Why Aluminium Giant Tomago Migrated Out Of The Public Cloud
Migrating on-premise systems to the public cloud generates instant benefits in speed, efficiency and agility. Or so goes the conventional narrative of software giants such as SAP, which continue to invest heavily in cloud-based systems interlaced with emerging AI technologies.
Almost no-one is talking about going the other way. No-one, that is, except Australia’s largest aluminium smelter, Tomago Aluminium.
The giant New South Wales-based plant has run as a 24-hour-operation since 1983. With any potential stoppage of its smelting operation set to incur massive cost, it’s critical for Tomago to have stable systems with high levels of control and accountability.
Yet Tomago is also highly progressive and in 2015, became an early mover into the public cloud when it replaced its outdated SAP ERP system with the most suitable new platform of the time, SAP HANA. Because Tomago’s chosen configuration wasn’t available on-premise, a shift to a partner-managed public cloud environment was its only viable option.
Following the migration, Tomago noted short-term benefits in improved speed and resilience. But Dennis Moncrieff, the IT Superintendent at Tomago, says the company also began to realise it had ceded full control over its data, as well as visibility into the value it was receiving.
“The cloud was a true black box. We had no insights into it at all,” he says. “It was challenging to make decisions because we couldn’t see how much capacity was being used by the environment. All we had was up-or-down monitoring.”
Internal management and monitoring of the company’s sizeable cloud-based ERP became opaque, with Moncrieff and his team unable to verify what services were being utilised, or even track vital governance issues such as compliance, security and due diligence.
When a five-year contract with its public cloud provider expired in 2020, Tomago got in touch with IBM Power Systems, which had hosted the company’s pre-2015 systems. In the intervening five years, IBM Power Systems had become SAP-certified, and helped Tomago devise a new suite of solutions based on an on-premise system utilising a private cloud model.
The SAP capabilities devised in cooperation with IBM Power Systems, Red Hat Solutions and Advent One included SAP Business Warehouse powered by SAP HANA, SAP ECC powered by SAP HANA, and SAP Fiori.
The system was deployed, installed and configured in just six days, and effectively handed control of its systems back to Tomago. Operating in a private cloud environment, it now enjoys greater control and has generated significant operational efficiencies.
“Management has seen considerable improvements in processing times, so they are very happy. Cost consistency is also a big improvement, so we can deliver better for the business at no extra cost,” Moncrieff says.
Critically, though, he hasn’t completely shut the door on Tomago returning to a public cloud structure. He told CIO Magazine in early 2024 that he would always assess each opportunity on the basis of the problem the company needed to solve.
“For me, it’s about having the right workload in the right spot,” he says.