Client Context
South Africa’s largest general insurer has been in operation for decades and manages vast volumes of historical data critical for compliance and business continuity. The company required a JD Edwards upgrade with large-scale data migration, all under stringent statutory norms and a very limited go-live window.
Challenges
- Massive data volumes accumulated over decades due to regulatory requirements.
- Strict go-live timeline – only 48 hours permitted for cutover and migration of this large data.
- Critical business continuity – day-to-day insurance operations could not be disrupted.
- Need for innovative migration strategy – to balance compliance with operational readiness.
Our Approach
- Designed a two-phase data migration strategy:
- Phase 1 (Go-Live): Migrated the most recent,two years of data to ensure uninterrupted daily operations.
- Phase 2 (Post Go-Live): Migrated 20 years of historical data incrementally over weekends to avoid business disruption.
- Envisaged and executed a new data migration approach tailored for high-volume, compliance-driven environments.
- Delivered a seamless upgrade with minimal downtime, aligning with statutory norms.
Results
- Successful upgrade and data migration completed within the 48-hour go-live window.
- Business continuity maintained — daily operations unaffected during transition.
- Full compliance achieved by migrating 20 years of historical data by appending every weekend without operational disruption.
- Demonstrated an innovative migration model now reusable for similar large-scale upgrades.
