From Azure to AWS: One organization’s all-in journey with AWS (XNT316)
Bona Technology's Migration to AWS
Introduction
Cam Hailes, a member of the AWS Worldwide Specialist Organization, introduces the session on Bona Technology's decision to migrate their workloads from Azure to AWS.
The presentation will cover Bona's real-world use case, the points of difference they considered, and the technical evaluation that led to their decision to go "all-in" on AWS.
Bona Technology Overview
Bona is the second-largest and fastest-growing social good software company, with a diverse portfolio of 18 products.
They operate in 5 rented data centers, have 150 vendors, and use 5 main databases, along with smaller databases for different products.
Their data center footprint is complex, with workloads spread across AWS, Azure, and Heroku.
Goals and Technical Requirements
Business goals:
Standardize everything in one place
Maintain high SLAs
Improve team collaboration
Reduce costs
Technical goals:
Leverage cloud services logically
Avoid proof-of-concept churn
Implement a single CI/CD pipeline
Migrate to Kubernetes clusters
Avoid lift-and-shift approach
Decision-Making Process
Bona evaluated both Azure and AWS, considering factors such as:
Granular control of workers
Single-tenant control plane
Avoidance of automated upgrades
Advanced metrics and networking setup
They found that 50% of their teams knew AWS better, and they already had 45% of their workloads on AWS, which was a significant advantage.
The technical evaluation favored AWS due to the isolation provided by EKS, the ability to control infrastructure, and the availability of the required metrics and networking capabilities.
Migration to AWS
Bona's migration to AWS was not a fast process, but a well-planned and strategic one.
They leveraged the AWS Migration Acceleration Program and received significant credits to support the migration.
The migration took around 8-10 months, with the involvement of software engineers, DevOps, and operations teams.
They adopted a "80/20" rule, migrating 80% of the workloads to AWS and keeping the remaining 20% documented for a gradual migration.
Benefits and Outcomes
Bona achieved a 50% cost savings for many of their products by migrating from Azure and on-premises data centers to AWS.
The non-lift-and-shift approach allowed them to gain valuable knowledge about their products and improve their CI/CD processes.
Migrating to AWS enabled Bona to undergo compliance audits (PCI, SOC2, ISO) more efficiently, reducing the audit duration from 3 months to 1 week.
Bona leveraged the AWS Migration Acceleration Program, which provided significant financial credits to support their migration.
By the end of Q2, Bona plans to have only 1.5 products remaining to be migrated to AWS, completing the majority of their migration in around 10 months.
Conclusion
Bona's migration to AWS was a strategic and well-planned decision, driven by their business and technical requirements.
The support and expertise provided by AWS, along with the availability of cloud services and tools, were key factors in Bona's successful migration journey.
These cookies are used to collect information about how you interact with this website and allow us to remember you. We use this information to improve and customize your browsing experience, as well as for analytics.
If you decline, your information won’t be tracked when you visit this website. A single cookie will be used in your browser to remember your preference.