Insurance: On-Prem to Azure — Verdas Case Study

Cloud Migration

Insurance: On-Prem to Azure

A leading Irish insurance brokerage was drowning in ageing on-premise infrastructure — unreliable servers, spiralling maintenance costs, and a compliance team losing sleep over audit readiness. Verdas architected and executed a full lift-and-shift migration to Microsoft Azure, delivering a scalable, secure, and audit-ready cloud environment without a single hour of unplanned downtime.

0 Hours Unplanned Downtime

40% Reduction in Infrastructure Costs

99.9% Post-Migration Uptime

100% Compliance Audit Pass Rate

The Challenge

Legacy Infrastructure at Breaking Point

The client operated a network of physical servers that were over seven years old, running end-of-life operating systems and backed up to unreliable tape storage. Their IT team was spending more time firefighting outages than driving the business forward.

With FCA scrutiny intensifying and an upcoming compliance audit, their leadership needed a robust, documented, and future-proof infrastructure — urgently.

End-of-life Windows Server 2008 environments still in production
No off-site backup strategy — full exposure to data loss
Manual patching processes creating critical security gaps
Storage bottlenecks causing slowdowns during peak trading hours
Zero disaster recovery plan in place
Compliance documentation scattered across shared drives

The Solution

A Phased Azure Migration Built for Zero Disruption

Verdas designed a phased migration roadmap, starting with a comprehensive discovery and dependency mapping exercise. Rather than a reckless cut-over, every workload was assessed, sequenced, and migrated on a schedule built around the client's business calendar — avoiding renewal periods, audit windows, and peak trading days.

Phase 1 — Weeks 1–3

Discovery & Architecture Design

Full inventory of on-premise assets, dependency mapping, and Azure landing zone architecture. Security baselines defined. Azure AD tenant configured and governance policies applied before a single workload moved.

Phase 2 — Weeks 4–7

Non-Critical Workload Migration

File shares, internal tools, and test environments migrated first. Azure Site Recovery configured for replication testing. Staff briefed and helpdesk documentation updated in parallel.

Phase 3 — Weeks 8–11

Core Systems Cut-Over

Policy management systems and CRM migrated over a planned weekend window. Dual-running period maintained for 10 days to validate integrity. Zero client-facing disruption recorded.

Phase 4 — Weeks 12–14

Decommission & Hardening

Legacy hardware decommissioned and securely wiped. Azure Defender and Sentinel activated. Conditional Access policies enforced. Full compliance documentation package delivered to the client's audit team.

What We Deployed

The Technical Stack

☁️

Azure IaaS & PaaS

Virtual machines provisioned using Azure Compute with auto-scaling rules. Azure SQL Managed Instance replaced the legacy on-premise SQL Server cluster with built-in high availability and automated backups.

🔐

Azure Active Directory & Conditional Access

All user identities migrated to Azure AD with MFA enforced across every account. Conditional Access policies restrict access by device compliance, location, and risk score.

🛡️

Microsoft Defender for Cloud

Continuous security posture management activated. Threat intelligence feeds integrated with automated alerting routed to the Verdas SOC for 24/7 monitoring on the client's behalf.

💾

Azure Backup & Site Recovery

Geo-redundant backups configured with a 4-hour RPO and 1-hour RTO. Quarterly DR drills scheduled and documented to satisfy FCA audit requirements.

Technologies Used

Microsoft Azure Azure Active Directory Azure Site Recovery Azure SQL Managed Instance Microsoft Defender for Cloud Microsoft Sentinel Azure Backup Conditional Access Azure Monitor Windows Server 2022 Azure Virtual Network ExpressRoute

The Results

A Business Transformed

Within three months of going live on Azure, the client passed their FCA compliance audit with commendation — the first time in four years they had done so without any remediation actions raised. The IT team, previously consumed by reactive maintenance, pivoted entirely to strategic initiatives.

FCA compliance audit passed with zero remediation actions
40% reduction in total infrastructure spend within 12 months
IT support ticket volume dropped by 35% due to platform stability
Remote access performance improved by over 60%
Full disaster recovery capability established — first time ever
All staff onboarded to MFA within 2 weeks of go-live

"Verdas didn't just move our servers to the cloud — they transformed how our entire business operates. For the first time, our compliance team walked into an audit with complete confidence. The preparation, communication, and delivery were exceptional throughout."

— Head of Operations, Irish Insurance Brokerage

Planning a Cloud Migration?

Let's map your infrastructure and design a migration strategy that eliminates risk and cuts costs.

Book a Free Discovery Call