Exela drives customer success by migrating and modernizing its application on Microsoft Azure

Exela Technologies (Exela) is a global business process automation (BPA) leader, leveraging proprietary technology to provide digital transformation solutions. It enables businesses to automate processes, improve efficiency, and minimize costs.

With foundational technologies spanning information management, workflow automation, and integrated communications—it aims to resolve business challenges while enhancing quality, productivity, and end-user experience.

Exela offers software and services for diverse business functions such as finance and accounting, human capital management, and legal management, and domains such as banking, healthcare, insurance, and the public sector.

With an employee strength of more than 16,000 in 21 countries, and decades of experience operating mission-critical processes, Exela serves a growing roster of more than 4,000 customers in 50 countries, including over 60% of the Fortune® 100 enterprises.

Recognizing the need for a modern, cloud-centric solution

In its pursuit of growth and enhanced customer satisfaction, Exela encountered many challenges with its on-premises infrastructure. The inability to providehigh availability, zonal redundancy, and disaster recovery made it difficult for the organization to meet customer expectations. It was also proving inadequate to manage the increasingly stringent SLAs of an expanding customer base.

Exela recognized that it needed a cloud-centric approach in this age of digital transformation. To innovate and achieve its business objectives, it also realized that it needed to modernize its application rather than just move to the cloud. The organization decided to migrate its existing on-premise database to PostgreSQL. It also set out to modernize its application, DocumentDNA. To prevent disruptions to customer operations, it needed to complete the project within a tight timeframe. Vast volumes of data, of 250 customers, added to the complexity of the project.

Exela was looking for a robust and scalable platform to manage PostgreSQL databases and discovered that Microsoft provides a comprehensive ecosystem with services to host databases and scalable infrastructure.With stringent security measures, compliance certifications, and support for hybrid cloud strategies that allow a flexible deployment model, Azure emerged as a reliable option.

Sankaranarayanan, SVP, Technology, Exela Technologies, explains, "Azure's scalability and high availability drove our decision to partner with Microsoft. Also, PostgreSQL on Azure facilitates seamless integration with existing Microsoft technologies such as .NET and SQL Server, facilitating interoperability, a critical requirement for us.”

He further says, "Microsoft's pricing structure aligned with our cost structure too. Since we were aware of Microsoft's approach on cloud migration and modernization being integral to digital transformation, we saw Microsoft as a trusted and credible partner tosupport us in our cloud journey."

Azure's scalability and high availability drove our decision to partner with Microsoft. Also, PostgreSQL on Azure facilitates seamless integration with existing Microsoft technologies such as .NET and SQL Server, facilitating interoperability, a critical requirement for us.

Sankaranarayanan, SVP, Technology, Exela Technologies

Achieving more efficiency, dynamic scalability, and high availability

Exela and Microsoft jointly implemented the project in six months. It was a unique project involving a database with a size of 6.42 TB and over 740 million records. It also required coordination between multiple business and technology teams, and complex changes at code, database, and application levels for migration and modernization. Exela had to coordinate with 250 customers to get the requisite approvals.

Sam Singh, AVP, Technology, Exela, says, “Microsoft's comprehensive solution included guidance, tools, and resources for our migration and modernization project. We used the Azure Data Box's advanced encryption and decryption features to move the data from on-premises to the cloud.”

He explains, "With it, we have an all-encompassing solution with scalable infrastructure to host applications and databases. The Microsoft direct support team and the Microsoft Ninja team worked closely with us to complete the migration project successfully."

Microsoft's comprehensive solution included guidance, tools, and resources for our migration and modernization project. We used the Azure Data Box's advanced encryption and decryption features to move the data from on-premises to the cloud.

Sam Singh, AVP, Technology, Exela Technologies

The project brought many benefits for Exela as well as its customers:

It has streamlined integration with .NET and boosted development workflows, enhancing the efficiency of the development team.
The solution provides zone redundancy, a standby replica in a different zone with automatic failover capability, high security, and simplified management. This has reduced operational complexities for the IT department and enabled it to deliver highly available environments to its clients.
The Azure cloud infrastructure enhances application speed and flexibility, offering high availability and dynamic scaling.
Microsoft Azure's robust security measures have empowered the security team to ensure data protection and compliance.
With improved performance, the application has optimized the end-user experience of DocumentDNA.
This cost-effective solution enables the finance team to optimize the budget, while Microsoft's comprehensive support has facilitated more effective query resolution and incident management.
Exela's customers have access to a modern, scalable, managed database solution that enhances performance and streamlines workflows. The Microsoft Azure infrastructure enhances DocumentDNA's speed and flexibility, enabling customers to deliver superior end-customer experience with better responsiveness, seamless access, compliance, data privacy, and security.

Sriram Ramanathan, CTO, Exela Technologies, says, “Our solution differentiates itself through its comprehensive ecosystem integration, hybrid cloud support, robust security, and cost-effectiveness.”

Sriram underlines, “The expertise and end-to-end support from Microsoft were crucial for executing this mission-critical project, allowing us to assist our customers in optimizing costs and achieving unparalleled performance."

Innovating for the future

Exela is looking to optimize the performance and scalability of the Microsoft Azure-based solution further. It aims to explore AI integration opportunities to enhance document management capabilities and provide cutting-edge technology solutions that adhere to the latest industry standards on security. Exela plans to evaluate and adopt new Azure services to address evolving business needs, fostering sustained innovation and efficiency.

The expertise and end-to-end support from Microsoft were crucial for executing this mission-critical project, allowing us to assist our customers in optimizing costs and achieving unparalleled performance.

Sriram Ramanathan, CTO, Exela Technologies