Optimizing Costs and Innovation: John Hancock's Path to Cloud-Native Solutions Qorus-NTT DATA Innovation in Insurance Awards 2025- Nominated

Our Legacy Application Modernization Team embarked on this initiative to transition from multiple legacy systems to a single cloud-native infrastructure due to several business needs and challenges. The primary business need was to eliminate the use of highly expensive legacy infrastructure. We also saw an opportunity to modernize our technology stack, which was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain due to the scarcity of technical skills and outdated technology.

The opportunity was in leveraging cloud-native services to enhance scalability, innovation, and operational efficiency. The issues faced included high costs and the complexity of maintaining monolithic systems, which did not align with the company's growth and evolving needs. The drivers for this initiative were to reduce Total Cost Ownership by nearly 90%, optimize costs, and improve agility for faster introduction of new functionalities. The desired outcomes included fostering innovation, focusing on core business goals, and setting a blueprint for future migrations.

We designed a solution that involved transitioning from monolithic legacy systems to a cloud-native infrastructure by breaking the legacy system into smaller logical blocks. The technologies and methods used included Azure SQL Managed Instance for database management, which provided scalability, high availability, and disaster recovery. Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) was used for containerizing applications, enabling a microservices architecture that allowed for flexible deployment strategies. The use of Kubernetes Event-driven Autoscaling (KEDA) facilitated efficient application scaling. Microsoft Entra ID was employed for authentication and authorization, converting legacy Resource Access Control Facility (RACF) identities from the mainframe to Azure identities.

The process included modernizing applications into microservices and implementing continuous integration and deployment (CI/CD) with Azure DevOps. Most choices made when choosing a target technology or process was to leverage what was already in place at John Hancock to avoid major changes or disruptions to our existing workflows and focus instead on identifying opportunities for boosted efficiency and limited setbacks. Our efforts to upskill staff to support the new systems required minimal additional training, another advantage of elevating our systems rather than a complete overhaul of what already existed.

To get this done, the project team collaborated with various departments within the organization. The team, led by the John Hancock IT Department, worked closely with multiple groups within the Global Enterprise Technology department. Close collaboration with John Hancock Insurance Operations was critical towards the end of the project.

Looking back, we are pleased to note how easily our talent was able to adjust from working in a legacy environment and technology to a hybrid universe of cloud native technology.