30% Leaner, 100% Smarter: Movate’s OnDemand Platform Migration to Azure

In today’s competitive digital landscape, success isn’t just about having a powerful platform—it’s about running it smartly. At Movate, we saw a unique opportunity when Directly OnDemand joined our portfolio of platforms in 2022: the team has reimagined the platform’s cloud foundation to be faster, more scalable, and more cost-efficient.

The result? A successful migration of the OnDemand platform from AWS to Microsoft Azure, delivering:

• 30% reduction in operation costs
• 100% Infrastructure-as–Code (IaC) coverage
• A single click deployment pipeline to rebuild the entire environment
• Chaos-proof, self-healing infrastructure
• Stronger alignment with future-ready technologies

This is the success story of how we made Movate’s DirectlyOnDemand platform leaner and smarter—without missing a beat.

The Backdrop: Transforming a proven platform

Directly OnDemand is a powerful AI-driven platform that helps enterprises automate support using crowdsourced expert knowledge. Designed to scale with demand, it has helped global organizations reduce ticket volumes while improving end-user satisfaction. When Movate acquired the OnDemand platform, we saw an opportunity to take it to the next level.

Originally built on AWS, the platform served its purpose well—but rising infrastructure costs, fragmented tooling, and complex deployments signaled a need for change. With Movate’s focus on operational excellence and AI-led innovation at scale, re-platforming was a strategic next step.

The Migration Decision: Why Azure?

The move from AWS to Microsoft Azure was driven by the need to streamline infrastructure, reduce operational overhead, and align with Movate’s efficiency-first strategy. Key factors influencing the decision included:

• DevOps consolidation: The CI/CD pipeline was fragmented—Jenkins on EC2, GitHub for source control, and AWS CodePipeline for CI/CD orchestration— created friction in adopting a unified, scalable DevOps model. Azure DevOps offered an integrated, fully managed, end-to-end solution without custom orchestration overhead.
• Databricks optimization: OnDemand’s data platform relied on Databricks deployed on EC2 with pre-provisioned licenses. AWS lacked a native serverless offering, thereby increasing complexity. Azure’s first-party Azure Databricks simplified operations with autoscaling, native integration, and reduced infrastructure management.
• BI simplification: The platform used Looker for BI, which added layers of data integration. Azure’s tight integration with Power BI enabled faster, simpler analytics delivery with native data services.
• Authentication modernization: There was a need to enhance identity management. Azure Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) provided centralized authentication, SSO support, and stronger policy control—features not natively streamlined in AWS.
• Ecosystem & governance alignment: Movate’s existing investment in Microsoft’s ecosystem (Azure Security Center, Microsoft Sentinel) enabled tighter security, monitoring, and governance across all services.

Azure’s native services and unified environment met our goals to simplify, modernize, and scale – delivering both operational efficiency and long-term strategic alignment.

The Migration journey: From planning to execution

Planning & strategy

The migration began with a comprehensive assessment of the existing AWS environment, focused on minimizing risk and maximizing efficiency. Key planning activities included:

• Audit of compute, storage, and network resources
• Identification of service dependencies and risk hotspots
• Stakeholder collaboration with Microsoft and internal engineering teams
• Phased migration roadmap to ensure continuity with zero downtime for end users

We prioritized stability, speed, and long-term maintainability in every decision. The strategy unfolded in two structured phases:

Migration roadmap & execution

Migration phase	Planned activity	Planned outcome
Phase I	Lift-and-shift AWS Fargate containers to Azure Container AppsReplatform ECS-EC2 containers to Azure Container AppsMigrate EC2-based apps to Azure VM Scale Sets (VMSS)Replace Jenkins CI/CD with Azure DevOpsMigrate cron jobs to Azure FunctionsReplace Memcached with Azure Redis CacheReplace Graphite monitoring with Azure MonitorTransition Looker dashboards to Power BI	Decommissioned 33 EC2 serversImproved DevOps velocity & monitoring observability
Phase II	Migrate Databricks, TensorFlow, ETL processes, and report connectors to Azure Synapse & Azure Data FactoryContainerize remaining VM-based appsReplace OpenVPN with Azure VPN Gateway + Point-to-Site (P2S)Replace RabbitMQ with Azure Service BusMigrate Azure Marketplace Memcached solution to Azure Redis	Decommission: 30 Azure VMs52 DB servers8 Azure Containers AppsReduced infra footprint significantly

Overcoming technical hurdles

As with any enterprise-scale cloud migration, several technical challenges emerged during execution. Addressing them with agility and foresight was key to ensuring a smooth transition. Below are some of the most significant hurdles and how we overcame them:

1. Memcached compatibility on Azure:

Azure lacks a native Memcached service, prompting reliance on Marketplace solutions.

• The initial deployment used Bitnami Memcached 1.6 on a Standard_E4s-v5 (4 vCPUs, 32 GiB RAM) VM, but showed 95–100% memory utilization even under low traffic.
• After repeated instability, we transitioned to Jetware Memcached, which delivered improved performance and operational stability.

2. Large dataset migration:

Several OnDemand databases exceed 5 TiB in size, creating challenges for parallel migration:

• VPN bandwidth limitations caused initial sync failures when attempting concurrent transfers.
• A second sync was disrupted by an accidental source DB restart during pre-cutover activity.
• These were resolved by sequencing data syncs, increasing VPN throughput, and tightening change control during final cutover.

3. CentOS 7 & Java legacy stack:

Two modules were running on CentOS 7.9 and Java 1.8, both nearing end-of-life:

• Migration complexity arose due to OS support sunset and the eventual need to move to Java 21.
• We deployed an Azure Golden Image to preserve current functionality, with a defined roadmap to modernize the stack in future phases.

The Outcome: Smarter, faster, & leaner

The Azure migration delivered measurable improvements across cost, automation, security, and scalability:

• 30% lower operational costs: Reduced infrastructure footprint and eliminated overprovisioned VMs, cutting wasteful spending.
• 100% Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC): Full IaC coverage ensures consistent, error-free, and repeatable deployments across environments.
• 25% Faster release cycles: Azure DevOps streamlined CI/CD workflows, increasing deployment speed and reliability.
• Resilience through chaos testing: Platform validated for self-healing under failure conditions via controlled fault injection.
• One-click disaster recovery : DevOps pipelines enable complete infra rebuild with a single trigger, ensuring recovery readiness.
• Enhanced security & compliance: Integrated tools enable automated compliance tracking, real-time threat detection, and self-remediation.
• Future-ready architecture: Positioned to adopt Azure-native AI, analytics, and automation services for next-phase innovation.

Business impact: Riding on Movate’s AI-first approach

This cloud transformation wasn’t just a technical win—it was a strategic enabler. By consolidating Movate’s Directly OnDemand into our Azure ecosystem, we’ve:

• Accelerated platform integration with Movate’s AI and automation portfolio
• Improved visibility for leadership through unified dashboards and reporting
• Strengthened our ability to serve enterprise clients with faster SLAs and more scalable architecture

Ultimately, this migration has reinforced Movate’s commitment to operational excellence, innovation, and customer success.

Ride the W(AI)VE™ of transformation with Movate

Thinking about your own enterprise cloud transformation journey?

Whether you’re looking to cut costs, boost performance, or modernize your operations, Movate brings the expertise to orchestrate a success story – seamlessly and strategically.

Contact us to explore how we can help you power forward. Email me at Pallab.Chatterjee@movate.com