A global bank created guided migration paths, built control with guardrails, and met regulations to move to Amazon Web Services (AWS) three times faster.
The challenge: A disconnected cloud migration team
The bank's move to AWS started by bringing together 35 people from a range of traditional infrastructure backgrounds, spanning databases, networks, storage, and visualization.
With the team scattered across four countries, coming from different departments of the bank, with very different mindsets, the first challenge was ensuring everyone was moving in the same direction. They also needed to ensure they did not create silos and were instead working across teams in a multi-disciplined approach. However, one of the key concerns remained around regulatory sign-off from the bank to keep driving migrations forward.
It was clear from the start that spreadsheets, email chains, and single-threaded project management solutions were not the answer. They needed a tool that would provide visibility across the board, set the guardrails for delivery, and create an audit trail for compliance.
The solution: A standardized and repeatable cloud migration process
Various layers of technology and people needed to work together to deliver the critical elements of migrating an application.
Using Cutover, the bank was able to standardize its cloud migrations and create a repeatable, scalable process by:
- Establishing a guided migration path with guardrails. Application teams do not have deep domain knowledge of cloud migration activities, so they need instructions at critical junctures when completing tasks. With templated runbooks, they were able to create a consistent path to production for application teams and set guardrails to enable control.
- Completing the AWS maturity assessment in-house. They mapped the maturity of the organization through the various migration stages with a 180-step runbook comprehensively providing the necessary answers to complete the assessment internally.
- Validating automations to make the process faster. To increase efficiency, the team explored automations they could add to remove manual and repetitive tasks. This led to integrating with the service catalog, which enabled them to achieve key milestones faster and eliminate human error.
The results: Three times faster migration
Today, the bank continues to lead the race to move its infrastructure to the cloud. With Cutover, the team were able to create a standard process for cloud migrations, moving a significant number of applications to AWS in two months. They also made significant reductions to the time spent planning and auditing, up to 50% in some tasks. For the bank, three outcomes played a major role in expanding its cloud program and enabling it to move forward with confidence:
- Migrating three times faster with better team orchestration. The bank was able to track the progress of the central cloud program and lines of business. Cutover enabled every member of the team to understand when each task started and ended, with instructions on how to complete them.
- Achieving 100% compliance with an automated audit trail. As part of the end-to-end migration process, the bank undertook a risk and regulatory compliance assessment. This was successfully completed using Cutover, which enabled full visibility across the organization on decisions made through the ‘mobilize’ and ‘migrate’ stages.
- A massively reduced decommissioning timeframe. With no prior mechanism to measure and track the time to decommission applications, the bank was able to set a new process. The ability to create a repeatable process in Cutover with a template proved to be essential, considerably reducing the risks associated with prematurely decommissioning applications.
"AWS and Cutover play a critical role in the delivery of our key cloud program. Cutover is enabling us to realize our strategic migration goals while ensuring operational resilience reporting and playbook invocation."
CIO of Enterprise Technology at one of the world's largest banks
