challenge

Alva's IT systems were moved to the cloud for a higher level of security/safety and more efficient use of resources. It was also essential to modernise services to meet the digital requirements of the business. The data centres had outdated technology and the energy company needed an experienced but agile partner to migrate to the cloud, map the cloud opportunities that migration would bring and maintain the cloud.

Due to the specificities of the energy sector and mission-critical systems, a strong experience in multicloud environments and system-specific assessments of the potential for exporting to the cloud was required from the cloud partner.

Alva also sought geographical decentralisation of its infrastructure to ensure uninterrupted production even in exceptional circumstances. Here, the cloud offered the best solution.

solution

Cloud2 was chosen as Alva's cloud partner because of its strong expertise and migration experience with Microsoft Azure as the platform technology. When selecting a partner, Alva asked Cloud2's customers for their experience: the company's diverse screens and good customer experience from companies in similar mission-critical business environments sealed the deal. Alva's cloud migration was launched in autumn 2022, following a cloud-first architecture. 

Due to the critical nature of the industry and more complex ERP systems than usual, the partnership started with careful planning, tacit knowledge documentation, action plan development and application migration workshops. Alva's cloud management model was built on Cloud2 Governance as a Service, after which the Azure migration project was quickly and cost-effectively developed using Cloud2's proven project methodology.

Once the foundation was completed, the actual migration project was started with Alva, which included assessing system-specific cloud maturity, as well as a recovery plan and ensuring service reliability. During the testing phase of the project, Alva was actively involved in ensuring that everything in the integration worked as expected.

The partnership is ongoing and Cloud2 will continue to serve as Alva's full cloud partner in the future. Alva's cloud environment is monitored and managed 24/7 by Cloud2 through its Managed Cloud and Managed AVD hosting service.

benefits

With the migration, Alva has gained a stable platform that makes extensive use of Azure's various services, enabling flexible resource management and the implementation of new solutions quickly and efficiently. The holistic use of Azure as a platform for IT infrastructure and data warehousing is part of Alva's data and AI strategy to be launched in 2020.

In addition to scalability, enhanced security and cost optimisation, Alva manages its infrastructure in a more independent and holistic way. The availability of the IT environment has improved and the ability to respond to business resource and system requirements is much more efficient. Alva can better monitor services migrated to the cloud and daily use of applications is more efficient, resulting in a significant improvement in user satisfaction.

With the migration, the energy company's IT infrastructure is no longer confined to a single local data centre, but is geographically distributed for increased security and resilience. Critical systems can be replicated in the cloud across multiple locations for better recovery and consolidation.

company info

Alva is a water and energy service provider owned by the City of Jyväskylä. Alva has been providing energy solutions in the Jyväskylä area for over a century, and today the energy company also offers its solutions nationwide. Alva is working towards sustainable energy and water solutions that promote a circular economy, while also helping its customers to achieve their own environmental goals.