Client Profile
A leading national oil & gas enterprise in the Middle East, operating one of the region’s largest enterprise content repositories, with decades of mission-critical documents tightly integrated into business workflows, engineering systems, and third-party applications.
Business Challenge
The organization faced a complex, high-risk modernization initiative:
- 18+ TB of enterprise content stored in OpenText Livelink
- Thousands of hard-coded document URLs embedded across:
- Engineering systems
- Custom applications
- Third-party tools
- Content distributed across multiple SharePoint sites due to storage thresholds and governance constraints
- Zero tolerance for:
- Broken links
- Application downtime
- Business user retraining
A traditional “lift-and-shift” migration would have required:
- Rewriting URLs inside millions of files and metadata records
- Modifying multiple legacy applications
- Coordinating long freeze windows across business units
This approach was cost-prohibitive, slow, and operationally risky.
Our Strategy: A Mimic-First Migration Architecture
Instead of forcing change on users and applications, we designed a Livelink-compatible middleware layer that acted as a drop-in replacement for legacy integrations.
Key Principle
Migrate the platform — not the business behavior.
Solution Overview
1. Livelink Mimic Middleware
We implemented a Livelink-compatible SOAP service layer that preserved:
- Existing service contracts
- Authentication patterns
- Request/response structures
From the perspective of consuming applications, nothing changed — yet all operations were transparently redirected to SharePoint.
2. Zero-Change URL Strategy
One of the most critical success factors was preserving existing document URLs.
- The same domain and URL structure was retained
- No need to update:
- Hard-coded URLs
- Stored links in documents
- Application configurations
Result:
Business users and systems continued to access documents exactly as before — even though the data now lived in SharePoint.
3. Intelligent Content Distribution Across Multiple SharePoint Sites
Due to size and governance requirements:
- Content was strategically split across multiple SharePoint sites
- Each site adhered to:
- Storage thresholds
- Security boundaries
- Performance best practices
The middleware dynamically resolved:
- Where content resides
- How it is accessed
- How it is written or updated
All without exposing this complexity to users or applications.
4. Event-Driven Synchronization Using Remote Event Receivers (RER)
To maintain real-time consistency during and after migration:
- Remote Event Receivers (RER) were deployed across SharePoint libraries
- Every file upload, update, or folder creation triggered:
- Automatic synchronization
- Metadata alignment
- Audit and traceability workflows
This ensured:
- No data drift
- No missed updates
- Continuous business operations during migration
5. OneID-Based Data Lake Integration for Enterprise Analytics
Beyond migration, the client wanted to unlock enterprise-wide data value.
We introduced a OneID service that:
- Assigned a global, immutable identifier to every document
- Linked documents consistently across:
- SharePoint
- Data lakes
- Analytics platforms
- Third-party applications
This enabled:
- Unified search and analytics
- Cross-system reporting
- Future AI/ML readiness
The result was not just migrated content — but a data foundation for the future.
Execution at Scale
- 18 TB of enterprise content migrated
- Millions of files and folders
- Multiple SharePoint sites
- No business downtime
- No URL changes
- No application rewrites
Migration was executed in controlled waves, while live operations continued uninterrupted.
Business Outcomes
Zero Disruption
End users and applications experienced no visible change during or after migration.
Massive Time Savings
Eliminated the need to:
- Rewrite URLs
- Modify applications
- Re-train users
Saving months of effort and significant cost.
Reduced Risk
By avoiding direct changes to consuming systems, the project:
- Minimized operational risk
- Avoided large freeze windows
- Maintained regulatory compliance
Future-Ready Architecture
The organization gained:
- A scalable SharePoint foundation
- Event-driven automation
- Data lake readiness via OneID
- A clean path to AI and advanced analytics
Why This Approach Worked
Traditional migrations focus on moving data.
This approach focused on preserving trust, continuity, and business confidence.
By introducing a mimic architecture, we turned a high-risk transformation into a controlled, invisible evolution.
Client Quote (Optional – Marketing Use)
“The migration felt invisible to our users. Systems kept running, links never broke, and yet we gained a modern, scalable platform ready for the future.”
Key Takeaway
Modernization does not require disruption.
With the right architecture, enterprises can evolve their platforms while keeping business operations untouched.
