Azure Migration Services for CI/CD in Telecom

Business challenge

As a leading national provider of telecommunications and data services based on the latest mobile and fixed-line technologies, our client wanted to evaluate the feasibility of moving from on-premises data centers to the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. The company aimed at modernizing its product lifecycle with DevOps tools and optimizing infrastructure costs, performance, and flexibility by employing Azure migration services. With this transformation, our client anticipated streamlining their R&D office and evolving as a digital services provider to strengthen their position in the telecommunications industry.

To verify the feasibility of this move and ensure a smooth transition of their workloads to the cloud, our client launched a pilot project to probe on-premise to Azure migration. They considered the fast-growing Microsoft Azure for its reliable service-level agreements (SLAs), interoperability, and hybrid capabilities to build platforms that are consistent between on-premises and cloud systems. But to make use of the Azure cloud, our client lacked expertise and required a trusted technology partner that could provide top-notch Azure migration services.

For big enterprises like our client, Microsoft advises choosing verified IT companies with proven expertise and capabilities. With Microsoft Gold Partner status, Intellias has certified competencies in Azure application development, cloud platform development, and data analytics. We have also developed an open-source serverless CQRS framework that enables microservice solutions for companies operating with Azure in different domains and industries. Microsoft Partner status was a major decision factor for our client when accepting proposals for Azure workload migration. With vast expertise in telecom software development and Gold Partner status, Intellias proved to be a good match to work on this pilot.

Solution delivered

Key points

Endorsed by Microsoft, we took the lead as our client’s cloud technology partner, carefully attending to the interests of all stakeholders. Our telecom client envisioned a prototype cloud solution to verify operational cost savings, performance efficiency, and flexible scaling during Microsoft Azure migration. For Microsoft, this represented an opportunity to get a big enterprise running their services in the Azure cloud. With due dedication and assigned responsibilities, Intellias tackled the task.

In line with our client’s vision of Microsoft Azure migration, we were entrusted to build a proof of concept (PoC) for an infrastructure as code (IaC) solution to streamline continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) for successful development lifecycles based on DevOps best practices. To properly evaluate the rationale for this move, the telecom operator relied on us to track performance metrics and evaluate cost efficiency as part of our Azure migration services.

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Assessment and implementation

Drawing from a basic architecture design for our client’s prototype, we engaged iteratively with Microsoft representatives as they provided feedback on optimizations using their best-of-breed cloud services and advanced tooling. Such direct interaction and knowledge exchange allowed us to get valuable insights from our cloud partner, thus refining the solution in terms of resilience, cost, and performance.

In the context of Azure workload migration, we transferred CI/CD pipelines to the cloud while preserving on-premises control. This flexible hybrid architecture allowed our client to activate cloud resources for running tests, assembling builds, and deploying to production as needed and deactivate them upon completion.

Along with workload migration to Azure, we assessed the performance and cost of Azure cloud infrastructure and compared the results with on-premises infrastructure. We evaluated three areas in terms of speed:

• Infrastructure deployment time for development and test environments
• Time to roll back to a previous application version
• Build and deploy times

To estimate the potential capacity of migrating Azure workloads at scale, we leveraged credit allocation by Microsoft as well as their enterprise-grade cost management tools to measure performance and estimate future infrastructure costs to determine business viability. The resulting metrics provided a positive outlook, prompting our client to move forward with migration to Azure.

Accomplishments

To date, we have accomplished the technical part of the Azure migration pilot — presented the solution and results, measured performance, evaluated expected infrastructure costs — and are preparing to provide documentation and training materials as part of transferring knowledge to our client.

When providing Azure migration services, we brought our collaboration to a whole new level in terms of trust and excellence. For Microsoft, we became a reliable partner representing their ecosystem vision and advocating best practices for cloud migration. For the telecom company, we did an excellent job of verifying their concept in the shortest time yet with high quality and became a potential technology companion for the actual on-premise to Azure migration.

Business outcome

Thanks to our productive cooperation on this PoC, our client was able to quickly evaluate a potential transition to the cloud in terms of infrastructure costs and performance and how it would influence the future resilience of their telecommunications business. The prototype we created for migrating CI/CD workloads from on-premises to the Azure cloud showed positive outcomes in terms of flexibility and the speed of infrastructure deployment, guiding the telecom provider’s further decisions and strategies.

With the help of Intellias as a verified partner for Azure migration services, the telecom enterprise benefited from free Microsoft product licenses for internal use. This has already allowed them to save considerably on operational costs and will eventually provide large financial benefits when they completely transition to the cloud.

Intellias direct consultation with Azure cloud representatives on the most optimal architecture designs guaranteed a viable and future-proof solution for our telecom partner. All this happened within a short time frame and with minimal resources, enabling our client to leverage our expertise as we continue to extend Azure competencies and increase the number of certified engineers. This will provide a powerful synergy for the telecom company as they pursue their cloud transformation.