Russia’s national telecommunications operator, Rostelecom, and IBM-East Europe/Asia signed an agreement last week according to which IBM will provide Rostelecom some of its advanced cloud technology solutions. Rostelecom plans to use the IBM technology to advance the development of e-Government infrastructure.
In addition to the SaaS (Software as a Service) model already in use, Rostelecom will use IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) models, based partly on cloud technology, in order to develop, test, deploy, and support Internet applications.
Rostelecom stressed the use of cloud computing to allow users access to needed computer resources over the Internet. A top priority will be development of the e-Government project as well as the provision of electronic services to government authorities at various levels.
In March, the telecommunications operator was appointed by the Russian government to develop a cloud-computing state program as well as other important parts of the federal program Information Society 2011–2020.
Rostelecom announced last month it intends to invest more than ten billion rubles (approximately $357 million) into the development of the cloud computing platform through 2015.
A further priority is to transform Rostelecom into a full-service provider to homes, business, and government. Rostelecom traditionally operates fixed-line domestic and international telecommunications across the country. But it also owns a nationwide fiber-optic backbone network and is developing Internet, VPN, intelligent network services (INS), and videoconferencing, among others services. “We are creating the first universal operator, [integrating] a variety of networks and services in all regions of Russia,” a company representative said last month.
