Build or buy is the wrong question
The build-or-buy debate treats a sequencing problem as an ownership problem. The better question is which parts of this you will still want to control in five years.
What we do · Integration
Legacy & Modernisation
Connecting and modernising legacy and on-premises systems
Reaching the systems inside your network, and replacing the ageing ones safely, is the heart of nVisionIT’s heritage. We built and ran BizTalk estates for South African banks, utilities and government for fifteen years, and that institutional knowledge is what makes the move to Azure Integration Services low-risk.
We engineer software that delivers measurable business outcomes, from two aligned bases in South Africa and Mauritius.
On-prem data gatewayStrangler FigBizTalk → Azure
- ISAE 3402 independently assured
- Level 2 B-BBEE
- POPIA & Mauritius DPA aligned
- Offices in Centurion and Ebene
The challenge
Old, business-critical, and poorly documented
Many estates are ageing, mission-critical and thinly documented. Two challenges recur: how to connect to on-premises and legacy systems without compromising security, and how to modernise them without a risky big-bang rewrite.
Both are solvable, with the right connectivity model, a reversible modernisation pattern, and the migration method behind our Microsoft Application Integration Partner of the Year awards.
Secure hybrid connectivity
Reach on-premises systems, with no inbound firewall ports
The Azure on-premises data gateway opens a secure, encrypted, outbound-only tunnel between cloud Logic Apps and on-premises data: no inbound ports, no VPN.
On-premises data gateway
Outbound-only secure channel to on-prem databases, files and line-of-business systems: the simplest way to let cloud workflows read and write inside your network.
Logic Apps hybrid (Azure Arc)
Run the Logic Apps runtime on-premises for local processing, low latency and data residency, extended to virtually any Kubernetes environment: cloud, on-prem or edge.
ExpressRoute / VPN
Private network connectivity where sensitive or high-throughput links demand it.
1,400+ connectors
Enterprise, SaaS, legacy and mainframe systems out of the box, including IBM MQ and SAP.
Safe modernisation
The Strangler Fig pattern
Rather than replace a legacy system in one risky cut-over, we introduce a façade between the client, the legacy system and the new one.
The façade routes some requests to the legacy system and others to new Azure services. Functionality shifts across incrementally until everything runs on the new implementation. Then the legacy system is decommissioned and the façade removed. Consumers keep using the same interface throughout, unaware the migration is even happening.
The payoff: migration risk drops because teams move at a pace that suits the estate. Each increment delivers value, and there is always a working system.
BizTalk → Azure Integration Services
A pragmatic, low-risk migration path
BizTalk Server is at the end of its road. Mainstream support for BizTalk Server 2020 runs to 12 April 2028 and extended support ends on 10 April 2030. There will be no further major release, so the time to plan is now. Microsoft recommends migrating to Azure Logic Apps (Standard), and existing maps, schemas, rules and custom code can be reused to accelerate the move. We apply the same test-led method our integration practice has used on earlier migrations.
STEP 1
Assess & catalogue
Every orchestration, schema, map, adapter, rule, component and database, with no changes to live systems.
STEP 2
Map to AIS
Each component to Logic Apps Standard and the right supplementary services, modernising dated designs, reusing maps, schemas and rules.
STEP 3
Build & test side-by-side
The new implementation runs alongside BizTalk; every component has test cases; pre-production is cut over first.
STEP 4
Cut-over & decommission
Production cut-over is fully roll-back-able; BizTalk is retired component by component.
18 to 36 months
Organisations with complex BizTalk estates typically plan a full migration programme of this length, sequenced so that each component delivers value as it lands.
Mainframe & ERP
Modernise gradually
For IBM mainframe and midrange systems, a data-first technique lets message queues such as IBM MQ work with Azure services, supporting gradual modernisation through Logic Apps.
SAP estates integrate through dedicated connectors for trade-document and master-data exchange, the same pattern nVisionIT used to deliver two-way SAP trade-documentation integration for a freight and logistics client, live since first cut-over.
Architecture
Logic Apps Standard, gateways and Azure Arc
Azure Logic Apps (Standard)On-premises data gatewayAzure ArcExpressRoute / VPN1,400+ connectorsIBM MQSAPBizTalk heritageStrangler Fig
From our Insights
What we have learned doing this work
Moving documents to SharePoint Online without moving the users
Unstructured data is the harder half of retiring an old platform. When documents are wired into daily work, the aim is a migration the users never notice, and the risk sits in places that are not code.
Retiring a CRM without losing what it knew
An unsupported CRM is expensive to keep and dangerous to switch off, because a decade of customer history lives inside it. The answer we used keeps the history and retires the application.
Offshore economics with onshore alignment. Delivered from Centurion and Ebene, in English and French, with working hours that overlap yours.
Related: Engineering and advisory capabilities → Case studies → Our Mauritius base →
Let’s look at what you still run on-premises
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