About the Client:
The client is the world’s largest and most innovative temperature-controlled Industrial Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and logistics solutions provider. The company’s expertise in end-to-end logistical solutions, its unrivaled real estate network, and its use of technology combine to promote food safety, increase distribution efficiency, advance sustainability, lessen environmental impact, and minimize supply chain waste.
Challenge:
The client’s earlier infrastructure landscape consisted of Colo Data Centers spread across the United States and older versions of Microsoft Windows Server, viz 2003, 2008, and 2008 R2. These servers needed an upgrade to a newer and more stable platform at the earliest to ensure:
- Better security
- Non-interrupted operations
- Improved functionality
- Increased productivity
- Cost optimization by reducing TCO spent on physical data center maintenance.
Solution:
Brillio conducted a comprehensive analysis of the customer’s requirements and recommended a solution to migrate the legacy applications/VM as-is without re-designing the code/application. The proposed approach aligned with the client’s primary objective of decommissioning all their on-premises colo data centers.
- The migration to the latest and stable platform of Microsoft Windows Server 2016 was completed in waves using Brillio’s Multi-staged and iterative migration model for rapid and zero-risk migration.
- The upgrade addressed potential security vulnerabilities through IT governance, risk, and compliance enhancements and reduced downtime caused by hardware or software issues.
Result:
Following our implementation, Brillio has successfully managed to:
- Migrate ~125 servers to a cloud-native environment on AWS data centers.
- Identify and decommission around 200 servers that were either unused or underused.
- Utilize a “lift and shift” approach or migrate as-is ~150 servers leveraging VMware on AWS data center through VMware HCX.
Business Impact:
The upgrade to Windows Server 2016 provided the client with:
- Up to 40% reduction in TCO and support costs over the long term, reflected in metrics such as licensing costs, hardware, and software maintenance.
- Minimal downtime and business disruptions during the migration, using Brillio’s Multi-staged and iterative migration model.
- Up to 30% increased productivity by leveraging Brillio’s solution.
- Up to 40% improved infrastructure security, with a drastic reduction in the number and severity of vulnerabilities.
- Seamless upgrade and migration, with zero downtime observed on critical applications
