The client
Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) is a global university with students from over 185 countries studying with them. They have been named one of the top 350 institutions in the world and are one of the top 40 universities in the UK.
Their website is a vital marketing tool providing essential information to current and prospective students.
The challenge
ARU relied on Sitecore CMS for their application and had a pre-existing relationship with Sitecore, utilising their cloud hosting support. However, they faced a critical deadline as their Sitecore support was coming to an end. It was imperative for ARU to find a new support provider who could manage their infrastructure and application 24/7, as their website would face downtime if they didn’t find a new provider.
They were also looking to rebuild their infrastructure on Azure and move all their data from their existing back-end to the new infrastructure. Having previously worked with another provider they found the level of testing to be inadequate which led to some site issues. ARU required a seamless migration that ensured zero data loss.
As the site is the primary marketing tool the university to uses to attract prospective students, maintaining 100% uptime during the data migration and infrastructure was essential to protect the university’s reputation.
As the site is the main marketing tool the university uses for future applicants and students, it needed to be in uptime 100% during and after the infrastructure build to not tarnish the universities reputation.
Recognising Just After Midnight as a Microsoft Solution Provider and 24/7 full-stack support provider with experience in infrastructure builds and working with educational institutions, ARU approached us to help.
The solution
Just After Midnight take pride in our ability to utilise innovative technologies and best practices to drive digital transformation for our clients.
It was crucial for ARU to have a robust and scalable infrastructure in place. We rebuilt the infrastructure on Azure using Terraform. Leveraging the capabilities of Azure, we designed and implemented a new infrastructure aligned with ARU’s specific needs while ensuring future scalability and flexibility.
By rebuilding using Terraform we provided ARU with a reliable foundation to support their technology requirements. The infrastructure’s scalability would allow them to seamlessly accommodate increased user demand, especially during peak periods like enrollment.
As part of ARU’s digital transformation, we successfully moved their front door to Cloudflare. Doing so we enhanced the performance and speed of ARU’s site, ensuring faster page load times. Cloudflare’s security features include DDoS protection and a web application firewall, fortifying ARU’s site against potential threats.
To ensure the seamless migration of ARU’s data from their old back-end to the new one, we undertook a side-by-side comparison of the data, leaving no room for data loss. Our team developed and executed a comprehensive testing plan including end-user testing to ensure a smooth experience for ARU once the migration was complete
As Sitecores was reaching its end, we stepped into the role as their new support provider. Our dedicated team offers 24/7 infrastructure support and out-of-hours full-stack support ensuring the site remains accessible at all times.
Results
- 100% of the content data from the previous infrastructure made its way over to the newly rebuilt Azure infrastructure
- Our team is working with ARU’s in-house team to instil some best practices around the code base to improve the stability of the site
- Provisioned new Azure infrastructure for ARU that is now scalable and reliable
- We were able to implement the new infrastructure, data migration and start support before ARU’s support end date meaning no downtime of their site occurred
