From zero to hero. Vodafone Ukraine’s journey to the cloud.

Successful pilot project drives Vodafone Ukraine’s full migration to Microsoft 365

Even before the invasion began, Vodafone Ukraine initiated a pilot project to test the effectiveness of Microsoft 365 services. For this, the company had brought SoftwareOne Ukraine on board. The scope of the project included implementing a hybrid approach with Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD), as well as incorporating Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams. Additionally, remote access to company resources was enabled through the activation of multi-factor authentication. The pilot project was a success leading Vodafone Ukraine to proceed with a full migration to make Microsoft 365 the standard workplace for its employees.

Rapid implementation amidst crises

With the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Vodafone had to expedite the transition to the Microsoft 365 cloud along with user training and adoption. The urgency of the situation required immediate response and coordinated actions due to the heightened cyber-attacks on Ukrainian companies by the aggressor country. The risks of physical loss of local IT infrastructure were compounded by the potential danger of unauthorised access to critical data within their IT systems.

Despite the perilous circumstances, thanks to the collaborative efforts of Vodafone Ukraine and SoftwareOne engineers, the entire project was successfully implemented. In just three weeks over 4,000 employees were migrated, surpassing the planned timeline of four months.

Since 2014, Vodafone has implemented the digital workplace concept, which was successfully used during numerous quarantines during the coronavirus pandemic. All of the company's back-office employees are able to work remotely with secure access to the digital workplace. Thanks to the great support of SoftwareOne Ukraine, it was possible to quickly organise work in emergency conditions from the first days of the full-scale invasion. However, the mass migration of employees and the need to relocate critical facilities have become new challenges since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. The final 'move' to the cloud provided access from multiple interfaces. This solution helped us to achieve our main goal - accessibility and uninterrupted communication for millions of Ukrainians in conditions of active hostilities.

– Yaroslav Mykhalyuk, Head of IT Operations Department, Vodafone Ukraine

Looking at the project as a whole, SoftwareOne worked closely with Vodafone Ukraine to achieve the following:

• Pilot testing of Microsoft 365 services
• Develop and implement a Microsoft 365 migration plan for 4,000 users
• Define security standards
• Train and adapt users to successfully work with the new services

 

The implementation took place in 2 phases:

Phase 1: Pilot to test Microsoft 365 services for remote working:

• Configuring the hybrid mode of operation of the customer's services with Microsoft 365 Active Directory and Microsoft Entra ID (formerly Azure AD)
• Implementation of services for productive work: Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Teams
• Basic configuration of security services

Phase 2: Microsoft 365 Enterprise Mobility & Security (EMS) services migration and implementation project to ensure workplace security:

• Configuring conditional access policies that include mandatory verification of user authorisation using multi-factor authentication
• Setting up a co-management scenario for devices with Windows 10
• Enabling access to corporate information from mobile devices
• Implementation of the Microsoft Information Protection service, development, and configuration of policies
• Implementation of a cloud-based security solution based on Microsoft Defender for Identity
• Setting up Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps and security policies
• Configuration of protection policies for IaaS and specialised applications
• Pilot implementation of Microsoft Sentinel to proactively protect Vodafone’s data sources from threats