Ep227: How BlackBerry Is Migrating 1,500+ VMs to AWS in Canada

Go inside a massive, still-in-progress migration of 1,500+ servers out of two Canadian data centers, with candid lessons on what works, what was surprising, and what to do differently.

Topics Include:

• Inside a live migration: 1,500+ servers leaving two Canadian data centers.
• How BlackBerry became a secure communications and QNX vehicle software company.
• Decades of legacy systems, and why standing still became costlier.
• Three converging forces: VMware licensing, hardware end-of-life, and FinOps gaps.
• The goals: close data centers, exit VMware, modernize only what matters.
• Choosing partners and funding programs that work as one team.
• A five-week assessment with parallel workstreams and five key workshops.
• Rehost, re-platform, or refactor: pragmatism over migration ideology.
• Early lessons on discovery, cost transparency, and over-communicating.
• Building the landing zone: accounts, networking, identity, and security.
• Discovery, right-sizing, then migrating, validating, and cutting over workloads.
• Wave planning: start simple, save the most complex workloads for last.
• Day two: cost tagging, observability, and AI-assisted modernization backlogs.
• Final advice: business case first, migrate now, modernize later.

Participants:

• Jason Whissell – Vice President, IT & Business Application Solutions, Blackberry
• Mehran Najafi PhD - Principal AI Architect & Head of AI Solution Architects, AWS Canada, Amazon Web Services  

See how Amazon Web Services gives you the freedom to migrate, innovate, and scale your software company at https://aws.amazon.com/isv/