NSW Land Registry Services

When NSW Land Registry Services (NSW LRS) wanted to move its on-prem infrastructure into the cloud, they immediately turned to Amazon Web Services (AWS). As an AWS premier partner, with extensive experience in scale and agility of cloud migrations, Versent was chosen as the best partner to assist with a fast migration into AWS for NSW LRS. Versent undertook a tailored migration analysis and planning session, dubbed the “Yellow Brick Road” (YBR). The outcome of this YBR provided NSW LRS with a strategic roadmap and design.

Challenge

Versent had an aggressive timeframe to meet. Nine months to migrate an entire data centre which seemed like a near impossible task to NSW LRS.  Additionally, there was a lack of existing IP and documentation for NSW LRS that needed to be created during this timeframe.

Lesa Tobias, CIO for NSW LRS said that they had relied on legacy technology stacks, some over 20 years old, for too long.

“We realised quickly that we had legacy systems that had little lifecycle activities performed over the course of that time. We needed to introduce new technologies, together with new processes and a new way of working that was not going to disrupt our business and allow us to move forward and meet our new business objectives. This all needed to be explained, understood and adopted by the NSW LRS team,” said Tobias.

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Beyond a doubt, culture is usually the most difficult thing to overcome when migrating from on-prem to cloud, and there is understandably resistance to that change. Previous knowledge or a way of doing things, is held on to as form of security blanket.  

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“One of the most challenging components of moving to the cloud is adapting existing operating models to embrace “new ways of working”. Changing your operating model is very challenging.  Versent has spent considerable time, helping, coaching and advising its customers with appropriate, considered augmentations to their operating models regarding migration and/or transforming servers and workloads to the cloud. Applying this thinking with NSW LRS was no exception,” added Robert Frendo, MD Versent. 

Additionally, another consideration for NSW LRS was to reduce unnecessary OPEX costs – primarily hardware and software licensing.  Versent needed to address software licenses that were going unused. Reducing ongoing costs allowed LRS to reinvest in developing new microservice architecture platforms to support the future.

Solution

The cohesive approach by the Versent team, coupled with extensive, technical expertise and deep AWS experience, allowed Versent to analyse and refactor many of the legacy technology problems faced.  

“By adopting our customer into the Versent family, we were able to take NSW LRS on the journey to the cloud and provide them with a complete new set of skills and build a solid foundation to drive innovation,” added Robert Frendo, MD Versent.

Following the delivery of the successful YBR, Versent created an Enterprise Native Cloud, coupled with an automated server migration factory. This allowed Versent to plan and execute the migration of 130 servers comprised of RedHat, Windows and Solaris. Versent also transformed 90% of NSW LRS’ existing Oracle Databases to AWS RDS.  

Key Facts

• Versent migrated all servers and storage into AWS in nine months.  
• Several million dollars of operational savings identified across NSW LRS entire set of systems.  
• Long-lasting family relationship formed between Versent and NSW LRS which lays the foundation to foster more innovation together.

Results

“One of the many things I enjoyed about working with Versent, was that from the moment they stepped foot through our door, we knew we were in it together to solve whatever challenges we had to face,” said Adam Bennett, CEO, NSW LRS.

Versent and NSW LRS created a unified team that faced any challenges together. This created a level of trust, that delivered the right results for NSW LRS, when they needed it. Versent migrated all NSW LRS’ servers and storage into AWS in nine months and was able to deliver several million dollars in operational savings identified across NSW LRS entire set of systems.  

Versent’s expertise in storage management and ability to quickly deploy and transfer large amounts of storage exceeding 100 TB to AWS ensured that NSW LRS were able to comfortably achieve their target for exiting the existing premises within the agreed timeline of nine months.

Versent was also able to identify an additional opportunity for NSW LRS and deliver AWS Connect to replace NSW LRS’s existing Telephone Contact Centre.

New microservices architecture is being deployed within AWS that provides NSW LRS the rapid capability to deliver new services for property transactions in NSW. This provides the people of NSW greater choice when it comes to property settlements.To ensure this service and ones to follow it are operationally ready, Versent Managed Services embedded into the microservices build team; to facilitate a seamless transition into production and use. 

Using cloud native technology, the team embarked on a mission to replace the NSW Historical Land Record Viewer, a collection of publicly available plans and maps originating since the formation of NSW as a colony. Once completed, viewing the maps will be much faster and simpler to search and view in one central place.

“In my 25 years working in tech, I have never seen so much delivered in such a short time, and I have honestly never had so much fun doing it. Thank you, NSW LRS, for working with us and allowing us to become part of your team, and delivering such amazing results,” concluded Seth Van Buren, Principal Consultant, Versent.  

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