Transcat Migrates to Amazon Web Services, Cutting IT Management Time by 75% and Scaling to Support Onsite Labs

Transcat collaborated with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and EagleDream Technologies, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner, to migrate Windows-based calibration applications to AWS, allowing the company to cut IT management time by 75 percent, scale more easily, and gain new visibility into the business. Transcat runs its SQL Server applications on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and uses an AWS data lake to give analysts and business leaders easy access to data.

For more than 50 years, Transcat has supported the test and measurement requirements of companies in the pharmaceutical, industrial manufacturing, energy, and chemical process industries. The organization provides test, measurement, and controls instruments for calibration, repair, inspection, and compliance.

Transcat’s Windows-based applications, including a customer-facing calibration application and a data warehouse, ran on 20 regional on-premises SQL Server environments. To maintain this geographically dispersed environment Transcat software developers collectively spent up to 16 hours per day updating software, managing capacity, and performing troubleshooting. “We wanted our developers focusing on new features, not day-to-day IT management,” says Andy Quaranto, Vice President of Information Technology for Transcat. “They needed to manage these different environments, though, because if a server went down customers wouldn't be able to use our application to do calibration in their facilities.” The company also needed an easier way to scale its applications to support onsite customer calibration labs, a key part of Transcat’s business.

Transcat had been running several web applications on AWS and also wanted to move its SQL Server?based applications to the cloud for flexibility and scalability. Because Transcat needed a partner that specializes in SQL Server, it engaged EagleDream Technologies, an AWS Premier Consulting Partner and AWS Microsoft Workloads Competency Partner.

EagleDream Technologies migrated Transcat’s on-premises systems to a single SQL server database on AWS, eliminating the need for regional server replication. EagleDream first created a master SQL Server database on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and a replica that was restored on a larger Amazon EC2 instance in Transcat’s virtual private cloud. After successfully testing overall response time and data integrity, EagleDream began migrating each of the regional offices to a replica of the new AWS SQL Server. “By moving to a single SQL Server solution, we helped Transcat meet their goal of centralizing IT management,” says Scott Weber, Vice President of Cloud Solutions for EagleDream Technologies.

Following the migration, EagleDream then assisted Transcat in building a data lake to give the business better data analytical capabilities. EagleDream helped Transcat transfer data out of the on-premises SQL Server databases and AS/400 systems into an AWS-native data lake. Transcat replicates customer and internal business data into an Amazon Aurora cluster, and business analysts and executives use Amazon QuickSight to visualize the data.

By consolidating from 20 application servers to one Transcat has eased application management and monitoring. “We simplified everything by moving to AWS, which means we spend much less time managing SQL Servers,” says Quaranto. “Instead of spending 16 hours a day on troubleshooting and managing performance, we only spend 4 hours on these tasks. We can now spend our time on developing new features and eliminating technical debt.”

Using a centralized solution, Transcat has better visibility into their SQL Server environment without having to purchase and maintain new management tools. For example, the company can use AWS monitoring tools to identify and fix older queries that aren’t performing well. Transcat can also view updated metrics on disk space and performance.

By working with EagleDream to migrate its applications to AWS, Transcat can now quickly expand its environment on demand to support onsite customer equipment calibration labs. “In the past, we’d have to buy servers, set them up, and manage them during the multiday labs,” Quaranto says. “Relying on the scalability we get from using AWS, our technicians can be up and running right away at the customer site without any extra effort.” Additionally, Transcat can add compute or storage capacity in 15 minutes to support application demand, instead of the hours it used to take.

Transcat now has better, faster visibility into business performance because of the new solution. “There used to be a two-day waiting period between the data coming into our data warehouse and being accessible to the business,” Quaranto says. “We have cut that down to one day using AWS, and it will eventually be real-time data access. That means we can make better business decisions much faster than before.” With that capability, the company expects its analysts and leaders to be able to answer questions faster. “Relying on our data lake, we have better visibility into what’s happening in our business, so we can determine how to better serve our customers,” Quaranto says.