Koninklijke Boskalis Westminster NV is a Dutch company and one of the world’s largest dredging companies. As a leading contractor in the international dredging market and provider of maritime services, they offer a unique combination of experts, equipment, and services. From the offshore energy sector to ports and coastal and delta regions: Boskalis delivers innovative and competitive total solutions to customers worldwide. To continue doing so, internal innovation was also necessary. Boskalis therefore made the strategic decision to migrate its entire IT landscape to the cloud and refocus on its core business.
Customer perspective
Development of a custom migration methodology
“The first step was to determine whether Boskalis’ applications and data could be deployed on the Microsoft Azure platform. It was essential to know whether Azure could handle the workload of these applications. With that insight, the next phase could begin: developing a custom migration methodology. Following the initial design, an intensive testing phase began, during which a number of servers were migrated and thoroughly tested. That testing phase was crucial; it allowed us to further refine and perfect the methodology, enabling the final migration of all servers to be successfully completed.”
Knowledge Partner in the field of Microsoft technology
“Throughout the entire project, Databalance (formerly 3fifty) led both the development of the migration methodology and the execution of the migration. The collaboration with Boskalis’ IT department went smoothly. Communication channels were short, and the approach was pragmatic. As a result of this project, Databalance was asked to become Boskalis’s knowledge partner in the field of Microsoft technology. This is a wonderful confirmation of the trust that has been built up through this collaboration.”
The result of the migration project is a fully implemented IaaS (Infrastructure-as-a-Service) environment in Microsoft Azure. The physical data centers are no longer in use, and the workloads and applications run entirely in the Azure cloud. As a result, the on-premises infrastructure has been eliminated and no longer requires management. In addition to the cloud-based IT landscape, all employees use Microsoft 365. Boskalis is now able to flexibly scale its IT landscape up and down and optimize its IT workforce.
The combination of IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS provides Boskalis with the flexibility and scalability suited to an organization of this size and international scope.
Ready for the future with PaaS and SaaS
