DLS OU already has a lot of experience working with IT suppliers in the Lithuanian market, so it knew exactly what competences it was looking for.

“We were looking for an equal IT partner with deep domain knowledge, who could implement advanced and complex solutions, help us find a way to do certain things more easily, and finally – we wanted to manage resources quickly, rather than waiting for our request to go through a number of steps within the supplier’s team. In short, we wanted real flexibility and speed when we bought IaaS. The pricing of resources was also important – we wanted to pay for what we use,” says Budzinauskas, summarising that the company’s previous experience ultimately led it to turn to Blue Bridge’s cloud computing team.

The DLS OU team was able to see whether the supplier was the right choice at the very beginning of the cooperation, when planning for the transfer of hundreds of gigabytes began.

“My recommendation to anyone preparing for a data migration is simple – prepare for the worst, hope for the best. When planning such a project, you need to think several steps ahead, have a plan B as well as a plan A. Even if your desired solution is not complex, the mundane things can be a challenge. There are always risks when migrating,” he says, noting that the most worrying aspect of the planning process was the downtime – the amount of time the system was down during the migration.

“When we calculated how much data we had and how long it might take to transfer it, we got a hair-trigger feeling that we might not be able to do it in one night. The migration scenarios developed by the Blue Bridge team solved a lot for us, and we were able to choose the most suitable one for us. After testing with the Blue Bridge team, we started the physical data migration. It took just a few hours – much less than we expected,” says Budzinauskas.

The possibility for the client to choose from several migration scenarios is a common process at Blue Bridge, says IT Services Manager Alesia Sapagova-Kutkienė: “The main goal is to take into account the individual needs of each client, the biggest risks and the potential downtime of the systems. By recommending several scenarios and selecting the most appropriate one together with the client, we ensure that not only the most secure scenario is chosen, but also the most beneficial one.”

She stresses that the success of the migration process also depends on the information the client has about the system to be migrated: “What services are provided from the servers, who are the users of these services, what are the interfaces with other systems? All this information is crucial for a good migration result. This was also demonstrated by the smooth migration of DLS OU, in which the detailed information provided by the client on the characteristics of the systems to be migrated played an important role.”

The migration process, which exceeded expectations, was not the only indicator that was sufficient to measure the results of the joint work with Blue Bridge, says Budzinauskas.

“After a successful migration, we focused on monitoring technical parameters. Today, we estimate that after the migration, the performance increased by 35% and the server “start-up” and related work was reduced by 3 times. This means that we can deliver the new system to the customer 3 times faster,” he says, adding that the most satisfying thing is the possibility to achieve strategic goals.

“Process automation and optimisation is one of our key long-term goals. It is therefore most gratifying that we have been able to combine the many steps of the new system implementation into a single one since we started our partnership with Blue Bridge. We have simplified a process that used to take a lot of time, and we consider this a great achievement”, says Budzinauskas.

“Blue Bridge does not hide the fact that it is common to hear similar feedback from customers about the benefits of resource flexibility. “By logging in to the self-service portal and being completely independent from the supplier’s team, the customer can access all the resources they need. This autonomous and fast management of resources is a real pleasant surprise for many. It’s no secret that many customers bring with them a completely different experience of using resources, so we are delighted to be able to provide real, tangible flexibility that contributes to faster delivery of the systems to the end-users,” she says.

However, in terms of financial return, DLS OU points out that the initial investment in Blue Bridge services was not small. “The offer was certainly not the cheapest, and the initial costs were even higher than before. However, we have assessed that in the long term we will reduce costs, which is due to both flexible pricing and an optimised internal workflow. In general, it is possible to make a decision based on pricing alone, and it is important to consider other parameters as well,” he says.