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Consolidating Cloud Services Without Disrupting the Business
Overview
Target Professional Services had already adopted Microsoft Azure for much of its IT estate, but several business-critical workloads remained hosted in AWS.
Operating across multiple cloud environments introduced additional complexity, increased administrative overheads and made it more difficult to maintain a consistent approach to security, governance and infrastructure management.
Target engaged Aztec to consolidate its remaining AWS-hosted services into Microsoft Azure as part of a wider strategy to simplify operations, strengthen governance and create a more unified cloud platform.
By bringing services onto a single strategic cloud platform, the organisation aimed to reduce operational complexity, improve visibility across its infrastructure and create a stronger foundation for future growth.
Aztec developed a structured migration approach designed to minimise risk, maintain service availability and ensure business-critical systems remained operational throughout the transition.
The result was a controlled cloud transformation that simplified infrastructure management while maintaining the resilience, security and performance required by the business.
Reducing Complexity and Risk
Managing infrastructure across multiple cloud providers can introduce unnecessary complexity and increase administrative overhead.
Target wanted to streamline operations while ensuring that security controls, governance requirements and resilience measures remained effective throughout the migration process.
Aztec adopted a phased migration strategy that prioritised stability, testing and risk reduction rather than relying on a high-risk direct cutover.
This allowed services to be replicated, validated and thoroughly tested within Azure before any production workloads were transitioned.
A rollback strategy was also incorporated into the project plan, providing confidence that services could be restored quickly should any unexpected issues arise during migration.
Creating a Platform for Growth
Consolidating workloads into Microsoft Azure has provided Target with a simpler and more consistent cloud environment that is easier to manage and govern.
The migration has strengthened visibility across infrastructure, simplified administration and supported the organisation's wider security, compliance and governance objectives.
With all strategic cloud services now operating within a single platform, Target benefits from a stronger foundation for future growth and development.
The Outcome
The migration was completed successfully, consolidating Target Professional Services' remaining cloud workloads into Microsoft Azure.
As a result, Target now benefits from:
- A unified cloud platform with improved operational visibility
- Reduced complexity through the removal of multi-cloud administration
- Enhanced consistency across security and governance controls
- Maintained resilience and service availability throughout the transition
- Support for compliance and assurance requirements
- Ongoing cost efficiencies through simplified cloud management
- A scalable foundation to support future business growth
- Reduced operational risk through a structured migration approach
Most importantly, the project enabled the organisation to modernise its cloud strategy without disrupting day-to-day business operations.
The Challenge
Although Microsoft Azure had already been adopted for much of the organisation's IT estate, several business-critical workloads continued to operate within AWS.
Maintaining infrastructure across multiple cloud providers created additional complexity, increased administration overheads and made it more challenging to apply consistent security and governance practices.
The migration also needed to support upcoming compliance and assurance activities while maintaining service availability and minimising disruption to users.
The priority was to:
- Simplify cloud infrastructure management
- Reduce operational complexity across multiple platforms
- Maintain security, resilience and performance standards
- Support compliance and governance objectives
- Minimise disruption to business operations
- Reduce migration risk through careful planning and testing
- Create a scalable cloud foundation for future growth
Our Approach
Aztec worked closely with Target Professional Services to assess the existing cloud environment and develop a structured migration plan focused on stability, resilience and risk reduction.
Planning and Validation
Rather than migrating services directly into production, a new Azure environment was established to allow workloads and supporting services to be replicated and validated before implementation.
Security controls, resilience measures and operational requirements were reviewed and replicated within Azure to ensure the target environment aligned with the organisation's governance requirements.
Extensive testing was carried out throughout the project to identify and resolve any issues before business-critical services were transitioned.
Controlled Migration Delivery
To further reduce risk, Aztec incorporated a rollback strategy into the migration plan, providing a clear path to restore services if required.
Once validation was complete, workloads were transferred into Azure using a controlled migration process designed to minimise disruption while maintaining service availability.
By combining careful planning, testing and governance with a phased delivery methodology, Aztec ensured the migration could be completed with confidence.
In Their Words
"For us, the key objective was ensuring we could simplify our infrastructure without compromising security, resilience or accountability. Aztec worked closely with stakeholders throughout the project, providing clear communication and a structured migration approach that allowed the transition to be completed with confidence."
Brendon Hogan
Risk & Compliance Director
