Backend systems and technical aspects often capture the full attention of IT teams during cloud migration projects—sometimes at the expense of what truly matters: the service delivered to the user. With their Ekara solution, Pierre Montcel and Philippe Borfiga, co-CEOs of ip-label, propose an innovative approach to ensure successful migrations by placing user experience (UX) at the center of the process.
Traditionally, digital service monitoring has relied on a bottom-up approach: anomaly detection via logs, metrics-based dashboards, and infrastructure monitoring. This methodology often sidelines the user. “We need to move away from this logic and reconcile technical monitoring with a tangible measurement of user experience at every stage of the journey,” explains Philippe Borfiga. In other words, organizations must adopt a top-down approach, starting with clear objectives in terms of user satisfaction, then aligning resources and tools accordingly. Gartner highlights the importance of this paradigm shift, particularly in cloud migration projects.
Migrating to the cloud exposes organizations to multiple risks: operational disruptions that cause downtime, data loss or corruption, or misconfigured resources leading to performance issues.
One of the most effective ways to ensure migration success is to rely on a monitoring solution that guarantees users maintain at least the same experience post-migration. This is the mission of the Ekara platform, which has gained momentum, notably through a close partnership with TD SYNNEX.
Available on-premise or as SaaS on AWS infrastructure, “Ekara provides objective performance measurements and ensures users access the expected level of service at every step of their journey,” explains Philippe Borfiga. Beyond technical metrics, it is not uncommon for users to report perceived service degradation. “We need tangible evidence to confirm or refute these perceptions.”
At each stage, Ekara visualizes failures, quickly detects issues, and resolves them before they cause disruptions and user complaints.
The process begins with a pre-migration diagnostic. “By placing robots that simulate representative user journeys on the datacenter, we evaluate potential failure points in terms of availability, performance, scalability, etc.,” notes Pierre Montcel.
Once the diagnostic is complete, the migration is monitored with precise UX measurements, objectified by KPIs such as application access, availability levels, latency, and process completion. These validate whether SLAs agreed with users or cloud providers are being met.
“By monitoring application performance and availability from the end-user’s perspective, we ensure they enjoy a seamless experience, even during migration,” adds Philippe Borfiga. Having access to precise user journey data also improves communication with stakeholders, including executives, by explaining migration impacts in clear terms.
Active monitoring further identifies under- or over-used resources, allowing infrastructure adjustments aligned with green IT principles.
Data transfers are particularly sensitive during migrations. The Ekara platform plays a critical role in ensuring the accuracy and reliability of these transfers, preventing data loss or corruption. It also safeguards compliance, as misconfigured security or policy breaches can expose the enterprise.
“Ekara is a non-intrusive solution,” stresses Philippe Borfiga. The platform simulates user journeys without requiring agents or log access. Within three days, it can be deployed and ready to monitor journeys. “Simplicity is also a key factor of success: journeys can be easily set up thanks to a no-code tool,” concludes Borfiga.