Clever Geek Handbook

How I worked in Turkey and got to know the local market



An object on a “floating” foundation for protection against earthquakes.



My name is Pavel, I lead a network of commercial data centers at CROC. Over the past 15 years, we have built for customers exactly more than a hundred data centers and large server ones, but this object is the largest of foreign ones. He is in Turkey. I went there for several months to advise foreign colleagues in the construction of the object itself and the cloud.



There are many contractors. Naturally, we often talked with the local IT intelligentsia, so I have something to tell about the market and how everything in IT looks like from the outside for a Russian person.





The foundation supports are, in fact, articulated joints that allow shifts and jumps.



Market



The market is similar to the Russian one. That is, there are local flagship companies that, out of economic feasibility, look at the bleeding edge, wait for a break-in of technology for six months or a year and take it to themselves. Some banks, retailers, and various technology businesses do this in our country. Then there are Western world-class companies that come to the country with their own standards: infrastructure is built under them. And there are laggards who are trying to get out of the 80s and 90s in terms of technology, approach to management and generally consciousness. Nevertheless, the Turkish market itself lags behind ours in much the same way as ours lags behind Europe. They are only now beginning to take a closer look at commercial data centers, as we are the Nth number of years ago in Russia.



State regulation is no less than ours, and, in particular, the local analogue of Rostelecom - Turktelecom - has about 80% of the country's telecom market via communication channels. I didn’t fully understand the scheme, but for providers they set minimum tariffs, which should not be reduced in tenders. As a result, the communication infrastructure is actually a state monopoly, and all services on top of the infrastructure are commerce, but it is very dependent on state regulation.



Almost the same story as with personal data, and with us. Only here we are talking about critical systems, not personal data. These critical systems cannot be exported outside the country; data must be stored locally. Therefore, powerful data centers are needed, and therefore this data center was built with seismic protection on a "floating" foundation. Many server buildings here are seismic protected differently: due to the hardening of structures. But for servers, this is bad. In the event of an earthquake, the racks will walk with a shaker. This data center just floats in an iron hinge lake, like a duck, and the racks seem to hang in the air - they don’t shake.



Regarding data centers: there are very few providers who are serious about well-built operation processes. We can say that this is only emerging here. It’s hard to find a large certified Uptime Institute facility. There are many small ones, and many of those that have only Design. Operational Sustainability - only at two DPCs, and only one of them is commercial, while only one queue is certified at the commercial. Optimized.



In the Russian Federation, three data centers already have UI TIII Operational Sustainability Gold (two commercial ones - for renting out halls in parts, and one corporation - for their own needs), two more - Silver. I must say that TierI, TierII and TierIII are a measure of downtime. TI is any server, TII - critical nodes are duplicated, TIII - all nodes are duplicated without exception, and failure of any of them does not stop the data center, TIV - “double TIII”: the data center is actually for military purposes.



At first, we could get the TierIII project. Moreover, they were received both by TIA and by Uptime. The customer looked only at the third level. Why is it - according to the standard for the construction of contact centers or data centers - is not very important. Then only UI certificates and IBM began to be quoted. Then customers began to understand levels TIII. There are three of them: that the project meets the requirements, that the object was built according to the project correctly, and that the object works and supports all the regulations. This one with regulations and “in practice, everything has been working out for several years” - this is UI TIII Operational Sustainability.



Why am I all this: in Russia it is already normal to announce tenders for TIII-DPCs for the purchase of places for the placement of your iron. There is a choice. In Turkey, you simply cannot find the right TIII for the tender.



The third feature is service providers under more strict supervision in comparison with the Russian market. With us, if you received services for telematics or communications, then the owner is responsible for the systems. Then you leased servers for rent - and no longer in business. It seems like it's not your business: your tenant is mining there or worse. Here, this topic hardly rolls. In fact, here on each data center provider there are obligations to explain that specifically you could not prevent illegal actions at all. He explained poorly - they will take away the license.



On the one hand, this adds a bunch of documents and complicates the entrance to outsourcing infrastructure for businesses and state-owned companies, and on the other hand, the reliability level is higher here. If you are talking about IaaS, then there will certainly be security services such as DDoS protection. As usual, customers in our market include:

- Ah, we have a web server there, the site will be spinning.

- Let's put protection against didos.

- Don’t, who needs it? But leave the phone, if they attack, then we’ll put it, okay?



And then they put it right away. And companies are willing to pay for it. Everyone is very sensitive to risks. Learn from the provider specific implementation details along the traffic path. This also results in the fact that when a customer comes to IaaS with a designed system, they can tell him:

- Oooh, oooh, you have some kind of specials for physical machines here. Take the standard or look for another service provider. Well or expensive ...

And in Turkey it will be like this:

- Ohhhh, ahhh, you got specs on physical machines slaughtered here. Let us buy this iron for you and rent it to you already, just sign it for three years, then we will give good prices. And better for 5 years at once!



And sign up. And even they get a normal price, because any contract with us involves insurance against the fact that you buy iron for the project, and then the customer will buck and leave in two months. And here he will not leave.







More differences in attitude



When a customer arrives in Russia, the dialogue is something like this:

- Sell the cloud, here are the technical requirements.

They answer him:

- Technical requirements looked, it will cost 500 parrots.

He is such a:

- 500? Why are you? No, 500 is very expensive. How many of them are servers? 250? And another 250 for what?

They paint him. And then - continued:

- Come on, let’s take a part of my iron, it’s almost not old. My specialists will help you set up. There is a license for VMwar. Zabbix fighter here. Come on for 130, except for the servers?



However, it is not said anywhere, but it is assumed that when it cost 500, all the risks were on you. When it costs less, and the customer does the part, it turns out that he took the simplest thing, and you only have risks. And then, during the course of the project, he often in fact tries to prove the risks there. Like how you got used to Dell hardware, but you don’t give a damn about open source software, let’s give you Supermicro the year before. And in the end, the entire risk model is simply in the trash. And in a good way, it is necessary to take not for 500, but for the whole 1000.



Perhaps you are not very clear now what I mean. Previously, it seemed to me that this is a story about budget optimization. But this is not the case. There is a strange thing in the mentality of a Russian person - to play constructors. I think we all in childhood did not play enough of metal with holes, we grew up, and we are further interested. And when we bring a newfangled big thing, we want to take it apart and see what's inside. Plus, you will report that you depressed the supplier and used internal resources.



The result is not a finished product, but an incomprehensible constructor. So, before the first major contracts in Europe, it seemed unusual to me that they would not let me add parts of the customer’s product. But it turned out that this slows down the services. That is, instead of making a standard service and honing it, service providers are engaged in customization for local clients. They play designers together with the customer - they finish custom parts to make it work. But in Turkey, on the contrary, they want to take ready-made services so that they will not be modified later.



Again, here is the difference in mentality. If we have a provider like us who comes to a large customer and talks about an enterprise application that affects half a company, then we need two professionals. One is from the provider, who will show everything, tell and open the guts. The second is from a business that will figure out how and what lands, where it works. This is not about integration and not about external interfaces, but about the core of the system, which is not visible from the outside. We poke around in it when buying. And then the customer comes for a decision, and he is not very interested in what's inside. No one is steamed. It is important for the customer that if you promised that it works - so that it really works cool, as you promised. And how it does it does not matter.



Perhaps this is just a slightly higher level of trust in each other. Which, again, is dictated by responsibility for any problems. Jumbled big - you risk the whole business, and not just one client.



This echoes the mentality of the locals. They are very open to each other. Because of this openness, they have developed relationships. We have a lot of formalized, and they have this: "Well, you trust me, I trust you, so let's go, you will make a project." And then all the informal things are simply done without any questions.



Therefore, by the way, it’s very easy to sell managed services. This process went much more complicated in Russia. In the Russian Federation you are dismantled for cogs. And then the whole outsourcing of finished products shatters like pies.











People



On the other hand, meeting with us personally for any reason is not necessary. Personal communication decides less than just attention. And here attention and personal communication are one and the same. And by phone or mail questions are not resolved. It is necessary to come to a meeting, otherwise the locals will not do anything, and the matter will not move forward.



When you requested information from us in the spirit of “Send the config”, the administrator took and sent you. It doesn’t work like that in principle. And not because they are bad, but because on a subconscious level: why didn’t he love me so much that he scribbled a letter - and that’s it? And how to talk?



Contacts must be maintained constantly. If you need local helpers in the data center, you need to come once a week, rather than discuss it remotely. An hour and a half round trip and an hour of conversation. But if you save this time, then you will lose a month in anticipation. And it is very close. It’s completely incomprehensible with my Russian mentality to catch “Why did you want this remotely from us?” Or “What didn’t come?”. As if they did not see letters, did not perceive. They didn’t take offense, but simply put them off somewhere until your arrival. Well yes, you wrote. Here I come, now you can discuss. Let's start with this, two weeks ago, marked “ASAP”. Take coffee, tell me calmly what happened ...







Instead of a console, they have a phone with a contractor. Because you promised, and you yourself arrived and you cannot help but do this. Because he looked in the eyes and said. There is definitely something in it.



It is also amazing what is happening on the roads. This is a dime. Nobody turns on turn signals, they are rebuilt as they want. It’s normal if people go to the oncoming lane through a double continuous one - you have to somehow go around the bus. On city streets, where my Russian mind sees 50 kilometers per hour, they go under a hundred. I saw a lot of shifters. Once I saw a changeling at the entrance to a gas station. How they manage to do this, I do not understand.



If red is at the intersection, this is not a topic to stop. "I went on a soft pink." Then insults begin. They didn’t let someone into his green, because someone else almost succeeded, but not quite. He doesn’t stand it and rides, not when it is necessary at the traffic lights, but when it seems fair to him. That is, it blocks someone else on a perpendicular flow. Then it spins, and the whole road is blocked. Traffic jams in Istanbul - they, in my opinion, are in no small part tied to a strange attitude to the rules. I was told that the provider market here is developing more slowly than Europe according to the same principle: the infrastructure needs clear rules, and here they are almost all conceptual.



A lot of personal communication. Opposite my home was a local retail store like our Mega. So, they can deliver any goods to the door. It's just a service like that, you just say what you need. Or, I cut my finger, called the pharmacy opposite, asked to bring a band-aid to the passage (for about 20 rubles). They brought it for free.



All areas in Istanbul are with very expensive land, so every bit of it is used. And all the cheap or not very expensive areas are built up close. Roads - one lane round trip, or even one-way. Right next to it is a sidewalk about a meter and a half, and further - the house. A balcony hangs across the sidewalk. It is strange to talk about greenery or a place for walking in such areas: you still have to get to the greenery. Which is the most unpleasant: half of the roads are horizontal along the slope, and half is serious under the slope, 15-20 degrees can be easy (for comparison: 30 degrees is the slope of the metro escalator in Moscow). Our signs "Caution !!! A seven percent slope !!! ”seems ridiculous. During rain, I don’t know if I’ll start to slide back down on wet asphalt. Almost like going on an escalator. Maybe in the rain you have to stop and go again. There are those who surrender backwards.





The oldest metro line in Istanbul is 144 years old. In a sense, the cable car.



They constantly drink tea for any reason or without. For us, an unusual taste, and I do not really like it. The feeling that a stronger tea leaves is being made, and it is held in a teapot. Boil to the limit to taste. Stations are everywhere like our thermal pots, on top of it are holes on which teapots are placed, in which the tea leaves are hot.







For food, when I began to go with locals to dine, they showed a lot of almost home restaurants. Local specificity is that there are a lot of vegetables, a lot of meat. But there is no pork, lamb instead.







They cook very tasty. What is most interesting is more diverse than ours in Moscow. With vegetables easier, warmer. A variety of dishes are many. Another order of dishes: no salad, first and second plus dessert. Here the difference between salad, second and meat is very blurry. Delicious strawberries from March, melons and watermelons from May.







Muslim country, women everywhere in the veil. But many do not wear short skirts and open arms - all around.







In the office, everyone is dressed quite habitually for us, there are no special differences in the etiquette of clothes.







From other contrasts: as I said, the land here is very expensive, but at the same time there are a huge number of shops and shops where you can buy very cheap food and things. I was also surprised how they approach the issue of waste disposal. It seems that there is a separation of garbage by type, but in fact everything is thrown into one large container. And then special people with two cubic meter trunks on carts during the day scoop up plastic, glass, paper and take them for recycling. So they live ... Begging is not welcome. At least in pure form. But in fact, some granny can "haggle" with paper scarves, approaching the intersection of cars. He doesn’t name the price, you can pay as much as you like. And they give a lot of money and don’t take it away.



Well, they may be late for meetings, but no one will be very upset if you are late. Once our counterparty arrived three hours later, so my colleagues were pleased to see him. Like, it's cool that I came, we are glad to see you. It’s good that you managed to get there. Come in!



That's all about Turkey. In general, we participate in similar projects around the world as a technology partner. We advise, help local companies deal with technology. Today it is more than 40 countries from the Middle East to Australia. Somewhere it's VR, machine vision and drones - what's on hype now. And somewhere, the good old classics like tech support or the introduction of IT systems. If you are interested in knowing the specifics, we can talk about some features.



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