A Well-Planned Azure Cloud Migration Strategy Helped this Corporation Save 70% in TCO

Motifworks’ AzureSmart Solution and execution approach drive Microsoft solution assessments that result in outstanding customer outcomes. This customer project shows how we partnered with the Microsoft CET team to perform a Cloud Economics Assessment. Motifworks accelerated their cloud journey with Azure cloud migration strategy and our Azure Migration services.

Executive Summary

An Alaska Native Corporation was looking to identify cost savings and performance improvements in the data center, while also improving availability and uptime in support of high-volume business operations. When approached by Microsoft Solution Assessment team, they trusted Motifworks to create a Cloud Migration Strategy using Microsoft Azure Economic Assessment and design and implement a robust and cost-effective Cloud solution in Azure. We worked with the company‘s IT team to understand their business pain points and challenges to growth and customized a Cloud solution that met the business needs. Our comprehensive solution assessment followed by migration resulted in cost savings of approximately 25% and improved licensing costs in the Cloud.   

Business Drivers and Objectives

The Corporation has operations in government services, construction, industrial services, and tourism and is responsible for providing back-office functions, including accounting, contracts, IT, and payroll to government contractors associated with it.
For our client, scalability, availability, and response time were crucial concerns. They needed to identify cost savings and performance improvements in the data center, while also improving availability and uptime in support of high-volume business operations and back-office systems while reducing business downtime. The client was also looking to consolidate their business units, with scalability, agility, cost reduction, and centralized IT operations as their primary objectives.    

To that extent, the major challenge for the Corporation was “not exactly knowing how to get their cloud adoption, and transformation strategies started.” Considering the lack of skill sets and knowledge internally, the most crucial part of this cloud journey was enlisting the right support. The additional complexity was in the client’s network infrastructure as they were using four (4) different Active Directory Domains for each of the business units. Motifworks‘ support to the customer began by showing them a path leveraging Microsoft’s Solution Assessment Program. 

The Corporation’s IT Management was not looking for just dump of their server inventory with Azure Virtual Machine sizes and cost spreadsheets but wanted a more thought out Azure Cloud Migration strategy to align with their business objectives. 

Motifworks’ AzureSmart Approach and Azure Cloud Migration Strategy

Partnering with Microsoft CET Engagement Manager, Motifworks commissioned an initial Cloud readiness analysis and migration feasibility for the client’s servers at Headquarters and Datacenter, spread across three different networks. 

Leveraging the Co-Sell Ready Azure Economic Assessment and our AzureSmart platform, the first step was using the Movere for data collection and server inventory. Our unique AzureSmart Infrastructure Assessment goes beyond the server inventory and resource utilization data. We apply a specially designed proprietary algorithm, capitalizing on machine learning and AI capabilities, to create Executive level dashboards supported by detailed business case analysis and migration plan for migrating to Azure. 

We performed workload and application identification, reviewed technical use cases, and business priorities to propose a Wave-based migration plan. Motifworks had a clear understanding of their current environment and business’s goals to create an IaaS migration strategy, Azure cost projections, TCO cost benefits, recommended Azure services, and an end-to-end migration plan specific to their organization. 

Out of the total server inventory, we identified nearly 67 workloads across 4 Active Directory domains as the candidates for migration.  

Azure Cloud Migration

Following the Solution Assessment, Motifworks planned their cloud migration for accelerated adoption of Azure Cloud to maximize value, minimize risks, and achieve more with their IT investment. Motifworks built a cloud reference architecture, a phased migration approach, a financial framework, and a roadmap aligned with their business goals. The comprehensive framework of Motifworks‘ AzureSmart program leverages Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, best-practices for Governance and Security, advanced automation, and learnings from cloud engagements. The framework functions as an actionable plan for enterprise-wide cloud adoption, with defined work streams and SLAs. Using this comprehensive Cloud migration framework, Motifworks was able to move the Corporation identified workloads to Azure’s Commerical Cloud.    

However, during the migration phase, creating different subscriptions and resource type was extremely challenging as the customer’s servers were then provisioned on GovCloud. Additionally, the Corporation was looking to overcome the license reseller provider’s unresponsiveness and lack of communication. While we were not able to deploy the migration plan immediately, we continued working on the architecture design and educating the client’s IT team to keep us moving ahead.   

Key Results

Motifworks estimated 25% projected savings in TCO for the client in moving to Azure using AHUB and Azure reserved pricing. We also analyzed the Windows and SQL Server licensing and highlighted the advantage of Azure Hybrid Use Benefits (AHUB) that is only available in Azure and not in any other public cloud. The use of AHUB has resulted in almost $93,000 of cost savings i.e., 70% in TCO in licensing costs in the Cloud. Additionally, the client was able to reduce costs by eliminating the 3rd Party Managed Service Agreements without sacrificing performance. 

The Solution Assessment gave the Corporation a comprehensive overview of their IT estate and workloads that were slowing the business. This detailed understanding of their infrastructure helped address which functions would be best suited for the Cloud, what they planned to achieve with the technology, and how much cost savings they intended to realize. Motifworks designed and executed their Azure Cloud Migration strategy and created a scalable architecture for them to maximize business value using Azure.

The customer now has full access to on-demand Cloud and scalable architecture in place with defined boundaries between operations allowing them to create resources rather seamlessly and meet specific business demands.