Nominee: News UK supported by HCL Nomination title: Do more with Cloud What was the driving force behind the project what business or technology challenge needed to be addressed? Reinvent the company to thrive in a post-newspaper world. Media markets are undergoing substantial and disruptive changes. News UK not only needed to provide distinctive, high-quality journalism, it also had to create a subscription model that people would pay for. The company realized that it needed an agile, scalable, and elastic infrastructure that could quickly adapt to change. Optimize existing IT operations. HCL carried out carried out a high-level IT infrastructure assessment for News UK and found that it could not only optimize operational expenditures (opex) by using new hardware platforms and technologies, it could also significantly improve IT capabilities and delivery performance by consolidating its infrastructure and abandoning its proprietary platform. Replace end-of-life systems. News UK s legacy IT infrastructure was due for replacement, as it had reached the end of its product life cycle. News UK coupled the hardware refresh with consolidation and virtualization to get maximum benefit from the transformation program. How did the solution address the challenges and were there any particularly innovative aspects that made it stand out?
During the four-month cloud migration assessment contract, HCL Technologies took the following steps: It consolidated the majority of server and enterprise applications data into a single repository with automated tools (ADDM and Tideway). HCL Technologies also leveraged its "business as usual" team at News Corp (including News UK) to improve the reliability and validity of information. Using its MVC framework, it segmented the collated data into raw applications, business logic, and presentation metadata for News UK stakeholder validation. It used the Google Apps collaboration tool for the process. It devised an eight-layer cloud migration feasibility test for individual enterprise applications, with a strong emphasis on security and governance (hardware dependency, non-x86 dependency, storage and network latency, multicasting, compliance, desktop apps,virtualization support, and hardcoded). Amazon AWS acted as the support partner. In the reporting stage, it segmented enterprise applications into three core categories: feasible to move to cloud, feasible to move from physical to virtual infrastructure, and suitable to shift from legacy to new infrastructure. HCL reported the cost to run an application on a public cloud to News UK, using Google Apps and Microsoft Office as a presentation interface. What major challenges were faced during the project and how were they overcome? The cloud migration assessment project was completed in the proposed timeframe of four months, but it faced interim challenges in three areas:
Data unification In the initial phase of data synthesis, minor inaccuracies and intervals delayed the validation process. Collaboration tool limitations The collaboration tool struggled to seamlessly unify the huge volume of data from multiple locations under a single repository. For example, higher collaboration runtime was required for SAP analytics applications with an average size of 10TB. Changing cost estimates for running an application on cloud One of the core objectives of conducting cloud migration due diligence was to determine the cost per application to NewsUK. Post migration to the public cloud, poor project management can result in higher monthly costs hampering assessment synergies, due to pay-as-you-go overhead expenses (e.g. nonproductive development environment runtime costs). In February 2014, AWS drastically reduced the pricing of its S3 cloud storage service by 40%, delaying in the interim HCL s reporting of the cost per application. HCL s feasibility assessment provided News UK with comprehensive analytics of the feasibility of moving enterprise applications to the cloud. It subjected every enterprise application to the eight-layer cloud migration test (hardware, compliance, and storage feasibility), providing News Corp and News UK with pain points on a regional basis. For example, multi-casting was the primary migration challenge in North America, while the compatibility of hardware-based applications was the main challenge in EMEA. After successfully completing the due diligence project, and following its longterm data center consolidation relationship with News UK, HCL Technologies secured a three-year cloud migration contract in May 2014 for News UK and its sister companies Harper Collins and Dow Jones for the EMEA market. Figure 2 shows the strategic benefits of the cloud migration assessment and of moving 75% of enterprise applications to the public cloud. What tangible benefits has the organisation seen as a result of the project s implementation? Traditionally, the core advantages of the cloud platform were faster go-to-market, access to thirdparty solutions and infrastructure, and streamlined business processes at lower initial capital
expenditure. This is shifting toward media enterprises integrating cloud infrastructure and services as an integral part of their core technologies. News UK is riding the next wave of cloud, using the platform to streamline its business processes and develop new business, such as online subscription access points on connected devices. HCL Technologies helped News UK to migrate 89% of its enterprise applications to the public cloud. Globally, 83% of News Corp s applications portfolio will be on the cloud by 2017. HCL Technologies tight relationship with Google, Microsoft, and Amazon allowed it to conduct deep-dive analytics to determine the cost of operating and maintaining a single application. This resulted in plans to migrate 40 core and non-core applications to the cloud. Enterprises associate cloud computing technology with security and governance risks, but this case provides a best-practice approach to assessing the migration of applications to the cloud, using an MVC framework that encompasses multiple levels of data configuration and integration into a single repository, reducing the risks for media enterprises. HCL Technologies assessment of 2,000 enterprise applications across multiple locations achieved proposed cost savings of $55 65m in the next three years. This is a strong reference point for HCL Technologies in the UK publishing market. The syndication of server and enterprise applications data into a single repository is the most significant process, constituting 40% of cloud migration assessment runtime. Why nominee should win Cloud Computing Centre of Excellence: A dedicated business unit focused on building competencies, thought leadership, intellectual property (IPs) and domain solutions on Cloud HCL s own Cloud Reference Architecture Platinum member of Cloud Security Alliance (CSA)
Working Group member in Cloud Computing Panel at WEF IP's MTaaSTM - HCL's service management platform Agora - HCL's cloud monetization & service delivery platform Migration assessment Index ( MAI) Ecosystem Collaboration - Strategic partnerships with leading players in the cloud ecosystem - Cisco, EMC, Vmware, Sun, Microsoft, AWS, CSC, Salesforce.com, Azure, Tibco, BMC, CA