Digital Transformation: Hadoop to Databricks Migration
The client had a large Hadoop estate with rising operational cost and slow delivery cycles. Many workloads were business-critical (risk, reporting, portfolio analytics). The goal was to migrate 50+ applications to Databricks on AWS without breaking data contracts.
Client Type
Global Asset Manager
Region
North America / Europe
Engagement Type
Data Platform Migration
Duration
10–14 months
Role
Migration program lead for planning, factory execution (development & testing), and run stabilization
What We Delivered
- Migration factory for 50+ Hadoop workloads with standardized patterns and runbooks
- Data pipeline re-engineering for priority workloads (risk + reporting)
- Automated regression test harness for data parity and SLA checks
- Operational dashboards for job health, cost, performance, and failure triage
- Cutover strategy per domain with parallel runs and validation sign-offs
How We Delivered
- Categorized workloads (lift/shift, refactor, retire) with a 90-day roadmap
- Standardized ingestion, transformations, and scheduling patterns to reduce variance
- Implemented cost controls: cluster policies, job sizing guidelines, and tagging discipline
- Ran parallel execution windows to validate data parity and SLA compliance
- Stabilized production with incident playbooks and SRE-style on-call rotations
What Made It Hard
- Mixed codebase (Hive, Spark, shell) and inconsistent job ownership
- Tight SLAs for month-end and risk reporting cycles with limited cutover windows
- Data parity complexity due to historical backfills and late-arriving feeds
Results and Impact
Successful Migration
Migrated 52 applications within the program window; retired 7 low-value jobs. Improved pipeline success rate from ~96.5% to ~99.2% post-stabilization.
Performance & Cost
Reduced average batch runtime by ~25–40% for top 15 priority pipelines. Reduced compute spend for migrated workloads by ~15–22% through sizing + scheduling changes.
Faster Onboarding
Cut onboarding time for new pipelines from ~3–4 weeks to ~1–2 weeks using standard templates.