Carrollton, GA – July 22, 2020: During the Fourth of July weekend, Southwire completed the migration of its SAP^® environment to the Google^® Cloud platform, setting a benchmark in the industry for successfully moving to the cloud. 

“When reviewing our options for upgrading our SAP Ecosystem, Google Cloud made the most sense from a risk and reward approach,” said Joe Schleupner, Southwire’s senior director of ITS Planning and Implementation and project lead. “It was also opportunistic for us as we started to embark on our digital transformation strategy.”

According to Southwire’s ITS team, the move to Google Cloud required complex coordination among both internal and external teams, who shared critical tasks. Some of these tasks included hosting sessions to plan for the migration, building network circuit and target cloud architecture, building test cases for the business, running several rehearsal upgrades, providing go live support and more.

“Southwire is building a foundation for growth and innovation with the cloud, beginning with the migration of its core SAP business systems and services to Google Cloud,” said Rob Enslin, President at Google Cloud. “We’re proud that Southwire has selected Google Cloud to power its digital transformation.”

To complete the migration, Southwire ran through four major cycles of testing, which occurred over a span of more than 10 weeks and involved more than 4,000 scripts. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the entire operation was done remotely via conference calls and Microsoft® Teams.

“I am very proud of the work the Southwire team accomplished, given the remote work environment we found ourselves in, to come together and deliver such a complex, groundbreaking and strategic project,” said Schleupner.

The move to Google Cloud will ensure that Southwire remains up to date on the latest supported systems, improve security protocols and provide a solid foundation for future upgrades, tools and services that will benefit both the organization and its customers.

“By moving the SAP environment to Google Cloud, this creates a secure, flexible and scalable environment for Southwire to embark on new projects that move the company forward in areas of strategy important to the long-term growth of the company,” said Dan Stuart, Southwire’s senior vice president of ITS.