Heap2Cloud

Helvetia Insurance Switzerland
Cloud, Migration, Insurance
11.2019 - 11.2021
10

Our client Helvetia Insurance made the strategic decision to migrate their on-premise applications running on the Red Hat EAP (Enterprise Application Platform) to the cloud. As part of the Heap2Cloud project, all applications had to be updated to the latest version, made cloud-ready, and containerized to migrate them to the OpenShift cluster. At b-nova, we successfully supported our client by not only migrating but also updating, stabilizing, and improving over 50 applications. In addition to the technical tasks, we provided continuous support in introducing the cloud and DevOps culture, including a new development process, created necessary documentation, provided training, and served as a central point of contact in the change management process.

helvetia.ch

Biggest challenge

Cloud readiness of applications

What we did

Lift, Shift & Refactoring to the OpenShift Container Platform

Main tools we used

OpenShift, Kubernetes, Quarkus, JBoss EAP, Docker, Ansible, Angular

Kickoff
NOVEMBER 2019

Establishment of the migration framework and the start of migration

Migration
DURATION: 25 MONTHS

Migration of all applications, including database migrations

Successful Completion
NOVEMBER 2021

All applications are now migrated and live!

Tasks

  • Responsibility for all technical decisions as Technical Project Leader
  • Defined a migration guide and established a migration framework based on Ansible
  • Established and maintained JBoss EAP Base Images, adapting them to the client's infrastructure
  • Integrated and expanded CI/CD processes
  • Upgraded applications to the latest JBoss EAP version 7.3, including an upgrade to Java 11
  • Migrated existing JBoss EAP applications to the OpenShift Container Platform
  • Migrated all databases from on-premise Oracle to PostgreSQL in the AWS Cloud
  • Migrated existing applications from OpenShift 3 to OpenShift 4
  • Migrated existing Thorntail applications to Quarkus
  • Implemented and maintained various Sidecar containers such as Nginx and Fluentd
  • Ensured the cloud capability of all applications, addressed issues, conducted general performance analysis, and made improvements
  • Outsourced central business logic into microservices using Quarkus
  • Established a local development environment for local development based on Podman/Docker
  • Established various dependency management architectures with Maven
  • Worked closely with application owners and the internal container platform team
  • Planned, documented, provided training and coaching, and facilitated general knowledge exchange as a central point of contact
  • Contributed to the introduction of a DevOps culture and new development processes
  • Homogenized and standardized operational and deployment processes and application architecture through containerization and automation

Technologies

  • Red Hat OpenShift Container Platform 3 & 4
  • Kubernetes
  • Docker / Podman
  • Ansible
  • Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform 7.2 & 7.3
  • Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 & 8
  • Amazon Web Services
  • Java 11
  • Angular
  • Maven
  • Jenkins Pipelines / Tekton
  • JetBrains IntelliJ
  • Oracle Database / PostgreSQL, Liquibase
  • Nginx, Fluentd
  • Apache Kafka
  • SOAP- & Rest-interfaces
Whether it's Monday at 7:00 AM or Friday at 6:00 PM, b-nova is available to its customers around the clock in a friendly manner. With their broad knowledge, they significantly contribute to the success of my cloud migration project.

Sascha Luterbacher

Helvetia Insurance Switzerland - Cloud Migration Project Manager