The expansion into Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) was driven by a need for cost optimization, licensing efficiencies, and a push toward a more automated, scalable cloud environment. M&S Consulting played a pivotal role in this transformation, working alongside internal teams and partner vendors to seamlessly integrate OCI into an existing multi-cloud environment with a strong emphasis on automation, efficiency, and security.
This project supported a top-ranked research university, helping them modernize their digital infrastructure to better serve their academic and operational needs.
The Challenge
The organization had long relied on AWS but saw an opportunity to reduce costs and leverage Oracle’s licensing incentives by shifting specific workloads to OCI. However, cloud migration is rarely a simple lift-and-shift—it required a fundamental redesign of architecture, security, and networking to ensure seamless integration with existing systems.
Beyond migration, the organization aimed to redefine its infrastructure management by fully embracing Infrastructure as Code (IaC) to improve consistency, scalability, and long-term maintainability.
M&S Consulting’s Role
M&S Consulting worked in close collaboration with client teams and partners to extend cloud operations into OCI while ensuring a highly automated and infrastructure-driven approach. Our key contributions included:
- Cloud Architecture & Deployment: Built an OCI cloud environment that aligned with AWS best practices while leveraging OCI’s cost and performance benefits.
- Security & Networking Enhancements: Designed high-speed, low-latency networking with standardized security policies that ensured a secure and efficient multi-cloud environment.
- Infrastructure as Code Implementation: Developed automated infrastructure provisioning using Terraform and GitHub Actions, creating a version-controlled, traceable, and repeatable deployment model.
- Training & Knowledge Transfer: Provided hands-on training and design workshops, ensuring teams had the expertise to maintain and scale OCI effectively.
Challenges & Solutions
- Challenge: Limited hands-on experience with OCI and a need for guidance on best practices for security and automation.
- Solution: M&S provided OCI specialists, facilitated hands-on training, and collaborated with internal teams and partners to develop a structured deployment strategy.
- Solution: M&S provided OCI specialists, facilitated hands-on training, and collaborated with internal teams and partners to develop a structured deployment strategy.
- Challenge: The transition required rethinking how applications, security, and networking functioned in OCI.
- Solution: M&S designed and tested networking and firewall configurations to align with existing architecture while optimizing for OCI’s unique features.
- Solution: M&S designed and tested networking and firewall configurations to align with existing architecture while optimizing for OCI’s unique features.
- Challenge: Ensuring a fully automated, Infrastructure as Code-driven approach from the outset.
- Solution: Leveraging Terraform and GitHub Actions, M&S built a deployment model that minimized manual intervention and validated changes before implementation.
The Transformation & Key Wins
The biggest success of this project was the level of automation and standardization achieved. OCI is now fully managed as code, enabling a smooth, reliable, and scalable infrastructure with minimal manual intervention.
A real-world example shared by the team:
“Just the other day, we had a request to grant a workstation access to a URL. Instead of manually navigating a cloud console, we simply updated one line of code in GitHub. The automation handled the rest, pushing the update seamlessly through the system. No delays, no manual configurations—just instant efficiency.”
This level of automation has transformed operations, reducing cloud management time from hours or days to minutes.
Additionally, OCI’s security and networking framework is now fully standardized, making it easier to troubleshoot, secure, and scale infrastructure across AWS, Azure, and OCI. Lessons learned from this project are now being applied across multiple cloud environments, extending the benefits of this transformation.
Long-Term Impact
- Cost Optimization: Achieved significant cloud cost savings through OCI’s strategic licensing and pricing model.
- Scalability & Agility: Deployments are now faster, more consistent, and easier to manage across multiple cloud providers.
- Security & Compliance: Standardized security policies ensure uniform protection and compliance across AWS, Azure, and OCI.
- Operational Efficiency: The high level of automation has freed up engineering resources, allowing teams to focus on innovation instead of maintenance.
Conclusion
M&S Consulting’s expertise in multi-cloud strategies and Infrastructure as Code was instrumental in making this transition a success. The organization now operates a highly automated, scalable, and cost-efficient cloud infrastructure, setting a new gold standard for cloud operations.
This wasn’t just a migration—it was a revolution in cloud management. The result? A more empowered, efficient, and future-ready IT organization that can scale seamlessly while maintaining best-in-class security and operational excellence.