Sustainable Growth in Azure for Business Travel Firm

A company specialising in corporate travel management & events organisation successfully migrated to Azure with the support of Telefónica Tech.  This move not only laid the foundations for sustainable global expansion but also ensured the continuation of first-class service for business travellers in industries such as law, financial services, and insurance. Currently, the travel firm operates out of nearly 30 offices worldwide, including three in the UK.

The Challenge

Scalability for Global Expansion

 

As the legacy Data Centre approached the end of its lifecycle, there was a heightened urgency to migrate the workloads to Azure.

 

Key challenges faced included:

 

  • Legacy Infrastructure: the existing infrastructure reached its end of life, requiring an immediate update.
  • Lack of Scalability: the current Data Centre architecture lacked scalability for global expansion.
  • Enhanced App Performance and Availability: the travel firm needed consistent app and service performance for offices outside the UK.
  • Azure Knowledge Goals: While proficient in Microsoft technologies, their internal IT team needed to build Azure skills. Through training and support from Telefónica Tech, their internal team gained the skills needed to deploy apps directly in Azure PaaS.
  • Sustainability Goals: the travel firm wanted to move to a more sustainable, cloud-first infrastructure such as Azure to improve sustainability.

The Solution

Best Practice Azure Migration

Although the travel firm was familiar with Microsoft technologies, they needed external advice to ensure their Azure migration followed best practices. They turned to Telefónica Tech for their expertise.

 

The collaboration with Telefónica Tech included:

 

  • Initial Scoping: A detailed assessment identified priority workloads and advised on best practices.
  • Migration Strategy: Telefónica Tech first fortified the infrastructure, then migrated proprietary tech, and finally decommissioned Data Centres.
  • Skillset Enhancement: The travel firm’s internal team gained valuable skills for deploying apps in Azure PaaS.
  • Sustainability Focus: Ethical upcycling of Data Centre assets, including reporting on the carbon reduction impact.
  • On-Time Completion: The migration adhered to the specified roadmap.

The Results

  • Reliable Scalability

     

    Cost Efficiency: when expanding into new territories, Azure’s virtual infrastructure can be quickly, and cost-efficiently scaled across regions, versus duplicating physical infrastructure across every region.

    Global Scalability: Azure’s agility allowed the travel firm to scale infrastructure quickly around the world, reducing setup time for new offices from 50 days to an average of 2 days.

    Enhanced Security: Telefónica Tech guided secure practices, ensuring client data segregation and access control within Azure.

    Skillset Development: Telefónica Tech helped their internal IT team build the skills to migrate further additional workloads to Azure. Post-migration this allowed the internal team to migrate acquired organisations into Azure.

    Improved Sustainability: Moving to a sustainable cloud such as Azure is helping improve their sustainability and better measure their carbon footprint through the detailed reporting available in Azure.

    Ethical Upcycling of IT Assets: Ethical Upcycling of IT assets was a key focus, and Telefónica Tech managed the secure destruction of assets and provided detailed reports on the reduction of the travel firm’s carbon footprint.

    96%

    faster deployments, reducing new office setup time from 50 to 2 days.

    33%

    more cost-efficient hosting compared to their data centre.

    Faster logging-on time

    Logging-on time reduced to seconds from up to 5 minutes in some regions.

Solution overview

  • Migration to Azure: 120 servers in the DC reduced to 100 in Azure (reflecting the consolidated infrastructure but also global expansion)
  • CSP Azure Licensing: Telefónica Tech provided Azure licensing and technical account management, including ongoing support and 24×7 monitoring for Azure.
  • File Server Migration: Migration to SharePoint in OneDrive for enhanced collaboration.

Outcomes summary

  • 96% faster deployments, reducing new office setup time from 50 to 2 days.
  • 33% more cost-efficient hosting compared to their data centre.
  • Logging-on time reduced to seconds from up to 5 minutes in some regions.

 

 

 

 

 

Asset Upcycling Initiatives:

  • CO2 Saved by Reuse: 108K Kilogrammes
  • Water Saved: 42.3 M litres
  • Earth Not Mined: 437 K tonnes
  • Waste Avoided from Landfill: 334 kilogrammes
  • See full methodology
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