Case study · Aerospace
Rolls-Royce: 26,000 applications down to 1,000
The Next Generation Windows Migration had a deadline, 36,000 users, and an application portfolio nobody could fully see. Our analysis cut it by over 95% and cleared the path to a clean, supported platform.
The challenge
You can't migrate what you can't see
Decades of growth had left the application estate enormous and largely unmapped: over 26,000 applications recorded across the business, many duplicated, versioned or long abandoned. With the migration window fixed (complete inside it, or pay extended support on the outgoing platform), migrating the portfolio wholesale would have meant carrying every one of those applications, and their licensing, packaging and support costs, onto the new platform.
The commercial stakes were explicit: complete the migration inside the window, or face extended-support costs in excess of £2m.
Cost risk avoided
Extended-support costs avoided by landing the migration on time
The approach
Evidence first, at industrial scale
We ran the engagement through our DooR methodology: outcomes defined up front, then a deep 'As-Is' analysis powered by our discovery tooling to establish, application by application, what was genuinely installed, used and needed.
- Full application discovery across the 36,000-user estate
- Usage-based rationalisation: “installed” is not “used”
- Duplicate, versioned and abandoned applications identified and retired
- A rationalised target portfolio agreed with application owners, ready for migration
The result
A 95% smaller estate, and a migration that landed
The portfolio came down from over 26,000 applications to just over 1,000: a reduction of more than 95%. The migration proceeded against a clean, known estate, on schedule, with £2m+ in extended-support costs avoided. Every application that moved earned its place.
Portfolio rationalised
Applications, before and after analysis
“We engaged with Make IT Happen for the Rolls-Royce Next Generation Windows Migration. Their incredibly detailed analysis helped us to reduce our Application Portfolio from over 26,000 apps down to just over 1,000.”
Related services
Facing a migration with a portfolio like this?
The analysis that made this possible starts as a scoped assessment. Tell us about your estate.