It was a complete rethinking of how our systems should operate in a modern, performance-driven environment. The legacy infrastructure was starting to show its limits. We were dealing with slow data retrieval, rising operational costs, inefficient cooling, and growing pressure to support hybrid workloads. I was tasked with overseeing this $2.4M initiative from start to finish.

The scope was vast and I audited over 160 virtual machines and 50 physical servers, mapping dependencies, evaluating performance, and identifying critical workloads that couldn’t afford disruption. Working with our finance, procurement, and operations teams, we designed a hybrid architecture built on Dell EMC VxRail on-premises, paired with Azure Site Recovery and Backup Vaults in the cloud. For virtualization, we deployed VMware vSphere 7.0 with full vMotion support for seamless migrations.

Security and network architecture got a complete overhaul. We implemented Cisco Nexus core switching, Palo Alto Next-Gen Firewalls, and Meraki SD-WAN across our branches. Downtime minimization was a top priority, so we designed a phased migration strategy: low-priority systems moved first, while mission-critical workloads were replicated and tested with Veeam and Azure ASR before any live cutover.

Some older systems, like those running on Server 2008 or legacy SQL builds posed serious challenges. I led the effort to isolate and rehost these using advanced solutions like Azure Nested Virtualization, keeping legacy functions alive without compromising the broader environment.

After the migration we had live dashboards, Microsoft Teams command channels, PRTG monitoring, and SharePoint-based status updates. I also documented the full migration playbook, including rollback paths, validation checklists, and interactive topology maps using Lucidchart.