Sutherland Delivers $2.7M in Cost Savings and 20% Performance Uplift for World Kinect Corporation With Oracle Workload Migration to AWS Cloud

Client Overview

World Kinect Corporation is a prominent energy management firm with a vast customer base spanning over 200 countries, offering a comprehensive suite of energy advisory, management, and fulfillment services.

The Challenge

Eliminating Technical Debt and Enabling Scalable Growth in a Mission-Critical IT Landscape

As a global leader in energy logistics and management, World Kinect Corporation operated in a high-stakes, real-time environment where system uptime, data integrity, and scalability were mission-critical. However, much of the organization’s core IT infrastructure, including its Oracle E-Business Suite and middleware stack, was running on aging, unsupported Solaris systems. This legacy environment introduced significant operational and compliance risks, including exposure to security vulnerabilities, difficulty in supporting modernization initiatives, and rising infrastructure maintenance costs.

In addition, the company faced challenges in optimizing its testing and development environments, which lacked the elasticity needed to efficiently support agile delivery models. The need to modernize was clear: World Kinect required a future-ready IT backbone that could provide operational resilience, improve performance, and reduce cost, without compromising business continuity during the migration. A holistic modernization strategy was essential to upgrade legacy applications, re-platform core systems, and successfully migrate critical workloads to the cloud.

Sutherland Solution

A Structured, Three-Phase Digital Transformation with Secure AWS Cloud Migration at the Core

Sutherland designed and executed a comprehensive three-phase transformation roadmap, bringing together deep Oracle expertise, cloud engineering capabilities, and a risk-mitigated migration strategy tailored to World Kinect’s operational complexity.

Phase 1 – Re-Platforming and Stabilization
The initiative began by transitioning the client’s core Oracle workloads from Solaris to Linux, effectively eliminating the risks associated with running unsupported systems. This re-platforming laid the foundation for enhanced performance, security, and long-term scalability.

Phase 2 – Application Modernization and Code Refactoring
Sutherland then performed an in-place upgrade of Oracle E-Business Suite, database components, and WebLogic middleware. Legacy code was refactored for optimal performance and compatibility with modern Linux environments, ensuring system stability and operational continuity during the subsequent cloud transition.

Phase 3 – Lift-and-Shift Migration to AWS Cloud
With systems stabilized and upgraded, Sutherland executed a multi-wave “lift-and-shift” migration of workloads to AWS. This approach minimized disruption while enabling the client to capitalize on cloud-native advantages such as elastic compute, scalable storage, and integrated disaster recovery. The migration was complemented by robust automation pipelines and infrastructure-as-code practices to support DevOps acceleration post-deployment.

Throughout the engagement, Sutherland’s collaborative model ensured cross-functional alignment across IT, infrastructure, and business stakeholders – accelerating time-to-value while de-risking delivery.

The Outcome

Cost Optimization, Performance Gains, and a Scalable Digital Foundation

The transformation delivered substantial strategic and operational gains for World Kinect Corporation. By migrating from a onolithic on-premise environment to AWS, the company unlocked $2.7 million in cost savings – a result of optimized infrastructure spend through AWS’s elastic pricing model, reduced licensing costs, and lower maintenance overhead.

System performance improved by 20%, enabling faster transaction processing, improved reporting accuracy, and better user experience across key Oracle applications. With AWS-native disaster recovery and backup strategies now in place, the organization gained enhanced resilience and business continuity readiness.

Furthermore, the move to the cloud created an agile foundation for future innovation, giving internal teams greater flexibility in managing test and development environments and reducing time to market for new capabilities. Sutherland’s structured approach not only eliminated legacy risk but also equipped World Kinect with the tools, architecture, and confidence to lead in a rapidly evolving energy ecosystem.

That’s digital outcomes delivered!