While the coronavirus is sweeping the planet, the toilet is leading the stock market and entire countries are being quarantined, more and more companies are forced to transfer employees to remote work. We at RUVDS were no exception and decided to share with Habr our experience in organizing a remote workflow throughout the company. It’s worth mentioning right away that the article will not contain captain’s advice like “when at home, put on your pants”, only harsh reality and a guide to action.
So that as a result of the transfer of employees to a remote location, it would not be excruciatingly painful later, we divided the entire process into small stages.
Stage 1: Divide the company into groups/directions
Since we have a small company (up to 20 people), it is easier for us in this regard, because there are not a large number of departments, departments and smaller divisions of people. In total, 5 conditional groups / directions can be distinguished in RUVDS:
- Technical support;
- System administrators;
- Developers;
- Financial service (accounting, payments and document flow);
- Management and marketing service.
In our case, the division is conditional, because structurally different groups of people, as in our case, management and marketing, need similar access rights. We sympathize with those who have groups not 5, but much more and each of which needs its own access level.
Stage 2: Determine the working needs of groups/directions and set up access
- To maintain their effectiveness, the guys from technical support - which we have around the clock - need access to our internal ticket system (OTRS) and the ability to quickly respond to customers, which means they need to forward calls from workers to employees' mobile numbers. In a good way, the location of the TP does not matter at all, as long as the support is competent and prompt.
So that you can connect to the ticketing system from anywhere, it is based on one of the virtual servers and duplicated in another data center, there is nothing in the office. In the event of a fall of one server, the second one rises within a minute, the workers do not even always notice that a replacement has occurred. - System administrators work directly with servers that are not connected to the office, so the transition to work from home is the most painless for them. Moreover, all our servers are equipped with a special management interface, much more functional than the classic KVM. Our interface allows admins to work with the server even from Antarctica (the experience was just ).
- Developers have always been able to work remotely and their transfer to work from home will not affect productivity at all.
- Payments, accounting and document management are perhaps the most confusing in terms of transferring them to a remote location, but there are a number of solutions for which we use our own virtual servers.
So, payments that require verification from individuals are checked on service virtual machines located in our two data centers. Payments coming from legal entities that require connection to a client bank are collected and processed again on a virtual machine located in one of the data centers. Checks are made online and do not depend on our office or even data center, and refunds are made manually and again on one of the virtual servers.Accounting bases are located on a server in our data center in Korolev on the territory of the Composite defense plant - in a former bomb shelter - and for reliability are duplicated in the M9 data center (an object of strategic importance for all of Russia). At a certain time, copying takes place, which allows, in the event of the loss of one of the servers, to quickly continue the work of accounting with minimal costs.
- We also automated the document flow - in the Personal Account, the client can download the contract and reconciliation certificates with seals himself, this is usually enough for individuals. But most of our clients are legal entities that need original documents. In this case, the accounting department prints everything you need at home, and sends it by mail or courier anywhere. All incoming correspondence is collected by security and sent by courier service for signature to the accounting department, and then the documents go back to the sender's office. Well, a couple of times a week one person from the management comes to the office, just in case. All the same, where paper documents are involved, one cannot do without visiting the office at all.
- The easiest way is to make remote work for management and marketing service that work from laptops, where you just need to roll up a certificate to access company resources and you're done.
Stage 3: We insure against risks, informational and iron
One of the main difficulties when working remotely is data leakage, which is why it becomes a pain for many security people. At our remote location, the same rules apply as in the office - access to sensitive resources is implemented through two-factor authentication by certificate and login / password. So you can instantly close access to a specific employee by revoking his certificate.
As they say, it's better to be safe than underestimate, so we used such difficult times as an excuse for an unscheduled test of the "iron part" of the infrastructure for durability. Three services are responsible for its availability in the DC - duty engineers who are at their posts around the clock, technical support and system administrators.
All key data center nodes are reserved under the N + 1 scheme in accordance with Tier III standards, including telecommunications equipment and power supply. Although something more serious than a general quarantine would have to happen to limit the supply of power, we nevertheless conducted exercises to switch power in data centers to diesel generators. Contracts for the supply of fuel for them will allow the flagship RUCLOUD data center to operate autonomously during a long-term disconnection from the power grid. At the same time, we conducted an audit of all repair kits, in case of problems with the delivery of new components.
Since the coronavirus pandemic is already recognized as a force majeure that allows you not to fulfill obligations, we checked which of the counterparties can take advantage of this and fail at a difficult moment.
Based on the experience of China and Italy, it can be said that even the widespread spread of the disease does not directly affect Internet providers, especially since each data center has at least 2 independent communication channels duplicating each other.
Stage 4: We write down the rules for working remotely
The rules allow the team not to relax and switch to remote work without losing the quality of work. For ourselves, we made a small list:
- Compliance with working hours, even taking into account the fact that the work is result-oriented, not process-oriented. This is especially important for technical support, which must be in touch around the clock. Business hours are the constant within which everyone can communicate with each other.
- Determine the main place of communication (team chat) on all important issues. Traditionally, this is a working Slack. For those who like Slack but don't like donating for it, try the open-source Mattermost.
- Use video calls for complex tasks and discussions (Zoom is unrivaled). Everything that was agreed on during the video call should be recorded and posted in the general team chat, or in the chat thread whose members are concerned with the details of your call. This fixation allows the whole team to be in a single information field.
- In conditions of long-term remote work, regular team and tête-à-tête video meetings should be held. For example, twice a week, with an overview of the status of their tasks. Again, this is necessary in order to have an understanding of who is doing what.
The list is unified as much as possible, but you can take it as a basis and make adjustments and additions according to the specifics of your work.
In conclusion, I would like to note that the trend for remote work is not stagnation, but rather an evolution in which only those who actively adapt to environmental changes survive. Therefore, those who learn to work without vigilant office control, will focus on the result, and not on the time spent - they will only benefit from the current situation.
And what actions for the transition to remote work are used in your team or company? Perhaps we have something to learn from each other.
Source: habr.com