Client story Leading Appliance Repair Services Company Plans for Cloud Transformation Following Major Business Events
By Insight Editor / 6 Mar 2020 / Topics: Workload Alignment Cloud Migration
Facts at a glance
Client industry
Product repair services
Insight provided:
- Comprehensive discovery using SnapStart
- Workload and application evaluation
- Financial modeling for replatforming
- Detailed roadmap to migrate to AWS
Insight services:
- Workload Transformation Assessment
- Storage Assessment
- Architecture design
- Migration planning
- Migration Services
- Residency Services
- Managed Services
Outcomes:
Download the client story
- Better understanding of current state
- Complete IT asset and dependency maps of ~150 apps & 500 servers
- Risk-mitigated transition plans with minimal downtime
- Data center exit plans to deliver on corporate mandate
- Migration roadmap to all-AWS environment
- Partner to leverage for future services — Managed, Consulting, Residency and more
The client
The client is the top appliance repair service in the country, with more than seven million repairs performed each year and thousands of professional technicians employed nationwide. For three decades, the client has provided home improvement, repair and maintenance, and cleaning services to help homeowners keep their residences in perfect condition.
The challenge: Plan and execute a wholesale move to AWS to modernize and transform
Following a series of divestitures and bankruptcy filings from its former parent company, the client received a new executive mandate to vacate all four of their data centers. The initiative called for the client to migrate all applications to AWS® while ensuring business continuity.
As the largest and most profitable division, the client faced added pressure from its new ownership to revitalize their IT environment. The relative turbulence throughout the business had left their IT systems and processes in need of care, their applications and OS levels out of date, and their IT organization diminished in terms of headcount and knowledge. The new parent company wanted big changes. They expected transformation, agility and seamless project execution with minimal downtimes.
Insight was selected from a host of major consulting firms and service providers to help the client drive their transformation. There were hurdles to overcome from the start: an expired master service agreement, the need for a separate line of credit to support the data center exit and the need for partner funding to provide initial assessments.
The solution: Expert-led discovery, design and planning of new, cloud-based IT environment
The engagement is multiphased, involving dozens of Insight team members and all key stakeholders in the client organization.
Phase 1:
- Insight delivered a Workload Transformation Assessment. This included performing a thorough discovery, mapping all existing IT assets and dependencies, developing financial models for migrating to cloud, and providing analytics and a roadmap of next steps. Together, we addressed a variety of critical considerations — operations, financials, processes and people — and assessed roughly 150 applications and 500 servers.
- Migration planning was supported by Customer Application Data Manager (CADM), our in-house developed survey tool. CADM enabled timely, effective application interviews and response validation through a series of standardized questions developed for the client. With our output from CADM, we were able to easily locate gaps in the data and be thorough in requests for further feedback.
- All applications had to be migrated to AWS®, even those that were stubborn or in need of significant work to perform optimally in the cloud. We created action plans for each application, including AIX®, SPARC and mainframe applications.
- A NetApp OnCommand Insight (OCI) Assessment enabled us to take a closer look at the performance levels and reliability of their existing storage systems and identify areas of opportunity.
- We concluded phase one by drafting a new architecture design for AWS and creating a detailed execution plan to migrate all workloads with minimal downtimes and no challenges to cutover.
Phase 2:
- Insight built a test dev/pre-production environment in AWS that is ready for piloting and set up an AWS consumption contract.
- In collaboration with the client, we are navigating challenges related to connection speeds, hosting contracts and badly aged servers, to ensure the project stays on track.
- We have migrated 100 x86 servers in the first wave and plan to migrate an additional 175+ in the next two waves.
- Managed Cloud services have been staged and prepped. Our team will gradually manage more and more of the client's environment, as each piece is migrated to AWS.
- Our Residency Services provided critical support for the client throughout these first project phases. Soon, another wave of 7–10 programmers and developers will begin a new residency to provide technical work and keep the project moving.
- Future migration phases will involve the client's Solaris, IBM® AIX and IBM Mainframe.
The benefits: Deliver on corporate mandates and realize unprecedented agility and speed
Though the client has been through the proverbial ringer over the past several years, the future looks bright. Having completed a comprehensive discovery process and numerous assessments with our consultants, the client is more ready than ever to make the move out of their data centers and into a new AWS environment. This means not only delivering on their strategic mandates, but reenergizing a neglected IT organization. As the company looks to the future, they can look forward to more agility, speed, reliability and support from a trusted partner, Insight.
