Large and Prestigious UK Based University Migrates and Modernizes Legacy Systems with AWS

Our customer, established in the 1800’s, is one of the largest and most prestigious universities in the United Kingdom. This university boasts a diverse academic community with nearly 50K students and 15K+ employees. The institution has a storied history of innovation and excellence, producing dozens of Nobel Prize winners and offering world-class research and educational programs.

Customer Overview

The university was relying on a legacy Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS) as its core ERP system to manage financial and HR processes. However, the system had significant challenges, including outdated technology components such as Oracle Application Framework (OAF) modules hosted on Fusion Middleware 11g and Oracle Database 12c. These components were nearing end-of-support, posing risks to security, performance, and operational stability.

Additionally, the legacy infrastructure was fully on-premises, lacking the scalability, reliability, and flexibility needed to support the University’s agile, cloud-forward vision. While the long-term goal was to adopt a SaaS-based ERP system, an interim solution was needed to modernize and extend the life of the current ERP platform.

The University sought to address the following key challenges:

  • Mitigate risks associated with unsupported legacy components.
  • Transition to modern infrastructure to enable higher reliability and performance.
  • Improve the efficiency of day-to-day operations and provide a more secure, scalable environment.

Business Problem

Apps Associates partnered with the university to modernize its Oracle EBS platform by migrating to a robust and secure public cloud infrastructure on AWS. The project was completed under stringent time constraints to ensure all systems remained in support ahead of Go-Live. Key highlights of the solution include:

Cloud Migration and Modernization
  • Rehosting and rebuilding the Oracle EBS environment on AWS.
  • Migrated the Oracle Database from version 12c to 19c for enhanced stability and support.
Infrastructure Design
  • Architected an AWS platform with High Availability (HA) and maximum security.
  • Deployed EC2, ALB, S3, FSxN Multi-AZ, and Route 53 to provide a scalable and resilient environment.
Project Delivery
  • Agile project management for rapid Mobilization and Migration phases.
  • Created pre-production, development (DEV), and user acceptance testing (UAT) environments to ensure quality assurance.
Advanced Operations and Monitoring
  • Integrated AWS services such as CloudTrail, CloudWatch, and Systems Manager to streamline monitoring and disaster recovery processes.
  • Enhanced disaster recovery capabilities with reduced Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO).

Solution Highlights

The project delivered significant business and operational benefits, enabling the university to align its technology stack with its cloud-first strategy while achieving measurable improvements in system performance and reliability.

Key Outcomes

Reduced Recovery Time Objective (RTO):
  • Enhanced disaster recovery processes shortened RTO from several hours to minutes, reducing downtime and strengthening business continuity.
Boosted Operational Efficiency:
  • Oracle EBS background concurrent processing experienced a 4x performance improvement, significantly speeding up complex operations.
  • System responsiveness improved by an average of 20%, enabling business users to complete tasks more efficiently.
Enhanced Scalability and Security:
  • The AWS architecture provides the scalability to handle the university’s growing data needs and ensures the highest levels of security for sensitive university data.
Optimized Support and Maintenance:
  • By upgrading Oracle’s database and tech stack to currently supported versions, the university eliminated the risk of system obsolescence.
Cost Optimization:
  • Leveraging AWS services contributed to optimized operational costs while removing the overhead of maintaining outdated on-premises infrastructure.

Benefits Achieved

Apps Associates capabilities as an AWS Managed Service Provider (MSP), validated for its expertise in delivering AWS solutions, including operations and support led to a strategic partnership after the project. Apps was added as a strategic supplier within the university supplier framework to support the university without the need for RfP or RfIs. Apps supported after the Go-Live with an extended Hypercare Phase to support and extend the Cloud Platform team with operations for the migrated Oracle E-Business Suite within AWS. Apps Associates MSP capabilities still help the customer to support with ongoing Fin Ops activities.

Strategic partnership

With Apps Associates as their technology partner, the university transformed its outdated Oracle EBS environment into a modern innovation platform powered by AWS. Their successful migration not only addressed immediate support challenges but also positioned the University for future growth and digital transformation.

The modernization of their ERP system has equipped the university to better serve its academic and administrative communities, ensuring operational stability and efficiency while unlocking new opportunities for data-driven decision-making and innovation.

Summary

About Apps Associates

Apps Associates is a premier enterprise applications and technology advisor, counseling and executing across every stage of the enterprise transformation journey—not just the destination. For more than two decades, Apps Associates has closely collaborated with decision makers across nearly every industry, offering end-to-end integration, modernization, and cloud migration services. By helping to break down the silos within today’s most complex business challenges, Apps Associates is unlocking solutions and efficiencies that scale into future opportunities. Learn more at appsassociates.com or follow on LinkedIn.

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