Why the Mitra Migration Framework is a Big Deal

Introduction
WSO2 is a global, open-source, middleware platform for integration, API management and identity and access management. Over 700 customers, in more than 90 countries across a diverse range of industries, rely on WSO2 solutions, with applications and services running on premise, in the cloud or in hybrid environments.

Mitra Innovation and WSO2
For over 10 years Mitra Innovation has helped clients deliver integration, API management and Identity Access Management (IAM) projects using the WSO2 platform. With particular expertise in Banking, Financial Services, Insurance, Healthcare and Telecommunications, we help companies apply WSO2 technology to their business challenges and opportunities. Having undertaken more than 45 projects worldwide, Mitra Innovation has earned WSO2 Gold Partner status, bringing a unique blend of experience and expertise to each distinct project.

The Mitra Migration Framework
Mitra has evolved with WSO2, having designed, integrated and deployed numerous solutions for our clients. During this evolution, we increasingly found ourselves migrating existing customers to new versions of WSO2. As part of this learning, Mitra developed the Mitra Migration Framework to optimise the process for our WSO2 clients. Whether upgrading an existing enterprise version of WSO2, converting from a community version to an enterprise version, or moving to a cloud WSO2 version, the Migration Framework covers all scenarios.

Shanaka Mendis, Mitra’s Integration Practice Head says, “Being one of the longest serving WSO2 Partners, we have combined our wide-ranging experience of integration projects with our extensive expertise in WSO2 technology, to develop the Mitra Migration Framework.”

The Framework itself aims to: Assess, Migrate and Support customers through the migration process, where the initial short assessment phase provides good, up front visibility into the planned migration.

Shanaka continues, “Our Framework will not only simplify but also speed up the entire WSO2 migration process. By providing an assessment of the entire business and technical impact of the migration process, highlighting risks and creating a full migration plan, WSO2 users are given a clear migration pathway and an accurate estimate of the costs involved, all within a week.”

Assess
A thorough, one week assessment provides a clear migration roadmap and lays the foundation for a seamless migration experience. The assessment requires detailed oversight of the existing WSO2 platform encompassing everything from the supporting infrastructure and the integration ecosystem, to any customisations that have been undertaken during the lifetime of the previous WSO2 version. Dependencies, business use cases, non functional requirements and data/persistence all form part of the assessment process. This part of the process will detail business impacts, technical impacts, risks and mitigations, and provide estimated project costs for the proposed migration. The benefits of doing a full assessment include visibility of technical and business changes, advance knowledge of client side dependencies, accurate budget estimates for better planning and the ability to prioritise migration items, thus reducing unwanted business disruption.

Migrate
Once the assessment roadmap is agreed, migration can be scheduled. This phase of the framework involves building a pre migration benchmark, creating an integration and dependency map, undertaking the platform and configuration migration and the creation of test cases, out of business use cases, for post migration testing of the upgraded platform. The upgrade will be documented at every step of the way, including new functionality and security features. In some cases a DevSecOps pipeline will be set up to facilitate faster future deployment. Use of Mitra’s best practices and re-usable assets ensures a fast and reliable migration.

Support
Once migration is completed it’s essential to provide the right support to ensure the new platform delivers the targeted business outcomes by minimising disruption. Mitra provides proactive monitoring, alerts and issue resolution helping clients to stay focused on the business without worrying about the technology. In order to keep the client informed, we will send an automated monthly service review report including information on:

• SLAs
• Incidents
• Action items
• Ticket summaries
• Service improvements
• Managed services run book

Mitra will undertake WSO2 patch updates, provide 24 x 7 infrastructure, network and operational support, development support, prioritising security operations and DevOps services. With one team supporting multiple services, the customer receives superior, joined-up support from a single source, reducing costs through optimised services and reducing downtime through proactive issue resolution.

Conclusion
The Mitra Migration Framework brings an optimised, pragmatic and functional approach to your migration project. With clear timelines and costs, planning and budgeting are easy and the entire process is significantly less onerous than it would be without the Migration Framework in place.

Head of Solutions at Mitra, Anjana Chandrapala, says, “Migrating middleware to the latest versions may seem like a huge business and technical challenge for your organisation, but with Mitra’s experts, our wide-ranging experience and the Mitra Migration Framework on your side, you can have confidence we will get the job done!”