Sometimes progress can feel too challenging to embrace, until you take the first step. Once you reach the top of the hill – and a world of growth is in front of you – you can only wonder why you didn’t start the journey sooner.
In September 2022, Houston-based Speedcast was metaphorically standing at the bottom of that hill. The leading satellite communications and IT firm, which delivers advanced, secure voice, conferencing, SIP trunking, and internet services to remote-sited sectors like shipping, defense, and offshore resource extraction, was looking to expand its business support capabilities, along with the range of value-added services it could deliver to its customers and resellers.
However, a series of acquisitions had left Speedcast with a consolidated system that had gone almost two years without a PortaSwitch system update – meaning the company did not have access to the latest features that are available in newer releases of PortaSwitch. It was also operating with aging, on-premises hardware with 23 servers across six redundant sites spread across the globe.
“To grow with their existing system, Speedcast would have had to invest in a complete modernization of their hardware, and they would still need to invest resources in administering it,” explains Alex Zaluhovskyi, senior project manager with PortaOne. “That made a move to the cloud an obvious solution: they could save on hardware and its administration, and it would give them the ability to grow if and when they needed to.”
But there was one more layer of complexity to contend with: due to the high security needs of Speedcast’s customers, the company’s entire system was wrapped in Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) technology – meaning that their services are delivered within a virtual private network (VPN) that is “gated off” from the larger internet. With so many challenging factors to consider, the Speedcast and PortaOne teams had to ask: was it going to work?
There was only one way to find out.
Proving the Plan
Rather than put any of Speedcast’s live services at risk, the PortaOne team decided to confirm the feasibility of the cloud migration and PortaSwitch version update with a proof-of-concept (PoC) test run. The PoC would add additional time to the overall project, but it would also help both teams identify and address potential issues before they could cause any real-world problems.
“No one knew what it would take to connect that MPLS to the cloud,” says Alex Zaluhovskyi. “But after the PoC, we knew all of the issues we might be faced with, what actions we would each need to take, what resources we would need, and how long it would all take. It allowed us to remove the uncertainty, and gather the details we needed to make a detailed plan with estimates and timelines.”
The PortaOne team designed the PoC plan to safely answer four specific and critical questions:
- Could the MPLS connect to the PortaOne OCI (Oracle Cloud Infrastructure), and would all of Speedcast’s SIP services continue to work within a private network that did not have direct internet access?
- Could the Speedcast system, which relied on an Oracle cluster database solution using shared disc array technology, be transformed to gain that high availability and redundancy from the cloud rather than from expensive hardware?
- Exactly how much complication would it add to extend the already challenging cloud migration by updating Speedcast’s consolidated PortaSwitch system to the latest release at the same time?
- Finally, would Speedcast customers – who have a crucial need for secure and reliable communications – face painful levels of downtime, or could service interruptions be kept to a minimum?
“The aim was to deploy a totally new voice service platform without our customers realizing it had been deployed,” says James Warren, manager of voice platforms for Speedcast. Luckily, the company’s long experience as a PortaOne customer gave the Speedcast team the confidence to take on the challenge.
“Prior to our cloud migration, our existing PortaOne system had run flawlessly for over 12 years,” Warren says. “That, with the support we have from PortaOne, made it an easy choice.”
Moving Slow and Steady to Ensure Success
As the old saying goes, “If you want to go far, go together.” Speedcast and PortaOne launched the proof of concept in May 2022, with each team taking responsibility for specific tasks. The first step – connecting the Speedcast MPLS to the PortaOne OCI – was executed by the Speedcast team, who solved the challenge with OCI FastConnect bridges and some custom setting reconfigurations suggested by PortaOne engineers Andrii Kostiuchenko and Igor Tverdovskiy.
From there, it was time for the full migration, which was led by expert PortaOne support engineer Kyrylo Chornenkyi. The first step was to update Speedcast’s platforms – both PortaSwitch, which was updated from MR90 to MR110 (10 MRs higher than the original update plan as the PortaOne 7-week update cycle meant that PortaSwitch had evolved significantly since the start of the project), and the Oracle database version, which was updated from 12c to 19g.
Updating Speedcast’s PortaSwitch may have added an additional layer of difficulty to the migration process, but the team knew that it would save much more difficulty later. (Think of it this way: if you are changing all the furniture in your house, that’s the ideal time to refresh the paint, too.)
“Jumping across multiple maintenance releases can be resource-consuming and time-consuming,” says Alex Zaluhovskyi. “So when a PortaOne customer is already migrating to the cloud, it makes sense to make that MR jump at the same time so that you are not just migrating from an outdated release to the same outdated release.”
The team ran multiple test runs on both the cloud migration and the update during the proof of concept stage to uncover any hiccups and to create an accurate timeline for the live project.
In November 2023, the proof of concept testing was successfully completed. By the beginning of 2024, it was time to make the move.
Added Scalability, with Some Bonus Simplicity
While Speedcast’s primary goal in moving to the cloud was increasing its ability to scale its services and its customer base, the migration also enabled the company to greatly reduce the size and complexity of its hardware installations. By early March 2024, when the project was completed and Speedcast was conducting its first round of billing on the new OCI system, the company had reduced its sites from six to three, while also shrinking its server infrastructure from 23 installations to 15.
Both outcomes have made Speedcast’s operations far more cost-effective, while the long maintenance release jump from MR90 to MR110 has enabled the company to offer profitable new features and capabilities. Best of all, the entire process had little impact on Speedcast’s customers.
“With the cloud, you can start with a system that is matched to the capabilities you need now – whether that’s as low as 100 customers with two concurrent calls,” says Alex Zaluhovskyi. “As soon as your customer base starts to grow, PortaOne can allocate you a larger system. So you never have to pay for a larger system than you need.”
Speedcast no longer has to pay for expensive hardware modernization, either – and with its PortaSwitch platform now living in the cloud, future updates will be a breeze. “The planning and testing, and the duplication of our old database to the new cloud service made this a big success for Speedcast,” says Warren. “Our voice team can concentrate on our customers and projects, and spend less time on maintenance.”
Are You Ready to Make the Leap?
If a company with so many layered challenges – a complex, high-security cloud migration; managing a multi-site system; a PortaSwitch jump across 20 versions; plus an Oracle database version update, all at the same time – can successfully set itself up for a limitless future, then it might be time to ask what’s holding your company back. The first step is an easy one: simply reach out to the PortaOne team, so we can help you envision your plan.
“Support from PortaOne is second to none, in both response and action. Their scope, testing, and patience made them a joy to work with,” James Warren says. “Without the PortaOne project team, this move would have been impossible. My team and I are extremely grateful for their hard work and support, and we look forward to continuing to work with PortaOne.”
If you would like to find out how your company could benefit from new, more cost-effective technologies, reach out to our team today. Whatever complexities might be unique to your system, we’re here to help you reach the end of a successful and customized cloud migration journey.
