ENGAGEMENT
A major technology desired to consolidate its cloud footprint. The effort required the design and build out of new OpenStack and VMware environments to house existing applications with capacity for future growth, manage application migrations to the new private cloud environments and the public cloud, and decommissioning or repurposing devices in the legacy data center. DayBlink Consulting supported migration planning and execution.
PROBLEM
The cloud migration faced many challenges from both an application and infrastructure perspective. There was no reliable source of truth for applications, owners, requirements or interdependencies. Applications and services lacked clearly identified destinations due to infrastructure availability, security limitations and budget. The team had no solutions architect with institutional and cloud knowledge to designate clear migration plans. There was no source of truth inventory of existing hardware (compute, network, security and storage) in the legacy data center. The existing hardware lacked clear disposition plans. Outdated hardware existed in the legacy data center inventory that would not meet current data center requirements. Available capacity across the national footprint was too limited to absorb the legacy data center footprint. Finally budget constraints limited the team’s ability to procure and deploy a 1-for-1 replacement environment.
SOLUTION
DayBlink Consulting helped identify and document the current application and infrastructure footprints in the legacy data center, manage the end-to-end buildout of multiple private cloud expansions using new and re-usable infrastructure, and migrate interdependent applications and services to public and private cloud platforms. As part of this engagement, we led a discovery effort to develop a source of truth application and infrastructure inventory. We then analyzed the current application requirements (e.g. security, geo-graphic, capacity) and current capacity available across the national footprint to determine target destinations for every application. We designed the new OpenStack and VMware environments based on application requirements and growth projections. Then we helped develop and execute an equipment sourcing plan within the budget. Next we supported the installation of critical equipment and deployed foundational services to enable applications to begin migrating from the legacy data center. We managed application migrations to the new private cloud environments and public clouds while sequencing migrations based on application interdependencies, and finally, we repurposed reusable equipment that was freed up and decommissioned the remaining equipment.
RESULT
The client completed the build out of a multi-million dollar OpenStack region and VMware environment from design to install and application onboarding. The effort successfully migrated hundreds of interdependent applications and thousands of pieces of network, security, compute and storage hardware to turn down the legacy data center without interrupting uptime, minimizing any impact to customers. In total, the team saved several million dollars of capital expense through developing an equipment sourcing strategy that involved procuring new equipment and re-using existing hardware in the legacy environment. We also realized several million dollars in operating expense savings through consolidating the cloud footprint and exiting the legacy data center.