Case Study: Ensuring Business Continuity with Hybrid Infrastructure

Infrastructure Migration Future-proves an Enterprise's Operations

logo_infopulse_2

Location:

Ukraine

Industry:

Software & Hi-Tech

Specialists:

2,300+

About the Customer:

Infopulse, part of the leading Nordic digital services company Tietoevry, is an international vendor of services in the areas of Software R&D, Application Management, Cloud & Infrastructure, and Cybersecurity to SMEs and Fortune 100 companies across the globe.

Business Challenge

As an enterprise-level company, Infopulse is required to have a business continuity plan (BCP) in place that would enable the company to quickly respond to risks and address the challenges caused by the external factors that can be neither managed nor controlled. Therefore, in 2016 the management decided to kick off the preparation and rollout of a company-wide BCP procedures. A solid disaster recovery plan (DRP) had to be a part of BCP.

Infrastructure Migration Future - proves an Enterprise's Operations - Case Image

Solution

Our engineers came up with an infrastructure DRP to be implemented in two stages:

The Infopulse BCP team made significant progress while testing the backup platform for 3 years in a row. In January 2022, they achieved a 100% score with all the systems launched and being fully functional:

2019

2020

2022

Product IT systems, pcs

33

36

46

Test type

Go European DC – Go-back

Go European DC – Go-back

Go European DC – 1 week work – Go-back

Test time, h

11

9

13 + workweek + 6

Time to recover in European DC, h

5.5

3

9

Engineers fully involved

11

11

11

Engineers partially involved

0

4

7

Systems passed, pcs

19

35

46

Systems with problem, pcs

11

1

0

Systems skipped, pcs

3

0

0

Success rate, %

58%

97%

100%

Plan A was to shift the infrastructure to a remote data center in Kyiv. After Russia attacked Ukraine in 2022, the engineers had to opt for plan B and move the data center to the one we had earlier set up during DRP V1.0 as a backup within the EU.

Overall, the migration efforts can be summarized as a portfolio of various projects queued for a shift to the cloud:

Before updating or migrating infrastructure services, our team tests everything from A to Z, checking all the possible scenarios. The alterations to be made are subject to change control and management process, including expert-led technical assessment in addition to the opinion of engineers and risk assessment for the company. Automated change control and IT portfolio management are the concepts our engineers use to execute migration endeavors, with each stakeholder having a definite role and responsibility as seen in the table below.

Unit
Role

BCP / Engineering team

  • Exploring new concepts & technologies
  • A/B testing of migration scenarios

Tech committee

  • Evaluating testing results
  • Deciding on migration feasibility

Executive Management Team

  • Signing off on migration plan and its technological enablers 
quotes image
 We are way past a complex process of enterprise infrastructure migration. This job was not a regular duty. Instead, it was a strategic move, a carefully thought-through portfolio of projects we have executed step by step in a span of several years by applying our subject-matter expertise. This initiative has become a triumph of our team spirit with tight timing thrown in the mix.
image of person
Oleksandr Pronkin
Infopulse CIO  

Technologies

Azure DevOps logo
Azure DevOps
Microsoft Teams logo
Microsoft Teams
Exchange Online logo
Exchange Online
Microsoft Intune logo
Microsoft Intune
Microsoft SharePoint logo
Microsoft SharePoint
Azure Information Protection logo
Azure Information Protection
Microsoft Defender  logo
Microsoft Defender
and many others

Business Value

For Infopulse, the end-to-end infrastructure migration was critical in dealing with a potential force majeure. At the same time, this project resulted in multi-fold benefits both for the end-users and the company as a whole:

  • Secure cloud-based mailboxes with 100 Gb storage capacity per user along with a web interface featuring seamless anywhere-anytime access for 2,000+ users.
  • Skype for Business was replaced by Microsoft Teams with our own telephony hub, which is integrated with the latter through Session Border Controller (SBC) to orchestrate telecom providers' integration.
  • Reduced learning curve for the end-users with smooth Teams and SharePoint onboarding by conducting pre-migration communication sessions with Infopulse Business Units and creating practical video tutorials.
  • Propelled administration and improved security through several initiatives in addition to user-centered projects: implementation of Defender Foreign Point, antiviruses cloud shift, RMS, and Microsoft Intune to better manage the workstations.
  • As a result of the BCP team's proactivity, numerous actions taken in the last 6 years, and the implementation of best practices in business continuity, our engineers managed to account for all the possible ad hoc scenarios caused by the military aggression in February-March 2022.
  • More than 75% of local specialists that were relocated to safe locations abroad and in the west of Ukraine can access and use our business systems due to successful migration.
  • As of April 2022, more than 90% of our experts perform their regular duties as always regardless of whether they are working on-site, in the office, or remotely, and continue contributing to the ongoing projects.
  • Because of the war with Russia, our BCP experts had to re-plan the migration of the core data center. The architectural scenario remained unchanged though. Now Infopulse has a hybrid infrastructure that runs like clockwork.
quotes image
Infopulse’s strength lies in unity: the unity of our minds and our efforts. This is the reason behind a successful multifaceted infrastructure migration project designed and carefully implemented by our expert team to ensure seamless business continuity and be ready for any scenarios. With all pieces of the infrastructure migration puzzle in place, our clients can be sure that Infopulse service delivery is carried out without any disruptions, as they keep receiving quality services.
image of person
Alexey Sigov
Infopulse President  

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