ABOUT THE CLIENT
The client is a multi-strategy alternative asset manager with a focus on investment strategies that are arbitrage oriented. They provide solutions for wealth management, investment management and financial advice. Its platform provides a range of services for financial advisors, including portfolio management, reporting and analytics, performance monitoring, and client relationship management.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
The client is on a journey of Cloud adoption and migration/transformation of their current applications to a more cloud-native or Kubernetes/Containers model. They are looking for an IT organization to assist in their current infrastructure and also the business needs and come up with the best solution in terms of refactoring, modernization, revision, and replacement.
CHALLENGES
Due to the pandemic, they have decided to adopt cloud technology and transform their applications to a more cloud-native or Kubernetes/Containers model. They want to utilize the best-of-breed solutions offered by cloud platforms such as AWS, Azure, and GCP, to work with their application developers.
Challenges faced by the client:
- Latency-sensitive applications: The current on-premises applications used by them are latency-sensitive and require a long time to implement changes.
- Inefficient application deployment process: The current application deployment process is slow and inefficient, making it difficult to make changes quickly.
- Need for application modernization: Due to the pandemic, they are forced to modernize their applications and adopt cloud technology, which is a new area for them.
- Lack of expertise in cloud technology: The client has a team of in-house developers, but they lack expertise in cloud technology and need guidance in deploying their applications on cloud platforms.
- Assessment of applications: They need to assess their applications from code to functionality and develop a strategy for modernization, which is a complex process that requires expertise.
SOLUTION IMPLEMENTED
Planet of IT Ltd. conducted a Cloud Readiness Assessment for this client in order to determine the client’s current systems and applications capabilities and see if they are ready to migrate to the cloud. The main objective was to provide the client with a solid plan that would make the migration process smoother, faster and more cost-effective.
The first step was to understand the client’s current IT environment, which was a challenge as the client had limited documentation and knowledge of their environment. Planet of IT used a combination of data discovery and assessment tools and involved the key stakeholders and business units to gather information. The client’s IT environment was complex, involving multiple systems, technologies, and data sources. Planet of IT approached this complexity by breaking it down and prioritizing the assessment based on the criticality of each component.
Planet of IT also faced resistance to change from the client’s IT team, who may have been resistant to moving their systems and data to the cloud. To overcome this resistance, Planet of IT educated the IT team about the benefits of cloud adoption, such as cost savings, scalability, and improved performance.
In conclusion, Planet of IT provided the client with a solid plan that would make the migration process smoother and reduce time and money spent on the migration process. The approach was a combination of data discovery and assessment tools, collaboration with stakeholders, and overcoming resistance to change, which allowed for a thorough understanding of the client’s current IT environment and a successful migration to the cloud.
Results
The Cloud Readiness Assessment conducted by Planet of IT Ltd. analyzed a total of 81 applications and catalogued 40 of them with proper details. The discovered inventory showed that most of the on-premises applications were running on Windows OS and hosted on the IIS web server, with 28 on-premises servers. The applications were categorized into 10 types and leveraged .NET 4.5, ASP.Net WebAPI, and other technologies. The assessment found over 1000 unique dependencies and 62 databases serving data across all applications.
The result of the assessment provided valuable insights into the client’s technology infrastructure and a roadmap for their journey toward cloud adoption. Planet of IT leveraged its expertise to guide the client through the assessment process.