Data migration during the COVID-19 pandemic

With organizations around the globe currently implementing remote working at unprecedented levels, it’s never been more vital for businesses to maintain secure and trusted remote file transfers to safeguard the sharing of data.

Here we are going to share with you one of our success stories, the challenges, the solutions, and how we help Arcadis migrate their data to the cloud during COVID-19.

“I think last migration weekend went pretty smooth again, thanks. Even some people notice that it’s handy to have documents available through a cloud solution, as logging in to our Arcadis network is having performance issues with so many colleagues working at home due to the Coronavirus”. Ruud van Tongeren | IT Functional Head of Engineering Applications, Europe |Arcadis.

The project

2500 projects with over 1 million files needed migration from the current document management system to the cloud in order for Arcadis to achieve a Common Data Environment for their digital ambitions instead of only a Document Management System.

The approach

Arcadis conducted a scan of the different offerings on the market and discovered Cloudsfer. “After some tests, we were convinced that Cloudsfer could help us to get everything in BIM 360 without disturbance of the business”.

Some challenges identified:

Together with Arcadis, the following challenges were identified:

1. Cloudsfer developed a solution to upload the files using FTP but because of security Arcadis couldn’t use this so they needed to come up with a different approach
2. A task had to be created for each project. Creating a task take 5 minutes, and creating 2500 tasks required more than 200 hrs
3. We had to do work on some weekends but looking at the needed upload time it is impossible to do this
4. After uploading the files were not being processed. They had to be done manually but that was not acceptable so this also needed a workaround

Solutions Developed:

1. Cloudsfer developed an agent to make it possible to migrate from an on-premise server to BIM360. It involved the agent being in the lead and using tokens, it solved all the security issues
2. Cloudsfer developed a tool making it possible that Arcadis deliver a spreadsheet with all the information, Cloudsfer then executes their tool, and all the tasks will then be executed if they receive a new token from Arcadis
3. Another challenge then was that Cloudsfer needed the Project ID’s and main folder ID. This was solved by a Forge tool which read all the project and the needed info in a CSV
4. To reduce the upload time Cloudsfer had the option to migrate the delta. So then Arcadis could upload all the projects and on the weekends we only need to update the changed files
5. Cloudsfer contacted Autodesk and Arcadis did the same, and then Autodesk created a script for batch processing the Office documents, PFD, RVT, and DWG files

Execution of the project

1. Arcadis sent all the projects to Cloudsfer and downloaded all the project files to a share of a network drive
2. Cloudsfer started the first upload which took 3 weeks
3. We decided to split the final migration into 4 weekends
4. To be sure we can do all the projects in a weekend, Cloudsfer started a pre-upload the Tuesday before the final migration
5. In a migration weekend, we started on Friday at 6 pm with downloading all files, and when this finished Arcadis asked Cloudsfer to start the final upload
6. For all 4 migration weekends, we were ready on Sunday morning and Arcadis received a message from Cloudsfer that the migration has been finished with an error report. We didn’t expect to get so few errors – only a few files each weekend

The result

The result of this challenging project is extremely good. Arcadis didn’t receive big complaints from the business. Each Monday after the migration all the project members could find their project and files because they received a link to it after they were added as members of the project.

Arcadis is very satisfied with the collaboration with Cloudsfer, their involvement, and their availability on the weekend to help us with solving issues.

“We all have finished the migration projects successfully and on behalf of the whole project team I want to thank you for your strong involvement in this project all your input, suggestions, and effort were an important part of the success of this project. Showing what you can offer and how you can help in a big project like this is more powerful than a big advertising campaign. Of course, I will share this result and your role with my colleagues in other regions. For now, again many thanks and we know how to find you if we need to do this in other countries or regions”. Ruud van Tongeren | IT Functional Head of Engineering Applications, Europe |Arcadis.