Accelerating M&A Integration Through Cloud Migration
JRC, a mining group with operations in Peru, Mexico, and Canada, partnered with skie to migrate an SAP S/4HANA environment from on-premises infrastructure to AWS as part of its acquisition of Compañía Minera Cuzcatlán (CMC). Within just four weeks, JRC completed a full migration achieving 40% performance improvement, 99.995% availability, and virtually zero downtime.
Explore the Case StudyAbout JRC
JRC is a mining group with operations spanning Peru, Mexico, and Canada. Following the acquisition of Compañía Minera Cuzcatlán (CMC), JRC needed to rapidly transition all of CMC's workloads to a separate, scalable cloud environment under their control.
In addition to meeting the immediate need to relocate CMC's infrastructure, JRC sought to leverage AWS to build a flexible, growth-ready platform capable of supporting future expansion, modernization, and rapid provisioning of new resources.
Business Challenge
As part of the company acquisition, JRC faced a critical deadline to transition its legacy on-premises infrastructure while meeting enterprise requirements:
Acquisition Timeline Pressure
The acquisition required JRC to move all of CMC's workloads to a separate cloud environment as part of the separation and transition process, with tight deadlines to meet.
SAP S/4HANA Migration
Critical SAP S/4HANA environments needed to be migrated without disrupting ongoing business operations or compromising data integrity.
Enterprise-Grade Requirements
JRC required a cloud platform capable of efficiently supporting SAP workloads while maintaining alignment with corporate governance and security policies.
Future Growth Platform
Beyond the immediate migration, JRC needed a flexible platform capable of supporting future expansion, modernization, and rapid provisioning of new resources.
The Transformation Strategy
skie implemented a multi-account AWS foundation aligned with the AWS Well-Architected framework and SAP on AWS best practices, executing a lift-and-shift migration simultaneously with establishing a secure cloud foundation.
Migration Strategy
A lift-and-shift migration using AWS Application Migration Service (AWS MGN) ensured fast and low-risk replication of on-site SAP servers to Amazon EC2, enabling a cut-over with virtually zero downtime.
Cloud Foundation
Multi-account structure under AWS Organizations with preventive and detective safety guardrails applied by AWS Control Tower, centralized logging, identity management, and governance.
SAP Technical Implementation
SAP S/4HANA environment running on Amazon EC2 r7i instances certified by SAP for HANA workloads, with SAP HANA 2.0 SPS07 and SAP S/4HANA 2023 on SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 15 SP5.
Storage Architecture
High-performance Amazon EBS volumes (gp3/io2) following SAP-certified storage layout patterns, with automated daily backups using AWS Backup and encryption via AWS KMS.
Network and Security
Amazon VPCs dedicated with segmentation for SAP application and database layers, hybrid network model for transitional connectivity, with least privilege IAM policies and MFA requirements.
Backup and Recovery
Native SAP HANA Backint integration sending backups directly to Amazon S3 with durability across Availability Zones, versioning, KMS encryption, and lifecycle policies.
Monitoring and Operations
Amazon CloudWatch providing high-resolution metrics for CPU, memory, disk I/O, and HANA process status. AWS Systems Manager automating patching, inventory tracking, and compliance monitoring.
Phased Migration Approach
Development Migration
Validation of connectivity, backups, and SAP Basis operations in the development environment.
Production Migration
Implemented after successful validation in Development, guaranteeing virtually zero service downtime.
QA Provisioning
New QA environment deployed natively on AWS to reflect Production and support regression testing.
Results and Benefits
The migration was completed in just four weeks, delivering a modernized SAP landscape with significant improvements:
Technical Achievements
- 40% improvement in the performance of key SAP transactions
- 99.995% availability leveraging AWS's resilient infrastructure
- Virtually zero downtime during production cut-over
- SAP-certified infrastructure with r7i instances optimized for HANA
Operational Benefits
- Enhanced governance through centralized account management and security
- Automated patching, inventory tracking, and compliance monitoring
- Hybrid posture ready to continue SAP modernization on AWS
- Reduced operational burden of infrastructure maintenance
Business Impact
- Successfully met acquisition timeline requirements
- Scalable platform ready for future expansion and modernization
- On-demand resource scaling capabilities
- Compliance through automated governance controls
Key Achievement
Conclusion
The successful migration of CMC Minera Cuzcatlán to AWS demonstrates the impact of a well-executed, strategic cloud transformation. By leveraging AWS's scalable, secure, and resilient infrastructure, JRC modernized its SAP environment, achieving significant performance improvements, stronger operational governance, and increased system availability.
This project illustrates how meticulous planning, adherence to best practices, and close collaboration can accelerate complex migrations with aggressive timelines without disrupting ongoing operations.
The new foundation on AWS not only supports current business needs but also paves the way for future innovation, scalability, and cost optimization, allowing JRC to focus on its core mining business while confidently leveraging the cloud to drive growth, efficiency, and competitive advantage.