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AltexSoft Helps ASL Aviation Safely Migrate Internal Informational Portal to Cloud

Business domain
Travel
Technology
CloudJS

Background

ASL Aviation Holdings, an aviation services company based in Dublin, Ireland, owns, operates, and manages a fleet of nearly 90 passenger and cargo aircraft.

The company had been using the on-premise SharePoint intranet product for employee data sharing and collaboration. But due to the maintenance costs, lack of scalability, and limited access to the portal, the aviation group decided to move the intranet to SharePoint Online where users could share digital information from any device. To migrate such a complex system, they decided to look for a supplier. AltexSoft, a Microsoft Certified Partner, became the supplier of choice for consultancy and safe migration services for ASL Aviation.

Challenges

SharePoint cloud migration does not only transfer files or features. While some portals can be transferred manually or with third-party tools, a more complex system like ASL required a range of procedures, from architecture assessment to adapting incompatible modules.

To minimize risk and ensure a smooth transition, the AltexSoft team addressed these challenges:

Product assessment and migration planning

Holistic portal and data migration

Replacement of cloud-incompatible modules

Value Delivered

Review of Relevant Modules and Planning

After evaluating the existing portal architecture, our team identified the elements of the intranet that would require additional revision. Then the engineers separated the critical modules from the outdated ones to make sure that no focal components would be lost in transition. To set up a step-by-step migration plan, AltexSoft outlined the updated environment and matched it with the client’s requests, resulting in a minimized migration period.

Rebuilding Incompatible Modules to Keep Full Functionality

Some custom functions had to be finetuned for the new environment, necessitating the verification of each function with migration requirements. After thorough system revision, our team identified the challenging components and replaced them with elements of identical functionality. The problematic elements that needed either replacement or rearrangement included, for instance, WSP solution packages – reusable files containing different custom features, and portal templates that had to be adjusted for web.

Smooth SharePoint Migration

We used the original code to relocate the portal and stored data. Compared to a manual migration, this method allowed ASL Aviation to shut the on-premises system for a short time and promptly start using the cloud version. Except for minor changes, the online version was a replication of the old solution, which allowed ASL employees to work with it immediately with no additional training.

Approach and Technical Info

The project team consisted of a QA specialist, two developers, and a project manager.

The entire project took three months to complete. The online version of the portal was built using HTML/CSS, JavaScript, C#, PowerShell technologies, WEBREST services, and ASP.NET web stack.

Services provided within the project framework: Travel Technology Practice.

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