Kleinschmidt first started working with HPE in October
2018. It had selected the Microsoft Azure public cloud plat-
form, in part because of Microsoft’s strong B2B messaging
product portfolio and native integration capabilities. But as
the company had not yet pursued any tangible public cloud
initiatives, Kleinschmidt needed HPE to onboard it to Azure.
This included extending its existing cutting-edge transac-
tional processing logic into the cloud, as well as establishing
a sustainable hybrid cloud that would take advantage of
future cloud-based technology innovations, while maintain-
ing the robust processing power of the HPE NonStop
ecosystem.
Laying the Groundwork
To lay the groundwork for a four-phase cloud enablement
plan, HPE worked with Kleinschmidt on some introductory
issues. A team of six started with a round of discovery ses-
sions. They met with IT staff to understand the technical
facets of the existing NonStop processing architecture, so
HPE could translate the on-premises processing and mes-
saging operations to the cloud. Next, the team set up all the
subscriptions, then moved on to implement the PaaS active
directory, security and monitoring. The team used native
Azure PaaS components – rather than infrastructure as a
service (IaaS) elements – to allow for easier management
and scaling.
Conducting the project in four phases enabled the team to
manage the transition of technical know-how to the cloud,
and operationalize it. It also reduced risk. Kleinschmidt’s
NonStop processing platform has been developed, refined
and iterated over three decades. Along the way, custom
software and a cutting-edge logic engine added a complex
web of dependencies to account for. Shifting resources in
chunks and repeatedly testing capabilities in a phased
approach avoided disruptions in ongoing operations.
In the first phase, the team implemented a system that exe-
cuted transactions between one customer and one trading
partner. HPE developed specific web services for just a few
transactions – working in the development environment
first and then creating a template for expanding into other
segments.
Second, HPE introduced web-based authentication and
authorization through the use of an Okta cloud identity and
access management platform. The team also administered
connections to trading partners from the back end–creat-
ing one-to-many connections for widespread cloud-based
data exchange.
Conducting the project in four phases enabled
the team to manage the transition of technical
know-how to the cloud, and operationalize it.
It also reduced risk.
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2019