Earth Moving Migration

The Challenge

An ASX-100 mining company had chosen to end an existing hosting contract and was facing an urgent deadline to migrate business-critical applications out of its data centre. The company needed a cloud hosting platform that offered resiliency, scalability, and a lower cost base, while avoiding business downtime or risking the loss of any data.

The project carried strict requirements around data sovereignty. All data had to remain within Australia, and the company required strong isolation guarantees and formal security controls throughout the migration. There was no room for extended timelines or phased rollouts that might leave the business exposed between environments. The migration had to be planned and executed as a single coordinated effort.

To ensure the first workload migration to AWS went smoothly within the short timeframe, Kablamo came onboard to set up an operational environment on AWS and guide the migration. The project also needed to deliver training and documentation that would allow the company's operations team to manage and grow the new cloud environment independently after handover.

The Approach

The engagement was structured in two phases. The first phase focused on discovery and establishing the AWS landing zone: defining and setting up the account structure, proving out security postures and governance practices, analysing servers and applications, and prioritising migration candidates.

The team started with a technical workshop to establish prerequisites and map the current state. From there, Kablamo designed and implemented the networking layer, configured and rolled out the AWS account structure, built an automation framework for repeatable deployments, and provisioned security controls. The phase concluded with a demonstration application deployed to production, proving the environment was ready for live workloads.

After analysis of the company's computing infrastructure and business needs, Kablamo recommended AWS Server Migration as the appropriate tool to transfer virtual machines into the cloud. The migration approach included:

• Detailed migration timeline using native AWS tools
• CloudFormation, CodeCommit, and CodeBuild for infrastructure automation
• Fast, reliable network link from the existing data centres into AWS
• Agile framework with Kablamo and the company's teams working side by side
• Upskilling of internal staff to operate and extend the new environment

In parallel with the Phase 1 build, the team ran application discovery sessions to identify, categorise, and rank migration candidates for the second phase. This produced a prioritised application list that would guide the physical migration of servers in the follow-on engagement.

Security was a first-class concern throughout the engagement. The team designed the AWS account structure with strong isolation between environments, implemented least-privilege IAM policies, and configured network security groups to mirror the controls the company had maintained in its physical data centre. All data remained within Australian AWS regions, meeting the company's sovereignty requirements without compromising on performance or availability.

The second phase covered the physical migration of servers and followed directly from the landing zone work, building on the proven automation framework and network connectivity established in Phase 1.

The Results

The migration was completed in nine weeks, on time, within budget, and exactly to scope with zero business downtime. Business-critical applications were moved from the data centre to AWS without any interruption to operations, meeting the strict data sovereignty and security requirements throughout.

The company now has a well-governed, best-practice AWS environment with strong network design and connectivity. The automation framework built during the engagement means that new environments can be provisioned consistently and quickly, removing the manual overhead that had characterised previous infrastructure changes.

The prioritised application list and repeatable migration frameworks developed during the first phase provided a clear, structured path for subsequent migrations across the company's global operations. Rather than treating each migration as a standalone project, the frameworks ensured that future moves could follow a consistent, low-risk process with predictable timelines and costs.

Internal teams gained hands-on experience with AWS through the upskilling program, building the confidence and capability to manage the cloud environment without ongoing external support. Documentation covered operational procedures, monitoring, incident response, and the automation tooling, giving the operations team everything they needed from day one.

Looking Forward

Through the upskilling program and documented automation tooling, Kablamo ensured both the project's success and a strong foundation for the company's cloud-centric future. The repeatable frameworks and automation tooling mean that future data centre exits can follow the same proven approach, reducing risk and compressing timelines.

The second-phase engagement for physical server migration followed directly, building on the production-ready AWS landing zone, network design, environment automation, and security provisioning established in Phase 1. The company is now equipped to progressively move additional global data centres into AWS using the same methodology, with internal teams capable of leading the process. What began as a nine-week migration under tight deadline pressure has become the foundation for a long-term cloud strategy across the company's global operations.