March 3, 2025

Align Leads Major Healthcare Player's Data Center Consolidation Post Acquisition

by: Align

The Overview

After acquiring eviCore, Cigna sought to streamline operations and consolidate the companies’ resources. Align was tasked with virtually migrating eviCore’s digital infrastructure in Atlanta and Dallas into Cigna’s existing facilities in Chicago and Piscataway. The successful migration resulted in substantial cost savings, improved infrastructure, and enhanced operational efficiency.

The Challenge

The project aimed to achieve a seamless migration of eviCore’s applications, virtual machines, and devices to Cigna’s facilities while minimizing operational disruptions. Align also securely decommissioned the old data centers, ensuring a proper chain of custody process and providing certificates of destruction.

The project faced several challenges including:

  • Supply chain delays creating potential bottlenecks in the migration
  • Complex architecture requiring meticulous planning for the migration
  • Knowledge gaps created by the loss of SMEs who moved on to other employment opportunities due to the acquisition.

Additional challenges included:

  • Building new data center infrastructure concurrently with the migration
  • Merging disparate technological ecosystems
  • Dealing with outdated operating systems and end-of-life software license

Solution Highlights

  • A comprehensive current state assessment, during which Align profiled 543 applications
  • Developed and assigned dependency bundles to specific migration waves, each with its own move date
  • Migrated a total of 3,500 virtual machines (VMs) across 33 distinct migration waves
  • Decommissioned 1,800 VMs

CignaEviCore SS CTA GraphicBenefits Delivered

  • Reduced annual expenses by $2 million
  • Minimized technical debt by decommissioning EOL hardware and migrating workloads
  • Implemented a robust disaster recovery team
  • Improved cloud readiness
  • Enabled encryption standards for security
  • Reduced overall complexity and internet intrusion attack points

The Results

Align was not only able to consolidate and modernize Cigna’s infrastructure, but also positioned the organization for future growth and technological advancements. Align completed the project and provided more efficient, scalable, and robust IT infrastructure to meet the evolving demands of the healthcare industry and continue delivering exceptional value to their customers.

About Align: 

Align is a premier provider of technology infrastructure solutions. For over 35 years, leading firms worldwide have relied on Align to guide them through IT challenges, delivering complete, secure solutions for business change and growth. Align is headquartered in Dallas, Texas and has offices in New York City, London, Chicago, San Francisco, Arizona, New Jersey, and Virginia. Learn more at www.align.com

To learn more,  contact our team today: https://www.align.com/contact

★★★★★

“Align is our trusted provider for all our Managed Services and cybersecurity needs. They provide us best-in-class IT services that not only help drive productivity and growth, but ensure we meet both current and evolving compliance and security requirements with ease. As consultants to financial advisors, trust and reliability are indispensable to our operations, which is why we never hesitate to refer Align to our very own client base. Align isn’t just our partner, they are an extension of our team. We look forward to entrusting them with our IT infrastructure for years to come.”

Ed Fasano - Experienced Advisory Consultants LLC