TCG Life Sciences: Migration Journey to AWS Cloud with High Availability and DisasterRecovery Solution
Executive Summary
TCG Lifesciences Pvt. Limited (TCGLS), formerly
known as Chembiotek Research International, is a
distinguished global Contract Research and Contract
Development and Manufacturing Organization
(CDMO) established in 2001 in Kolkata, India. With
operations extending across the United States,
Europe, and Japan, TCGLS provides innovative R&D
services to the pharmaceutical, biotech, and related
industries. With over 1,300 scientists, including 300
PhDs and master’s degree holders recruited from top
global academic and industry institutions, TCGLS
offers comprehensive solutions across various
domains, including chemistry synthesis,
pharmacology, DMPK, analytical development, and
data science. Specializing in therapeutic areas such
as Inflammation & Pain, Infectious Diseases, Central
Nervous Systems, and Oncology, TCGLS is
committed to excellence and compliance,
contributing to advancements in global healthcare
Customer Challenge:
1) The organization, currently using SAP ECC 6.0 on their on-premises servers, is encountering
several challenges with their local environment. These challenges include slow
performance, unexpected slowdowns and shutdowns, legacy hardware limitations,
difficulty in scalability and elasticity, and a lack of monitoring tools and notifications for
their hardware systems.
2) The organization aims to achieve a greenfield deployment on the cloud, transforming their
SAP workload to a cloud-based infrastructure that offers high availability, scalability,
reliability, and cost efficiency. Additionally, they require a robust Disaster Recovery setup.
3) While TCG LifeSciences had their research application, it relied heavily on human
intervention. To streamline processes and minimize human error, they aimed to automate
tasks and reduce manual intervention. Their objective was to implement Continuous
Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) automation for their development workloads.
By automating CI/CD processes, they sought to enhance efficiency, reduce deployment
times, and ensure smoother development cycles. This transition to automation would
enable TCG LifeSciences to achieve greater agility, reliability, and consistency in their
software development practices.
Proposed Solution:
1) Sandbox Environment: Providing a controlled space for testing, development, and
validation activities, the Sandbox environment minimized the risk of disruptions to the
production environment. It facilitated thorough testing of changes and updates before
deployment, ensuring efficient and reliable SAP operations.
2) Development (DEV) Environment: Dedicated to developers, the DEV environment
enabled the creation, modification, and testing of SAP applications and customizations. It
promoted efficient development practices, collaboration, and quality assurance,
enhancing the reliability of SAP solutions.
3) Quality Environment: Ensuring the reliability, performance, and security of SAP
applications before production deployment, the Quality environment facilitated rigorous
testing, validation, and quality assurance practices. It contributed to the overall stability
and success of the SAP landscape.
4) Production Environment with High Availability: Providing a stable, performant, and
secure platform for critical business operations, the Production environment leveraged
AWS’s comprehensive set of services and features to ensure high availability. Utilizing
AWS’s HA configurations such as redundant components, auto-scaling, and load
balancing, Konark Group’s SAP workloads remained accessible and operational even in the
event of component failures or disruptions.
5) Pilot Light Disaster Recovery (DR) Strategy: AeonX implemented the Pilot Light DR
strategy to ensure resilience against disasters. In this approach, a scaled-down version of
the primary environment was maintained in standby mode, including a replicated database,
essential applications, and infrastructure components. During a disaster event, the
standby environment could be quickly scaled up to restore full functionality, minimizing
downtime and data loss.
6) Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD) will be facilitated through AWS
Code Pipeline for managing delivery, AWS Code Build for continuous integration, and AWS
Code Deploy for automating deployments. Code quality inspection will be conducted with
SonarQube.
Architecture Diagrams
Third party applications or solutions used:
- None
Outcome(s)/results:
Architected AWS Infrastructure: A highly available and scalable AWS infrastructure was
customized for SAP S/4 HANA workloads, leading to a 40% improvement in system performance.
The carefully designed infrastructure ensured optimized performance, resilience, and scalability,
meeting specific SAP requirements on AWS. This architecture resulted in a 25% reduction in
infrastructure costs.
Migration of SAP Workloads: Smooth migration to the AWS Cloud minimized business
disruption, resulting in a 30% reduction in downtime. This facilitated enhanced flexibility and
operational efficiency, aligning with evolving needs and ensuring seamless continuity of business
operations. The migration also led to a 20% reduction in migration-related costs.
Highly Available and Scalable Infrastructure with DR: The provisioned AWS infrastructure now
boasts high availability and scalability, with a 50% reduction in Recovery Time Objective (RTO).
Robust disaster recovery capabilities ensure uninterrupted business continuity, mitigating risks
effectively and maintaining seamless operations. This improvement in RTO translated to a 40%
reduction in potential revenue loss during downtime events.
AWS Pricing Calculator ≥ $100K AWS annual recurring revenue (ARR)
for the migrated workloads:
https://calculator.aws/#/estimate?id=4e5a630e50f18f810b5e70c46bd9c6a1b517dfce