Case Study: An integration migration assessment for social housing

Overview

We recently completed an engagement with a UK-based housing association who faced significant challenges with their legacy integration system. The system, built on BizTalk 2016, is nearing the end of its extended support life (scheduled for 2028) and the client lacked in-house expertise to manage and maintain this legacy system and sought a solution to modernise their systems.

Challenge

The client’s existing BizTalk system was integral to managing critical business processes, including ticketing and work orders for housing-related support.

The main issues with the BizTalk platform were:

• End-of-life, currently in extended support with no new features
• Impractical to create new solutions given the need to migrate
• License / hosting costs (~￡45,000-￡50,000 annually)
• Lack of in-house expertise to develop or maintain applications
• Hard to find skilled developers as few people now support this technology

The primary objective of the engagement included:

• Assessing the current BizTalk system to understand its complexity and identify migration requirements
• Providing a detailed migration plan to Azure Integration Services, including cost estimation, risk analysis, and recommendations
• Delivering a solution that retained existing business processes while using modern technology for enhanced performance, security, and scalability

Solution

Our team conducted a comprehensive assessment over a two-week period, resulting in a detailed report that outlined:

1. System Analysis: An in-depth evaluation of the existing BizTalk system, including applications, workflows, and integration points
2. Migration Feasibility: Identification of the technical and business implications of transitioning to Azure, including technical risks and challenges
3. Cost and Resource Estimation: A bespoke sizing approach was used to estimate the effort, resources, and costs required for migration
4. Modernisation Plan: A proposal for reengineering the capitalises Azure’s cloud platform while maintaining existing business capabilities
5. Risk Mitigation: Highlighted the need for skilled professionals to manage both the legacy BizTalk system and the new Azure-based environment during and after migration

Results and Benefits

The detailed report equipped the client with a clear understanding of their current system’s architecture and a roadmap for modernisation.

Key outcomes included:

• Business Agility: The most important outcome for our client was the prospect of modernize the rest of their business.? BizTalk had left them “stuck in a time warp”, and they can now plan the rest of their modernization programme
• Cost savings: The transition to Azure Integration Services is expected to significantly reduce maintenance costs by utilizing the client’s existing Azure infrastructure
• Improved performance: Migration to a cloud-based platform enhances security, latency, and error management capabilities
• Risk awareness: Identification of gaps in in-house capabilities provided the client with actionable insights to mitigate risks
• Business continuity: The solution ensured that existing business processes would remain intact during migration, minimizing disruption

Next Steps

Our client plans to initiate the migration project in early 2025, with an estimated timeline of 6-9 months until completion. Our team is poised to provide continued support throughout the migration phase, drawing on our expertise in both BizTalk and Azure technologies.

Conclusion

This project underscores the importance of proactive assessment and planning when transitioning from legacy systems to modern platforms. By delivering a thorough analysis and actionable recommendations, we enabled our client to make informed decisions about their technology roadmap based on hard data.

Sign up to our upcoming webinar ‘A Full End to End BizTalk to Azure Migration: Deep Dive’ on Wednesday 26th February 14:00 – 15:00 GMT > https://streamyard.com/watch/CCHX5xv4y7iv

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