- Date: August 18, 2023
- Categories: AzureCloud Migration
In August 2022, a renowned energy company embarked on a journey to transform its legacy systems and processes. They approached us with the vision to automate their on-premise workloads, enhance security, and provide real-time, comprehensive system monitoring.
As a Cloud Solutions Architect, we began this transformation by creating a Landing Zone architecture in Azure using the hub and spoke model with Terraform as Infrastructure as Code (IaC) tool. This was based on Microsoft Best Practices (Cloud Adoption Framework), with the hub hosting shared Azure services accessible to workloads hosted on the spokes. The hub network also became the pivotal node for cross-premise connections.
One of our key successes was automating their software development life cycle. We implemented robust CI/CD pipelines that automated unit and integration testing, static code analysis, package auditing, and deployment to different stages upon manual confirmation.
The next critical step was to replace on-premise workloads with serverless cloud applications. We leveraged Azure Functions (with c# and .Net6 Framework) and Logic Apps to achieve this. As a result, the system could automatically check and process email terminations and feed data into downstream on-premise systems.
To ensure thorough monitoring and logging, we utilized Azure Monitor, Application Insights, Log Analytics, and Diagnostic Settings. We were able to log platform logs for all VNets and the Virtual Gateway into a centralized Log Analytics Workspace. Additionally, we configured Application Insights for every Azure Function and Logic App, providing essential metrics such as availability and consumption.
Moreover, we established alarms for the Logic App to notify about unsuccessful workflow runs, providing real-time updates on any system issues.
With technologies like Azure Virtual Gateway, Azure Vnets, Azure Private Resolver, Azure Firewall, Azure DevOps, Azure Functions, Azure Logic Apps, Azure API Management, Azure Active Directory, Azure Private Zones, Azure DNS Forwarding Rulesets, c#, .Net 6, the project was a great success.
The company now enjoys a higher degree of automation, robust security, and continuous monitoring that optimizes their operations and strengthens their foothold in the energy sector. The successful collaboration with us resulted in significant operational efficiencies, a step towards an even more sustainable future.