Case Study: Investment Advisory Firm Modernizes with Seamless Migration to Microsoft Azure

How ECI helped a national investment advisor move from private cloud to Azure—driving cost savings, scalability, and long-term digital transformation

The Challenge

After several years operating within a private cloud, a leading U.S.-based investment advisor and broker-dealer needed to modernize its infrastructure to support business growth. With expanding data demands, increasing remote access needs, and rising infrastructure costs, the firm sought a more scalable and cost-effective solution—without compromising security, performance, or compliance.

They needed a strategic partner who could execute a seamless transition to a public cloud environment—and they turned to a trusted name they had relied on before: ECI.

The Group9 + ECI Solution

In 2021, ECI was brought in to lead a full lifecycle cloud engagement—from planning and design to migration, management, and optimization. Leveraging Microsoft Azure and Office 365, the firm transitioned to a hyper-scale cloudinfrastructure tailored to support trading, market data, research, analysis, and client data needs.

Key Milestones and Features:

• Replicated and migrated first server (Microsoft Dynamics General Ledger) from New Jersey data center

• Seamlessly moved the APX portfolio accounting system

• Built new hardened firewalls and provisioned high-speed Azure connectivity

• Migrated all management and log servers without downtime

• Delivered phased migration strategy for zero business disruption

The Results

• 📈 30% Efficiency Gains: Streamlined systems and reduced manual overhead

• 💸 25–30% Cost Savings per Server: Negotiated under Microsoft Cloud Agreement

• 👥 80+ Users on Azure: Accessing secure workloads across NY, Chicago, and global locations

• 🧠 Continued Cloud Innovation: PoC for Azure Virtual Desktop launched for remote work support

• 🛡️ Future-Ready Architecture: Built-in scalability, compliance alignment, and global access

Conclusion

By choosing Group9 and ECI as their digital transformation partners, this investment firm modernized its infrastructure, reduced long-term costs, and positioned itself for continued growth in the cloud. The phased, expertly managed transition proved that with the right team, cloud migration doesn’t have to be complex—it can be seamless.