Legacy EDI migrated to Azure Integration Services

Client: Arrow

Overview

Arrow is a global technology solutions provider operating across the electronics components and enterprise computing sectors. With a vast network of trading partners, suppliers, and customers, reliable and efficient B2B data exchange is critical to Arrow's supply chain operations.

Veriland Consulting partnered with Arrow to migrate their legacy EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) platform to Microsoft Azure Integration Services. The project replaced ageing on-premise EDI infrastructure with a modern, cloud-native integration architecture — improving reliability, reducing operational costs, and providing real-time visibility into B2B transactions across their trading partner network.

The Challenge

Arrow's existing EDI infrastructure had served the business for years but was becoming a liability as transaction volumes grew and trading partner requirements evolved.

Ageing on-premise infrastructure: The legacy EDI platform required dedicated servers, specialist maintenance, and manual monitoring — consuming IT resources and increasing the risk of unplanned outages.
Limited scalability: As trading partner volumes increased, the existing system struggled to handle peak transaction loads without performance degradation.
Complex partner onboarding: Adding new trading partners required manual configuration of EDI maps, communication protocols, and validation rules — a process that could take weeks.
Poor visibility: Transaction monitoring was reactive rather than proactive. Failed or delayed messages were often discovered only when a trading partner raised a query, leading to supply chain disruptions.
High licensing costs: The legacy EDI platform carried significant annual licensing fees that were difficult to justify given the availability of modern, consumption-based cloud alternatives.

Our Solution

Veriland designed and implemented a cloud-native EDI and integration platform on Microsoft Azure, replacing the entire legacy estate with a modern, scalable architecture.

Azure Integration Services

The core of the solution is built on Azure Integration Services, combining Logic Apps, Service Bus, and API Management to handle all B2B message exchange. EDI documents — including purchase orders, invoices, advance shipping notices, and inventory updates — are processed through automated workflows that validate, transform, and route messages to the correct trading partners.

EDI Standards & Partner Management

The platform supports EDIFACT, ANSI X12, and custom flat-file formats, with a partner management layer that stores trading partner profiles, communication preferences, and document schemas. New partners can now be onboarded in days rather than weeks, with templated configurations that accelerate setup.

Real-Time Monitoring & Alerting

A centralised monitoring dashboard provides real-time visibility into all EDI transactions, with automated alerting for failed messages, schema validation errors, and partner communication issues. This proactive approach replaced the previous reactive model, ensuring that issues are identified and resolved before they impact the supply chain.

Migration & Cutover

Veriland executed a phased migration strategy, moving trading partners in batches to minimise risk. Each batch was validated with end-to-end transaction testing before the next group was migrated, ensuring zero message loss throughout the transition.

Key Results

The migration to Azure Integration Services delivered immediate and measurable improvements across Arrow's B2B operations.

Significant cost reduction: Elimination of legacy EDI licensing fees and on-premise infrastructure costs, replaced by a consumption-based Azure model that scales with actual usage.
Faster partner onboarding: New trading partner setup reduced from weeks to days using templated configurations and automated validation.
Real-time transaction visibility: A centralised dashboard provides instant insight into all B2B message flows, replacing the previous reactive monitoring approach.
Improved reliability: Azure's built-in redundancy, automatic retry logic, and geo-distributed infrastructure eliminated the single points of failure present in the legacy platform.
Zero message loss during migration: Phased cutover strategy with end-to-end validation ensured complete transaction integrity throughout the transition.
Cloud-native scalability: The platform handles peak transaction volumes without performance degradation, scaling elastically with demand.

Technology Stack

Arrow's new integration platform is built entirely on Microsoft Azure, providing a modern, cloud-native foundation for B2B data exchange.

Azure Logic Apps

Orchestrates EDI workflows including message receipt, schema validation, transformation, and routing to trading partners across multiple EDI standards.

Azure Service Bus

Provides reliable, asynchronous message queuing between integration components, ensuring no messages are lost during processing or partner communication delays.