Modernising One of the Region's Largest VMware Estates
Major oil and gas enterprise, UAE
An Azure VMware Solution migration moved more than 5,000 virtual machines to the cloud without forcing application redesign or compromising operational continuity.
- Virtual machines migrated
- 5,000+Virtual machines migrated
- VMware operating model and tooling preserved through the migration
- Zero redesignVMware operating model and tooling preserved through the migration
The challenge
What was going wrong
A major oil and gas enterprise in the UAE operated a mission-critical on-premises VMware estate containing more than 5,000 virtual machines, supporting enterprise applications, operational systems, databases and legacy workloads. The customer required a cloud-modernisation path that reduced datacentre dependency without introducing unacceptable application risk or forcing immediate re-architecture, against complex application dependencies, limited migration windows and strict availability requirements.
Our approach
What we built
- 01
Ran discovery and assessment covering VMware estate discovery, application dependency mapping, workload classification, performance and storage analysis, network-flow analysis, licensing review and migration-wave planning.
- 02
Designed an Azure VMware Solution architecture with private cloud, ExpressRoute connectivity, hub-and-spoke network integration, firewall and security inspection, identity integration, monitoring, backup and disaster recovery.
- 03
Established a structured migration factory: workload grouping, wave planning, readiness validation, pilot migration, replication, cutover rehearsals, business validation, rollback planning, production cutover and hypercare.
- 04
Assessed workloads for future migration from AVS to Azure-native services where technically and commercially appropriate, as part of a broader modernisation roadmap.
The outcome
What changed
- Reduced dependence on physical datacentre infrastructure and faster cloud adoption without forced application redesign.
- Continuity of VMware tools and operational skills, and controlled migration of business-critical workloads.
- Improved infrastructure scalability and integration with Azure security and management services.
- A foundation for long-term application modernisation and improved resilience and capacity flexibility.
