Global Fortune 100 Energy Giant Chooses Tessell as its Migration and Modernization Partner

The Company

This customer is a leading global energy company operating across more than 30 countries. With a strong presence across oil, gas, and renewables including some of the world's largest offshore wind farms - the company is investing heavily in technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS) as part of its commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050. As a major supplier of energy to Europe, the company plays a vital role in ensuring the continent's energy security and stability.

The company is driving the energy transition while managing complex IT and data environments that underpin critical energy operations. With an IT landscape spanning on-prem data centers and multi-cloud environments, the company manages a highly distributed and complex application environment.

The Challenge

As the company expanded operations across multiple cloud platforms, including Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI), on-premises environments, and Azure IaaS, it faced growing challenges in managing its database estate. With audit readiness on the horizon and operational complexity increasing, its IT and operations teams flagged several unsustainable trends:

• Rising costs and complexity: Managing hundreds of Commercial Off-The-Shelf (COTS) applications and over 700 databases across diverse environments
• Escalating licensing expenses: Without centralized oversight, leading to inefficient utilization
• Lack of centralized visibility: Fragmented control over compute resources, software images, and database infrastructure across subscriptions
• Compliance concerns: Preparing for audit and EULA renewal without unified license tracking or reporting tools
• Operational inefficiencies: Manual provisioning, patching, and backup processes consuming valuable IT resources
• Governance and access management issues: Complex Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) implementation across hybrid environments
• Resilience risks: High Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO), with frequent disruptions affecting continuity

The Solution: Tessell's Oracle PaaS on Azure

Tessell's fully-managed Oracle PaaS on Azure provided the company with a unified control plane to manage its data and databases where it wanted, when it wanted, and how it wanted—without vendor lock-in or reliance on application owners.

Centralized Control and Visibility

• One management platform offering oversight across on-prem and multi-cloud environments
• Centralized license management with real-time tracking and usage optimization
• Consolidated compute resource and software image governance
• Standardized software image control ensuring platform consistency

Infrastructure Optimization

• Database co-hosting to run multiple services efficiently on shared infrastructure
• Intelligent resource consolidation to reduce compute overhead
• License footprint reduction via instance right-sizing through Tessell's detailed business value analysis
• Scalable architecture aligned with the company's growth trajectory

Automated Operations

• Single control plane for 4 Azure regions
• One-click provisioning, patching, and cloning workflows
• Automated High Availability (HA) and Disaster Recovery (DR) configurations
• Seamless integration with COTS applications across environments

Data Management

• 1-Click Clone-Refresh: Automating 100+ monthly refreshes of non-production environments with zero manual intervention
• Native Tessell Backup Vault with cross-tenant capability empowering the company with flexibility, robust data protection, and the ability to meet stringent recovery objectives—safeguarding critical business operations and supporting long-term resilience. Retired third-party backup solution, enabling additional savings.

Compliance and Security

• Unified license dashboards and audit-ready reporting
• RBAC standardization across hybrid and multi-cloud environments
• Custom security hardening and key management support
• Centralized governance for reduced risk and policy enforcement

Implementation Approach

The company's rollout followed a phased, low-risk strategy over two quarters:

• Proof of Concept (POC): Validated performance (report execution time cut from 6 min to 4 min)
• Phased migration: Began with 171 databases, expanding to over 350 in production
• Customer Success Model: Wallet-based pricing, 3x weekly check-ins, continuous optimization

Downtime was minimized by aligning migrations with maintenance windows, leveraging one-click provisioning and automated cutovers.

This phased approach delivered significant outcomes across cost, efficiency, and resilience. Automation streamlined provisioning, patching, and HA/DR processes, freeing up valuable IT resources. Teams shifted their focus from routine maintenance to strategic initiatives, while the business saw faster database delivery, lower overhead, and improved compliance posture.

The Results

Over €1.45M in annualized savings:Achieved through license optimization, resource scheduling and co-hosting, and automation-driven efficiencies like faster cloning and provisioning

50% Compute Savings

• Scheduled stop/start for non-prod VMs
• Shared database infrastructure to maximize resource utilization

65% Operational Efficiency Gains

• Backup automation reduced manual hours to zero
• HA/DR fully automated with near-zero RTO/RPO
• Patching and provisioning reduced from hours to minutes
• Freed up DBA and infra teams to focus on innovation, not upkeep

Key Success Factors and Business Impact

• Unified platform management across applications, subscriptions, and business lines
• Future expansion: Now scaling to MySQL and SQL Server workloads
• Improved compliance: Audit-ready reporting and role-based access enforcement
• Platform trust: Strong internal alignment, positive feedback from cloud architects
• Strategic partnership: Close collaboration between the customer and Tessell ensured the solution aligned with business objectives
• Comprehensive approach: Addressed technology, process, and governance challenges holistically
• Phased implementation: Minimized disruption with a staged rollout plan aligned to internal timelines
• Change management: Enabled internal teams to adopt and leverage new capabilities quickly
• Continuous optimization: Ongoing refinement of platform configurations to deliver sustained value

Tessell's platform-first approach enables organizations to modernize diverse database estates—including MySQL, SQL Server, and more—through a consistent, automated operational model.

Looking Forward

This wasn't just a cost optimization exercise—it was a strategic reclaiming of control over one of the company's most critical assets: its data.

With Tessell's Oracle PaaS on Azure now serving as the foundation for its database estate, the company is positioned for long-term success. The platform offers scalability for growth, flexibility to adapt to evolving needs, deep automation to support innovation, and predictable costs for strategic planning. Building on this success, Tessell's platform is now being evaluated to support additional engines like MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server, further enabling unified database management.

This shift enabled the company to transition from reactive maintenance to proactive innovation. Their teams are no longer burdened by infrastructure complexity and can focus on driving value across the business. This transformation also laid the groundwork for a consistent, unified database management model spanning engines and clouds.

This success story demonstrates that with the right platform, even the most complex enterprises can modernize securely, take back control of their data, and drive long-term value without disruption.

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