VP, Hybrid Cloud Practice
INDUSTRY: Financial Services
COMPANY SIZE: 200 Employees
HEADQUARTERS: Franklin, TN
Having separated from its parent company, Franklin Madison wanted to build a modern, cloud-based infrastructure using Amazon Web Services (“AWS”). Franklin Madison faced a choice: either undergo an expensive upgrade or switch middleware platforms. After an internal evaluation, Franklin Madison selected Red Hat JBoss® Enterprise Application Platform (“EAP”), an open-source platform to build, deploy, and manage Java applications within their environment. With the ease of deployment, application modernization and lower IT costs as the primary motivations, Franklin Madison reached out to Axcelinno for assistance with the AWS migration. A Red Hat Apex Partner, Axcelinno offered a full suite of professional services—including assessment, architecture, deployment, configuration, and mentoring to Franklin Madison’s developers, administrators, architects, and DevOps teams.
‘It’s been a very good experience working with Axcelinno. Whenever we have any questions or concerns, our account team is always there to help us… The folks that we work with from Axcelinno are experts in this field… In the end, all conditions were met and everything was completed in a timely manner.’
Key Results
- Successful migration from Oracle WebLogic Server to JBoss EAP, and from on-premises to Amazon Web Services.
- EAP architecture assessment and health check to diagnose and resolve problems with the client’s IT environment.
- Hands-on implementation and mentoring for the new JBoss EAP environment on AWS.
- A reliable and cost-effective solution with no downtime.
Services & Partner Ecosystem Technologies
- Axcelinno Professional Services
- Red Hat JBoss EAP
- Amazon Web Services
- Spring Framework
The Client: A Fresh Start For Enterprise IT
The client in this case study, Franklin Madison, separated from its parent company Affinion Benefits Group, LLC several years ago. Upon separation, the two businesses agreed that Affinion would provide support for Franklin Madison’s IT infrastructure for a period of five years, after which they would operate independently.
While under Affinion, Franklin Madison had been using Oracle WebLogic Server to develop and deploy its Java applications. However, Franklin Madison saw the separation as a fresh start for its IT infrastructure. System architects and senior technical leaders decided that the company should migrate from WebLogic to Red Hat JBoss Enterprise Application Platform. A key factor was that JBoss EAP is an open-source platform, which would help Franklin Madison improve its architecture, move to a more modern solution, and realize new efficiencies.
In addition, because JBoss EAP was a cloud-ready and easy to deploy solution, Franklin Madison wanted to seize the chance to migrate its infrastructure and applications into the cloud. Under Affinion, the client had been maintaining IT infrastructure and applications on-premises in its data center. Franklin Madison saw this project as the perfect opportunity to move to a new, modern, cloud-based infrastructure.
Challenge: Improving Application Performance
After choosing Amazon Web Services as its public cloud provider, Franklin Madison began the migration process. However, the client soon ran into trouble with IT resource constraints and application performance:
- First, the deployment of all applications was slow and outage-prone. These outages had a severe negative impact on application availability, support issues, costs, and the end-user experience.
- Second, there were significant performance issues in the legacy on-premises WebLogic environment that were carried over to the new JBoss EAP environment.
Franklin Madison’s ability to deploy and operate its applications and services was seriously impacted by these problems—even more challenging because their root cause was unknown. As a result, the client needed an IT managed services partner who could offer help with their issues.
Solution: No More Resource Constraints
SOFTWARE
- Red Hat® JBoss® Enterprise Application Platform (“EAP”)
In search of the right IT expertise, the client reached out to Axcelinno. The partnership began with a series of meetings where Axcelinno quickly and accurately assessed the client’s current installation of EAP, offering their own recommendations and plan for moving forward. ****The team for this project consisted of an Axcelinno consultant with technical knowledge of JBoss EAP, as well as a project manager to oversee progress and liaison with Franklin Madison.
Axcelinno began by performing an “EAP Health Check” that reviewed the client’s “out of memory” issues and the degradation in SQL query performance. Next, Axcelinno provided a detailed outline with recommendations to address these issues, as well as advice for fine-tuning the client’s EAP configuration to create a more secure, scalable, reliable, and performant environment.
Results: A Configured EAP Meets Best Practices
With the help of Axcelinno, Franklin Madison was able to successfully resolve its resource constraints and performance issues. After this roadblock was removed, the client was able to complete the migration from WebLogic to JBoss EAP, and from on-premises to AWS, precisely and without delay.
Thanks to this successful collaboration, Franklin Madison has continued to partner with the Axcelinno services team for future IT projects. In particular, the client praised Axcelinno’s responsiveness, transparency, communication, mentoring, and expertise from the project’s start to finish.
Franklin Madison plans to migrate a new application to the cloud every three to six months and will have Axcelinno engaged for any guidance, issues, and concerns. In particular, the client anticipates needing assistance with new cloud features, functionality, and best practices such as auto-scaling instances. Axcelinno is ready to use its deep well of cloud and open-source experience and knowledge to help the client with its future IT goals and objectives.
About Franklin Madison
An industry pioneer with over 50 years of experience, Franklin Madison builds financial security for individuals and families by delivering industry-leading insurance products and marketing services through their brand partners. Franklin Madison helps generate increased loyalty and incremental revenue for more than 3,500 financial institutions.
Red Hat JBoss® and Red Hat Openshift® are trademarks of Red Hat, Inc., registered in the United States and other countries.