FortisOntario Moves Its SAP ECC Landscape to AWS with CONTAX

FortisOntario, an Ontario electric utility, was partway through moving its SAP ECC landscape to AWS when it had to end the relationship with its first partner. CONTAX took over the project, completed the migration on schedule in Q3 2022, and now supports FortisOntario as it moves its remaining workloads to the AWS cloud.

At a Glance

The Customer

FortisOntario Inc. is headquartered in Fort Erie, Ontario, and has operations in electricity distribution and transmission. It serves approximately 65,000 customers, primarily in Fort Erie, Port Colborne, Cornwall, Gananoque and the Algoma District of Ontario. Its wholly owned subsidiary Canadian Niagara Power Inc. supplies electricity to over 24,800 customers in the Fort Erie and Port Colborne area. FortisOntario is 100% owned by Fortis Inc. of St. John's, Newfoundland.

The Challenge

FortisOntario was running an older version of SAP on Windows servers with an SQL database, and it was not innovating as fast as it wanted to. It decided to move its SAP landscape to AWS to make use of the services and features available to companies running SAP in the cloud.

Along the way, FortisOntario chose to upgrade its system, move its operating system to SUSE Linux and convert its database to SAP ASE. Leaving Windows and SQL behind released it from Microsoft licensing requirements, and running SAP on Linux takes it one step closer to its eventual goal of SAP S/4HANA, with one less variable when that upgrade comes.

FortisOntario began the migration with another AWS partner, but had to end that relationship abruptly because of a conflict of interest. The project timeline had already been affected, and FortisOntario needed a partner who could pick up where the previous one left off.

The Solution

FortisOntario turned to CONTAX for its experience with complex SAP on AWS projects. CONTAX was asked to finish the work the previous partner had started and take the project over the finish line.

How the Project Ran

CONTAX joined the project after a significant disruption. Although CONTAX usually prefers AWS's own tools, such as AWS CloudFormation and the AWS Cloud Development Kit (CDK), it chose to work with what the project already had rather than start again. Once the team began working in earnest in mid-March 2022, it set a cutover date in Q3 2022, and the migration finished on schedule with minor disruption.

The Results

• SAP ECC landscape running on AWS, with a stable landscape since the move
• Migration completed on schedule in Q3 2022, despite the change of partner
• Off Windows and SQL, and free of Microsoft licensing requirements
• On SUSE Linux and SAP ASE, one step closer to SAP S/4HANA

What's Next

FortisOntario is continuing its work with CONTAX and migrating its last remaining workloads into the AWS cloud.