Exela Technologies, a global leader in business process automation (BPA), has successfully migrated and modernized its DocumentDNA application on Microsoft Azure, resulting in significant improvements for both Exela and its customers.
Exela, with over 16,000 employees in 21 countries, serves more than 4,000 customers worldwide, including a majority of the Fortune 100 companies. The company provides digital transformation solutions leveraging proprietary technology to automate processes, enhance efficiency, and reduce costs. Their services span various business functions and industries, including finance, healthcare, and the public sector.
Faced with the limitations of its on-premises infrastructure, including challenges with high availability, disaster recovery, and scalability, Exela recognized the need for a modern, cloud-centric approach. Moving to the cloud wasn’t enough; Exela also chose to modernize its application to improve customer satisfaction and meet increasingly stringent service level agreements (SLAs).
To achieve these objectives, Exela decided to migrate its existing on-premise database to PostgreSQL and modernize its DocumentDNA application. This undertaking required a robust and scalable platform. Microsoft Azure, with its comprehensive ecosystem and services for hosting databases and scalable infrastructure, emerged as the ideal solution.
“Azure’s scalability and high availability drove our decision to partner with Microsoft,” said Sankaranarayanan, SVP, Technology, Exela Technologies. “Also, PostgreSQL on Azure facilitates seamless integration with existing Microsoft technologies such as .NET and SQL Server, facilitating interoperability, a critical requirement for us.”
Exela and Microsoft collaborated to implement the project within a demanding six-month timeframe. The project involved migrating a 6.42 TB database with over 740 million records. This required the coordination of multiple business and technology teams, and modifications at the code, database and application levels.
Sam Singh, AVP, Technology, Exela, noted, “Microsoft’s comprehensive solution included guidance, tools, and resources for our migration and modernization project. We used the Azure Data Box’s advanced encryption and decryption features to move the data from on-premises to the cloud.”
The migration and modernization efforts yielded significant benefits for Exela and its customers:
- Enhanced Development Workflows: Streamlined integration with .NET, boosting the efficiency of the development team.
- Improved Availability and Security: The solution provides zone redundancy and automatic failover, simplifying management and reducing operational complexities.
- Increased Application Speed and Flexibility: Azure’s cloud infrastructure enhanced the speed and flexibility of the DocumentDNA application.
- Robust Data Protection: Microsoft Azure’s security measures guarantee data protection and compliance.
- Optimized End-User Experience: Improved performance enhances the end-user experience of DocumentDNA.
- Cost Optimization: The cost-effective solution helps to optimize the budget.
- Comprehensive Support: Microsoft’s comprehensive support facilitated more effective query resolution and incident management.
The migration has provided Exela’s customers with a modern, scalable, and managed database solution, improving performance and streamlining workflows.
Sriram Ramanathan, CTO, Exela Technologies, highlighted the project’s impact: “Our solution differentiates itself through its comprehensive ecosystem integration, hybrid cloud support, robust security, and cost-effectiveness. The expertise and end-to-end support from Microsoft were crucial for executing this mission-critical project, allowing us to assist our customers in optimizing costs and achieving unparalleled performance.”
Looking ahead, Exela plans to further optimize the performance and scalability of their Azure-based solution, explore AI integration to enhance document management capabilities, and leverage new Azure services to meet evolving business needs and foster sustained innovation.
