INDUSTRY: Construction Solutions, Design and Manufacture

ABOUT THE COMPANY:

With over 80 years of expertise, Company Z delivers high-performance solutions for the construction industry. Operating in 50+ countries, it specializes in concrete repair, waterproofing, flooring, and structural strengthening. Committed to innovation, it aims to be the most trusted partner in construction.

CHALLENGES

Company Z faced several challenges and has identified key objectives, including:

• Upgrading its data centre infrastructure to embrace a cloud platform that provides enhanced performance, scalability, security, and availability for its applications and services.
• Ensuring compliance with various construction industry regulations and standards, such as ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, and CE Marking.
• Exploring advanced technologies and innovations within the cloud domain, like artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things, and analytics, to improve business operations and customer interactions.

SOLUTIONS

The migration project was divided into five phases, each involving a different engagement strategy and delivery approach. The phases were as follows:

• Phase 1: Infrastructure and database solution assessment. This phase involved conducting an assessment of the current state of the Company Z data center, identifying the readiness of the virtual machines (VMs) for migration to Azure, estimating the VM sizing and performance metrics, and providing a total cost of ownership (TCO) and return on investment (ROI) report.
• Phase 2: Cloud business continuity and disaster recovery (BCP/DR) strategy. This phase involved designing and implementing a BCP/DR strategy that would ensure the continuity and resilience of the Company Z workloads and enable recovery from potential disasters. The strategy involved replicating the on-premises VMs to Azure using native Azure replication tools, such as Azure Site Recovery and Azure Backup, and creating replication scopes and policies for orchestrated failover and failback scenarios.
• Phase 3: Azure Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) and well-architected framework (WAF). This phase involved rolling out the Azure landing zone, which is a set of best practices and guidelines for creating a secure, scalable, and manageable cloud environment. The landing zone involved migrating 200 production VMs from the on-premises data center to Azure using a lift-and-shift approach and establishing a multisite virtual private network (VPN) connectivity to Azure.
• Phase 4: Infrastructure solution extension from UAE to India. This phase involved extending the Company Z data center from the UAE region to the India region, by provisioning additional VMs in the India Azure region and creating a virtual network (VNet) peering between the two regions. This would enable Company Z to expand its business operations and reach new markets in India.
• Phase 5: Customer relationship management (CRM) to Azure migration. Company Z successfully migrated its on-premises CRM system to the cloud using a lift-and-shift approach. This transition enhances performance, availability, and scalability, enabling improved customer interactions and satisfaction while ensuring a seamless digital experience.

The engagement strategy for each phase involved meeting with key stakeholders from the Company Z IT, procurement, and finance teams, understanding their needs and requirements, proposing customized solutions that align with their objectives and IT strategy, offering a proof of concept (POC) to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Azure solutions, highlighting the value proposition and competitive advantage of Azure over other cloud providers, providing a detailed TCO analysis and ROI report, and sharing success stories and case studies of other construction companies that have successfully implemented Azure solutions.

OUTCOME

The migration project resulted in several benefits for Company Z , such as:

• Improved performance, scalability, security, and availability of its applications and services
• Reduced capital and operational costs, and streamlined IT resources and management procedures.
• Strengthened business continuity and disaster recovery strategies, and safeguarded critical applications from potential disruptions or downtime.
• Ensured compliance with various construction industry regulations and standards.
• Expanded its business operations and reach new markets.
• Enhanced its customer interactions and satisfaction.