Delivered the transformation & migration of business-critical systems & Citrix applications to Azure cloud solutions as part of a group-wide Cloud transformation programme
The Situation
- As part of a group-wide Transformation programme Croydon council setup a private Azure cloud solution into which they wished to migrate their business-critical systems, services & data
- The goal was to improve the performance, stability & security of the systems for staff & customers as well as enable remote & mobile access utilisation of business systems (WFH)
The Task
- Identify, prioritise & migrate business-critical systems & Citrix packaged applications to the Croydon council Azure cloud solution
- Refresh, update or repackage systems & applications to enable hosting in the Azure cloud
- Manage a portfolio of projects to design & deliver these migrations incl. systems/apps updates
The Action / Approach
- Established programme, project & delivery structures & governance
- Worked closely with business, IT & supplier teams to identify, quantity & prioritise the list of systems & Citrix apps to be migrated to Croydon’s Azure cloud solution
- Worked closely with business, IT & supplier teams to design, upgrade & repackage systems & Citrix apps to enable them to be hosted in the Azure cloud incl. upgrading systems/apps where required; led testing teams & solution acceptance teams
- Involved in application & data migration strategies, solutions & delivery approaches as well as Cloud designs & solutions to host the migrated systems & apps
- Worked with Management teams to setup business cases with benefits & savings; managed the procurement of supplier solutions & resources to enable the above incl. SLAs
- Involved in planning the decommission of current sites & infrastructure
The Result
- Migrated 40 business-critical systems, incl. upgrades & data migration, within 6 months
- Consolidated & reduced number of Citrix-based apps from 220 to 90 & migrated these, incl. upgrades, within 4 months
- Improved the performance (↑30%), stability/uptime, & flexibility of systems with scalable cloud solutions which could be accessed from remote & home-based locations
- The reduction of physical servers with newer, more powerful cloud solutions combined with the removal of current data centres & support services led to cost savings of £1m+
Focus In On: Responsible for Project and Programme Delivery
New Areas of Value:
Ability to clearly demonstrate value to the business
Increased credibility with and confidence from across the business
Higher delivery efficiency and effectiveness from clarity around process performance
Improved project estimation and delivery capability (right first time)
Improved customer and colleague service and satisfaction
Greater acceptance of change – quicker to implement new changes
Better support of business directives
Improvements around:
Lack of appropriate collaboration tools and ways of working
Lack of subject matter expertise and experience
Lack of clarity or understanding on operational readiness requirements
Weak project prioritisation, approval, compliance and sponsorship
Poor communication of requirements, progress and expectations
Disruption from business restructure or reprioritisations
