Tata Projects migrates 400 terabytes of data in record time with RISE with SAP on Azure

With a mission of building strong communities, Mumbai-based Tata Projects has become a leader in engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) in India and around the world. Its nearly 6,500 employees work across 40-plus countries on more than 200 projects at any time. These include commercial complexes, factories, energy infrastructures, and international airports.​ Its flagship projects include the new Parliament building of India, a mega-semiconductor fabrication facility in the Gujarat region, and a series of energy transmission and distribution centers across Africa.

“We focus on large-scale building and infrastructure projects,” says Rahul Sharma, Chief Digital and Information Officer at Tata Projects. “Customers look to us to cover the entire life cycle—from conceptualization to operations and maintenance, even digital transformation.” This requires elevated levels of coordination and data management for Tata Project teams to access, share, and analyze data from various sources in diverse languages and formats, including design documents, contracts, invoices, schedules, and reports. “We knew we wanted to centralize our data and streamline operations,” adds Sharma.

Unifying data streams

Tata Projects needed to consolidate five disparate enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems, including a longstanding ERP that was unable to keep pace with the organization’s growth and SAP. The company also had an increasing number of upcoming global ventures. “With customer data security paramount, we needed greater efficiency, improved data access and localization for our employees, and more space for innovation,” says Sharma.

Trusting Microsoft leadership in hyperscaling and robust security, Tata Projects chose Microsoft Azure to consolidate its ERP systems into a single, scalable cloud platform. “A key challenge was ensuring consistent user experiences across all sites, regardless of location,” explains Sharma. The company had also been deploying core business applications in hybrid environments and wanted to speed delivery. “We knew Azure could provide scalability for consistent experiences, streamline deployment processes, and provide AI technologies to further modernize,” says Sharma.

Moving 400-plus terabytes fast

Tata Projects used RISE with SAP on Azure to move its more than 400 terabytes of data to the cloud. The data was stored at approximately 150 different sites across India. With its many infrastructure projects, including some of national importance, any disruption to the ERP system could cause significant issues. As such, the migration was meticulously planned and executed. 

“To work swiftly while minimizing business disruption, we set up four environments—development, test, UAT, and production—migrating the data in managed phases,” recalls Sharma. “Microsoft advised us in setting up the environments and provided solutions to reduce latency and chance of corruption, supporting seamless interoperation with our other systems.”

The company used Azure Databricks to set up a data lake to store raw data in its native format until it was needed. “Azure Databricks helped support consistent experiences, even at remote sites—and the interoperation of Databricks with our existing systems has helped us streamline data processing workflows and improve overall efficiency,” explains Sharma. Tata Projects later implemented Microsoft Power BI to support the company with complex data analysis and insights. It also adopted Microsoft Security Copilot to increase security for sensitive customer data.

“With the migration, we’ve created an ecosystem to improve business processes,” says Sharma. For example, Tata Project teams can rapidly pull data from massive documents and easily share critical data across divisions and regions in the local language. They also have an environment to use Microsoft Power Apps to build applications for specific use cases, including timesheets, claims, and the coordination of onsite workers.

Speed and security

The full migration took just nine months, which is significantly faster than the industry average. Tata Projects had a blackout period of only nine days, and the entire system was down for just three days. The new ERP is providing the company with a stronger digital core, yielding reduced operational complexity, improved accessibility, and enhanced security. In addition, by running its workloads on Azure, Tata Projects has a highly secure and agile foundation and is ready to develop its own AI capabilities, using Azure OpenAI Service and helping its clients adapt generative AI. 

“We’ve improved access to critical data and business insights, increasing project delivery times while reducing the mean time to detect and remediate problems,” says Sharma. “With Microsoft, our visions for innovation and supporting communities into the future are being realized.”

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