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Driving digitized mining in Azure

OceanaGold speeds up digitized mining by moving to the Azure Cloud

As a responsible miner, OceanaGold continuously innovates how it extracts and processes minerals by using the latest technologies to improve business performance. Operating in a heavily regulated sector, OceanaGold strives to make mining safer for its people and more sustainable to protect the environment. OceanaGold wanted a more robust cloud technology to increase performance, scalability, and high availability to fulfill these needs and grow its business.

Having used multiple Microsoft solutions and tools successfully, transitioning its datacenter to Azure cloud was the next enabling step to take advantage of cost benefits and Microsoft’s capabilities. In doing so, OceanaGold can innovate new services and solutions that help to focus on plant and process automation to improve production efficiency.

As it was the company’s first time moving to another cloud provider, OceanaGold partnered with SoftwareOne to gain the needed expertise and guidance for a seamless Azure migration.

Klant: OceanaGold
Branche: Productie
Services: Migration from another cloud provider to Microsoft Azure including: Cloud Advisory, Cloud Landing Zone Architecture Review, Cloud Migration
Land: Australia

Microsoft Azure is the perfect fit for us as we had Microsoft technology in place already. But Azure offers us more tools that we can leverage now, and it ensures high availability, scalability, and reliable performance we require.

Graham Almond
EVP People Culture and Technology, OceanaGold

About the client

OceanaGold, an Australian-based multinational company, mines gold, copper, and silver essential to the renewable energy and transport sectors, life-saving medical devices, and technology that connects communities on a global scale. The company has a well-established portfolio of operating assets, including Didipio Mine in the Philippines, Macraes and Waihi operations in New Zealand, and Haile Gold Mine in the United States.

The challenge

OceanaGold operates in a highly regulated industry with a strong emphasis on environmental stewardship and the health and safety of employees and the communities in which it operates. Continuous reviews are conducted to improve OceanaGold’s environmental management systems, practices, and standards. The company looks for ways to make mining safer, especially for people who work underground. The company is striving to improve efficiency across all operations by automating many underground operations to minimize or altogether remove the need for people to be present in danger zones.

Efficiency is business-critical in everything we do. But for that, we need to improve and drive accurate decision-making. Digitization helps us to do that by leveraging real-time data.

– said Graham Almond, EVP People Culture and Technology at OceanaGold.

Much of the equipment OceanaGold buys for mining – excavators, trucks, etc. – come with a vast array of sensors that provide data ranging from tire temperature and pressure to overburden moved to resource consumption. Drones are used to survey inaccessible areas.

A lot of data is generated on production, performance, and safety,

– said Graham.

It’s data that allows us to improve our decision making.

OceanaGold continuously drives its digital transformation, using cutting-edge technologies, making operations more effective, safer, and sustainable. The mining company decided to transition from the IBM Cloud to Microsoft Azure to attain the advanced IT infrastructure it effectively required. Consolidating with one technology provider delivered cost benefits and ROI while enhancing cloud tools and integrations available with other Microsoft solutions.

A mid-sized company of 2,000 employees, OceanaGold did not have the capacity, expertise, or experience for Azure Cloud migration, so the IT team sought additional support and guidance from SoftwareOne.

Two construction workers standing on top of a pile of dirt.

The solution

Before partnering with SoftwareOne, OceanaGold had run its Microsoft agreements and services out of New Zealand. The company needed a partner to support the supply changes in commercial agreements transnationally when moving services to Singapore. In combination with the need for support with the datacenter transition to Azure Cloud, SoftwareOne was the perfect match.

OceanaGold has come a long way in terms of its digital transformation. With its internal ADaPT Program, the company wants to drive Automation, Digital, and Process Transformation through Azure cloud technology. The initiative serves as the enabler for several projects and multiple new services and support for existing tools.

OceanaGold now has reliable remote controls for ventilation, pumps, drills, maintenance, and support, with a solid and reliable infrastructure. Azure Cloud ensures this indispensable high availability and performance stability for plant automation.

To meet growing demands for minerals, OceanaGold strives to increase its productivity and to develop its organization. To operate anywhere in the world, OceanaGold envisions an IT infrastructure that is flexible, easy to scale, and cost-effective, and Azure Cloud delivers.

As a Microsoft Gold Partner with more than 30 years of experience, SoftwareOne was well-placed to navigate OceanaGold’s journey to Azure cloud through the key stages Cloud Advisory, Cloud Landing Zone Architecture Review, and Cloud Migration.

The result

Cost savings: With Azure, OceanaGold has implemented cost optimization initiatives to leverage cloud characteristics such as right-sizing, just-in-time capacity, cost realignment, lower capital expense, and predictable operational expense.
Maximizing ROI: Migration to Azure delivered immediate cost benefits and ROI for Microsoft solutions and products that OceanaGold was already running.
Improving efficiency by automation: Azure cloud technology provides a robust cloud infrastructure that ensures high availability performance and reliability, enabling OceanaGold to focus on the plant and process automation that improve production efficiency.
Global growth: To extend the business, OceanaGold can quickly, with minimal downtime, scale-out and scale-up cloud resources to meet seasonal demands and grow its business globally.
Accelerating digital transformation: With various Microsoft solutions used and the plan to add new Microsoft tools, the Azure migration is a huge enabling step to accelerate OceanaGold’s digital transformation with new and innovative projects running under its ADaPT program.
Seamless transition: As a trusted Microsoft partner, Azure Expert MSP, and Microsoft Gold Partner, SoftwareOne provided the expertise, experience, and resources, to support OceanaGold with a seamless migration to Azure without disruption or unintended business impact.
Data-driven decision making: SoftwareOne’s BackupSimple service protects the growing data generated by OceanaGold’s mining equipment with a backup solution on Azure. The data forms the basis for better decision-making with greater safety and a more efficient, sustainable environment.