Working in Ukraine during the war [Anzeige]

Analysts around the world made gloomy predictions about Ukraine’s fate on the eve of the Russian invasion. But the Ukrainian armed forces kept the country and its economy functioning during the war. SIM Networks, a German hosting provider headquartered in Karlsruhe, reports on the experiences of the branch in Kyiv, which works under wartime conditions.

How did SIM Networks experience the first days of the war?

The SIM Networks office in Kyiv experienced the first days of the war like most other Ukrainians. The first priority was to get relatives to safety and to support every employee as best as possible.

Some business processes have been put on hold to deal with these pressing issues. However, the team continued to support its customers and respond to new requests. Some projects that later became important case studies and shaped our business approach were completed during this time.

Is there still demand for hosting services? And what do customers expect?

In the beginning, most of the demand came from our regular customers in Ukraine. The projects of some companies lost relevance. In these cases, resources were diverted or shut down. Other companies, on the other hand, took up new services, e.g. B. the migration of the IT infrastructure to our data centers in Germany and the Netherlands. Time was always the most important factor here: companies had to protect their data as quickly as possible.

24/7 availability of technical support helped customers to solve their problems quickly. Dmytro Melnyk, head of customer care, reports on his observations:

“Limited power supply, internet outages and air raid sirens are the conditions that businesses deal with on a daily basis. If a company wants to keep going, it needs support, whether it’s 10 p.m. or 4 a.m..”

From October 10, 2022, the situation was further complicated by Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure. Despite the difficulties, the customer support team is online 24/7 and meets all response times guaranteed in the service level agreement. From now on, every employee has access to personal energy reserves that make it possible to mitigate the effects of power outages.

Although this circumstance did not bring any fundamentally new requirements from customers, the need to migrate important business data to data centers outside of Ukraine has become more urgent. As a result, the number of customers requesting migration services has increased significantly, even compared to the early days of the war. The time that a company needs to make this decision has also become shorter on average.

Flexibility became a key factor

SIM networks adapted to the situation within a week: some of our crisis management processes were already developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the war created special conditions that brought important lessons to the team. In short, flexibility became a key factor in both technical aspects and service expectations.

Shortly after February 24, 2022, we were contacted by several Ukrainian media companies. Their goal was to move critical IT services to secure locations as quickly as possible. Some of them had already worked with us and knew first hand that projects with unusual requirements are our speciality.

The terms of payment were adjusted to the unforeseeable economic situation. The loss of the IT base is a heavy blow for any company and also for the economy of Ukraine. We therefore postponed the formalities and the customers’ IT services were made available in European data centers within a few days. At the moment we offer all Ukrainian clients a 50 percent discount on our services.

Our team believes that flexibility is the key to working productively with our clients and we offer services that reflect this principle. We create tailor-made IT infrastructures based on clouds and servers for each specific application. Talk to us and describe the requirements of your company. We develop a suitable solution for your company.

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