Komplett's migration to Microsoft Azure

Background

Komplett managed all their systems and servers in their own datacenter in Sandefjord. The hardware was ready to be replaced. Their solution was scaled to handle increases in web trafic in periods of high demands in periods when they had campaigns. The existing solution was over-dimentioned to handle this.

The time had come to make a decision whether Komplett should upgrade their own servers or change their strategy. Komplett wanted to modernize their web platform and optimize the use of hardware when traffic to all of their websides increased. This is especially important on days like Black Friday, Christmas shopping and other campaign periods. During this prosess, Komplett had some discussions. The decision was to stop managing their own infrastructure and build internal competencies.

To shift focus to a cloud based strategy then became the natural choice. They saw that a cloud based infrastructure would cover the needs for all of the issues described earlier in this article. Komplett would use dynamic scaling of servers to increase the capazity in periods where traffic and load was higher than normal, and they did not have to have unused capazity the rest of the year.

By having a cloud based solution, Komplett does not need to think about purchasing and maintaining hardware, they would focus on their business development instead. They have the possibility to oursource a larger part of their IT services to partners. These partners is Pearl on SAP and Atea on infrastructure.

The strategy

The decision was taken, they would move everything that could be moved to the cloud. Microsoft Azure was the cloud platform for everything.

Everything that was going to be moved was categorized into 3 main categories:

• WEB
• SAP
• Office tools

Some servers/services can’t be moved, since they need to be close to components that needs to be physically in Sandefjord (warehouse robots etc.).

The project

Komplett’s decision to migrate to the cloud was taken right before Eastern in 2018, and the project was going to start as soon as possible.

Three categories of servers/systems was divided into three projectst (WEB, SAP and Office Tools). This meant that Komplett, Pearl and Atea had to cooperate and work close together. The migration plans were made and the infrastructure in Microsoft Azure was in place very quickly. Pearl was responsible for the migration of the SAP platform to Azure.

The project was quite complex since three projects was going to be managed with crossing timelines and integrations between the systems from the different projects. This demands a high level of cooperation and good and clear communication. It was very important that the plans were clear, and that all parties involved needed to turn around if plans needed to change.

A deadline for all servers/systems to be migrated was set in late September 2018. The migration plan was divided into two phases:

1. Systems that was going to be moved before the summer (July 2018)
2. Systems that was going to be moved after the summer (August 2018)

Challenges and results

So far, the project looks very promising. The plan is that all migrations of SAP will be done on time, the last systems will be migrated in the end of August.

We experienced some challenges regarding smaller virtual machines in Microsoft Azure, but this was quickly resolved through dialogue between Pearl and Atea.

The plans have been dynamic, because there was lot of unknown factors. This has been solved by having plans that have been updated regularly and communicated to everyone in the project.

Breakfast seminar on September 11th 

Pearl, Microsoft and Atea invites you to a breakfast seminar on September 11th at 08.00-10.00 in Microsoft’s office at Lysaker (near Oslo). Jostein Tuhus Sørli from Komplett will be there to tell you more about their experience of moving to Microsoft Azure.

For more information regarding the agenda and enrollment, please go into this site: https://mailchi.mp/3135ffb22e6b/sap-on-azure