Vamosa, the cloud migration practice of T-Systems, supports companies on their journey to standardise and consolidate their content and data through mergers and acquisitions. Internally, we discussed some of our previous projects, and the one that instantly came to mind was an acquisition involving two large software organisations. When this acquisition occurred in 2009 (yes, it’s a while back, but it’s still relevant!) a request from the buyer to manage the data migration, standardisation and consolidation of the newly acquired content was an opportunity we felt we more than ready to deliver – and we did.
Acquisition complete – but what about the data content and the end users?
By acquiring a large software vendor, one of the biggest challenges that faced our customer from a content perspective was to ensure that the website migration content from both suppliers was standardised and delivered from a common platform, in order to ensure the correct message was given to all of their customers. Due to the nature of the acquisition, there was a lot of media attention, and as such our customer wanted to merge the content in line with corporate guidance as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Our client required integration of two heavily used support networks. With over a million registered users for each website, many of whom use the site on a daily basis, minimal disruption was key. Additionally, the end users of the websites were not to be aware of background activity during the data content migration while receiving the support they had come to expect.
Although they are leading players in the IT industry, cloud migration was not the main focus of our customer. They wanted a proven, reliable partner to deliver their migration and so looked to Vamosa.
Understand, design, process, refinement, repeat…
A challenging data migration project was delivered successfully by T-Systems migration practice, Vamosa. Working closely with the client, we went on to deliver a focused discovery and analysis of existing content. Differences between the support networks were identified, including branding, style, metadata usage and page structure – all of which were used to drive the design, and the transformation discussions required to define the content migration approach. Duplication and obsolete content were identified, which allowed informed decisions to be made about which data content should be migrated and which should be excluded.
These validation migration runs were used to assist in the design and implementation. A flexible, agile approach was adopted. This was key, given that the target templates had not yest been fully defined, so we needed the ability to adapt to changes in template design and reprocess content in bulk when required. Repeatable validation(sample) data migrations were delivered to help the user understand the end result and iron out any anomalies in the process BEFORE the live execution of the target solution, as well as allowing us to verify the migration result. Using our Vamosa data content migration software, development and testing was applied offline, removing the impact on the live websites. Sample migrated content was added to non-production systems as the target solution was implemented.
Using a structured, automated approach, backed up with a proven methodology, allowed T-Systems to deliver seamless integration of both support networks in tight timescales (a quick delivery was key to reduce cost and user disruption), while retaining all the flexibility required by our customer.
Benefits
T-Systems were able to deliver a data migration to suit customer requirements within a tight timeline and ensure the content was available in the single support environment as quickly as possible, and without degrading the quality. This was achievable by using our expert migration consultants with our dedicated migration Software and proven methodology.
- Seamless migration – The migration project was delivered with no impact on either website, so users had no awareness of the migration process and could continue to work as normal.
- Fully Aware of the challenge – Analysis reporting provided vital information to assist in defining the business and transformation requirements that would drive the migration design. Without analysis, these decisions would have been far more difficult to justify and to come to an agreement.
- Flexible and responsive – The flexibility of the content migration team ensured an agile approach could be applied to work closely with the implementation team, ensuring a template design that would work for the content AND the authors was delivered.
- Knowledge and guidance – Experience and knowledge of the data migration team helped to provide support throughout, offering guidance on key decision points, removing a lot of stress from the migration process and allowing the customer team to focus on other important areas of the site launch, such as communication.
- Brand awareness and standardisation – Content specifically related to the acquisition could be standardised to include unified branding which met with corporate standards and to provide a consistent view, removing the need for manual updates.
An agile approach to content management migration, coupled with working closely with the business stakeholders, provided a foundation to achieve the desired result in the time available. The expertise of the Vamosa team, using a defined and proven methodology for delivery of a large number of migration projects, was a major factor in the success, providing a truly global brand the reassurance for why they selected Vamosa to successfully deliver a critical business project.
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A division of T-Systems, Vamosa Technologies specializes in content migration to cloud, on-premises and hybrid cloud systems. With two decades of customer migrations, Vamosa Technologies has experience with a comprehensive range of leading enterprise content management systems. To learn more about services from Vamosa Technologies, please read our case studies and whitepapers or contact us.
