A major Dutch retailer wanted to take back control of its IT infrastructure from a traditional services provider. Breaking out of this structure would allow the retailer to be less dependent, make decisions faster and work in a more agile and efficient way in releasing new updates and services.

Infrastructure Setup

The backend infrastructure was on-premises. The retailer wanted to modernise the hosting of its core systems, and create a flexible and scalable environment in AWS.

Managed Services

To help with a smooth and fast transition, the retailer sought a cloud-native managed services provider to accelerate migration to AWS and manage application modernisation.

Empowerment

Expansion and empowerment of the in-house development team would be key to long-term success, with AWS expertise needed to drive future growth.

The Nordcloud culture was the perfect match for our IT team. The cloud-native, get-things-done approach Nordcloud bring to the table is exactly what we needed. The fact they only work with cloud brings a real focus and expertise that helps in reaching our goals efficiently.

Manager, Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure & Platforms

Major Dutch Retailer

Are you facing similar challenges?

We're specialists in solving problems using cutting-edge technology. Let us help you enjoy the benefits of the cloud.

Managed Cloud Landing Zone

Quick Start

Nordcloud conducted an architecture review, and led an AWS Migration Acceleration Programme for the retailer’s Windows workloads.

Data Centre Exit

Nordcloud then supported migration of the enterprise data centre applications. A major part of this was building the AWS landing zone. Combined with the automation built around it, this supports migration to AWS as the hosting infrastructure platform in a scalable, repeatable way.

Rapid Rollout

The landing zone allowed the retailer to ramp up multiple teams workloads on AWS, now with 7 teams and 150 services (up from 10 just 3 years ago) working on AWS, from large applications to microservices.

Migration & Modernisation

Back-end Migration

The next major step was to migrate and modernise the back-end environment, made up of 15 mainly SAP components including ERP, PIM, customer data, merchandising, financial and HR systems, all on-premise.

Integrated Approach

Nordcloud’s integrated experts migrated these applications to an AWS infrastructure, with 54 services moved from the on-premises back end to a modern AWS environment.

Managed Modernisation

Nordcloud’s managed services team continue to modernise applications, and its cloud-native approach means the retailer cut license and usage costs, improved security, and can roll out new services faster.

Integrated MSP Approach

Collaboration

With the landing zone set, Nordcloud experts continue to work in partnership with the retailer’s team to maintain regular updates, manage changes, release new features and provide expert support on a daily basis.

Upskilling

They also benefit through day-by-day empowerment as well as a defined AWS upskilling program. This includes consolidating environments into AWS, improving security, and best practice, such as rolling out IaC across all activities.

Cloud Centre of Excellence

Nordcloud provides continued input into the retailer’s Cloud Centre of Excellence. This helps to centralise cloud competencies and best practices, to help drive cloud adoption across the business.

Need more tech details?

Leave us your email and our specialists will be happy to share their expertise and more project details. Not in the mood to talk?
Simply email your questions!

Results.

Autonomy

Supported by managed cloud services, the retailer has taken control of its infrastructure from a traditional IT service provider. Integrated cloud experts helped the team to migrate and modernise quickly. The retailer now has best practices and tech in place to scale up its in-house operations.

Agility

Business-wide agility enabled through flexible, scalable and repeatable hosting environments. A modern cloud environment means the retailer can react fast to market changes and roll out new applications, and it now has a strong, scalable, future-proof foundation for driving strategic growth.

Cost Savings

30% less infrastructure costs while providing infrastructure much faster than in the past. Savings come from licence and capacity optimisation plus hosting and maintenance contracts 95% of on-premises workloads are now optimised and running on AWS.

We wouldn’t have been able to do the migration in such a successful way without the expert knowledge of Nordcloud. The design, infrastructure solution, and project management has been excellent.

Central to our success was the set up of the highly automated landing zone, and the secure environment built around it. This has given an excellent foundation for our ongoing development and modernisation efforts, as we future-proof our IT environment and embrace agility in a way we couldn’t previously.

Manager, Enterprise Architecture, Infrastructure & Platforms

Major Dutch Retailer

Empowered & Expanded

Now able to scale its in-house capabilities, onboarding a number of new teams to develop custom software on AWS. For example, there’s a new team to renew its order management environment, something that previously would’ve been outsourced.

Adaptable to Change

During the pandemic, the flexibility of its AWS environment meant the company could quickly roll out ship-from-store functionality, built in a serverless environment on AWS. Without the agility cloud enables, this wouldn’t have been possible.