Achieving Success for Goodbody with a Next-Generation ASPIRE Managed Service

Goodbody is a well-respected financial services firm that’s been serving clients for more than 150 years. It offers wealth management, asset management and investment banking services. As is often the case for established, long-lived companies, Goodbody faced a typical challenge: balancing innovation with its legacy systems.  

Specifically, Goodbody’s Oracle databases, essential for day-to-day company operations, were running on the older Oracle 11g. To deliver effective security and support, the firm needed to upgrade to the latest version of Oracle, so Goodbody turned to a trusted partner. 

We’d already forged a strong relationship with Goodbody, which dates back to a successful 2014 infrastructure redesign project. Following this project’s success, the relationship went from strength to strength, and the firm extended the relationship for three more years to cover this additional work. 

This represented a substantial piece of upgrade work. The solution had to deliver the necessary technical requirements and align with financial services’ regulatory and security obligations. After assessing the available options, we agreed on a Proof of Concept for the upgrade, running in AWS RDS. This solution offered the best combination of platform and licensing flexibility to support the aims of the PoC. 

We embedded the AWS Well-Architected Framework, incorporating Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and proactive governance from the project’s outset. This focus on best practices aligned with Goodbody’s heavily regulated operating environment.

Following the PoC, Goodbody chose to migrate their Oracle databases to AWS RDS. Our experienced Software Asset Management (SAM) practice was on hand to advise on the most effective Oracle licensing structure. The migration combined AWS tools and Oracle’s own utilities to guarantee the integrity of Goodbody’s data while minimising business impact. 

Delivering technical proficiency and transformation with tangible outcomes is a watchword in our work. The success of this migration project cemented that ethos once again.  

Outcomes

• Implemented a fully Infrastructure as Code (IaC) provisioned environment. 
• Leveraged AWS to automate resource provisioning, software patching, and backups. 
• Assisted Goodbody with selecting the most suitable Oracle licensing model (Licence Included vs. BYOL). 
• Employed Multi-AZ deployments to maximise availability and automatic failover. 
• Facilitated point-in-time restoration for databases, enabling enhanced data protection. 

When I was told recently that Version 1 had a 98% customer retention, I wasn’t surprised. Their culture and quality came through in their engagement with us during the RFP process, which was one of the reasons we chose them, and it has served us very well over the course of the last eight years. 

We saw sustained performance gains of 85% on critical batch workloads as a result of the migration, in addition to having our RPOs and RTOs move from hours to minutes. This was a game-changer for us.

– Stuart Halford, CIO, Goodbody