UDT Partners with Willis Lease Finance Corporation to Migrate their IT Assets to the Cloud

When Jennifer Torlone stepped into her new role as Vice President of Information Technology with Willis Lease, she saw a gap between business and technology and the need for new, innovative solutions. She knew Willis Lease Finance Corporation, a provider of aviation services and leaser of aircraft equipment worldwide, needed to consolidate their IT assets but lacked a trusted partner to help assess, execute and manage their move to the cloud.

Ms. Torlone reached out to UDT (UDT), a Microsoft Gold Cloud Partner and One-Tier Cloud Service Provider, to discuss moving Willis’ infrastructure to the cloud. “UDT conducted a three-month planning and assessment initiative to determine all environmental needs, and to accommodate the sheer size of the proposed Microsoft Azure migration engagement,” said Ms. Torlone. The assessment included how to architect Willis’ Microsoft Azure Data Center footprint, Azure Virtual Network infrastructure roadmap and determined virtual equivalents to on-premise systems.

To touch as many end users as possible, Ms. Torlone then asked UDT to help Willis Lease identify their power users and understand at how their processes were being documented. UDT fine-tuned Willis Lease’s data center to provide this level of detailed insight. UDT performed a data center refresh and redesign by replacing data centers across the world with cloud solutions, migrating from on-premise into Microsoft Azure. This helped Willis Lease to increase cost efficiencies, deliver better performance and become more agile.

“UDT completed the planning and design phase before executing the migration and upgrade of workloads from 250 servers utilizing Microsoft Azure. Upon migration completion, UDT will manage our entire cloud infrastructure,” continued Ms. Torlone. This migration helped Willis to standardize their assets under one domain and scale globally.

The next step in Willis’ consolidation efforts was to take three AD domains and consolidate into a new single domain, which was also extended into Microsoft Azure. This consolidation further enabled the merger of two existing Office 365 tenants and one on-premise Exchange Server environment into a single tenant.

“UDT was tasked with modernizing Willis Lease’s services to next generation security for Microsoft Azure, offerings consistent, multi-layered security,” said Ben Tosado, Senior VP of Enterprise Cloud Technologies. “We leveraged our engineers and cloud experts to ensure the best possible experience for Willis Lease. In the future, UDT will continue to be a trusted partner and managed service provider as Willis Lease continues their digital transformation.”

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About Willis Finance Corporation

Willis Lease Finance Corporation leases large and regional spare commercial aircraft engines, auxiliary power units and aircraft to airlines, aircraft engine manufacturers and maintenance, repair and overhaul providers in 120 countries. These leasing activities are integrated with engine and aircraft trading, engine lease pools supported by cutting-edge technology, as well as technical and asset management, provided through its subsidiary Willis Asset Management Limited, and various end-of-life solutions for aircraft, engines and aviation materials provided through its subsidiary, Willis Aeronautical Services, Inc. To learn more, please visit https://www.willislease.com.

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