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Navigating the Cloud: Life Healthcare’s Seamless Transition, With Support From BUI

With 63 healthcare facilities in southern Africa, the security of Life Healthcare’s data is paramount. A move to the Azure Cloud, facilitated by BUI, became the clear and strategic choice.
Life Healthcare 2

Project

Life Healthcare’s Seamless Transition, With Support From BUI

Customer

Life Healthcare
South Africa

Year

2025

What We Did

Azure Cloud Migration
As a leading South African private healthcare provider, Life Healthcare plays a key role in the health of our nation. While their primary business takes place in wards, theatres and consulting rooms around the country, everything they do is underpinned by a solid IT foundation.
A prerequisite for growth

Sometime in 2019, Life Healthcare’s CIO, David Price, recalls the Group acknowledging that its reliance on physical data centres “was limiting our ability to grow our environment at the pace the business was demanding.” The realisation that moving to the cloud would unlock greater potential for the business led to the Executive Management Committee’s (ExCo) strategic decision to migrate to the cloud. “The ExCo’s mandate set the stage for an exciting and transformative journey to transition to the cloud and enhance Disaster Recovery capabilities as a business priority,” says Price.

The Group, which prides itself on its IT capabilities, conducted an internal survey to determine which cloud provider would be best, with Microsoft Azure emerging as the clear winner. Realising that shifting several terabytes of data would be best carried out by a company specialising in Azure migration, they contacted Microsoft for recommendations.

BUI tendered for the project with a comprehensive proposal that addressed the specific needs and challenges faced by Life Healthcare. BUI Account Manager Chevonne Abrahams clearly remembers the day, in 2021, that she received the award letter. “I immediately called our National Sales Manager Paul Wallett to share the good news,” says Abrahams. “And we’ve been working together ever since. The subsequent growth of our relationship is a testament to the power of collaboration, innovation, and mutual trust.”

Following the successful tender, BUI and Life Healthcare embarked on a collaborative journey to implement the proposed solutions. Key stakeholders from both organizations, including project managers, architects, and technical consultants, worked closely to define the project scope, timelines, and deliverables.
A mammoth undertaking

Life Healthcare decided early on that the only way to leverage the full power of Azure was to move all key applications and infrastructure to the cloud, says Price. It goes without saying that much of the data involved was highly sensitive. Preparing for the migration required a meticulous and comprehensive process to ensure full compliance with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA). Safeguarding the privacy and security of all data wasn’t just a regulatory requirement, it was also a moral priority.

“Our IT team did a lot of the work themselves,” says Price. “But BUI played a significant role too. Over the course of 18 months, there was a substantial transfer of knowledge. BUI not only assisted with the migration but also empowered our team to become self-sufficient by demonstrating how to manage and operate independently within the new cloud environment.”
Preparing for the move

Life Healthcare needed assurance that Azure would be able to meet new and existing strategic objectives:
  • Security
  • Resiliency
  • Performance efficiency
  • Operational excellence
BUI recommended aligning with the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) to guide this journey. The Cloud Adoption Plan and SMART assessments provided by the CAF framework were used, amongst many other inputs, to capture strategic objectives and to identify possible target Azure building blocks to address these objectives. “By adopting the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework, we were able to design and implement an Azure Landing Zone that met all strategic objectives via well-architected pillars,” says Satish Sunker, BUI cloud solutions architect.
Objectives achieved

Sunker and his team drew up design plans within a month. Once the landing zone was completed, the stage was set for the move to commence. Over the course of 2023 and into early 2024, several terabytes of data were moved spanning hundreds of servers. While there were some initial teething problems, these were soon ironed out and the company has not looked back since the move.

While two years might seem like a long time, this was actually considered a “quick” turnaround given the size and complexity of the migration.

According to Price, migrating to the Azure cloud has had the following benefits:
  • Flexibility and Scalability: “When computing demand increases,” says Price,“we can instantly adjust and increase system performance.”
  • Enhanced Security: Using specialised cloud security tools has ensured Life Healthcare’s data is protected, and security updates are now automated.
  • Enhanced Compliance: The transition to Azure has greatly improved the ability to meet compliance requirements – crucial for the highly regulated healthcare industry.
  • Backup, Recovery and Failover: “Our simplified and effective backup and recovery capabilities have greatly enhanced our business continuity,” says Price. “We have considerably fewer incidents these days.”
  • At-a-Glance Monitoring: Managing and monitoring their data centres has been significantly streamlined.
An ongoing relationship

While Life Healthcare initially reached out to BUI solely for cloud assistance, their partnership has broadened. “BUI’s responsiveness and the ability to provide expert support at a moment’s notice has been invaluable,” says Price. “We have now moved beyond Azure, into networking, DR and security. BUI has demonstrated that there are even greater possibilities, and we are poised to embrace future innovations more fully with their ongoing support.”

The relationship has been similarly rewarding for BUI. “Microsoft Azure has unlocked numerous possibilities for Life Healthcare and given its teams the tools to adapt and scale in response to business and industry changes,” says Abrahams. “We’re excited to see the company harness the full power of the cloud as it continues to grow – and we’re ready to provide guidance and support around the clock. We continue to thrive, driven because of our shared commitment to excellence and continuous improvement. This journey highlights the importance of strategic partnerships in achieving organizational goals and driving innovation in the healthcare sector.”

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