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The World’s Largest Unified Communications System Deployed in Russia

The largest unified communications system in the world has been deployed in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. The system is built around an exclusive software solution from TrueConf that provides video conferencing, messaging, and presence services for >1 million employees including the Russian Minister of Internal Affairs as well as ordinary employees in remote regions of Russia.



In mid-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.



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 500K minutes in total. In 2015, usage reached 1 million minutes per week or roughly 2 years of live communication.



"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.