Eletrozema is one of the largest retailers in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, with over 500 stores spread across the region. The company plays a fundamental role in the local retail market, offering essential products and services to its customers.
Eletrozema faced technological limitations with its on-premises data center. The environment had critical constraints, such as limited growth capacity, outdated and non-resilient servers. Furthermore, the urgent need for a technological refresh became evident to ensure operational continuity and efficiency. In this context, ForceOne supported Eletrozema with a detailed infrastructure study to facilitate migration to the AWS Cloud.
ForceOne, an AWS Advanced partner, specializes in migrating on-premises environments to AWS. Its extensive expertise in migration processes ensures a high level of competence recognized by AWS, delivering scalable, secure, and resilient solutions.
The main application at Eletrozema, Gemco—a critical retail ERP used to manage operations across more than 500 stores—required a modern, robust, and highly available infrastructure to support the complexity and demands of daily operations. In addition, the migration encompassed the entire on-premises environment, including web applications, Microsoft systems, internal control applications, and supplier integration systems.
AWS Solution Implemented by ForceOne
ForceOne designed and implemented a comprehensive migration solution to AWS Cloud, overcoming Eletrozema’s technological challenges. Through a structured approach aligned with AWS best practices, the following steps were carried out:
Migration Analysis and Planning:
- Mapping the on-premises environment.
- Evaluating critical workloads and defining migration waves.
- Using AWS tools such as Migration Hub and Migration Evaluator for server assessment and sizing.
Migration Execution:
- Utilizing Amazon EC2 to host the Gemco ERP and other internal systems.
- Implementing AWS Transit Gateway and Site-to-Site VPN to connect existing resources.
- Integrating SD-WAN connectivity for all 500+ stores with a central AWS hub.
- Configuring AWS Direct Connect to provide a high-performance, low-latency connection between Eletrozema’s headquarters, its data center, and AWS.
Modernization and Optimization:
- Introducing scalable and highly available solutions.
- Deploying AWS Storage Gateway to handle internal file systems, backups, and logs.
- Setting up monitoring with Amazon CloudWatch to ensure performance and visibility, including additional agent-based metrics for active monitoring of RAM usage and disk space.
- Using Systems Manager for automation and access to EC2 operating systems.
Results Achieved:
- Efficient and secure connection of all 500+ stores via SD-WAN to an AWS central hub.
- Modernization of the Gemco ERP, hosted in a resilient and scalable infrastructure.
- Successful migration of the entire on-premises environment, including web applications, Microsoft systems, internal control, and supplier integrations.
- AWS Direct Connect ensured high-performance, low-latency direct connections between the headquarters and AWS.
- Use of EC2 and Storage Gateway to host applications, internal systems, backups, and logs.
- Enhanced availability and performance of critical applications, supporting Eletrozema’s continuous growth.
- Reduction in operational costs and improved security through AWS managed services.
Conclusion
With ForceOne’s partnership and the migration to AWS, Eletrozema overcame the limitations of its local data center, achieving greater growth capacity, resilience, and operational efficiency. The technological modernization strengthened the infrastructure needed to sustain the operations of one of Minas Gerais’ largest retail chains, preparing it for future challenges.
