Client
Our client, a world-leading manufacturer of workplace furniture, needed to transition their business operations from on-premises infrastructure to a cloud-based solution to enhance their business scalability.
With a sizeable manufacturing and distribution network, our client caters to diverse customers, from multinational organizations to small businesses.
Challenge
Our client faced a significant challenge – their on-premises data center contract was approaching expiration, potentially impacting their ability to serve their customers efficiently.
With their existing hardware nearing the End of Service Life (EOSL), an immediate Data Center (DC) exit was crucial.
Our client approached Hexaware to assess their entire infrastructure portfolio and delineate strategies for the target architecture, migration, Disaster Recovery (DR), backup, licensing, storage, and more. Besides, they needed app assessments and a roadmap to unlock the full potential of cloud technology.
Facing an imminent expenditure of $3.5 million to refresh their expiring infrastructure and equipment, our client needed a solution to mitigate their IT system risk and avoid business interruption.
Solution
The Hexaware Solution
Hexaware took a two-fold approach, addressing immediate security concerns and devising a DC exit and infrastructure decommissioning strategy.
Our team of experts analyzed our client’s current cloud environment strategy, identified the pain points, and began a thorough server discovery phase. This detailed examination revealed Azure as the most suitable cloud platform for our client’s needs, considering factors such as maturity, cloud service, capability, pricing, organization type, and service support.
Leveraging Amaze®, Hexaware’s in-house cloud migration platform, we provided an automated, self-service approach to discover, assess, and migrate servers using a “Lift and Shift” approach. The platform aggregated data from various sources, generating a migration readiness report and right-sizing recommendations.
We designed the target state architecture in line with Azure guidelines and Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF), ensuring it met our client’s current and potential future needs in terms of cloud computing. We crafted several strategies to rationalize the migration process, covering areas like storage, model licensing, midrange, DR, and migration.
We adopted a strategic framework that focused not only on the core cloud migration but also on creating a robust infrastructure for our client.
Cloud Foundation: We established organization, system, network, data, and user security controls as part of a new landing zone. This initiative minimized security risks and incorporated Infrastructure as Code (IaC) templates and DevOps practices, resulting in an uptick in workforce productivity.
Disaster Recovery: Our focus extended to ensure operational stability and business continuity. We improved the business continuity risk preparedness score from 5 to 8, thanks to the disaster recovery setup. We eectively transferred backup applications and moved databases to the cloud, thereby fortifying our client’s infrastructure against potential disruptions.
Right Fit Migration to Cloud: Recognizing the need for optimization, we recommended right-sizing and optimizing over 1000 servers by 15-25%. We moved end-of-service-life storage to Azure Blob, eliminating business continuity planning risk. Furthermore, we upgraded outdated OS and SQL to the latest versions on the cloud, mitigating security patch risks. We also re-platformed SQL to SQL Managed Instance and containerized over 25 applications, thereby reducing operational overhead, and recurring updates and oering horizontal scaling capabilities.
Our approach in this project was comprehensive:
Baseline Evaluation: We started by identifying baseline vulnerabilities and assessing software resilience across the IT estate. Thorough Assessment: We conducted a top-down evaluation of over 25 attributes, including performance, security, risk, compliance scalability readiness, and financial attributes, among others.
Thorough Assessment: We conducted a top-down evaluation of over 25 attributes, including performance, security, risk, compliance scalability readiness, and financial attributes, among others.
Business Case Development: We built a compelling business case that addressed key risks and operational inefficiencies, providing a foundation for future business agility.
Execution Plan: Finally, we delivered an execution-ready plan complete with a clear timeline of transformation phases, investments required, and the value that would be delivered to our client.
Through this robust approach, we ensured our client experienced a seamless transition from a static, on-premises data center to a dynamic, cloud-based infrastructure
Benefits
Key Business Benefits
Immediate CapEx Saving
We helped our client avoid an immediate capital expenditure of $3.5 million needed for hardware refreshment.
Migration to Azure
Over 50% of the 1013 servers were successfully migrated to Azure, enhancing the eciency and scalability of the business.
Cost Reduction
Our client’s total cost of ownership was reduced by nearly 35% due to the ecient cloud migration strategy
Improved Resiliency and Agility
Transition to Azure improved the transparency, agility, and resilience of the business, setting our client up for success in the dynamic business environment.
Elimination of EOS/EOSL Exposure
The migration strategy eliminated a potential $3.2M CapEx exposure related to the end of service life for storage and compute infrastructure.
Operational Efficiency
By mapping 400+ missing servers and upgrading legacy OS and DB servers, we enhanced operational efficiency, rationalized servers, rightsized consumption, and moved databases to manage instances.
Future-Proofing the Business
The implementation of the Cloud Adoption Framework ensured our client’s infrastructure could meet current and future needs, eectively future-proofing their business.
Risk Mitigation
We mitigated the risk of business continuity by implementing disaster recovery on aging backup infrastructure, improving the business continuity risk preparedness score from 5 to 8.
Operational Cost Savings
Cloud technologies such as SQL to SQL MI significantly reduced the operational costs associated with managing, patching, and recurring upgrade costs.
Summary
Hexaware successfully helped our client skip the entire capital expenditure while providing a plan to reduce the total cost of ownership by almost 35%.
Our client is now fully on Azure, has experienced significant CapEx savings, and enjoys reduced month-on-month expenditure, in addition to having an agile, resilient, and cost-ecient system that is ready to meet future demands.
