Moving from Azure DevOps Server to Azure DevOps Cloud is often viewed as a straightforward migration project. In reality, the challenge becomes much larger when multiple projects, years of historical data, and separate teams are involved.
Canvas Credit Union recently faced this scenario while modernizing its development ecosystem. The organization wanted to move away from an on-premises Azure DevOps Server (TFS) environment and consolidate multiple projects into a single Azure DevOps Cloud project without losing visibility, history, or traceability.
Here's what engineering and DevOps teams can learn from the initiative.
The problem with siloed project environments
Over time, organizations often create separate Azure DevOps projects for different teams, business units, or initiatives.
While this approach may work initially, it can eventually lead to:
- Limited visibility across teams.
- Fragmented reporting.
- Duplicate administrative effort.
- Difficulty tracking work across projects.
- Reduced portfolio-level insight.
Canvas wanted to eliminate these barriers and create a more connected development environment.
The migration objectives
The modernization initiative focused on four primary goals:
Move to Azure DevOps Cloud: The organization wanted to take advantage of cloud-based capabilities while reducing infrastructure management overhead.
Preserve historical information: Years of project data needed to remain accessible after migration.
Maintain traceability: Relationships between work items and historical records had to be preserved.
Consolidate projects: Multiple Azure DevOps Server projects needed to be merged into a single Azure DevOps Cloud project.
How the migration was executed
Canvas partnered with OpsHub and used OpsHub Migrator for Microsoft Azure DevOps (OM4ADO) to perform the migration.
The migration approach prioritized continuity and data preservation. Rather than forcing teams to pause development activities, the migration was completed without downtime.
This enabled teams to continue working while project data was consolidated and transferred.
Results
- More than half a million records preserved: Historical information accumulated over several years was successfully migrated.
- Better visibility across teams: A single Azure DevOps Cloud environment provided a consolidated view of work across digital and IT functions.
- Faster reporting and decision-making: Teams gained easier access to information required for planning, reporting, and Agile execution.
- Reduced complexity: Managing one consolidated environment simplified administration and improved overall efficiency.
What stands out from this migration
One of the most interesting aspects of the project is that modernization and consolidation happened simultaneously.
Many organizations treat these as separate initiatives:
- Move to the cloud.
- Consolidate projects later.
Canvas combined both efforts into a single initiative while maintaining continuity and preserving traceability.
Customer perspective
“OpsHub migration tool facilitated the entire migration process in a non-disruptive manner. Most importantly, it helped us provide a holistic view of our portfolio of work and projects across all our digital and IT teams and still allowing the individual teams to focus on their respective tasks to complete development effortlessly. Our project gained traction within the span of a few months.”
Mike Ranson
AVP of IT – Enterprise Solutions
Canvas Credit Union
Final takeaway
Cloud migration projects often focus on moving data from one environment to another.
Canvas Credit Union's experience demonstrates that the bigger opportunity may be using migration as a catalyst for consolidation, improved visibility, and better portfolio management.
When executed correctly, organizations can modernize their Azure DevOps environment while preserving historical context, maintaining traceability, and enabling teams to continue working without interruption.
Looking for a migration strategy for a similar use case? Let’s talk.
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