Business Challenge 

A large Industrial customer began the journey to expand their cloud use with  AWS. The demand for cloud technology has been driven by the need to address  key business challenges: 

• Reduce the exploration time cycle by speeding up the time to process and  interpret large seismic data sets; and 
• Maximise production and optimise maintenance and reliability of LNG  facilities, by rapidly analysing large data sets. 

To solve these challenges, a cloud platform was needed that could enable  innovation whilst managing enterprise risks, including the increasing  cybersecurity threat. To fully realise the vision for cloud, Amazon Web Services (AWS) introduced them to Versent, an AWS premier consulting partner.  Collaborative partnerships are an important part of the organisational approach  to innovation, combining the ideas and business knowledge of their people with  outside expertise.  

Working with Versent, it was identified that an enterprise-grade, cloud-native  platform was needed that would deliver security automation, increased  efficiencies and consistency to its internal stakeholders. 

Key to the success of the program was identifying from the outset that  transformation wasn’t just delivering a technology program. It needed to be  inclusive of people, processes, culture and take into consideration the maturity  of the team, especially outside the traditional IT setup within the organisation. 

“When building cloud native – the most important thing is to build trust in those you  are working with. Build rapport so you can distribute throughout the team more  effectively.” Manager of Digital Strategy and Capability. 

Approach 

Versent undertook a detailed analysis and assessment, aptly named the Yellow  Brick Road (YBR), of the on-premise infrastructure. The result outlined a  customised plan to build an Enterprise Native Cloud (ENC). Once the ENC was  built, it was time to migrate and transform the existing data and applications. 

Versent set about putting the right people in place on the ground in Perth, as  well as in its home base of Sydney and Melbourne.

“We had teams across the country; in Melbourne, Sydney and Perth. We removed  some older technologies and started to adopt some fairly new AWS services that we  hadn’t come across before,” Manager of Strategic Technology. 

The Versent Managed Services team also embedded both on-site and remotely,  in a truly collaborative approach, to educate on the new ways of working and to  guide the team through the entire cloud journey. 

Keeping track of cloud deployments can be tricky. That is why Versent created  the software as a service tool, Stax. Stax gives its customers clear insight into  their cloud usage in the areas of cost, risk, wastage, compliance and security that  is otherwise impossible to see. 

Stax was key part of the solution delivered to provide a clear view into its  running costs in AWS and keeps track of compliance issues. 

“Stax provides the visibility that enables us to effectively manage cost, compliance  and risk across our global cloud technology platform,” Manager of Strategic Technology. 

Operationally, Versent Managed Services are responsibility for log monitoring, proactive patching and incident response triage. Versent also operate the  specialist Palo Alto Next Gen firewall VMs that centrally manage routing and  transparent traffic inspection. 

Benefits 

Seismic data is big data and it takes a lot of effort to capture, process and  interpret it – by making seismic data available on the cloud platform and  accessing effectively limitless compute power, the customer organisation has made a step-change in their ability to load, process, interpret and run  simulations on seismic data. 

“Our Subsurface Data and Information Management team have used the cloud  platform capabilities and changed the game in how we manage seismic data. Data  loading, processing and simulations can now be done in weeks instead of months  and years,” Manager of Strategic Technology. 

The customer anticipated that they would have 15 AWS accounts in their cloud  platform by the end of 2018. Business demand for agility has resulted in that  growth being much faster than anticipated, with the platform hosting over 100 

accounts globally and providing hubs for technology servicing international  offices and business. 

“Going cloud native has allowed us to do so much. We have unlocked a whole new set  of possibilities for our business, delivering pace, speed, agility, time to value and  innovation. We are able to deliver more insights to make better decisions,” Manager  of Digital Strategy and Capability. 

Key Learnings 

1. Understand your total cost on premise today, which can be difficult. Focus  on asking the right questions – what is the value of the application to the  business? Using Versent’s Yellow Brick Road (YBR) custom-built analysis,  the customer determined the lifecycle cost of the application portfolio and  confirmed a positive ROI, which contributed to ensuring the team’s  positive adoption of AWS. 
2. Choose a partner that you really trust. You will be in the trenches together  and you want to make sure you’re covered. 
3. Once you’ve built a cloud-native platform, you then need to support it  with the right people, and always ask yourself, what’s needed next? The  Versent Managed Services Team helps to navigate this process. 
4. It’s important to understand the technology, process and people behind  each workload that’s targeted to be migrated.  
5. Understanding the latency between Perth and Sydney is key and this  caused the change of strategy of latency sensitive workloads 
6. Using native AWS security services as the foundation for security and then  supplementing with specialist tooling according to risk maximises benefits  and value 

“We are just at the start of our journey, really feeling the value unleashing itself – now  we can support our international offices, we are multi-region, all from this new  platform,” Manager of Digital Strategy and Capability.