Cloud Migration Case Study
How WAHO Modernized Legacy IT Infrastructure with Microsoft Azure
The West African Health Organization (WAHO) is the public health arm of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), supporting 15 member countries with the goal of achieving the highest possible health standards across the region. With a legacy of regional collaboration and public health leadership, WAHO focuses on disease prevention and control, health system strengthening, and cross-border coordination. By partnering with national health ministries and leading global organizations such as WHO, UNICEF, USAID, and the World Bank, WAHO delivers large-scale health interventions across West Africa.
Business Need
Despite its vital role, WAHO operated on a legacy IT environment with aging hardware, limited scalability, and fragmented data storage across multiple member-country offices. These systems became difficult to manage, costly to maintain, and lacked the security and resilience needed for real-time monitoring. Challenges included slow access to data, frequent outages, and growing cybersecurity risks. With more of WAHO’s IT budget going to hardware upkeep, a more sustainable and modern approach was urgently needed.
The Solution
To combat these challenges, we leveraged the Microsoft Cloud Adoption Framework (CAF) to execute a full migration of WAHO’s mission-critical applications and infrastructure to Microsoft Azure.
The implementation began with a readiness assessment and collaborative definition of business objectives, prioritizing 14 essential systems, including WAHO’s disease surveillance platform and vaccine tracking applications. Wragby designed and implemented a secure, scalable Azure Landing Zone, complete with governance, compliance, and security controls tailored to WAHO’s unique policy requirements. With this, our team executed a seamless migration of WAHO’s legacy workloads with minimal disruption.
For a cloud-first environment that supports scalable service delivery, data security, regional collaboration, and end-to-end visibility, key Azure services such as Azure Monitor, Azure Backup, Microsoft Defender for Cloud, Azure Firewall, and Azure Policy were leveraged.
Transformative Results
Migrating to Microsoft Azure delivered a transformative leap in operational efficiency and reliability. By eliminating aging on-premises servers and shifting to a pay-as-you-go model, WAHO achieved a 30% reduction in IT operational costs freeing up budgets previously spent on hardware maintenance, power, and outdated licensing. System reliability improved significantly, with increasing uptime to 99.9%, ensuring uninterrupted access to critical health applications.
The new cloud environment has also strengthened data security and compliance through built-in governance tools like Azure Policy and Microsoft Defender for Cloud, giving WAHO greater control over sensitive health information. Now, regulatory requirements are met with greater ease with data protection no longer being a manual or inconsistent process.
Performance and scalability have equally improved, applications that were once limited to specific physical locations are now globally accessible, offering faster response times and greater resilience. End users across multiple ECOWAS countries now benefit from a consistent and high-performing experience, while IT teams have real-time visibility into infrastructure health.
By taking this leap to Azure, WAHO has not only enhanced efficiency and reduced risk but improved performance across board and minimized the risk of data loss thanks to automated backup and disaster recovery solutions built directly into Azure. With faster application response times, users now experience secure and seamless access across multiple countries.
The Journey Continues
WAHO’s successful migration to Microsoft Azure demonstrates that digital transformation doesn’t have to be overwhelming or technical. With the right support and IT Partner like Wragby, even the most mission-critical systems can be modernized to be secure, resilient, and cost-effective. WAHO now delivers health services more efficiently and with greater confidence backed by a cloud platform built for impact, reliability, and regional growth.
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