Our experience transforming from the traditional on-prem server and application model to a more modern cloud-based IaaS and SaaS model.

1. Migrating Enterprise IT
Apps to the Cloud
Michael Popovici
Systems Analyst, Watchguard

2. About Me
MSIS 2013
Over 7 years of Systems and Business Analysis in e-waste, financial services and
ecommerce industries
Experience with a wide range of on-prem and cloud CRM, ERP, and collaboration
technologies from Microsoft, Salesforce, Sage, etc.
Wrapping up almost 3.5 years at Blucora, Inc. Starting shortly at Watchguard

3. Before, circa 2013
•2 data centers, Tukwila and North Carolina
•On-prem Exchange, SharePoint, internally developed applications, domain
controllers running on a mix of physical servers and virtualized machines
•100% windows domain-based authentication
•File Share

4. After, 2016
•All servers are in either AWS or Azure*
•All internally developed applications have been adapted to run in the cloud and
some that are used by subsidiaries now have web form authentication instead of
windows based.
•Office 365 for Email, IM (Lync, now Skype for Business) , and SharePoint.
•Identity Management is a mix of federated windows authentication and single sign
on via Okta.
•Box
*We still have on-prem servers!

5. Nitty Gritty
AWS vs Azure
•Azure then AWS
Cleanup
•Server cleanup
On-prem
•One on-prem home brewed app required development since we wanted to make it
available to subsidiaries
•The rest were simply redeployed to VMs in AWS

6. Nitty Gritty (cont.)
Box.com
•End-user self-migration
•Shipped drives for accounting team share
Office 365
•SharePoint - about a 2.5 month migration, with a few weeks just for migrating data.
•Lync - Simply had users sign in using different credentials
•Email- Utilized Microsoft credits. About a month long effort

7. Nitty Gritty (cont.)
Identity Management was a recurring theme!
•A hybrid environment for Office365 migration. 2 on-prem servers to support this.
•Manually generating XML identity matching file for SharePoint Migration
•SSO via Okta

8. Lessons Learned
Leaner staff was possible
Lower TCO, lower $ cost when factoring in production, possibly higher costs for IT
itself
Able to focus on higher value projects