One of the top global 50 steel producers and top 10 mining companies, and headquartered in Ukraine, Metinvest comprises more than 30 manufacturing enterprises, selling products to more than 100 countries. In 2018, it faced the need to scale and expand the capacities of its existing datacenters. Supported by its IT and innovation partner, Metinvest Digital, the group forged a strategic alliance with Microsoft and local partner Infopulse to move 680 servers to the Azure cloud platform. The migration and re-platforming of its IT infrastructure, along with a significant volume of data to the cloud, took less than a year, and generated projected savings of USD3 million over the next 10 years.
State-of-the-art technology underpins the long-term competitiveness of Metinvest, an international leader in mining and steel manufacturing. When the time came to update its data storage systems, the company looked for a more scalable IT infrastructure. “We needed the agility to launch new IT services and to make changes in our application and infrastructure rapidly,” says Sergiy Detyuk, Chief Information Technology at Metinvest Holding, and CEO at Metinvest Digital. “After comparing the costs, we chose the Microsoft Azure cloud platform. We expect to decrease the total cost of ownership of our infrastructure by USD3 million over the next 10 years.”
A highly scalable, resilient IT environment
With the help of local Microsoft partner Infopulse and Premier Support teams, Metinvest migrated 240 TB of data, more than 200 services, and its 680 servers—previously located in two Ukraine-based datacenters—to the Azure cloud platform.
What started as a lift-and-shift operation soon evolved into a re-platforming project, adapting the apps to make the most of the cloud infrastructure. “For virtual machines, we used Azure Site Recovery to replicate workloads fast, and enable smooth failover in case of an outage,” explains Dmitriy Kireev, Chief IT Architect at Metinvest Digital. “We’re using Azure Backup not only to store extra copies of our backups in the cloud, but for all our services and virtual machines,” he adds.
The project also covered the transformation of 85 terminal servers to Windows Virtual Desktop. This enables 2,000 users to access to internal line of business applications—like apps for accounting, HR, and customer relationship management (CRM)—instantly and without having to install them locally on their device. “Now, we use Windows Virtual Desktop in day-to-day operations,” notes Kireev.
With the limitless scalability and high performance of the cloud infrastructure, Metinvest gained the flexibility to scale apps and workloads on demand, depending on its needs.
Top-notch security
The company uses Azure Security Center for advanced threat protection and unified security management. “Azure Monitor and Security Center are our standard solutions for monitoring and maintaining security in the cloud. All services automatically connect to it,” explains Kireev. “Azure Security Center provides a ‘helicopter view’ of all our subscriptions, tenants, and activities. And Azure Bastion is an essential solution to ensure [highly] secure access to services,” he adds. Azure Files has replaced on-premises file servers, ensuring fully managed, shared access to company files.
Working closely with its technology partners and Microsoft, Metinvest has many cloud projects waiting in the pipeline. “We plan on implementing Azure Sentinel and Azure Synapse Analytics for secure and large-scale data analytics,” concludes Detyuk.
“We expect to decrease the total cost of ownership of our infra-structure by USD3 million over the next 10 years.”
Sergiy Detyuk, Chief Information Technology Metinvest Holding, CEO, Metinvest Digital
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