CASE STUDY
Not-for-Profit Goodstart Early Learning Accelerates Azure Cloud Transformation
OVERVIEW
Goodstart Early Learning is one of Australia’s largest Not-for-Profit providers of long day care and early childhood education services, operating 650 centres nationwide, and supporting over 60,000 children daily. As a Nonprofit and mission driven organisation focused on improving the lives of children and families, Goodstart Early Learning needed a modern, scalable, and resilient technology foundation to support educators and streamline centre operations.
After initial conversations with Microsoft, Goodstart Early Learning engaged Codify to conduct a Cloud Lift Assessment, a comprehensive review of its entire application and infrastructure environment. This assessment revealed opportunities to modernise legacy systems, optimise existing workloads, and transition critical applications to Microsoft Azure under an aggressive timeline.
Codify partnered with Goodstart Early Learning to deliver a seamless Azure cloud migration, modernise core business systems, and enable new digital transformation opportunities, all without disrupting educators, centre operations, or families.
CHALLENGES
Goodstart Early Learning’s technology environment supports thousands of educators and children every day. Any disruption would directly impact centre operations, families, and staff, making reliability and continuity essential.
Goodstart Early Learning faced several challenges as it prepared for its Azure cloud transformation. Its technology environment had grown organically over many years, resulting in legacy architectural patterns and configuration decisions that no longer aligned with best practice. These constraints limited scalability, made optimisation difficult, and created barriers to future innovation. Before any move to Azure could occur, Goodstart Early Learning needed to reassess how its systems were structured, understand where modernisation was required, and determine how best to transition its core workloads into a more flexible, cloud ready architecture.
Codify’s Cloud Lift Assessment helped Goodstart Early Learning step back and question long standing configurations, identifying opportunities to redesign systems for better performance, resilience, and cost efficiency.
Aggressive Azure Cloud Migration Timeline
Goodstart Early Learning needed to migrate multiple core systems, including its Centre Based Management System, OSAP system, and Payroll, under a tight deadline, with zero tolerance for operational disruption.
SOLUTIONS
Codify delivered a structured, end to end Azure cloud transformation, beginning with a Cloud Lift Assessment and progressing through modernisation, migration, and optimisation.
Cloud Lift Assessment & Azure Migration Strategy
Codify’s Cloud Lift Assessment automated the discovery and analysis of Goodstart Early Learning’s environment, identifying modernisation pathways and Azure migration options, including:
How each application should be migrated to Azure
Which workloads required modernisation
Opportunities to improve performance, resilience, and cost efficiency
Transformation pathways beyond migration
This assessment became the foundation for Goodstart Early Learning’s Azure Cloud Transformation.
Modernising and Migrating Core Business Systems
Codify successfully migrated Goodstart’s three most critical systems:
Centre Based Management System
OSAP System
Payroll
All migrated without any operational disruption.
“The most successful aspect was moving our three core systems… without anyone noticing.”
Michael Dines
CIO, Good Start Early Learning
Challenging the Norm to Deliver Better Outcomes
Codify worked closely with Goodstart Early Learning to challenge long standing configuration decisions, redesigning systems to take full advantage of Azure’s capabilities.
“Codify helped us step back and ask: why have we configured things this way? If you run it differently in Azure, you’ll get a better outcome.”
Michael Dines
CIO, Good Start Early Learning
Cost Optimisation & Reinvestment Opportunities
The Azure migration enabled Goodstart Early Learning to:
Reduce infrastructure costs
Shift from capital expenditure to operational expenditure
Free up IT resources from maintenance
Create opportunities to reinvest savings into new solutions and improved facilities
RESULTS
Goodstart Early Learning’s Azure cloud transformation delivered significant operational, financial, and strategic benefits.
The migration was completed on time, within budget, and – most importantly – without disrupting educators, families, or centre operations.
Systems now run more efficiently, with improved resilience and scalability, ensuring that the technology supporting Goodstart Early Learning’s centres is reliable, responsive, and capable of meeting daily operational demands.
With a secure foundation in place, the move to Azure created new opportunities for future transformation, enabling Goodstart to spend less time managing technology infrastructure and more time focused on its core mission of supporting children and families. This work also strengthened Goodstart Early Learning’s long standing alignment with Microsoft’s commitment to education and community, with Codify’s role as a trusted Azure partner reinforcing the shared values that underpin the partnership.
“In 20 years, I’ve never seen a shift of this scale go so well… Codify are persistent, tenacious, patient… and bloody smart.”
Michael Dines
CIO, Good Start Early Learning