Accelerating Azure adoption with Fujitsu

Headquartered in Auckland, New Zealand, Invenco is a global provider of secure payment processing and customer engagement solutions. For over twenty years, Invenco has delivered open platform, quality-focused solutions to the energy delivery and convenience industry. Invenco offerings include pay-at-pump terminals, iNFX retail microservices, a cloud services asset management platform, Edge IoT host devices and Link encrypted ethernet network.Invenco’s network of partners deliver geographically optimised versions of its products around the world.

Traditionally, Invenco managed its N+1 onsite data centre itself and, although it had looked at cloud-based alternatives in the past, pricing and security worked out better on-premises. However, as the company’s global footprint continued to grow, it became clear that performance and latency were becoming a problem.

It also became clear that cloud solutions had become more mature, secure and cost-effective. As a creator of payment solutions such as gas station terminals, it is essential that high-level encryption with PCI compliance is part of the package. Invenco needed a trusted partner to help it negotiate the available cloud services and plot a course for cloud migration.

“Fujitsu manages our Office365 subscriptions, so it was already on our radar, and it was recommended by Microsoft as having the necessary Azure expertise,” explains Jarrod Knox, Infrastructure and Technology Manager at Invenco. “That made Fujitsu the logical choice to kickstart our cloud journey.”

Fujitsu introduced the Azure Cloud Adoption Accelerator, which brings together an experienced team of cloud economics consultants and automated assessments, automated data discovery tools and methodology. It took Invenco’s existing infrastructure needs and assumptions for growth and change, and mapped requirements accordingly.

At the heart of the process is a Cloud Adoption Accelerator, which includes an introduction to the challenge, an exploration of the stakeholder ecosystem, the creation of a vision statement based on Invenco’s drivers and a broader vision map of the outcomes Invenco wanted to achieve. After this, methods were used to list out and agree on considerations and actions to be taken, after which a priority matrix was created before finally putting together an outline of next steps.

“Fujitsu brought a lot of experience, offering insights we hadn’t thought of and digging deeper to ensure we were on top of patching regimes and updates, for example,” adds Knox. “I was impressed with the professionalism, expertise and the multiple perspectives on offer. It is like having a much larger IT team at hand.”

Invenco now has a clearly defined roadmap for its cloud migration with actionable outcomes from the workshop and a proven cloud implementation methodology. The Azure Cloud Adoption Accelerator report has provided a deeper understanding of Invenco’s needs along with a customised journey, cloud adoption report and digital landing zone.

That means Invenco has been able to begin its cloud migration with confidence, beginning with setting up the core infrastructure environment, storage pools and migration analytics. It has also built up network capability between Auckland, Washington DC and the Azores in anticipation of going into full production within six months.

“Ultimately, we do not have the technical expertise in-house to handle a full cloud migration, so working with a trusted partner gives us confidence,” concludes Knox. “It means we can avoid trial and error, and plan effectively for any eventuality. Fujitsu gives us the peace of mind to ensure this project will be a success.”