What was memorable about Sber's technology conference
At the Cloud.ru stand is a laptop, on the screen is a game about Mario. The plumber is enclosed in a container — one of many in the Container Apps product that the company is demonstrating. After closing the web page with the game, the developer shows me the entire path of deploying an image in a new container. The technical details and interface are clear, you can quickly and conveniently click on a container, but the main thing that catches my attention in Container Apps is automatic scaling with soft and hard limits, plus payment only for the time the containers are actively running.
This solves two problems. Developers don't have to pay for a website or service that is used for an hour a month at most to be permanently in the cloud. And there is no chance of waking up one morning in hellish debt because there was an influx of users during the night and you were billed for an unrealistic number of containers.
While we are discussing that this is especially convenient for small developments and pet projects, the deployment is successfully completed – Mario is back on the screen. The developer tries to find the control keys, Mario jumps over the turtle, but falls into the abyss in the middle of level 1-1. All that remains is to complain: “I wanted to save the princess, but not this time.” A small queue has already formed behind me, so I give other participants the opportunity to evaluate whether the plumber in the container is happy, and I hurry to the last interview of the day – with a specialist from Cloud.ru.
Mikhail Saynukov. Problems of Technological Independence
In the last two years, the issues of import substitution and technological independence have been quite acute in the country. At the conference, Mikhail Sainukov from Cloud.ru covered this topic in his speech. In a conversation, he shared his vision of the problems of technological independence with me.
For which industries are you considering using the technology platform to achieve technological sovereignty?
Any company uses IT, with the help of which business is directly carried out or technologies take on the necessary auxiliary function, directly affecting business. The creation of such a platform is most relevant for any large companies that have their own fleet of computing equipment, prefer to independently manage the infrastructure, want or are already actively trying new technologies, and are also developing something new for themselves or for the market.
Many modern import substitution solutions are based on the use of ready-made open source solutions with minimal additions. To what extent do you think this is the right way? Will we not thus fall into hidden dependence on foreign solutions? For example, as in the case of blocking access to Docker Hub.
Cloud.ru adopted a strategy of developing its own solution elements as much as possible at the planning stage. Everything we take from outside undergoes rigorous tests for operability under industrial loads, as well as for the purity of the source code and dependencies used. When planning to take something “on board”, we are completely confident that we know how it is made and works, that we can independently modify the component, add new functionality and maintain uninterrupted operability. If existing open-source solutions do not satisfy us, we develop our own. An example is software-defined storage. We did not take the already familiar to many Ceph or Gluster, but developed our own SDS from scratch based on the erasure-coding method.
How have IT processes in Russian companies changed since the events of 2022? In connection with import substitution, have they also reoriented themselves to domestic methodologies?
Given that it is necessary to search for and test domestic solutions and new technologies, it is critically important for companies to be flexible and able to work with various “non-core” software: container orchestrators, NoSQL databases, distributed caches, message brokers, etc. Why? To be able to test those same domestic solutions and new technologies as quickly as possible. After all, they are often based on this “foundation”. In addition, it is important to have transparency at the level of computing infrastructure in order to always be able to answer the question: “How do we utilize our hardware?” and to be able to dynamically work with resources, quickly allocating sandboxes for testing and developing internal initiatives and products.
Conclusion
The day is drawing to a close. The street stage is already starting to play “Dozhdi-pistolety” by “Zveri”, and I am slowly moving towards the exit from “Design Factory”.
This walk probably reflects my informal impression of the conference best. It was interesting as an opportunity to look into the future of IT. You could see how artificial intelligence technologies are already really changing both the usual process of application development and the tools for developers themselves. It's cool that big techs hold such conferences, and I hope that their frequency and number will grow. We have a lot to tell – both internally and to the world. Until next time!
