Paraflow transforms the IT infrastructure of the America for Bulgaria Foundation to the Cloud

The America for Bulgaria Foundation is one of the most significant non-governmental organizations in the country, supporting various initiatives in education, culture, the society, and more. To continue executing its mission effectively, the foundation needed modern IT infrastructure that would ensure flexibility, reliability, and scalability.
The existing on-premises infrastructure did not meet the growing needs of the organization and required significant resources for maintenance. This led to the strategic decision to migrate to a cloud platform offering a high level of security, business application integration, and scalability.

Challenges
Before the project, the foundation’s IT infrastructure faced several key challenges:

• Limited scalability: The on-premises servers did not easily allow expansion or adaptation to the organization’s future needs.
• Complicated Management: The management of devices and systems was fragmented, making monitoring and maintenance difficult.
• Need for application modernization: Core business applications and other critical systems needed optimization and migration to a more modern and reliable environment.
• Risk of interruptions: The transition to new infrastructure had to be carefully planned to avoid disruptions to the organization’s operations.

Goals
The project aimed to achieve the following results:
1.    Modernization of IT infrastructure through migration to a cloud platform.
2.    Improvement of security, manageability and monitoring of systems.
3.    Ensuring operational continuity during the migration.
4.    Centralized management of devices and access through modernization.
5.    Integration of a solution for enhanced protection and real-time threat detection.
6.    Ensuring a stable and productive environment for core applications and critical systems.

Methods
The team approached the migration with a well-structured strategy, carefully analysing and optimizing each element of the infrastructure before transitioning to the cloud. The main steps included:
1.    Analysis of existing infrastructure:
A detailed review of existing assets and dependencies identified areas for optimization and preparation for migration.
2.    Migration to cloud infrastructure:
All virtual machines, including key applications and systems, were successfully transferred to the cloud infrastructure, ensuring a stable and scalable environment for the foundation’s operations.
3.    Integration of a security management platform:
A leading cloud-based security management platform was implemented, providing:
Centralized data collection and analysis from all systems and devices.
Proactive threat detection and response.
Enhanced visibility into infrastructure security.
4.    Centralized management 
Centralized management of endpoint devices:
Quick configuration and deployment of new devices.
Increased data protection and access security.
Decrease device maintenance time.
5.    Monitoring:
A solution was implemented to provide detailed analysis of infrastructure performance, enabling quick detection of potential issues.
6.    Optimization of key applications:
Core applications were optimized and migrated to the cloud infrastructure, ensuring reliable operation and improved performance.

Solution
The solution implemented involved a complete migration of the foundation’s infrastructure to the cloud. Thanks to the cloud platform, the foundation received:
Secure and scalable environment: New domain controllers provided flexible and reliable resource management.
World-class device management: Centralized support for all devices, minimizing data loss risks and simplifying the configuration of new devices.
Comprehensive monitoring: With the monitoring solution, the foundation had constant visibility of its systems’ performance and could react promptly to issues.
Improved business application performance: Core applications, as well as all other systems, now operate in a stable and reliable cloud environment.

Results

The project, executed by the Paraflow team, achieved all predefined goals. The migration to cloud infrastructure resulted in significant benefits for the foundation:
1.    Modern and flexible cloud infrastructure – providing a stable and scalable environment that meets the organization’s long-term needs.
2.    Increased security – proactive monitoring and protection, reducing response time to incidents.
3.    Optimized management – easing device management and reducing the administrative burden on the IT team.
4.    Improved key application performance – core applications and other systems now function more reliably in the new environment, enhancing operational efficiency.
5.    Better visibility and monitoring – providing a comprehensive view of the infrastructure, allowing for proactive management.