Modernizing Db2 Systems for Insurance Industry Leaders

The insurer’s legacy Db2 environment was core to operations but increasingly became a liability. Key challenges included:

• Rising Costs: Licensing, hardware, and support expenses were steadily increasing.
• Limited Internal Expertise: Maintaining the environment required highly specialized Db2 knowledge that was becoming difficult to source.
• Data Silos: Db2 data was fragmented across environments, slowing analytics and digital innovation.
• Scalability Constraints: The outdated system could not support new digital services or cloud-native apps.
• Operational Risk: Legacy architecture lacked resiliency, increasing the risk of outages and compliance gaps.

The organization needed a data-driven strategy to modernize, cut costs, and support future cloud initiatives.

CleanSlate conducted a Cloud Optimization Blueprint powered by AWS OLA, performing a comprehensive technical and financial assessment of the client’s Db2 workloads. This process identified high-cost areas, license evaluation, performance bottlenecks, and modernization opportunities through deep workload analysis and cost modeling. CleanSlate’s IBM licensing expertise found cost savings in licensing models with IBM to bring them greater long-term support along with more favorable licensing.

Building on those findings, CleanSlate led a MAP++ Assess phase to define a strategic roadmap for modernization and migration. During this phase, CleanSlate:

• Evaluated multiple migration strategies, including replatforming to Amazon RDS, refactoring to PostgreSQL, and leveraging container-based architectures.
• Partnered with AWS Solution Architects to validate target-state designs, performance optimization, and cost efficiency.
• Developed a prioritized, executive-ready roadmap that balanced modernization objectives with business continuity and compliance needs.

This structured approach provided the client with a clear modernization path, financial justification, and the technical confidence to move forward with its AWS migration strategy.

The CleanSlate team delivered measurable value by helping this leading insurer navigate the complexities of modernizing their legacy Db2 environment. By combining technical expertise with AWS best practices, we provided a clear migration path and identified substantial opportunities for cost savings, system upgrades, and long-term scalability.

• Delivered a comprehensive technical and financial assessment across 319 Db2 workloads.
• Recommended replatforming all 319 Db2 instances to AWS RDS, aligning with AWS best practices.
• Outlined potential savings of 12%–35% compared to lift-and-shift migrations.
• Identified $100,000+ in annual cost savings from optimized licensing and infrastructure.
• Enabled the client to upgrade from frozen/outdated Db2 versions to currently supported releases.
• Proposed architecture improvements to enhance performance, scalability, and security using Amazon RDS.
• Established a repeatable modernization roadmap for post-Db2 migration efforts (e.g., analytics, application modernization).

Positioned the organization for long-term AWS cloud success, with scalable architecture and reduced operational burden.