Overview
EventsAir, a global leader in event management software, modernised its Azure infrastructure to enhance scalability, security, and operational efficiency. Partnering with Arinco, they successfully migrated 1,300 classic services and 160 terabytes of data to modern Azure solutions, resulting in a 30% increase in resiliency, enhanced security and removal of 12 single points of failure.
Customer Context
EventsAir is a leading global provider of event management software solutions. Its cutting-edge platform empowers event organisers worldwide to create, manage and execute successful events of all scales. With a mission to revolutionise the events industry through innovative technology, EventsAir has established itself as a trusted partner for businesses, associations and organisations seeking to deliver exceptional event experiences.
Operating at an impressive scale, EventsAir’s platform hosts approximately 30,000+ events annually, with multiple events running concurrently at any given time. EventsAir is committed to providing a reliable, scalable and feature-rich platform that meets the diverse needs of event organisers across various industries and geographical locations.
Business Challenge
The fast-evolving event management industry necessitated EventsAir to modernise their technology environment. While their extensive Azure infrastructure had supported significant growth, it relied on legacy systems that were becoming increasingly complex to maintain, hindering their competitive edge. Recognising the need to enhance scalability and leverage the latest Azure features and security tools, EventsAir embarked on a journey to modernise and uplift their infrastructure.
The company’s Azure environment included numerous classic services, multiple Web Application Firewall (WAF) solutions, and an internal deployment tool that was limited to classic Azure services and single-subscription deployments. This modernisation initiative aimed to streamline their technology stack, improve operational efficiency and ensure that EventsAir remained at the forefront of the industry.
The key challenges EventsAir aimed to address in this project included:
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- Modernising its vast and complex environment with 160 terabytes of data, 1,300 databases, 12 application shared services and 1,300 classic cloud services.
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- Managing multiple interdependencies between services and a significant amount of shared infrastructure.
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- Migrating from deprecated classic Azure services to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) models.
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- Consolidating fragmented WAF solutions across the environment.
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- Overcoming limitations of an internal deployment tool limited to classic services and single-subscription deployments.
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- Mitigating the loss of institutional knowledge about certain aspects of the environment.
This modernisation effort was crucial for EventsAir to maintain its market position, enhance security, improve scalability and reliability, and set the foundation for future innovations in line with their mission to improve the lives of event planners all over the world by eliminating the heavy lifting required in planning and running events of all sizes and providing a reliable and trustworthy technology.
Solution
Arinco was engaged by EventsAir to address these complex challenges, utilising our Azure Done Right™ solution, which leverages a repeatable framework for migration and aligns with Microsoft best-practices.
Arinco conducted an initial application modernisation assessment which determined a comprehensive migration plan. Leveraging Microsoft technologies, the solution was tailored to address the specific issues identified during the discovery phase and set the foundation for future scalability and security.
Key to this project was the exceptionally tight timeline, with only a few months to migrate all classic services to the new, secure landing zone environment.
Guided by EventsAir’s vision, Arinco identified the main objectives of the project:
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- Discover and understand the existing environment comprehensively.
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- Deliver a high-fidelity future state architecture.
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- Plan and assess the migration approach for all classic services.
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- Migrate all resources to the new secure landing zone environment.
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- Consolidate WAF solutions.
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- Enhance the capabilities of EventsAir’s internal deployment tool.
These objectives helped to shape the solution that Arinco delivered.
Enhancing security and high availability: To address the fragmented WAF issue and improve security, Arinco implemented Azure Front Door as a centralised Web Application Firewall (WAF) and Content Delivery Network (CDN) solution. This not only enhanced security but also enabled high availability across multiple regions for shared services.
Scalability and improved performance: In ensuring scalability and improved performance, Arinco designed a new architecture with Global and Regional Landing Zones, spanning three global regions for shared services and ten regional landing zones, which significantly improved resource organisation.
Modernising decommissioned services: Arinco migrated all classic cloud services to modern Azure App Services, addressing the urgent need to transition away from soon-to-be-decommissioned classic services. This move ensured the technology environment was up-to-date and capable of supporting future growth.
Data protection as a priority: Arinco transitioned all classic storage accounts to Azure Resource Manager (ARM) storage accounts. This migration allowed for enhanced security capabilities, ensuring data was well-protected.
Secure communication with Azure services: In improving the networking architecture, Arinco implemented robust virtual networks to connect shared services and customer-specific services, and utilised private endpoints for secure communication with Azure services such as SQL databases. We developed custom Bicep templates to standardise and automate the deployment of infrastructure services, ensuring consistency and facilitating easier management.
Simplified access management: Finally, to simplify access management, Arinco moved the test environment to the same Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant as the production environment, while maintaining proper isolation between the two environments.
Unique aspects of the solution
Custom tool enhancement to modernise infra management capabilities: Arinco worked with EventsAir’s team to upgrade their in-house configuration manager to support ARM services and new security features.
Managed domains to centralise and enhance security controls: Leveraging Azure Front Door, Arinco strategically utilised managed domains to centralise control and enhance security while exposing public services. This approach streamlined management and bolstered protection against potential security threats.
Multi-Region high availability architecture to avoid single failure points: Arinco designed the architecture to spread shared services across multiple regions, mitigating single points of failure, enhancing overall system reliability and performance.
Future Scalability
The new architecture provides a solid foundation for future growth and innovation:
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- The regional landing zone approach allows for easy expansion into new geographical areas.
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- The use of modern Azure services enables EventsAir to leverage the latest features and improvements from Microsoft.
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- The standardised deployment process using Bicep templates facilitates rapid and consistent scaling of resources.
This comprehensive solution not only addressed EventsAir’s immediate challenges but also positioned them for future success in the dynamic event management industry.
Outcomes
Key callouts:
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- Eliminated 12 single points of failure
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- 30% increase in resiliency
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- Enhanced security
The implementation of Arinco’s Azure Done Right™ solution for EventsAir resulted in a transformative upgrade to their Azure infrastructure, yielding substantial benefits across multiple facets of their operations.
At the core of this transformation was a large-scale migration effort, successfully transitioning approximately 1,300 classic cloud services to modern Azure App Services and moving 160 terabytes of data from classic storage accounts to ARM storage accounts. This monumental task was accomplished within a tight timeline of just a few months, demonstrating the efficiency and expertise of the implementation team.
A key component of the new infrastructure is its extensive networking architecture built for 3 global regions and 10 spoke regions. This robust foundation not only supports EventsAir’s current global operations but also paves the way for future expansion. The new design significantly enhances security by consolidating multiple WAF solutions into a single, centralised Azure Front Door implementation and implementing private endpoints and virtual networks. These measures have substantially reduced the infrastructure’s attack surface, bolstering EventsAir’s overall security posture.
Reliability and disaster recovery capabilities saw noticeable improvements. The solution eliminated 12 single points of failure in shared services by distributing them across multiple regions using Azure Front Door. It enabled the pathway for High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) features for EventsAir’s customers, significantly enhancing service resilience and business continuity capabilities. This new architecture, spanning multiple global and regional landing zones, provides a scalable foundation that allows EventsAir to efficiently manage and grow their operations, which currently handle an impressive 30,000+ annual events.
The modernisation effort extended to EventsAir’s management and deployment capabilities. The consolidation of approximately 5,000 custom domains under a centralised management system using Azure Front Door streamlined operations. Additionally, the upgrade of EventsAir’s internal deployment tool to support ARM services and multi-subscription deployments has significantly improved operational efficiency. The environment was further optimised by identifying and removing unused resources, reducing complexity and potential costs. Separating the test and production environments, while integrating them under a single tenant, has improved access management and overall compliance from a governance standpoint.
This project has future-proofed EventsAir’s infrastructure. By migrating to modern Azure services and implementing a scalable, global architecture with HA/DR capabilities, EventsAir is now well-positioned to leverage new Azure features, enhance service reliability and scale their business efficiently across different geographical regions. The sheer scale of this project underscores its significant impact on EventsAir’s operations and their ability to serve their global customer base more effectively and reliably. It involved vast amounts of data, numerous databases, cloud services and the implementation of a global network infrastructure across 13 regions.
Future innovation
Following the successful modernisation of their Azure infrastructure, EventsAir is poised to embark on the next phase of their digital transformation journey. The company has outlined several key initiatives to further leverage their newly optimised environment and continue enhancing their event management platform.
