William Hill concludes £4.7m datacentre cloud migration
FTSE 250 operator moves land-based software onto Amazon Web Services after major 18-month programme
William Hill has successfully concluded an 18-month migration of its land-based datacentres onto the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud platform.
It is understood the migration cost £4.7m to complete and led to the operator exiting four international datacentres, reducing its datacentre footprint by 70%.
The move forms part of a so-called ‘cloud-first’ strategy, where organisations move their infrastructure to cloud-based computing platforms like AWS, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure.
Instead of relying on physical resources like server clusters, this strategy houses resources including mission critical and secure resource in the cloud.
The objective of the programme was to reduce operational costs and make Hills more agile from a data intelligence perspective while increasing financial control and visibility.
Other prominent AWS users include Netflix, LinkedIn, Facebook and the BBC.
Hills engaged Leeds-based technical consultancy Perform Partners for the biggest cloud-based migration in the firm’s history.
The Perform Partners team was led by director and co-founder Paul Rhodes, who has consulted on Hills’ datacentre strategy since March 2018.
“Our success was built and driven by quantifiable data,” said Rhodes. “Starting with a team of four, we scaled and flexed based on the need of the customer and delivery stage.
“Our delivery approach provided early and incremental benefits to the customer, alongside providing the platform for long-term scalability and cost optimisation,” he added.
Perform Partners co-founder Shaun Walsh also cited several challenges in dealing with the William Hill migration process, most notably as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic.
He said: “The customer’s organisational size and complexity of their existing infrastructure, alongside the evolving compliance and regulatory considerations, meant there were no easy answers and robust governance balanced with an adaptive approach aligned with their culture underpinned the overall success.”
The migration is understood to have continued remotely throughout lockdown, allowing for the delivery of the project on time.
William Hill operates separate technology hubs in Leeds and Krakow.