Case Study
UST leads seamless Azure data migration project during a global retailer’s complex $200M divestiture
OUR CLIENT
Our client is a global retail leader renowned for affordable shopping and convenience. With a vast network of stores and a robust e-commerce platform, it offers a wide range of products, from groceries to electronics. Its customer-first approach, advanced supply chain management, and tech-driven innovation set the benchmark for large-scale retail operations. Its extensive reach and influence make the company a dominant player in local and international markets, supporting millions of families with everyday essentials and more.
THE CHALLENGE
International divestitures require complex data migration effort
Our client was in the process of divesting four international business entities as part of a 5-year, $200-million strategic initiative. The effort required the company to migrate all of the divested entities’ business data from its legacy systems to the new ownership companies, including multiple data warehouses and lakes, hundreds of applications, and thousands of daily real-time and batch data transfers across each divestiture. These requirements also added complexity to the migration project:
- The client needed to provide both historical one-time and incremental data migrations during a three to 5-year cutover period.
- Business systems could not be disrupted, and the performance impact on source systems had to be minimized.
- The migration process needed to support strict data governance policies for security, compliance, and auditing.
- Support for multiple data types and exchange patterns was essential, including structured/unstructured and batch/near real-time data.
- The project had to be completed within a stipulated time frame to avoid penalties as outlined in separation contracts between the client and the divested entities.
THE TRANSFORMATION
Azure-based data migration platform with custom accelerators facilitated seamless data migrations
UST designed, architected, and implemented a comprehensive Azure-based data migration platform to facilitate the project. The solution supported complex migration tasks from legacy systems, including Mainframe DB2, SQL, Oracle, SAP, Teradata, and Hadoop, ensuring a seamless migration of business-critical data to the divested company’s systems without interrupting operations.
UST’s platform was engineered to handle a variety of data sources and types, ensuring the secure, compliant, and timely migration of data. This effort included custom-built accelerators that streamlined the migration process, improved performance, and reduced overall complexity.
By employing a hybrid model, legacy and new business entities operated concurrently during the migration. This approach minimized downtime, reduced the risk of disruptions, and ensured operational continuity. The solution allowed for smooth data transfers across multiple environments while fully complying with security and governance requirements.
The migration platform fulfilled the immediate divestiture needs and also laid a foundation for long-term scalability with future-proof integrations. The client can now manage complex data migration scenarios efficiently, ensuring secure, real-time, and batch data transfers without impacting system performance or disrupting ongoing operations.
THE IMPACT
Completing the project ahead of schedule at half the cost and 30% fewer resources
The Azure-based cloud data migration platform enabled the global retailer to meet data migration targets during the divestiture contract period. The successful engagement achieved these impressive results:
- 50% reduction in migration costs—with streamlined processes and custom accelerators
- 30% fewer resources needed—by optimizing resource utilization
- 80% decreased risk of business interruptions—providing peace-of-mind to company leaders during the divestiture period
- An impressive 3-month setup timeframe—to deliver a fully operational platform, contributing to an ahead-of-schedule project delivery
Learn more about UST Cloud Transformation Services and UST Azure CloudOps.
RESOURCES
https://www.ust.com/en/our-partners/microsoft/ust-azure-cloudoperations
https://www.ust.com/en/what-we-do/digital-transformation/data-analytics