Ralliton Helps Oneworld Group Boost Security, Achieve Compliance, and Cut Costs Using AWS

Cyprus-based financial services group Oneworld Global Business Services migrated to Amazon Web Services (AWS) to comply with strict industry regulations, cut its energy spending, and improve the security of its businesses. Beginning with investment firm One Plus Capital, it migrated its infrastructure from an on-premises data center to AWS with the help of AWS Partner Ralliton using AWS Migration Hub. The initial migration project was so successful that Oneworld replicated the solution for four other companies within its group.

Oneworld Global Business Services is a group of independent specialist investment and business services firms headquartered in Cyprus and operating in the European Union (EU) and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The group’s IT systems were running from on-premises data centers and its businesses were facing numerous technical and regulatory challenges.

Operating in the highly regulated finance industry means Oneworld needs to make sure all its businesses’ data is properly secured and in compliance with government regulations. It also had to be backed up with reliable disaster recovery planning. The company was also concerned about running its own data centers over the long term, especially with electricity costs spiraling in Cyprus, so the company investigated different ways to transform its infrastructure, and decided its best option was to migrate to AWS.

The group decided to start the migration of its businesses with One Plus Capital, a regulated Cyprus-based investment firm that services high net-worth individuals and corporate clients. Founded in 2010, the company provides core investment services including portfolio management, global brokerage, and investment advice. One Plus Capital had been working on various projects with local AWS Partner Ralliton for almost a decade, and asked the partner to help with its transformation. Ralliton conducted an assessment of One Plus Capital’s IT infrastructure, identifying areas of risk and developed a suitable roadmap for its migration.

The Ralliton migration plan for One Plus Capital consisted of two stages. The first stage covered the migration of One Plus Capital’s financial applications, the second would include the migration of its backend and internal systems, which included Windows workloads, databases, and security products. The entire process, from initial planning through to the completion of migration, took a total of 3 months, and One Plus Capital was then able to decommission its data center contract.

To kick off the project, Ralliton used AWS Migration Hub, which provides a central location to collect server and application inventory data for the assessment, planning, and tracking of migrations to AWS. “AWS Migration Hub uses native tools to help migrate from on premises to the cloud,” says Kyriacos Kyriacou, solutions director at Ralliton. “It reduces migration time and also minimizes downtime for the customer.” One Plus Capital’s Pavlos Philippides says its technical partner did a great job of running the migration. “Ralliton ensured that disruption of normal business was kept to the bare minimum,” he says. “Our customers didn’t even notice the change.”

To run its Windows and database workloads on AWS, the company uses Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload. It optimizes compute costs whenever possible using Amazon EC2 Reserved Instances (RI), which provide a significant discount compared to the on-demand Amazon EC2 service. For One Plus Capital’s storage and data warehouse needs, Ralliton chose Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), which is object storage built to retrieve any amount of data from anywhere. “Using AWS means we have lower energy costs,” says Pavlos Philippides, director at One Plus Capital. “Our security has been enhanced and we have achieved 100 percent compliance with regulatory standards.”

Credit: Oneworld Global Business Services

One Plus Capital also uses several AWS security services that provide data protection, ensure customer data is restricted to specific geographic locations, and enable an effective disaster recovery plan. “Our disaster recovery plans were outdated and not up to standards,” says Pavlos Philippides. “As a regulated company, AWS helped us bring our DR plans to a best practice level—it also means we can offer our valued clients an uninterrupted service, anytime, anywhere.” The migration has resulted in One Plus Capital being fully compliant with all government regulations in all the regions in which it operates, including Cyprus, the EU, and UAE.

Oneworld has closely monitored the success of the project and the benefits of migrating to the cloud using Ralliton and AWS. As a result of the successful migration, it has already started rolling out similar migration plans to four other companies within its portfolio. “The other companies are also highly regulated and at least one of their migrations started shortly after our implementation was complete,” says Pavlos Philippides. “I know for a fact that both employees and clients are really happy with their new setup, too.”

One Plus Capital plans to expand its reach as a boutique investment company and is constantly looking at ways to use technology to improve its competitive advantage. “We are always open to new opportunities to embrace technology that will enhance our products and services, and ultimately add value to the end client,” says Philippides. “Working with Ralliton and using AWS provides us with undisputed credibility for future endeavors.”