Company

Software ERP software serving over 120 metal processing companies with bespoke organizational solutions.

Subject title (What’s been achieved)

Improved the backward compatibility and efficiency of ERP software on an isolated and highly secure cloud environment.

Summary

An ERP software vendor reached out to we-IT® in search of a highly secure, operational, and flexible cloud environment for their application development. Our client required better backward compatibility for their application, allowing newer versions to share data and run without errors on the latest operating system on the cloud. We achieved a highly functional and secure software deployment that our client was able to sell ‘As a service’-by outsourcing the entire provisioning to us, and reducing the load of hotline requests to a bare minimum.

Introduction

At we-IT®, we have made a commitment to providing software vendors with secure and highly available desktop environments for their applications on our cloud. Regardless of the unique requirements and complexity of the legacy software, we deliver to them a standardized environment, which enables highly automated deployments for solutions like this ERP software to be outsourced ‘As a service’ to customers from various remote locations. Our cloud-hosted services aim to eliminate the constraints of installation, configurations, and routine maintenance that the vendor would normally handle single-handedly.

When this ERP client contacted with a cloud migration inquiry, we were prepared to deliver the infrastructure and IT services that will match with the quality standards of a highly established software company, based in Germany. Our client takes pride in the flexibility and modern interface of their application, which has facilitated the completion of more than 250 projects in metal processing and construction over the course of 25 years. Their success in the industry required a continuity approach that will enable their business to scale faster by using the latest advancements in cloud computing, whilst overcoming the pitfalls caused by newer operating systems and reduced backward compatibility.

 

Business challenge

Customer story

Our cooperation with this software vendor was fruitful for both sides from start till end. When the client approached us in the very beginning, we knew the responsibility we were taking with this project and how high had the bar been set for our team. We were taking over the deployment for a large non-native cloud company, which was also well established in their industry over the course of nearly three decades. They provide a comprehensive solution for order processing, planning, and materials management to small and large-sized businesses with bespoke needs within the construction and metal processing sector.

“Above all, we value the flexibility and efficiency of our solution. Over the last 25 years, we have supported metalworking companies, businesses in construction, engineering, and contract manufacturing with bespoke software solutions that respond to the individual client needs front and center. Our customers range vastly in workload types and user sizes. This explains why we employ a strong focus on quality and agility with our customizable ERP solutions across multiple industries, with companies calling for unique functions on their software products.”

“Even though we were developing and moving fast in our industry, we were faced with a problem. Switching to newer operating systems was a challenge for our software solution, which was built to exist on older Windows, becoming more out of date year by year. This is why we needed a centralized environment that will provide higher backward compatibility of our solution with the newer OS versions, without having to make changes to our code libraries and risk the integrity or functionality of our solution.”

Our goal as a cloud provider was clear: We needed to provide a centralized and standardized cloud environment for our client that would ensure their business continuity- by means of accomplishing seamless compatibility- between the ERP software and newly emerging Windows versions.

 

Transformation 

ERP software on the cloud

Working in partnership with this ERP software vendor gave us a lot of confidence in the flexibility and availability of our technology. Taking on a cloud migration project for a software vendor that has years of experience under their wing, as well as a very high focus on agility with regards to their product, was an ambitious undertaking that our team embraced fully. Our goal was to provide the client with a compatible and highly secure environment for their application, which would allow the vendor to offer their software ‘As a service’ to the wider construction and processing market over the cloud.

As a responsible cloud provider, we embarked on this transformation journey by putting our customer’s needs first and designing a migration plan entirely based on their unique requirements. To find out more about the transition and the challenges that we-IT® had to overcome over the course of this project, we asked the company’s head executive about their experience working with this client.

“The key point for us was to provide high backward compatibility for our ERP client. We needed to make sure that the system we deployed from the cloud was going to be equally or more secure than before, whilst being highly compatible with the newer Windows systems, which their code library could no longer support on their servers. In a competitive marketplace, software vendors that want to stay on the leading edge need the infrastructure that will allow them to be more adaptable to those changes as they come. This is essentially what our cloud solution does for these customers. It provides them with a highly agile desktop environment, which does not fall short on security or cost-effectiveness.”

“The implementation of this project took a lot less time than what the client would have spent on adjusting and optimizing their existing libraries to be compatible with the latest OS upgrades. We implemented a series of technical protocols to isolate and secure the client’s virtual desktop environment on our public cloud servers. This way, the vendor could rely on a centralized solution for their software, which did not require hefty installation and configuration procedures for every individual customer they were onboarding. All it took for them to roll out their product to new customers was to provide them with access credentials to their software workstations on the cloud, and that was it.”

When we asked we-IT® about their main principle behind cloud migration for software vendors, they replied: “Testing before deployment to customers is the most time-consuming and significant step in the migration process. If we do not accomplish the results we want, we continue until we do.”

 

Results

High backward compatibility

Facilitating the digital transformation journey for software vendors such as this well-established ERP client across Germany proved the limitless capabilities of cloud technology and our in-house expertise. The main challenge that we-IT® had to face as a cloud provider was to deliver the guaranteed backward compatibility for the ERP solution with operating systems on the cloud. When you are working with large-sized companies that outsource their development to hundreds of customers in dozens of industries with bespoke requirements, you are setting off on a cloud-first journey that takes a significant amount of expertise, back-end infrastructure, and ultimately, resourcefulness during all the different stages of migration, and deployment.

In the end, we managed to accomplish a highly isolated environment for the client software that was highly secure and showed faster deployment times. Once we were certain of the efficiency of our cloud deployment, we proceeded with providing access control to users and implementing cyber security protocols or other changes that were unique to the requirements of our client, and their customers.

The best outcome we managed to achieve in this partnership was faster, more flexible and secure deployment, which resulted in fewer hotline requests for the client. All maintenance and additional configuration steps were taken over by we-IT® and our client could ultimately focus on developing their core functions and expanding their customer reach to the wider business market in their industry. Overall, with this digital transformation project, we proved that the sky is the limit for the cloud, and business continuity walks hand in hand with the latest virtualization technology and competencies in cloud computing.

Let us advise you!

If you would also like to benefit from a practical and modern application, we are always there to provide you with reliable support.

The best way to do this is to register directly in our form so that we can contact you as quickly as possible.
We appreciate your interest!

With our products you benefit from all the advantages of cloud computing.

Contact us today

    WordPress Cookie Notice by Real Cookie Banner