Case Study: Cloud Migration Assessment and Target State Architecture for Brightshore Industrial Systems

How TecSentra helped a mid-sized manufacturer move from fragmented on-prem systems to a structured, business-aligned cloud roadmap.

Overview

Brightshore Industrial Systems is a mid-sized Canadian manufacturing and distribution company that had grown increasingly constrained by its aging on-premises application ecosystem. Over more than a decade, systems expanded organically, resulting in tightly coupled applications, long release cycles, and infrastructure nearing end of life.

Leadership recognized that a move to the cloud was inevitable, but they lacked clarity on feasibility, sequencing, and long-term architectural implications. They wanted to avoid simply copying their existing complexity into a new environment and instead use this transition to set up a more modular, resilient, and scalable platform for the next five years and beyond.

Brightshore engaged TecSentra to perform a structured architecture assessment, design a cloud target state, define a phased migration roadmap, and provide a governance model that would keep the transformation realistic and aligned with business priorities.

1. Business Context

Brightshore Industrial Systems (BIS) operates across several critical business domains:

• Manufacturing line operations and scheduling
• Supply chain and logistics coordination
• Customer order management and fulfillment
• Internal reporting and analytics
• Equipment lifecycle tracking and maintenance planning

To support these capabilities, BIS relied on:

• A custom shop floor inventory and production planning system
• A partner ordering portal used by distributors and contractors
• Multiple Windows-based nightly batch services
• Several legacy SQL Server deployments
• Internal APIs hosted on IIS
• An aging virtualization cluster that was approaching capacity and support limits

Prior to partnering with TecSentra, BIS had been advised by an infrastructure provider to perform a blanket lift-and-shift of their virtual machines to the cloud. Leadership was not comfortable with this. They wanted more than VM migration. They needed:

• Reduced operational risk and hardware dependency
• Improved resiliency, observability, and scalability
• Less reliance on fragile nightly batch processes
• A clear, business-aligned architecture roadmap for the next five years
• Governance and delivery discipline to avoid future drift

TecSentra was engaged to bring clarity before change, and structure before complexity.

2. TecSentra's Engagement Approach

TecSentra applied a capability-driven architecture methodology, structured into seven major work streams:

• Business capability mapping
• Current state architecture and technology inventory
• Lift-and-shift feasibility and quick-win migrations
• Target state architecture for a 5-year horizon
• Phased migration roadmap from current to target state
• Cloud and architecture governance framework
• Ongoing TecSentra involvement and fractional architecture support

Each stream built on the previous one, ensuring that technical recommendations were traceable back to business priorities and that the final roadmap was both ambitious and achievable.

3. Business Capability Mapping

TecSentra began by stepping away from servers and code and instead talking to people. Through structured interviews with stakeholders across operations, logistics, customer service, finance, and IT, TecSentra created a Business Capability Map for Brightshore.

The mapping provided:

Priority Identification

Capabilities directly tied to manufacturing continuity, supply chain reliability, and revenue fulfillment were marked as high priority. Supporting capabilities, such as internal reporting, were classified as important but less time critical.

Risk Visibility

Capabilities that depended on aging, tightly coupled applications, or single points of failure were highlighted as high risk. This included several workflows that were dependent on nightly file transfers and fragile scheduled jobs.

Migrating with Purpose

The capability map became the anchor for migration sequencing. Instead of asking "which server moves first," the question became "which business capability should we stabilize and enable first." This alignment between business and IT helped leadership understand why certain systems were being prioritized ahead of others.

4. Technology Inventory and Current State Architecture

With the business foundation in place, TecSentra turned to the technology landscape. The team conducted a detailed assessment that included:

• Virtual machine inventory and hosting environments
• Web applications and internal APIs running on IIS
• Windows services and scheduled batch jobs
• Database instances, schema dependencies, and cross-system data flows
• Integration methods, including file drops, REST and SOAP services
• Existing identity and access models
• Operational pain points such as slow deployments and limited observability

A major discovery was Brightshore's heavy reliance on nightly file-based workflows. Several downstream processes could only run after overnight batches completed, which limited responsiveness and delayed insight into operational issues.

TecSentra captured the findings in:

• Current state architecture diagrams
• Data flow and integration maps
• Application and dependency graphs
• Risk and technical debt assessments

This created a factual, visual baseline for making migration and modernization decisions.

5. Lift-and-Shift Strategy and Quick-Win Migrations

Although modernization was the long-term goal, Brightshore needed immediate risk reduction. TecSentra recommended a phased lift-and-shift approach that would stabilize the environment while avoiding unnecessary re-engineering in the early stages.

Lift-and-Shift Candidates

TecSentra identified systems with relatively low complexity and low change frequency that could be safely moved with minimal changes:

• Certain internal reporting tools
• Administrative utilities
• Non-critical APIs with limited external dependencies
• Operational dashboards and internal support tools

Quick-Win Modernizations

At the same time, the assessment revealed several batch jobs that were ideal for early modernization. These included:

• Two nightly file aggregation tasks
• A daily customer order reconciliation job
• A maintenance record cleanup utility

TecSentra proposed migrating these to cloud native services using scheduled serverless functions, containerized scheduled tasks, and workflow orchestration. These early wins:

• Reduced operational fragility
• Introduced the team to cloud native patterns in low-risk areas
• Built internal confidence that the cloud roadmap was both realistic and beneficial

Why Not Modernize Everything Upfront?

TecSentra advised against a big-bang modernization. The reasons were simple:

• Brightshore needed predictable outcomes and business continuity
• Some systems were stable and did not justify large re-engineering investments early on
• Modernization should follow business value, not technology fashion
• A phased approach allowed learning and course correction

6. The 5-Year Target State Architecture

Once Brightshore and TecSentra shared a clear understanding of business capabilities and current state, the next step was to design a Target State Architecture for the next five years.

Architecture Principles

The target state followed a set of guiding principles:

• Cloud first, but always pragmatic
• API first integration to avoid tight coupling
• Event driven workflows to gradually replace fragile batch chains
• Domain aligned data ownership that maps to business capabilities
• Managed services when they reduce operational overhead
• Identity first security with least privilege access
• Observability, automation, and resilience designed in from the start

Target Architecture Components

The resulting blueprint included:

• A unified API gateway and consistent API standards
• An event streaming backbone for new integrations
• Managed relational and time series databases
• A standardized container platform for existing APIs
• Serverless functions and workflows for scheduled and reactive tasks
• Centralized logging, metrics, and tracing
• A unified identity model across internal and external applications
• Shared CI and CD pipelines to improve release quality and speed

TecSentra delivered logical and physical architecture diagrams, integration patterns, data domain models, security reference architecture, and high level cost estimates. This gave leadership a clear picture of where they were heading and why.

7. Migration Roadmap: From Current to Target State

With the target state defined, TecSentra produced a multi-year migration roadmap that sequenced major initiatives and linked them to business outcomes.

Phase 1: Foundation (0 to 6 Months)

• Build cloud landing zone, networking, and baseline security
• Establish identity and access patterns
• Migrate quick win batch services to cloud native equivalents
• Lift and shift low risk applications
• Introduce central monitoring and logging

Phase 2: Core Migration (6 to 18 Months)

• Migrate primary business APIs to containerized or managed platforms
• Move SQL workloads to managed database services
• Introduce an event backbone for new integration patterns
• Begin decommissioning aging on-premises infrastructure

Phase 3: Modernization (18 to 36 Months)

• Re-architect legacy applications into domain-aligned services where justified
• Implement real-time data pipelines for operational insight
• Standardize and optimize CI/CD pipelines
• Reduce dependency on overnight processes

Phase 4: Optimization and Innovation (36 to 60 Months)

• Retire remaining on-premises workloads
• Optimize cost and performance across the cloud estate
• Expand analytics and data science capabilities
• Continuously refine governance and automation

Each phase included timelines, dependencies, required skills, risk mitigation strategies, and expected business outcomes. The roadmap became the shared reference point for leadership, IT, and delivery teams.

8. Governance Framework

A transformation of this size cannot rely only on diagrams and roadmaps. TecSentra worked with Brightshore to design a governance framework that was light enough to move quickly, but strong enough to prevent architectural drift.

Architecture Governance

• Clear architectural principles and standards
• Decision records to document trade offs
• Architecture review checkpoints at key milestones
• Defined roles for architects, tech leads, and product owners

Cloud Governance

• Account and subscription hierarchy
• Identity and access control policies
• Resource naming and tagging standards
• Backup, retention, and disaster recovery expectations

Security Governance

• Alignment with a Zero Trust mindset
• API security standards and patterns
• Automated vulnerability scanning and remediation workflows
• Secrets, certificates, and key management practices

Delivery Governance

• Standardized CI and CD pipelines
• Environment promotion rules and quality gates
• Change management integration
• Cloud cost visibility and regular optimization reviews

The goal was not bureaucracy, but clarity. Everyone should know how decisions are made, which direction is preferred, and how to ensure new initiatives remain compatible with the target state.

9. TecSentra's Ongoing Involvement

Brightshore recognized that the move to cloud and the evolution toward the target architecture would take multiple years. Instead of hiring a full time chief architect, they opted for a fractional architecture model with TecSentra.

Fractional Chief Architect Services

A senior TecSentra architect participates part time to:

• Guide architectural decisions and validate designs
• Mentor internal technical leads
• Align new initiatives with the roadmap and target state
• Support trade off discussions between cost, speed, and risk

Review Cadence

TecSentra and Brightshore established a regular rhythm that includes:

• Monthly architecture and design reviews
• Quarterly roadmap checkpoints and adjustments
• Bi monthly cost and governance health checks

On Demand Advisory

In addition, TecSentra provides on demand advisory support for:

• Vendor and tooling evaluations
• Scaling and performance concerns
• New project initiation and architecture shaping
• Risk assessments for major releases or changes

This model gives Brightshore ongoing access to senior architectural leadership while keeping costs predictable and aligned with their transformation phases.

10. Early Outcomes

Even though the full roadmap spans several years, Brightshore has already seen measurable improvements from the initial phases of the engagement:

• Improved reliability of critical batch workflows, with several replaced by more robust cloud native services
• Better alignment between business and IT teams using the capability map as a shared reference
• Reduced dependency on aging hardware and constrained virtual infrastructure

Most importantly, leadership now has a clear and shared understanding of where the technology platform is going and how each step contributes to business outcomes.

Conclusion

The Brightshore Industrial Systems engagement demonstrates TecSentra's core principle in practice: you cannot scale what you cannot see.

By starting with business capabilities, establishing a realistic 5-year target state, building a phased migration roadmap, and embedding governance and fractional architecture leadership, TecSentra helped Brightshore move from uncertainty and technical debt toward a controlled, value-driven cloud transformation.

If your organization is facing similar challenges with aging infrastructure, unclear dependencies, or pressure to modernize without a clear plan, TecSentra can help you bring clarity to your architecture and create a practical path forward.