Cloud Migration & Multi-Site Platform for a Global Manufacturer

I. System Context & Constraints

Technical reality: A global manufacturer of cash-management hardware and point-of-sale peripherals — products used by retail and hospitality operators in over 90 countries — ran its web presence on self-managed cloud servers (three EC2 instances with attached volumes) across several regional storefronts. The setup was costly to operate and brittle to maintain.

Director’s constraints: The migration had to occur with zero data loss while regional commerce stores stayed live, avoid the unstable third-party plugins that had caused past incidents, coordinate cutover with the client’s own IT around credentials and access, and stand up an ongoing maintenance relationship rather than a one-off project.

II. Critical Path & Architectural Choices

We moved the platform from self-managed servers to managed multi-site WordPress on a managed host, with proper staging and production environments — replacing undifferentiated infrastructure work with a hosting layer the team could operate reliably. The cutover was methodical: assess and back up the existing servers and volumes, transfer databases, files, and configurations, validate multi-site network settings and domain mappings, then decommission the old infrastructure only after sign-off.

For the European store’s inventory, we rejected fragile commerce plugins in favor of a custom FTP-to-ERP sync service: stock and order files are polled on a short interval, an overselling guard prevents orders beyond available stock and notifies sales, and the storefront shows simple in-stock / out-of-stock flags instead of exact counts. We also rebuilt shipment tracking with automated notifications, a product configurator, translations, and mobile optimization.

III. Governance, Risk & Team Topology

I directed the planning, design, web, engineering, and QA teams through a milestone-based migration: maintenance-workflow design, the server-to-managed-host migration, European store automation, site enhancements, and a customer download portal.

Risk was front-loaded: full backups and a staging validation pass before any production change, redirect mapping so no regional store went dark, and a post-migration validation report with client sign-off before decommissioning the old environment. The engagement closed into a recurring monthly maintenance plan.

IV. Quantifiable Outcomes