Managing an inventory of over 92 million critical aircraft components available at a moment’s notice across the globe requires a strong foundation in logistics. However, when Unical Aviation began an aggressive project to relocate its headquarters operations from California to a brand new 600,000-square-foot facility in 2023, the timeline to complete construction and relocate operations 350 miles away was already a massive undertaking. When it became clear that Unical could not host their 200-server physical data center in their new facility, they called on Deep Blue Cloud Computing to design and execute a cloud migration strategy to meet aggressive timelines while maintaining business continuity.
Deep Blue accepted the challenge and swiftly executed a plan to extend and migrate Unical’s VMware infrastructure to VMware on AWS. Successfully migrating all systems ahead of schedule without disrupting business continuity was just the beginning. Unical continued its partnership with Deep Blue to implement a multi-year strategic roadmap to transform Unical’s cloud investment portfolio, optimize investment, modernize systems, and innovate to deliver new capabilities and value to the business.
“We are proud to have executed this project successfully, delivering continuous value and a significant return on investment for Unical. We value Unical’s trust in Deep Blue and look forward to continuing our successful partnership.”
Ben Tosado, Founder, Deep Blue Cloud Computing
In June 2024, Broadcom suddenly announced the end of on-demand licensing of VMware on AWS. Unical was informed that they would lose access to their VMware on AWS instances in less than 60 days if they failed to procure a one-year contract directly with Broadcom. Facing the choice of accepting an unplanned and substantial financial commitment or implementing another aggressive technical migration project with no room for error, Unical again called on Deep Blue Cloud Computing.
“The Deep Blue Team suggested an ‘Investment in Divestment’ strategy, focusing short-term transformation in newer, more efficient technologies to maximize long-term agility and ROI. Trading the unpredictable cost increases under Broadcom for a market leader in AWS just makes good business sense”
Jennifer Torlone, CIO, Unical Aviation
Building on the success of the previous VMware migration to AWS, Deep Blue executed a project to migrate all hosts from Unical’s VMware on AWS platform to native AWS EC2 instances. Deep Blue completed Unical’s critical transformation ahead of schedule, paving the way for Unical to terminate ongoing investments in VMware entirely. With this effort, Unical’s systems are now running on AWS-native compute technologies, positioned for continuous modernization while achieving a reduction in overall cloud spending.