Chandler Macleod migrated the CMG Intranet from on premise, to a highly available AWS environment
Customer Details:
Chandler Macleod is one of Australia’s largest Recruitment Agencies and provider of Human Resource Services, Managed Workforces and Workplace Outsourcing.
Chandler Macleod have been using Amazon Web Services (AWS) for quite some time but only for development and testing workloads. There is now a push to accelerate the deployment of production workloads to the AWS platform.
Business Needs:
Chandler Macleod were looking to have a Proof Of Concept done on how they could extend their services into the AWS environment and also migrate one application successfully.
Solution:
PolarSeven outlined a POC for a new extension of the existing environment using infrastructure as code. This showed the speed at which the new environment could be deployed.
The company intranet was also migrated across into AWS.
Results:
The POC has changed the internal thought process for future projects in house and Chandler Macleod are now looking at more cloud projects for the future.
The application migration was a success and the project was delivered ahead of schedule.
Post Implementation Review with Robert Faint – Cloud Transition Transformation PM:
What were some pain points being experienced that prompted a search for a cloud services provider?
We had a lack of internal expertise so there was a lack of progress being made in our movement to adopt new cloud technologies.
We had a lot of ideas of things that we wanted and needed to do but were not able to move forward with implementing them.
What was the engagement process like? How was PolarSeven found?
As we were already using AWS we consulted with them on several projects that we were looking to review and asked them for their recommendation on who would be the best fit consultancy for us to use.
Our AWS account manager recommended PolarSeven to us.
What due diligence process was undertaken to minimise risk and ensure the best provider was successfully engaged?
An initial meeting and review with PolarSeven provided enough to make us comfortable to engage further with PolarSeven.
Talking through our vision and goals with it was clear that they understood what we were trying to achieve and made us comfortable to move forward.
What solution was implemented within the business?
We had two solutions we wanted to achieve.
Proof Of Concept (POC) on how to extend the CMG connection to AWS
Pilot migrate the CMG intranet, a tier 2 application called Start.cmg, with a web based UI and sql backend, into the AWS environment
What specifications needed to be adhered to?
Perimeter security, user management and security access were the most important aspects and we had to ensure that these were just right.
Beyond that we looked at blue / green deployment, availability, auto scaling, load balancing and all the other factors you would expect.
We also looked at the cost factor as well since data storage requirements will only grow over time, so cost was a factor.
What were some of the alternative options proposed, that were not undertaken and why?
We did some cost analysis prior to starting to look at engaging and AWS came out on top so we did not look any further after that.
Also we obviously knew that the AWS system is sound and highly robust so we did not have any real concerns.
How would you describe the project in terms of success? Was business value realised?
Yes it was successful.
Our main objective was to really start understanding how we could best utilise the AWS system and getting an understanding through PolarSeven’s engagement helped us to understand how things could be done in future.
It was a very agile and open project to help get CMG used to the idea of moving more to AWS comfortably.
Also the project was initially scoped for 17 days but was delivered in 13, so well ahead of time and budget.
What were some KPIs used to measure the success of the project?
The “measurable” output was the successful migration of the intranet and the ability to do user acceptance testing on the moved application.
The “im-measurable” output was the success of how the project showed us how things could be done in the AWS environment with the POC.
What changed culturally within the business and the workflow once you had moved to the cloud?
At this stage it hasn’t made a cultural change in the business workflow since our move has only been marginal in terms of our services and the total infrastructure we use.
The “thought” change on what we can do is shifting though in the business to think more cloud for the future.
Were there any unexpected benefits that arose once the project had been completed?
No, it just worked, which is great to see when you migrate something to a new platform. So, while not unexpected it’s rewarding to see.
Do you see yourselves expanding to utilise more AWS services into the future?
Yes, we are currently looking at a new project to setup and deploy a number of workstations across the business.
We are also looking at future projects for cloud services internally at the minute which we may not have done if it had not been for this initial projects success.