Global Retailer Reinvents Security and Seasonal Agility with Cloud@Customer
For a global lifestyle retailer with more than a century of heritage, the next chapter of digital evolution demanded a perfect balance: cloud-scale agility without compromising the security, control, and predictability of on-premises operations. Seasonal business spikes, stringent brand reputation expectations, and an aging data center had placed the organization at a crossroad— modernize or start falling behind.
That’s where our skilled professionals stepped in, bringing deep Oracle expertise, engineering discipline, and cloud innovation to help the retailer adopt Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer — a hybrid cloud solution delivered directly inside their own data center. This has resulted in uncompromised security, high performance, and efficient resource scaling across peak and off-peak seasons.
This is the story of how a legacy retailer transformed its enterprise database landscape without ever letting go of the control and security it had spent decades perfecting.
A Retailer Built on Heritage, Now Fueling Modern Velocity
For over 120 years, this iconic retailer has been shaping global fashion culture through its distinct brand presence, expansive footprint, and great customer loyalty. But behind the curtains, the organization was struggling with a challenge shared by many high-volume retailers: the need to modernize an aging, complex IT stack without disrupting operations that run 24×7 across global markets.
Their systems supported omnichannel retail experiences, store operations, supply chain workflows, inventory intelligence, customer loyalty platforms, and digital storefronts. The business needed a more flexible and future-ready infrastructure with sophisticated security, especially given the sensitive data handled daily across global retail locations.
The leadership saw cloud as a path to scale, optimize costs, and accelerate innovation but they also recognized that not all cloud models were built for their security posture, seasonal traffic patterns, or tightly regulated operational expectations. They needed a cloud solution that could live inside their data center while providing elasticity, consistency, and compliance at enterprise scale.
When Legacy Meets Modern Demands
The retailer’s technology ecosystem had evolved over years of growth, global expansion, and digital transformation initiatives. But this growth came with challenges:
1. Aging On-Premises Infrastructure
Critical enterprise databases were still running on legacy on-premises Exadata machines approaching end-of-life. Hardware refreshes were becoming costly and complex, and operational risks were increasing with each passing season.
2. Security and Compliance Concerns
The customer required cloud-level performance with on-premises security and isolation. Traditional public cloud models did not meet their strict governance, data protection, and network controls.
3. Unpredictable Seasonal Workloads
Retail at scale is cyclical:
- During peak seasons (Black Friday, Cyber Monday, holiday shopping), compute consumption skyrockets.
- During off-peak phases, hardware remains underutilized, wasting capital.
The organization needed a solution capable of scaling up and down based on real-time demand without major infrastructure redesigns.
4. Minimal Maintenance Windows
With operations spanning multiple time zones and continuous global demand, maintenance windows were limited and infrequent. Any migration strategy had to be executed with precision and near-zero downtime.
5. Need for Simplified Modernization
With heavy dependency on Oracle technologies across its IT landscape, the retailer required a transformation path that maximized existing investments while simplifying the transition to cloud capabilities, not one that forced disruptive re-architecting.
Introducing Cloud Scale, Without Leaving the Data Center
Our skilled architects approached the challenge by understanding how this enterprise needed cloud to work for them. After reviewing their application stack, network infrastructure, usage patterns, regulatory constraints, and Oracle license entitlements, our team proposed a precise, elegant solution:
Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer. Inside their data center. Fully managed by Oracle. Architected by Infolob.
It offered the retailer:
- Cloud-level elasticity
- On-premises data control
- Enterprise-grade security
- Integrated Oracle operations
- Seasonal scalability
- Cost optimization
- And zero compromise on latency
Step 1: Mapping the Legacy-to-Cloud Architecture
Our architects performed a detailed assessment of:
- CPU utilization patterns
- Storage consumption trends
- Transaction intensity across seasons
- License footprint and optimization opportunities
- Interdependencies between existing Oracle databases
The analysis has shown that the retailer was over-licensed and under-utilized across several database environments. This opened a path toward license optimization and high-density consolidation.
Step 2: Designing the Cloud@Customer Blueprint
Using the assessment data, we have built a model for the proposed Cloud@Customer deployment:
- Consolidation from seven database environments into three high-density Cloud@Customer platforms
- Reduction in CPU license utilization by 4×
- A compressed hardware footprint
- Significantly lower capital and operational expenses
- A more predictable resource consumption model aligned to retail seasonality
Step 3: Seamless Migration with Minimal Downtime
Our experts executed a migration strategy that met all constraints of:
- Limited maintenance windows
- Global operations
- High-volume data flows
- Zero tolerance for downtime
Using a combination of Oracle data replication tools, best-practice orchestration patterns, and version-compatible migration frameworks, we moved the client’s enterprise-class Oracle databases into Cloud@Customer platforms.
Step 4: Strengthening Security and Governance
The new architecture delivered:
- Complete data residency within the client’s environment
- Dedicated network isolation
- Zero shared cloud infrastructure
- Oracle-managed patching and security hardening
- Reduced attack surface
- Improved compliance visibility
- Encryption enforced across all tiers
Business Outcomes: A Future-Ready Retail Engine
The transformation delivered far-reaching operational, financial, and security benefits.
1. Cloud Agility with On-Premises Security
The retailer achieved the ideal blend of:
- Cloud elasticity
- On-prem security governance
- Zero data movement beyond the data center
This hybrid model finally aligned technology with the security principles the organization had upheld for decades.
2. Seamless Peak-Season Performance
During high-traffic seasons:
- Compute resources easily scaled up
- Performance remained consistent
- Database throughput increased
- Latency dropped
- Customer experiences improved across channels
During off-peak periods:
- Resources scaled down
- Costs dropped significantly
3. Capital Spend Optimization
The reduction in CPU license utilization by 4× resulted in:
- Lower TCO
- Reduced hardware footprint
- Smart resource pooling
- Deferred capex on new infrastructure
This transformation replaced aging hardware with a modern cloud-at-home solution at a fraction of the projected cost.
4. High-Density Database Consolidation
Infolob collapsed seven environments into three Cloud@Customer platforms, simplifying:
- Management overhead
- Software patching cycles
- Monitoring and alerting
- Performance tuning workflows
- Security compliance management
5. A Future-Proof Modernization Pathway
With Cloud@Customer, the retailer now has:
- A foundation for workload containerization
- A path toward multi-cloud integration
- The ability to deploy serverless and DevOps practices
- Faster rollout of digital applications
- A modernized architecture that will support innovation for years
Engineering Cloud Confidence, One Migration at a Time
This project was a reinvention of how a century-old global retailer engages with cloud, security, and scalability. Our team of experts delivered a transformation that was technically flawless, operationally seamless, and strategically future-proof.
By combining deep Oracle Exadata expertise, planning, license optimization, and cloud mastery, a legendary retail brand embraced the cloud without compromising its standards, its security, or its performance expectations.
