Shoe store chain with quick steps to the cloud
The Swedish retail group NilsonGroup wanted to take their shoes off from their old IT solutions and at the same time reduce the costs associated with IT operations. Oracle Cloud became the solution with help from CEGAL. (Photo: NilsonGroup)
- We wanted to avoid the challenges of old infrastructure in the future. Then the cloud is the solution. So we started with a small Proof of Concept project. It was successful. The next step was a "lift and shift" project where we moved our entire Oracle stack to the cloud, says Johan Holmström, IT Operations Manager at NilsonGroup.
NilsonGroup is behind the shoe chains ECCO, DinSko, Skopunkten and Nilson Shoes. The chains have approximately 200 stores in Norway, Sweden and Finland and have an annual turnover of almost SEK 2 billion.
NilsonGroup began using Oracle technology in the mid-1990s and until today, NilsonGroup's Oracle software and hardware (Oracle Exalytics Appliance) has been a so-called on-prem solution. The systems have run on infrastructure that NilsonGroup has operated itself. In March 2021, it was time to move the solutions over to Oracle Cloud.
In the cloud on a weekend
With help from CEGAL, NilsonGroup wanted to do a complete "lift and shift" of the entire Oracle solution from on-prem to Oracle Cloud.
The Business Intelligence solution was the first NilsonGroup and CEGAL moved to the cloud. After a thorough and successful PoC (Proof of Concept) of Oracle Analytics Cloud, which lasted five months, it was time to move the entire Oracle solution to the cloud.
- Over the course of a weekend, we moved our databases, WebLogic Suite, Oracle Data Integrator and the APEX environment to the cloud, says IT Director Holmström.
APEX (Oracle Application Express) is a development platform that makes it possible to build scalable and secure business systems. Oracle WebLogic Server is an industry-leading application server based on Java EE.
Doubled data warehouse performance
Holmström says that the migration to Oracle Cloud has produced the desired results.
- Even after only a few months in operation, we see that IT costs have been reduced.
- We also have a better overview of what we are going to use. It is easy to scale up and down and we can switch off the development platform when we are not using it, says the IT director.
He also points out that if you need a new server for testing and development, it only takes a few minutes to set it up. And the data warehouse in the cloud is updated in two hours compared to four hours in the old system.
- Nobody has complained about the performance after we moved to Oracle Cloud. It is a good sign, continues Holmström.
- When you look back. Is there anything you would do differently?
- We would describe our needs better and examine them more thoroughly in relation to automatic limitations. This way we had an overview of what would work and what we had to create our own solutions for. We would also describe in more detail everything that has been done, replies Holmström.
He also wishes that he had a better overview of integrations, both with internal systems and with external ones.
- With the experience you have today, would you do the migration to Oracle Cloud again?
- Definitely, answers Johan Holmström in NilsonGroup.
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