Case Study: IBM Consulting achieves large-scale AWS migration and modernization—rationalizing 1,300 apps and modernizing 32 core systems—with CAST Highlight & CAST Imaging

Leading Airline and IBM Consulting complete massive cloud migration and modernization

IBM Consulting partnered with the largest US-based global airline (80,000 employees, $45B revenue) to tackle a massive cloud migration and modernization: moving 1,300 applications to AWS and modernizing 32 mission-critical core systems that account for 90% of IT costs. A simple lift-and-shift would not meet the airline’s goals for modernization and cost savings, so they needed a fast, accurate assessment to rationalize the portfolio and plan cloud-native AWS microservices modernizations.

IBM Consulting used CAST Highlight to automatically analyze the 1,300-app portfolio for cloud readiness, technical debt and open-source risks, and CAST Imaging to reverse-engineer architecture and dependencies for core systems. The work identified 240 apps requiring rehosting or replacement, flagged cloud blockers and remediation effort for 200 apps, and produced detailed intelligence for nine core applications — delivering an objective migration roadmap, enabling AWS microservices modernization, and saving millions in migration and operating costs.

IBM

Varun Bijlani

General Manager & Partner