A leading ANZ financial services firm completes its VMware exit in half the time
How OneByZero used AWS Transform and AWS MGN to migrate 71 virtual machines and 40 business-critical applications to AWS in 11 weeks, with minimal downtime.
Built on AWS Transform and AWS Application Migration Service (MGN)
11 wks
end-to-end delivery, versus 24 weeks for a traditional approach
71 / 40
VMs migrated and validated, all 40 applications live
28%
lower post-migration costs through rightsizing and Reserved Instances
Overview
About the customer
The client is a leading financial services organisation in Australia and New Zealand, managing complex workloads across a broad portfolio of applications and services. As part of a strategic infrastructure modernisation initiative, the client undertook a full VMware exit, migrating its on-premises virtual machine estate to AWS to eliminate licence costs, reduce operational complexity, and future-proof its cloud architecture.
The challenge
Migrating a complex VM estate under time and cost pressure
The client faced a hard deadline driven by rising VMware licence costs and a strategic decision to exit on-premises infrastructure entirely. With no complete CMDB and zero tolerance for business-hours downtime, the migration carried four critical pressure points.
01
Rising VMware licence costs
A hard deadline driven by escalating licence costs and a strategic decision to exit on-premises VMware infrastructure entirely.
02
A complex, mixed estate
71 virtual machines running 40 business-critical applications across a mixed environment, demanding careful wave planning.
03
No complete CMDB
Missing configuration data made dependency mapping and migration sequencing particularly difficult to plan with confidence.
04
Zero business-hours downtime
Any downtime during business hours was unacceptable, so every cutover had to execute without risk to live services.
The solution
AWS Transform + AWS MGN, orchestrated by OBZ
OneByZero deployed a two-phase migration approach built entirely on AWS-native tooling, combining AWS Transform for AI-powered discovery and planning with AWS MGN (Application Migration Service) for automated execution and cutover.
#Phase 01 · Weeks 1–2
Discovery
AWS Transform's AI-powered migration agent auto-discovered the full on-premises environment.
- Scanned all 71 VMs across CPU, RAM, OS, storage, network, and tags
- Automated dependency mapping identified 200+ dependencies
- No single manual interview required, resolving the missing-CMDB challenge
#Phase 02 · Planning
Wave planning
Migration plans were generated automatically and risk-tiered, ready for same-day review.
- Wave-based plans risk-tiered by dependency safety
- OBZ's runbook library covered 38 of 40 workload types
- Stakeholder sign-off completed in a single meeting
#Phase 03 · Weeks 3–11
Migration execution
AWS MGN provided continuous block-level replication across all 71 VMs, eliminating manual cutover risk.
- Automated cutover orchestration with post-migration validation at scale
- Downtime kept minimal during business hours
- All 71 VMs migrated and validated; all 40 applications confirmed live
AWS services used
An AWS-native migration stack
The entire migration ran on AWS-native services, removing the spreadsheet-driven manual effort that slows traditional VMware exits and keeping discovery, execution, and cost optimisation in one toolchain.
AWS Transform
AI-powered migration agent that auto-discovers on-premises environments, maps dependencies automatically, and generates risk-tiered wave plans, eliminating manual spreadsheet work.
AWS MGN
Application Migration Service providing continuous block-level replication, automated cutover orchestration, post-migration validation, and minimal-downtime execution at scale.
AWS Cost Tools
Rightsizing recommendations and Reserved Instance planning applied from day one, delivering 28% lower post-migration running costs and eliminating dual-environment overhead ahead of schedule.
Delivered by OneByZero, an AWS partner, using AWS-native migration tooling end to end.
Outcome
A modern AWS foundation, delivered early
11 wks
to full VMware exit, vs 24 weeks traditional
71 / 40
VMs migrated, all 40 applications live
28%
lower post-migration running costs
The full VMware exit was completed in 11 weeks, half the time a traditional migration approach would have required. All 71 virtual machines were migrated successfully and all 40 business applications went live with minimal downtime during business hours.
- Full VMware exit completed in 11 weeks, half the traditional timeline
- All 71 virtual machines migrated and validated successfully
- All 40 business applications live with minimal business-hours downtime
- Post-migration running costs 28% lower than the pre-migration baseline
- Dual-environment running costs eliminated ahead of schedule
- Engineering teams freed to focus on higher-value cloud-native work
About OneByZero
OneByZero is an AI deployment company specialising in AI Coworker design, build, and deployment for regulated enterprises across financial services, telecommunications, and retail. We operate across ASEAN, India, ANZ, and Japan, with a presence in the United States, combining domain expertise in regulated industries with deep AI engineering capability.
HQ Singapore · Tech HQ USA · Australia · India · Indonesia · Malaysia · Philippines · Thailand · Vietnam
