Background and Initial Infrastructure Setup
For many years, the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS) operated its servers in a Montreal university data center.
Growing Limitations of the On-Premises Model
This approach served UIS well, but it increasingly reached its limits as workloads grew. In addition, since UIS moved to a new office in October 2022 without a server room suitable for long-term hosting with the required business continuity standards, maintaining core infrastructure in a traditional on‑premises model became less sustainable.
Impact of Global Collaboration and Remote Work
Global access needs added more pressure. UIS teams work from Canada, France, and other locations, and telecommuting is now a standard operating model. Under the previous setup, VPN connections could be slow and response times for accessing resources from abroad were frustrating, impacting productivity and day-to-day operations.
Strategic Drivers for Cloud Adoption
UIS IT concluded that a modern, flexible solution was needed—one that could scale on demand, simplify management, and provide secure access from anywhere. Strengthening Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BCDR) was also a key motivation, to ensure critical services can remain available and recover quickly in the event of outages or major incidents. This direction aligns with UIS’s need to reduce operational burden while benefiting from cloud capabilities that are now widely adopted and mature.
Choosing Microsoft Azure as the Target Platform
UIS decided to pursue a migration path to Microsoft Azure, with the primary goal of keeping the user experience seamless while improving performance and resilience. This choice is supported by existing UNESCO and UIS experience with Azure and UNESCO’s Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft.
Migration Strategy and Architectural Design
UIS adopted a phased lift-and-shift approach, beginning with a detailed assessment of the environment, applications, and dependencies. UIS then established an Azure Landing Zone aligned with the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, implemented a hub-and-spoke network design, set up secure connectivity (ExpressRoute and global network peering) to connect four locations, and automated deployments using infrastructure-as-code tooling using Terraform.
Phased Migration Execution and Risk Mitigation
Migration was executed systematically in waves—starting with less critical workloads and progressing to core systems—while testing each step to minimize downtime and reduce risk. System4U supported UIS by producing a solid target architecture and migration blueprint, and implemented backup and disaster recovery plans, produced documentation for ongoing operations, and ensured knowledge transfer to the UIS IT team to support long-term maintainability.
