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GSCF onboards supply chain financing system to the cloud in just three months
With our help, GSCF built a fully functional AWS cloud to support its supply chain financing system. In just three months, the company migrated from an outsourced and on-premise environment, reducing monthly costs and technical issues.
Project overview
AWS migration in three months: Mission Impossible?
GSCF is a fully integrated Working Capital as a Service provider, supporting the connected capital ecosystem of suppliers, buyers, and financial partners.
The company approached us following the acquisition of a Swiss-based finance company known for its exceptional system of managing supply chain finance programs via its own data centre. At this stage, GSCF was looking to migrate its outsourced and on-premises system and the acquired company’s software stack to AWS, so GSCF’s clients could use this unified platform to conduct business.
Speed and quality were the top priorities, but there was another challenge to tackle. GSCF required the data to be processed in Switzerland. However, the AWS region for Switzerland had only just come online, and some of the services required for the cloud migration simply weren’t available there yet.
All these factors led to the project being dubbed ‘Mission Impossible’ by GSCF’s Chief Operating Officer & CTO, Steve Crusenberry.
GSCF & Zühlke:
Learn more about the successful partnership
On-premises to cloud migration process
‘The AWS infrastructure task was brand-new and something we’ve never done before. We needed experts to guide us, and that’s exactly where Zühlke came in’, says Gary Hall, Chief Product Officer at GSCF.
For Zühlke, the task was clear: quickly ascertain whether the three-month cloud migration was possible. So, our team set out on a four-week discovery process to find answers to this critical question. After two weeks, we realised it could be done and, in the interest of not wasting time, we created a plan for the project. Following sign-off from GSCF, we quickly ramped up a team across Zühlke’s Swiss, German, UK, Serbian, and Portuguese locations and began delivering the cloud solution.
Thanks to our partnership with AWS and access to internal AWS resources, we were able to start building the cloud-native platform in Germany, where the required AWS services were available. In parallel, we collaborated with AWS in readiness for the introduction of these services in the new Swiss region.
Overall, we supported GSCF by performing the following tasks:
- Analysis of project requirements and definition of the scope of work
- Support in containerisation of apps running on-premises with Docker and transfer to the private images' registry
- Landing zone design
- AWS multi-region setup
- Infrastructure configuration
- Setup of the Kubernetes cluster on AWS with the application stack
- Implementation of security best practices
- Integration of third-party services into the system
- Handover to the GSCF team with workshops, pair programming, and training to facilitate continuous value creation and ensure successful post-implementation operations.
The solution incorporated a range of tools to handle different tasks. At its core, it used database services, container orchestration tools, file transfer solutions, virtual servers, load balancers, domain naming services, monitoring tools, and various security and data protection tools.
Value of a cross-industry network of architects
To ensure project quality, our cloud experts capitalised on Zühlke’s multidisciplinary team by holding architecture calls with experienced architects from other parts of Zühlke Group.
During the calls, the team working on GSCF’s migration discussed any challenges they encountered and showcased the emerging architecture to get feedback from those working on other projects. This kind of feedback loop was great for verifying the quality of the setup, getting access to other ideas, and speeding up problem solving.
Ensuring a secure cloud migration strategy
Despite the tight timeframe, following the transition, it was crucial for the security levels to be at least equal to or better than that of the on-premises infrastructure. To ensure this, Zühlke’s team developed appropriate safety measures and encryption for all data that was in use or had to be transferred, guaranteeing full compliance with the relevant financial regulations.
Although Switzerland was a new region with some security services initially unavailable, we prioritised using its AWS data centres. Our cloud specialists maintained data exclusively in Switzerland, utilising some services from Germany temporarily. As those services became accessible in Switzerland, we promptly transitioned them with AWS's help.
Impact of Zühlke’s cloud migration services
‘It’s very rare to find a third-party company where the collaboration is as good as it is with Zühlke. It’s phenomenal. Zühlke is a premium service provider and for us, the best-in-class processes, calibre of expertise, and superior outcomes more than justify the investment. We absolutely would not have completed the project without them,’ concludes GSCF’s Chief Operating Officer & CTO, Steve Crusenberry.
Thanks to Zühlke’s architectural expertise and agile delivery methods which ensured quick onboarding of the team, efficient project management, and regular communication, GSCF successfully migrated its system and software stack to the AWS cloud.
Despite the tough conditions, the project was completed on time and will support a monthly operational cost savings of £250,000. What’s more, the new cloud infrastructure offers greater flexibility and helps minimise technical issues, data quality problems, and manual overheads.
