Detailed project case study

Hybrid Data Infrastructure & Cloud Movement

A pragmatic move from legacy and on-premises patterns towards Azure-enabled services and more resilient data access.

Portfolio headline

Designed and improved hybrid data infrastructure to make operational and commercial data more accessible, resilient and useful without putting continuity at risk.

01

Context

The business needed to modernise without a disruptive rip-and-replace programme. Some systems had to remain close to operations while reporting, recovery and integration needed to become more flexible and secure.

02

My mandate

Define and deliver a practical cloud transition that improved data access and recovery without putting operational continuity at risk.

03

Scope

  • Enterprise hybrid estate
  • Operational and commercial data
  • Virtualisation, recovery and identity controls
  • Phased transition around live dependencies

Selected technologies

  • Microsoft Azure
  • Hybrid cloud
  • VMware vSphere
  • Windows Server
  • Citrix
  • SQL Server
  • Secure data movement
  • DR / BCP
  • Identity controls
04

Key decisions

  • Keep workloads close to operations where dependency and recovery needs justified it.
  • Move reporting and integration capabilities in phases, with continuity and rollback designed into the transition.
05

What the team delivered

  • Designed a phased hybrid model around operational dependencies and continuity requirements.
  • Improved secure movement of operational and commercial data into reporting workflows.
  • Modernised virtualisation, recovery and access patterns while preserving required on-premises systems.
06

Trade-offs

The target architecture had to improve flexibility and resilience without turning cloud adoption into a disruptive rip-and-replace exercise.

07

Outcome

  • Improved access to operational and commercial data.
  • Reduced reporting and failover risk carried by fragile legacy infrastructure.
  • Created a scalable foundation for analytics and future cloud services.
08

Evidence

Operational reporting and recovery testing tracked data availability, reporting resilience and failover readiness.

09

What this demonstrates

Pragmatic cloud judgement, transition architecture and resilience-led platform modernisation.