Solution background

Business challenges

Asmara’s ERP solution, WFX was deployed on SQL Server on-premises. Owing to the high costs of infrastructure, they had setup only a single node infrastructure without high availability. Given their size and scale of operations, they were also looking to setup a DR infrastructure at a third-party datacentre and were exploring available options.

Being a business critical, and highly demanding application in terms of compute and system resources Asmara’s IT team was finding it difficult to keep pace with growing needs. They needed to invest in skilled manpower to manage the SQL instance, along with support functions such as scaling and patching. The unique nature of the LoB solution architecture meant that their SQL Server was directly exposed to the Internet, and this posed a significant security risk. Moreover, the database security was Asmara’s responsibility – the vendor did not take ownership of this. This meant a significant security and compliance management burden on Asmara’s IT.

Even as they explored DR options, they were also experiencing poor end user experience with a single node deployment. It was essential to provide HA and DR, but these costs were prohibitive and involved huge amounts of capex. Even data replication from production to their reporting server required a third-party utility.

Quadra at work

As a trusted technology advisor to Asmara, Quadra’s consultants analysed their current and future business needs, and quickly determined that continuing on-premises would entail significant costs. However, the needs were real, and hence we proposed that Asmara move to a SQL Managed Instance on Azure, which would provide them virtually unlimited scalability, as well as inherent security and DR capabilities.

We carried out a proof of concept, which met with management approval, and proceeded to migrate their on-premise SQL instance to Azure. A site to site VPN was established between Asmara’s on-premises DC and the Azure environment. Our team migrated the database, and configured SQL Server Reporting Service on the Azure Managed Instance to facilitate business insights. By setting up SQL MI on the Business-Critical tier, we ensured the highest levels of availability and performance for their mission critical application.

Business benefits

With a managed cloud instance on a business-critical tier, Asmara was now assured of 99.99% SLA. We helped Asmara free up valuable time from fire-fighting daily performance and scalability issues, as well as eliminate the overhead in maintaining security. Patch management and version upgrade duties were also taken care of with the managed instance. With quick provision and service scaling, we enabled Asmara to provide the best possible database performance for their ERP, thus enhancing end user experience. Also, by providing integration with other PaaS data services, we provided a future ready experience for Asmara.