Chapter 1: The Challenge of High IT Costs

In the early 2010s, GE Oil & Gas, a division of the multinational conglomerate General Electric, encountered a significant challenge. The organization was allocating a large portion of its budget to maintain its IT infrastructure, and these costs were on the rise. Their existing systems were neither scalable nor adaptable enough to meet the dynamic demands of the energy sector. Clearly, a transformation was necessary.

After thorough consideration, the team at GE Oil & Gas decided in 2014 to initiate an extensive cloud migration project. They chose to collaborate with Amazon Web Services (AWS), known for its robust capabilities and strong industry reputation.

The undertaking was ambitious: migrate over 500 applications to the AWS cloud within a three-year timeframe. The leadership recognized the daunting nature of this task but remained optimistic about the potential long-term gains.

"GE is evolving into the world's first digital industrial organization," stated Ben Wilson, who served as the chief IT officer at the time. "We must tag, measure, monitor, and automate every application and develop reusable patterns. Without this, success would be elusive."

A specialized team was formed to manage the project, ensuring a seamless transition. They worked diligently, migrating one application at a time to minimize downtime and confirm that each application functioned properly in the cloud environment.

As the migration progressed, the team was excited to see their objectives being achieved. By the end of the first year, they had successfully transitioned 128 applications to the cloud. By the second quarter of 2016, this figure had risen to 350.

Among the most notable applications transitioned to AWS was Epsilon, which contained 750TB of data requiring regular analysis. The team utilized the AWS Snow family to facilitate the transfer of this substantial data load to the cloud.

The initial 50TB of data was transferred using AWS Snowball, a process that took just two weeks. In contrast, manual transfer over the internet would have taken approximately 100 days.

The scalability and flexibility provided by AWS enabled GE Oil & Gas to only incur costs for the computing power actually used, leading to significant cost reductions. Furthermore, their IT staff spent less time on server maintenance, allowing them to concentrate on innovation and enhancing business operations.

By the conclusion of the three-year migration phase, GE Oil & Gas had successfully transitioned all targeted applications to AWS, achieving a remarkable 52% reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). This project illustrated the power and efficiency of cloud computing, inspiring similar initiatives across the broader GE organization and the oil and gas sector.

"This migration to AWS was not solely about reducing costs," Wilson remarked as the project neared completion. "The greatest benefits emerged when we began utilizing AWS tools that made a significant impact."

By employing a combination of Aurora as a metered database and leveraging insights from Trusted Advisor and CloudWatch, they gained comprehensive metrics on application usage. During off-peak hours, they could deactivate resources and reactivate them as needed using tools like Elastic Beanstalk.

"We're migrating all of our applications to the cloud," Wilson stated. "We also aim to transition all of our engineering applications to the cloud to enhance user experience for engineers."

This remarkable transformation highlights how enterprise-level organizations can effectively harness cloud technologies.

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Chapter 2: The Impact of Cloud Migration

The first video, "GE: The Changing Face of Oil & Gas," explores how GE Oil & Gas is adapting to new challenges and leveraging technology for transformation.

The second video, "How GE Oil & Gas Drove Analytics Adoption Across the Enterprise," delves into how the company implemented analytics to enhance decision-making and operational efficiency.