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XCO, INC. ON-PREMISE TO AZURE MIGRATION

OBJETIVE

CDW and Microsoft Azure cloud customer Xco, Inc. desired a migration of two web servers from their on-premise hosting environment to Microsoft Azure’s cloud. Little else was known about their existing hosts except that they were running as VMware ESX virtual machines and each served content specific to one of two domains (two separate web sites) Xco.com and Xcoledlighting.com.

Engagement Assessment & Identified Requirements

An initial introduction and brief interview session with the Xco, Inc., revealed certain unknowns about the environment which the customer was eager to receive help with elucidating. Cloudify examined the configuration in real-time with the customer via Webex. Subsequently, Cloudify created a project plan that covered all essential items and also identified areas for improvement and efficiency. (Such as moving from two virtual machines to one consolidated webhost in Azure, both saving cost, complexity and improving performance.)

Engaging Cloudify, Inc.

Due to the customer’s relative inexperience with Microsoft Azure and a desire to make the migration as effortless as possible CDW reached out to Cloudify, Inc. to assist Xco, Inc. with their endeavor.

Principal Identified Requirements

1. Setup Azure virtual network and hosts
2. Migrate web hosts from Vmware to Azure
3. Educate client on Azure configuration and management

Project Execution

During the migration Cloudify discovered more opportunities for improvement of Xco’s web design and choice of frameworks. Xco.com had code references that required changes to ensure proper rendering on more recent versions of PHP. As these changes were necessary to ensure proper operation of the website in the new Azure environment Cloudify made the changes for the customer during the migration. The entire effort was executed in under 8 hours of Cloudify resource time.

 

Post Implementation Support Opportunities

Working closely with Xco’s technical team revealed future opportunities for assist with migrations of other infrastructure to Azure and the integration of an ERP system with a web storefront for Xcoledlighting.com. Additionally, that website contained minor CSS rendering issues to which the customer was interested in receiving assistance with resolving. This information was provided to CDW for follow-up with the customer

Challenges Averted

1. Documentation provided by Microsoft for Azure delegate administration and account permissions were unclear and required revision. Cloudify compiled a simple step-by-step guide which the customer could easily understand to perform their necessary tasks.

2. Xco.com consisted of hybrid legacy html and php code which would have caused compilation issues by the PHP handler on the Azure Linux web hosts. Cloudify’s experience with both web development, support and cloud architecture enabled us to quickly identify those risk factors and (fortunately) the effort for those code fixes fit within the initial time estimates given for project execution