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Case Study

Migrating 6,300 Servers From 12 Data Centers to AWS in 10 Months

How Clearscale delivered a large-scale cloud migration and modernization that reduced costs, improved agility, and eliminated legacy IT dependencies

Client Profile

Industry Marketing Technology
Competencies Migration & App Modernization

Overview

Acoustic, a global marketing technology company, needed to escape costly legacy infrastructure and transform its SaaS platform under an aggressive timeline. Clearscale executed one of the largest AWS migrations of its kind, moving 6,300 servers and 
8 SaaS applications from 12 data centers in just 10 months. Alongside the migration, Clearscale modernized Acoustic’s workloads with containerization, microservices, 
and a custom-built data lake, enabling agility, scalability, and cost savings.

Meet Our Hero

Acoustic delivers marketing automation and analytics solutions to more than 3,000 enterprise customers worldwide, including Fortune 500 companies. To power its SaaS offerings, the company relied on a legacy hosting environment with high licensing costs, legacy IT dependencies, and limited scalability.

When it came time to renew their hosting contract, Acoustic faced a multi-million-dollar decision: reinvest in outdated infrastructure or transform into a modern, cloud-native SaaS provider. With only 10 months to act, Acoustic turned to Clearscale and AWS for a rapid migration and app modernization.

The Goal

  • Migrate 6,300 servers and 8 SaaS applications from 12 global data centers
  • Complete migration and modernization within 10 months
  • Break free from legacy hosting and licensing dependencies
  • Modernize SaaS apps with microservices and containerization
  • Enable new SaaS capabilities such as trial subscriptions and pay-per-use billing

The Challenge

Challenge 01
Multi-million-dollar decision to renew legacy hosting infrastructure
Challenge 02
High licensing costs reduced financial flexibility
Challenge 03
Products consisted of new apps designed with microservices and legacy apps, with no coverage
Challenge 04
Dependencies on legacy systems slowed innovation
Challenge 05
Limited agility and scalability for SaaS workloads
Challenge 05
Aggressive 10-month timeline to migrate and modernize

The Solution

Clearscale designed and executed a phased migration and app modernization strategy.

Step 01: Phased, Risk-Free Migration

  • Assessed data, workloads, applications, processes, people, and skills for migration readiness
  • Created a migration strategy aligned to business goals and executed in phases to reduce risk

Step 02: Modernized Architecture

  • Migrated 6,300 servers from three data centers into AWS, building a secure, multi-account environment that embedded compliance and governance
  • Built an application message bus to improve speed, efficiency, and resiliency of executions

Step 03: Custom Data Lake and Analytics

  • Created a custom data lake on Amazon S3, integrated with Glue, Athena, EMR, and Redshift
  • Enabled advanced analytics and faster, more reliable data processing

Step 04: Automation and Shared Services

  • Deployed Terraform for Infrastructure as Code (IaC)
  • Built CI/CD pipelines to accelerate delivery
  • Added new shared services to support SaaS operations

Step 05: Collaboration and Training

  • Worked closely with Acoustic teams throughout the migration
  • Delivered training and operational readiness support to ensure a smooth transition

The Impact

Migrated 6,300 servers and 8 SaaS apps in 10 months
Avoided a multi-million-dollar renewal on legacy hosting
Reduced infrastructure costs with AWS’s pay-per-use model
Improved agility, enabling faster deployments and new SaaS features
Built a custom data lake for better analytics

Enabled new revenue models with trial accounts and subscription billing

Hardened and modernized systems, improving security and maintainability

“We needed to migrate to AWS and modernize our workloads to support our cloud-based marketing platform and reduce high IT costs. This was a massive project that involved more than 6,300 servers from 12 global data centers and eight full-stack applications on an aggressive 10-month timeframe. The project was a tremendous success, thanks to our collaboration with Clearscale. They managed to complete this ambitious project on time when other AWS consulting partners said it couldn’t be done.”

— John Boezeman, CTO, Acoustic

Turn Cloud Chaos Into Clear Results On AWS

Clearscale helps marketing and SaaS companies cut through cloud chaos and get clear results on AWS. If your legacy infrastructure is holding you back and you need a partner to tackle complex, large-scale migration and modernization projects, let’s talk.

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