Challenge
The University of Greenwich was managing over 1,000 ageing on-premises virtual machines, leading to increasing operational risks, inefficiencies, and technical debt. This legacy infrastructure had become a barrier to the university’s growth and evolving digital ambitions.
To address this, the university embarked on a strategic infrastructure transformation - migrating from its on-premises data centre to Microsoft Azure. This move laid the foundation for its 2030 digital strategy, with a focus on modernisation, consolidation, and future scalability.
Key requirements included:
- rationalising and optimising infrastructure and workloads rather than simple lift-and-shift
- reducing capital costs by minimising overall size of the estate and on-prem virtualisation environment hardware and licence renewals
- delivering a rapidly scalable modern platform
- reducing physical footprint to consolidate and free valuable data centre space
Solution
Over a three-year time frame, the joint team (University of Greenwich IT and CoreAzure) successfully implemented a comprehensive migration strategy using a phased agile approach comprising of:
- infrastructure modernisation: complete assessment and rationalisation of the IT estate
- strategic re-platforming: 85% of workloads migrated to Azure
- technology consolidation: Transition from on-prem virtualisation environment to Azure native services, including shared SQL cluster
- mature processes: Fully managed and monitored environment with clear ownership, regular reviews and cost management
- capability building: heavy investment in upskilling programmes and knowledge transfer to in-house teams.
The project emphasised the importance of early engagement, extended timelines for proper knowledge transfer, and a focused joint team specialisation in specific technology areas and change.
Impact
The University of Greenwich’s cloud-first transformation delivered significant operational and strategic gains.
Operational benefits:
- Transition from CAPEX to OPEX model, improving cash flow management
- Detailed cost transparency with granular visibility into resource consumption
- Substantial reduction in technical debt through infrastructure consolidation
- Enhanced system reliability and simplified management through Microsoft-managed services
- Mature processes and documentation for the management of the estate
Strategic impact:
- Created a modern, scalable platform that supports rapid service deployment, innovation, and future growth
- Established foundation for enhanced student experience initiatives
- Positioned the university to progress towards its 2030 digital strategy
- Modernised remote desktop services replacing costly legacy systems and delivering further efficiencies
This transformation not only resolved immediate technical challenges but also positioned the university for sustained innovation, operational excellence, and long-term digital success