Driving efficiency and security in Financial Services through Azure Migration

We partnered with a financial services sector customer who provides a range of services including financial reporting, reinsurance, technology, strategic partnering, and transaction services.

In 2021, the customer sought to improve their IT provision, de-risk their existing setup, and align their Microsoft Azure hosted services with industry standard best practices.  Having initially engaged on a number of tactical requests to address some immediate and pressing concerns, the customer then asked Version 1 to complete and comprehensive review of their existing IT service provision and provide guidance and advice on how their concerns could be addressed.

Prior to engaging with us, the customer had migrated many on-premises services to Microsoft Azure using internal resources. While the team did their best given the capacity and capability available, the migration and overall design did not meet best practices or conform to the Azure Cloud Adoption Framework. This led to issues, inefficiencies, and risks, negatively impacting the business both operationally and in terms of the perception of the new Cloud platform’s effectiveness. The customer decided to go to market to seek consultancy and support to overcome these challenges and set up a more optimally run service going forward.

“Choosing to partner with Version 1 for our Azure rebuild and migration was a game-changer for us.”

Customer Cloud and Cyber Program Lead

Solution

Using our Cloud Adoption Framework aligned Cloud Migration Programme methodology, we embarked on a multi-stage approach with the customer to guide them through the necessary steps, build confidence in the process, and ultimately deliver their services on the Azure platform. The key stages in the engagement were as follows:

Azure landing zone review and build

We reviewed the existing Azure Landing Zone environment against the best practices of the Cloud Adoption Framework and Well Architected Framework. The outputs were categorised and summarised for the customer’s management team, along with effort estimations for the remediation activities required to align the environment with best practices. As a result, the customer decided to invest in a newly designed and built Azure Landing Zone, fully aligned with best practices from deployment time, rather than take on the timely remediation work.

Using our considerable experience in Azure Landing Zone design and build, we worked with the customer to agree on a design that met both their current and future requirements for their Azure hosting platform. The agreed solution was implemented using Terraform Infrastructure as Code (IAC) with Azure DevOps for Continuous Integration pipelines, project, and repository management.

Migration of services to new Azure landing zone

With a best practice landing zone environment in place, the focus switched to migrating workloads into the new environment. Our experts completed a Discovery and Assessment of the existing workloads using Azure Migrate to capture inventory and resource utilisation patterns. An R-Assessment of the workloads was completed and agreed with the customer to inform the most suitable migration methods. This information was shaped into a project plan mapping out waves of migrations, grouping migration candidates into low-risk groups, identifying dependencies, and considering business priorities.

Approximately 100 applications and servers were migrated to the new environment.  The majority being Windows Servers, including:

• Rehosting Windows Server
• Rehosting SQL Servers
• Replatforming services to the latest operating systems, including domain controllers and file services

Adoption of Cloud Managed Service

Following the migration project, the customer asked us to take on operational service responsibility for the environment via a new Managed Services agreement. Together, we agreed on the scope and service requirements and transitioned the solution into our Aspire Managed Services, where it is run and operated in close partnership with the customer.

“The solution was very much tailored to our needs, ensuring a seamless transition that significantly reduced risk and exposure.”

Customer Cloud and Cyber Program Lead

Outcomes

The solution delivered by Version 1 brings benefits on several fronts. The initial concerns with the original environment were addressed by the new Azure Landing Zone, which brought the following benefits:

• Increased security:
  • Improved traffic management
  • Segmentation of pre-production environments from production
  • Increased use of security policy via a centralised firewall and Network Security Groups
• Improved governance and management through the implementation of a management group hierarchy and the use of Azure Policy
• Greater consistency due to the use of Infrastructure as Code
• Quicker deployment times due to the use of automation
• Improved scalability and availability provision
• Improved cost controls and visibility

The migration activities were completed with minimal downtime or impact on business-as-usual activities, and services were re-established within the guardrails and controls of the best practice aligned landing zones. This reduced the risk profile associated with the service provision.

Version 1’s Aspire Managed Services eliminates the need for the customer to manage the day-to-day support of the environment, freeing them up to focus on their business services and customers. Through our comprehensive ASPIRE Managed Services offering, we take ownership of the tasks that distract the customer from what really matters; driving their business objectives and strategic initiatives.