Cloudfirst Helps Trece (COPE Group) Eliminate Legacy Archive Lock In and Regain Full Control of Media Assets on AWS

Trece (13TV), part of COPE Group, began its archive modernisation journey several years ago by migrating archive content to AWS Cloud. The initial strategy relied on the legacy archive platform (DIVA) to manage the relationship between archive content and cloud storage. While the content successfully moved into AWS, Trece remained dependent on the on-prem archive system to access and manage their own media.

When Trece decided to decommission the legacy archive platform, a critical issue emerged: the archive system had become the gatekeeper to content already stored in AWS. Trece was effectively forced to continue maintaining aging infrastructure, software licensing, and vendor support services simply to retain access to their own archive assets.

Trece engaged Cloudfirst to remove proprietary archive dependencies, eliminate vendor lock-in, and restore direct access to assets in AWS, without disruption to operations.

Cloud storage without cloud freedom

Trece’s archive environment consisted of an on-prem legacy DIVA archive system and supporting legacy tape library system. During their AWS migration, the legacy archive software platform continued to control indexing, structure, and access mechanisms, meaning the archive content stored in AWS remained wrapped in proprietary legacy archive dependencies. This resulted in significant operational and commercial impact:

  • Trece could not retire the legacy archive system without losing access to their archive
  • Ongoing costs for on-prem infrastructure, licensing, and support remained in place
  • The organisation carried long-term risk tied to aging and deprecated services
  • AWS cloud storage existed, but content was not truly accessible independent of the legacy platform
    This is a common pitfall in archive modernisation, migrating storage without modernising the archive control layer can unintentionally perpetuate vendor lock-in in the cloud essentially adding unnecessary “technical debt” to a modernized archive solution.

The Cloudfirst Solution

Cloudfirst analysed multiple technical and commercial migration paths in collaboration with Trece and AWS. Several approaches were evaluated, including options that attempted to keep the legacy archive platform in the workflow, but these were either blocked by proprietary archive wrappers, licensing restrictions, or would have perpetuated long-term dependency.

Cloudfirst determined the optimal approach was to remove the archive platform from the content relationship entirely, freeing Trece’s most valuable digital assets from long-term lock-in. Using Cloudfirst’s preservation grade Archive Migration as a Service (AMaaS) managed migration workflows, the team:

  • Restored archive content onto controlled local staging infrastructure
  • Removed proprietary wrappers and legacy archive constraints
  • Extracted valuable metadata and authenticated each asset “in flight”
  • Migrated content back into AWS as a clean, vendor-neutral archive copy
  • Ensured Trece retained full ownership and control of assets inside their own AWS buckets
  • Warehoused all collected and generated asset metadata and provenance information as open “manifests” for each asset for future access
    This enabled Trece to decouple content from the legacy archive platform permanently while maintaining archive usability and operational continuity throughout the project.

Operational Integration with Dalet MAM

A critical requirement was ensuring archive content remained usable and discoverable during migration. Cloudfirst integrated the migration workflow directly into Trece’s MAM, enabling:

  • Automatic asset registration during migration
  • Continuous workflow availability
  • Immediate accessibility for newly liberated content stored in AWS
  • Removal of the legacy archive platform as content ‘gatekeeper’

AWS optimised cost and timeline strategy

Cloudfirst worked closely with AWS to leverage bulk restore and optimisation options to reduce commercial impact and complexity. This enabled Trece to complete archive liberation ahead of schedule, while avoiding unnecessary costs associated with inefficient access patterns and data movement.

Results and Business Impact

Following Cloudfirst’s work, Trece achieved the outcomes originally intended by their AWS migration, without the burden of legacy software dependency:

  • Vendor lock in removed: proprietary archive wrappers eliminated
  • Legacy platform dependency eliminated: content accessible without DIVA software and associated infrastructure
  • Support costs stopped: Trece could safely retire legacy software support and on-prem infrastructure
  • Archive usability improved: assets registered and accessible through Dalet workflows
  • Futureproof AWS archive: Trece now holds clean, preservation grade assets in its own AWS buckets
    Our pragmatic approach to this exciting archive transformation project allowed the client to simply decommission their legacy archive software and its associated infrastructure following migration. They were also able to immediately delete previously used AWS cloud buckets, cutting their cloud spend immediately while ensuring a vendor-neutral future for their valuable digital assets.