Home Improvement Retailer

Case Study

Cloud Migration & Modernisation

For this Home Improvement Retailer based in Watford, achieving full digital autonomy during their massive corporate demerger required a strategic overhaul, not just a cloud relocation. KO Technologies delivered an Elevate & Innovate Migration that went beyond lift-and-shift to transform the entire IT estate. We established a Cloud Centre of Excellence (CCoE) and implemented an immutable platform using HashiCorp Terraform. This resulted in zero-downtime deployments and cut the time to production by an impressive 75%, securing a future as a standalone, technology-driven retail leader..

The Client

A leading, digitally-led British home improvement retailer. Specializing in everything from building materials and trade supplies to kitchens, bathrooms, and DIY essentials, serves three core customer segments: Local Trade, Design & Installation, and DIY Retail. Operating from over 230 stores, the brand is known for its multi-channel approach, allowing customers to shop seamlessly online for Click & Collect or home delivery.

  • Name
    Home Improvement Retailer
  • Turnover
    £ 2 Billion
  • Location
    United Kindgdom

KO Technologies delivered a modern migration that immediately supercharged our ability to innovate. We’re now moving faster than ever, while significantly reducing operational costs.

CITO

Challenges

  • Corporate Demerger: Executing a massive demerger program to transition into a fully stand-alone business entity.
  • Infrastructure Autonomy: Technically separating all application infrastructure from the parent company’s hosted data center and building a completely new, independent IT capability.
  • Create a secure multi account AWS cloud: Due to the complexity and business units, many AWS accounts are required.
  • Platform Modernization: Establishing platform parity first, and then immediately embarking on continuous improvement and a comprehensive DevOps transformation.
  • Automation & Code First: Reduce operational overhead and increase automation to supercharge the business.
  • Maintain service level uptime when migrating: A challenge to keep business continuity whilst cutover to new AWS infrastructure.
  • Introduce better observability solutions: Replace the existing monitoring solutions with unified cloud observability solutions.
  • Introduce better observability solutions: Replace the Citrix solution with a serverless AWS equivalent solution.
  • Elevate & Innovation: A cloud first approach to introduce serverless and microservice technologies.

Solutions

  • AWS Landing Zones: AWS account structure created using the Terraform Account Factory.
  • CCoE Formation: Cloud Centre of Excellence to boost cloud adoption – A key component to a cloud migration – we helped create a platform and capability to drive innovation.
  • eCommerce platform: An innovative auto scaling eCommerce infrastructure solution which leverages HashiCorp Packer built Hybris AMI’s, released using Terraform & Jenkins CICD.
  • Microservices platform: A HashiCorp Nomad based microservices platform to deploy the next gen application to.
  • Digital Workplaces: AppStream and Workspaces to enhance security and make it easier for business users to access private systems.
  • Next Gen Firewall: Palo Alto Firewall deployment. We created a secure network to allow client VPN and cross VPC access.
  • Datadog Observability: Introduced the three pillars of observability to eCommerce and Microservices to enhance service levels and finely tune applications to meet the demands of an elastic scaling business.
  • Architecture diagrams: Introduced Cloudcraft to save time with creating architecture diagrams.


Results

At KO Technologies, we believe the numbers speak for themselves. Explore the tangible impact of our strategic implementations, from accelerated deployment timelines to immediate cost reductions and robust system performance.

Speed to innovation is vastly reduced by delivering a modern migration to AWS. We have reduced time to market by 75% by deploying high impact automation.

Modern scalable infrastructure, rather than static and operational burdened servers.

Enhance Observability with Datadog –  increasing service levels and lowering time to identify problems.

Teams collaborate seamlessly with the unified Tools and enhanced Devops Techniques

Toolbox

AWS, ECS, Terraform, Terragrunt, Packer, OIDC, GitLab, Datadog, Atlassian, Vault, Nomad, Consul

Ready to Scale Modern Cloud Tech for Less?

Whether you need to optimize AWS and Datadog costs, migrate legacy workloads, or deploy cutting-edge AI workflows, KO Technologies is ready to help. Partner with our certified team to transform your infrastructure and start saving from day one.