Case Study

When Every Second Counts: The Mission-Critical Migration That Kept U.S. Air Traffic Control Flying High

Industry: Air Traffic Control

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Challenge

A major U.S. air traffic control agency, operating under the performance standards of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), relied on legacy on-premise Oracle databases to manage high-stakes, real-time flight operations. However, the aging infrastructure introduced:

Performance limitations during peak flight traffic
High operational overhead and manual maintenance
Scalability constraints as flight volume increased
A critical need to maintain zero-downtime operations during migration

Facing rising risk and technical debt, the agency decided to evaluate cloud-native solutions like Amazon RDS and Amazon Aurora to future-proof its operations.

Solution

Given the mission-critical nature of the environment, the agency appointed RalanTech to design and execute the cloud migration. The primary objective was to move from Oracle to AWS while ensuring:

Zero disruption to air traffic control operations
A resilient, high-availability infrastructure
Full alignment with FAA performance and safety standards

RalanTech brought in a team of AWS-certified cloud migration experts to carefully plan and execute the transition using a phased approach.

Implementation Steps

Environment & Objective Evaluation

Mapped the Oracle environment and identified operational KPIs
Defined measurable success criteria for cloud migration

Migration Planning

Designed a phased rollout to handle mission-critical systems
Built-in rollback contingency plans for every phase

Testing & Validation

Created a dedicated test environment on AWS
Validated performance under real-time air traffic simulation

Staged Migration Execution

Migrated systems in stages to track performance metrics
Resolved anomalies proactively without affecting operations

Training & Support

Conducted training sessions for internal IT teams

Provided post-migration AWS support documentation

Results

100% System Uptime

Achieved high availability via AWS Multi-AZ & Aurora

Real-Time Scalability

Dynamic cloud resource scaling enabled by Aurora architecture

Cost Savings

Shifted from CapEx to OpEx, reducing infrastructure spend

Enhanced Security & Compliance

Leveraged AWS-native security for critical data protection

Continuous Innovation Support

Ongoing managed services from RalanTech for AWS optimization

Conclusion

The successful migration marked a seamless modernization of critical infrastructure for one of the nation’s busiest air traffic control agencies. With zero downtime, improved performance, and ongoing AWS optimization, the agency is now well-positioned for:

Handling increased air traffic volumes
Adopting future cloud innovations
Meeting FAA compliance without disruption

This case underscores RalanTech’s expertise in managing high-risk, high-availability cloud migrations and delivering enterprise-grade support post-deployment.

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About RalanTech

RalanTech is specialized in database managed services. We are passionate about leveraging cutting-edge solutions to drive innovation, efficiency, and growth for our clients.

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