat and relax, and others - something else. Everyone chooses a direction for himself.
About the pleasure of work
In conclusion, I would like to ask some personal questions. You said that work brings you pleasure. And what exactly helps to get these positive emotions?
The solution to a difficult task.
The invention of the bicycle?
A bicycle cannot be invented at all)) This is the wrong policy. I am pleased when a customer, a representative of the largest company in Russia, sends a letter saying that “we didn’t contact you in vain, thank you, you showed real professionalism”, and there were more than one such letter.
Prior to this, no one in the country could solve the problem of companies when a business stops because some elements have stopped working, and since the structure is huge, a system analysis is needed to understand where the bottleneck is. And no one could, but we were able and received such gratitude. Winning is a pleasure, and even if it is a small victory, it is a great pleasure. And plus you solve the problem using the same technologies, because they are at your fingertips.
About the development of depersonalization technology
And what promising technologies that may shoot in the future are you developing now?
That's just this year the technology for depersonalization appeared. We have already patented it. It is associated with the fact that with minimal effort it was possible to store personal information in secure data centers in Russia.
Is that for 152-FZ?
This is a law that will enter into force in September, it was supposed to enter into force on January 2015, everything is postponed. And it is postponed because there are not many solutions to this issue on the market. We took an ambitious task: to create a technology that would implement this at a technological level. This means that you have a database, you have personal information in the database structures, and without altering the applications that use the database, you could split it into two components: an impersonal database in the clouds or anywhere, and personal information in any data center that is certified and protected.
And it turns out that we do not consider the task itself as narrowly as the law. The law in other countries is approximately similar. Both in Germany and in other countries countries are tightening personal information due to geopolitics in order to store personal data with us. And here we are looking forward to a global market solutions, and the solution will be applicable to other tasks. Or, for example, the inverse problem. There is a state law, and there are business requirements. Business wants to defend itself ...
What is called a trade secret?
Yes. Or, for example, wants to defend itself against competitors - by splitting the data, having received one of the anonymized data arrays, the competitor will not be able to use it. That is, the semantics of this data, integrity, accuracy are sharply reduced.
About plans for the future
And, probably, the last question - what are the plans for the future: personal and companies in general?
We are going to enter the international market this year, we are actively working on redesigning and describing our technologies. We really did it in the last years. The technologies were unique, but in order to properly position products, tools on the market, a beautiful wrapper is required. We are actively working on this.
Next, we are developing a number of new technologies for depersonalization and the creation of hybrid databases. This means that we will create a kind of kernel that will interact with both relational databases and non-relational sources: these are Big data and other things. Moreover, our principle will work anyway. We assume that the technology will allow this synchronization to be achieved without software development. Due to a certain intermediate layer in the form of our technologies. Well, I see myself most likely with sleeves rolled up in terms of creation. I'm interested.
“IN order to properly position products and tools in the market, a beautiful wrapper is required”
Have you found your own niche?
Yes. These are technological issues. "As long as we burn with freedom, while hearts for life are alive." As long as there is strength and energy, I believe that it is necessary to use them where it gives the maximum effect. Therefore, in this direction I will develop.
By tradition, each guest gives our viewers some advice and recommendations on how to achieve the desired results. What can you advise our viewers, novice developers, young startups?
Dear startupers))) Based on my internal values, I would advise you in life more audacity so that you do not always go after the mass, for some opinion, but ruin the templates. It seems to me that the main value of the work is in this direction. Therefore, invent and do not be afraid to make mistakes, mistakes themselves will find you, but successes and achievements too.
Pavel, thank you for the conversation. The end of the procedure.
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