Exiting a legacy data centre for a global engineering company on AWS.
Rising VMware licensing costs and limited cost visibility put pressure on a legacy data centre.
Nordcloud helped a global engineering company migrate workloads to AWS, decommission unused infrastructure and establish a more cost‑efficient operating model.
Project Summary.
Overview.
A global engineering company needed to exit an on‑premises data centre while keeping business‑critical workloads running without disruption. Rising licensing costs and limited cost visibility made the existing setup unsustainable. One site was selected as the starting point for a broader cloud migration programme.
Nordcloud was brought in to lead the migration to AWS, remove VMware dependency, and help the customer establish a more transparent, cost‑efficient infrastructure model.
The challenge.
The immediate pressure came from VMware. Licensing costs were increasing significantly, and the customer wanted to remove the dependency altogether. At the same time, the organisation had an internal cloud strategy, but progress had been slow. Infrastructure costs were difficult to allocate and capacity planning followed a traditional model that no longer reflected actual usage.
Over the years, workloads have accumulated with limited oversight. IT teams lacked a clear picture of which applications were still needed, which could be retired, and which should move forward. These decisions required close collaboration between business and technical execution.
All of this had to happen under strict cost constraints, and the migration needed to reduce spending.
Why Nordcloud.
Nordcloud proposed a migration approach that removed the financial barrier to getting started. The project was fully funded through AWS mechanisms, allowing the customer to move without upfront migration costs.
Beyond funding, Nordcloud presented a clear and realistic plan. This included a total cost of ownership view, a defined migration scope and a roadmap for how the cloud environment could evolve after the initial move. The customer was looking for a partner who could take responsibility end to end, not barely delivering a one‑off migration.
Early advisory work played a key role. Nordcloud invested time in cloud education, future‑state discussions and stakeholder alignment before the migration formally began. This helped set expectations and build trust across teams.
The solution.
The project focused on migrating workloads from an on‑premises VMware environment to AWS. While the technical approach was lift‑and‑shift, the execution went further than moving virtual machines from one platform to another.
Stay-or-go assessment.
Nordcloud led a structured workload review together with IT and business stakeholders. Each application was assessed to determine whether it should be migrated, decommissioned, or retired. These discussions reshaped the scope of the project and ensured that only workloads with real business value moved to the cloud.
Introducing cloud native tools.
The migration introduced infrastructure‑as‑code and basic automation practices, giving the customer a more consistent and manageable environment from day one. Existing operational tools were integrated where needed, allowing teams to continue working while gradually adapting to cloud‑native ways of operating. We introduced Terraform tools that allow the customer’s IT teams provisioning of new AWS instances.
Guidance and best practices.
Alongside the technical work, Nordcloud supported internal teams with design decisions, best practices and enablement. Training and certification recommendations helped build confidence, while Nordcloud engineers took ownership of critical architectural choices during the migration.
Agile work and cooperation.
Working in an agile way using Scrum made it possible to react quickly to change and adjust priorities as the project progressed. In a long‑running migration, close cooperation and trust between teams were essential. Nordcloud and the customer worked closely throughout the project, combining technical expertise with open communication and shared ownership to keep delivery on track.
The outcome.
The project achieved its primary goal: VMware was fully exited and the environment was moved to AWS.
Removing redundant workloads
In the process, the customer identified a large amount of unused infrastructure. Around 40% of workloads were decommissioned instead of being migrated, delivering immediate cost reductions.
Lower costs, higher visibility
Cloud costs were significantly lower than initially estimated. Better visibility and consolidation reduced the size of the environment, while cost ownership shifted closer to the business. Teams could now see what infrastructure actually cost and make more informed decisions.
More resiliency, path to automation
Operationally, the customer gained a more resilient and transparent setup with on‑demand capacity and a clear path toward further optimisation and automation. What started as a data centre exit became a catalyst for changing how IT and the business collaborate.
With the migration complete, the customer is now using the AWS environment as a foundation for deeper optimisation and modernisation. Improved cost and infrastructure visibility made it easier to identify inefficiencies and enabled targeted post‑migration cost take‑out activities. The migration has become a practical starting point for improving efficiency, resilience and day‑to‑day cloud operations.
