The Client
Luminus is the second-largest electricity generator and energy provider in Belgium, managing power plants and wind farms while securing external energy sources to ensure a reliable power supply for customers.
Their energy trading platform, Aligne, is essential for making quick, informed trading decisions. However, managing and scaling the platform in on-premises data centers presented significant limitations.
To enhance efficiency and scalability, Cloud Elemental led the migration of Aligne to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The Challenge
Luminus’s Aligne migration project presented several challenges:
- Outdated & Unsupported Application
As a legacy system, Aligne was difficult to maintain and lacked vendor support
- No Automation
Manual, tedious processes slowed down operations and increased inefficiencies
- Limited Monitoring & Alerts
Lack of real-time insights made issue resolution reactive instead of proactive
- Scalability Constraints
On-premise infrastructure couldn’t handle increasing data and demand
Our Approach
Assessment
- Identify challenges in security, scalability, and efficiency
- Evaluate existing infrastructure
Foundations & Security
- Move applications and data securely
- Replatform for improved performance
Migration & Optimisation
- Establish connectivity and account structure
- Implement security and compliance safeguards
Scaling & Automation
- Introduce automation and monitoring for efficiency
- Ensure high availability and cost savings
Our Solution
We implemented a highly available, self-healing Cloud architecture using AWS services to ensure the Aligne platform operates with minimal downtime, improved scalability, and robust security.
Here’s how we did it:
To reduce downtime and enhance reliability, we built a bespoke self-healing mechanism that detects, diagnoses, and recovers from service failures without manual intervention.
- Monitors Aligne, which is made up of over 40 Windows services, identifying failures in real-time
- Triggers automated recovery workflows, ensuring minimal disruption
- Utilises idempotent scripts and AWS infrastructure, allowing for faster issue resolution
- Reduces response times by pinpointing failures precisely and applying corrective actions instantly
We implemented Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) to route traffic correctly, monitor service health and allow for servers to be swapped out easily where needed. This improves service availability and speeds up recovery from failure.
- Routes traffic across 6 EC2 servers, enhancing scalability and fault tolerance
- Alarms and automation hooks trigger recovery actions if a a service or an EC2/VM/server fails
- Improves security by encrypting traffic in transit
- Reduces infrastructure complexity, making management and scaling easier
To replace the legacy Windows file server, we introduced Amazon FSx configured for Multi-AZ, ensuring automated failover and backup management for a more resilient storage solution.
- Automated failover, backup, and patching, eliminating manual intervention
- Multi-AZ storage configuration ensures high durability and availability
- Seamlessly integrates with on-premises systems while securing data
- Enhanced security with fine-grained access control via Microsoft Active Directory
To reduce the risk of data loss and downtime, we deployed AWS Backup for automated data protection and implemented automated disaster recovery processes across multiple environments.
- Automated the workflow to restore an EC2 from any failure, including a complete AZ failure
- Maintains local & remote backup vaults, ensuring disaster recovery readiness
- Reduces downtime with a completely restored EC2 with all application configuration and Active Directory joining complete in under 5 minutes
We migrated from on-premises Oracle-on-VM to Amazon RDS Multi-AZ ensuring automatic failover for continuous operations. We developed RDS automation to minimise DBA overhead and limit access to production data.
- Multi-AZ deployment improves database availability and resilience
- On-boarded the Aligne project as the first consumers of the organisational AWS Backup architecture for immutable backups
- Reduced DBA overhead by developing RDS Automation – a workflow to refresh non-production environments with production data without the need to provide any DBA access to production data
Our Results
By migrating Aligne from on-premise to AWS, Luminus has gained greater scalability, enhanced performance, and improved automation capabilities, ensuring their trading platform is more resilient and future-proof. The platform has experienced a 30% increase in performance, with higher data availability and reduced maintenance overhead.
High Availability & Fault Tolerance
- Multi-AZ architecture ensures continuous operations even during infrastructure failures
- Automated failover mechanisms minimise downtime and service disruptions
Resilience & Security
- AWS-native backup and disaster recovery solutions safeguard against unexpected failures
- Strict access control and encryption protect sensitive data and ensure compliance
Automation & Integrated Monitoring
- Automated self-healing workflows proactively resolve application issues
- Logging, security monitoring, and infrastructure automation reduce operational overhead
Scalability & Elasticity
- Load balancing and compute optimisation ensure smooth operations under varying workloads
With AWS, Luminus now operates Aligne with greater efficiency, reliability, and security, empowering their team to tackle challenges with better insights, automated controls, and future-ready infrastructure.
Ready to transform your Cloud infrastructure?
Cloud solutions, simplified.
Let's discuss how we can help you achieve your Cloud goals with our expertise and proven methodology.
Luminus Aligne Migration: Enhancing Performance and Scalability with AWS
How Cloud Elemental helped a leading energy provider optimising its Cloud-based trading platform with scalable, secure, and automated Cloud solutions.
The Client
Luminus is the second-largest electricity generator and energy provider in Belgium, managing power plants and wind farms while securing external energy sources to ensure a reliable power supply for customers.
Their energy trading platform, Aligne, is essential for making quick, informed trading decisions. However, managing and scaling the platform in on-premises data centers presented significant limitations.
To enhance efficiency and scalability, Cloud Elemental led the migration of Aligne to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
The Challenge
Luminus’s Aligne migration project presented several challenges:
- Outdated & Unsupported Application
As a legacy system, Aligne was difficult to maintain and lacked vendor support
- No Automation
Manual, tedious processes slowed down operations and increased inefficiencies
- Limited Monitoring & Alerts
Lack of real-time insights made issue resolution reactive instead of proactive
- Scalability Constraints
On-premise infrastructure couldn’t handle increasing data and demand
Our Approach
How Cloud Elemental helped a leading energy provider optimising its Cloud-based trading platform with scalable, secure, and automated Cloud solutions.
Assessment
- Identify challenges in security, scalability, and efficiency
- Evaluate existing infrastructure
Foundations & Security
- Move applications and data securely
- Replatform for improved performance
Migration & Optimisation
- Establish connectivity and account structure
- Implement security and compliance safeguards
Scaling & Automation
- Introduce automation and monitoring for efficiency
- Ensure high availability and cost savings
Our Solution
We implemented a highly available, self-healing Cloud architecture using AWS services to ensure the Aligne platform operates with minimal downtime, improved scalability, and robust security.
Here’s how we did it:
To reduce downtime and enhance reliability, we built a bespoke self-healing mechanism that detects, diagnoses, and recovers from service failures without manual intervention.
- Monitors Aligne, which is made up of over 40 Windows services, identifying failures in real-time
- Triggers automated recovery workflows, ensuring minimal disruption
- Utilises idempotent scripts and AWS infrastructure, allowing for faster issue resolution
- Reduces response times by pinpointing failures precisely and applying corrective actions instantly
We implemented Elastic Load Balancing (ELB) to route traffic correctly, monitor service health and allow for servers to be swapped out easily where needed. This improves service availability and speeds up recovery from failure.
- Routes traffic across 6 EC2 servers, enhancing scalability and fault tolerance
- Alarms and automation hooks trigger recovery actions if a a service or an EC2/VM/server fails
- Improves security by encrypting traffic in transit
- Reduces infrastructure complexity, making management and scaling easier
To replace the legacy Windows file server, we introduced Amazon FSx configured for Multi-AZ, ensuring automated failover and backup management for a more resilient storage solution.
- Automated failover, backup, and patching, eliminating manual intervention
- Multi-AZ storage configuration ensures high durability and availability
- Seamlessly integrates with on-premises systems while securing data
- Enhanced security with fine-grained access control via Microsoft Active Directory
To reduce the risk of data loss and downtime, we deployed AWS Backup for automated data protection and implemented automated disaster recovery processes across multiple environments.
- Automated the workflow to restore an EC2 from any failure, including a complete AZ failure
- Maintains local & remote backup vaults, ensuring disaster recovery readiness
- Reduces downtime with a completely restored EC2 with all application configuration and Active Directory joining complete in under 5 minutes
We migrated from on-premises Oracle-on-VM to Amazon RDS Multi-AZ ensuring automatic failover for continuous operations. We developed RDS automation to minimise DBA overhead and limit access to production data.
- Multi-AZ deployment improves database availability and resilience
- On-boarded the Aligne project as the first consumers of the organisational AWS Backup architecture for immutable backups
- Reduced DBA overhead by developing RDS Automation – a workflow to refresh non-production environments with production data without the need to provide any DBA access to production data
Our Results
By migrating Aligne from on-premise to AWS, Luminus has gained greater scalability, enhanced performance, and improved automation capabilities, ensuring their trading platform is more resilient and future-proof. The platform has experienced a 30% increase in performance, with higher data availability and reduced maintenance overhead.
High Availability & Fault Tolerance
- Multi-AZ architecture ensures continuous operations even during infrastructure failures
- Automated failover mechanisms minimise downtime and service disruptions
Resilience & Security
- AWS-native backup and disaster recovery solutions safeguard against unexpected failures
- Strict access control and encryption protect sensitive data and ensure compliance
Automation & Integrated Monitoring
- Automated self-healing workflows proactively resolve application issues
- Logging, security monitoring, and infrastructure automation reduce operational overhead
Scalability & Elasticity
- Load balancing & compute optimisation ensure smooth operations under varying workloads
With AWS, Luminus now operates Aligne with greater efficiency, reliability, and security, empowering their team to tackle challenges with better insights, automated controls, and future-ready infrastructure.
Ready to transform your Cloud Infrastructure?
Let’s discuss how we can help you achieve your Cloud goals with our expertise and proven methodology.
