Moving services to hybrid and private clouds: DTEK's experience

Understanding the risks posed by the onset of war in Ukraine, DTEK Group initiated a large-scale project to migrate critical business services supported by MODUS X from on-premises data centers to cloud providers.

Among the key areas of modernization of the company's infrastructure were the following tasks:

• We developed a comprehensive solution, encompassing the migration of IT and business systems to Azure and AWS cloud providers, ensuring a secure and efficient transition:
  • Migrated 32 IT and 36 business systems and services to Azure and AWS.
  • Created landing zones in both providers for a seamless transition.
  • Utilized AVS (VMware on Azure) and AWS VMC (VMware on AWS) solutions for technological compatibility and rapid migration of services.
  • Implemented hot and cold virtual machine backup mechanisms using VMware HCX.
  • Deployed Backup and Restore infrastructure based on Veritas NetBackup for restoring infrastructure from backups.
  • Introduced Checkpoint solutions to ensure cybersecurity and traffic management in AWS and Azure cloud infrastructures.
  • Built additional communication channels from offices using VMware SD-WAN appliances, connecting all data centers, offices, and production facilities of DTEK businesses.
  • Deployed core infrastructure services: AD, DNS, NTP, PKI, ADConnect.

The MODUS X team helped DTEK implement the project of transition to hybrid infrastructure in several stages:

• Infrastructure Upgrades: Legacy hardware has been updated and the latest software-defined Data Center (SDDC) has been implemented based on VMware VCF.
• Creation of a cloud data center: selection of a cloud service provider, integration and migration of services into a hybrid infrastructure using Azure native and AWS native clouds, and Azure VMware solutions (AVS) and VMC (VMware on AWS) solutions.
• Modern backup: new solutions for data protection and recovery in a hybrid infrastructure have been introduced, which are fully supported by the solution of the market leader Veritas NetBackUP.

The transition to hybrid infrastructure has brought DTEK a number of advantages:

• Scale down to one day with the ability to quickly leverage cloud resources.
• Efficient use of resources: maximum financial efficiency at different stages of the life cycle of products and services.
• IaC and DEVOPS: adaptability of cloud infrastructures to the implementation of the Infrastructure as Code approach enabled automated infrastructure management and accelerated the speed of development and market launch of new products and сервіс.‍
• High reliability and recovery: Thanks to new backup services in the hybrid cloud, the company has provided the ability to restore business applications in case of failure of any components of the hybrid cloud, and provided 99.9% reliability, which guarantees the stability of critical services even in emergency situations.

The MODUS X team helped DTEK move into the hybrid cloud, which was a significant step towards digital transformation, significantly accelerating the pace of development and digitalization of the company through the introduction of modern digital technologies available in the hybrid cloud.