New Way Now: Renault accelerates a 20-year modernization timeline with GCVE

*Featured in this video:*
Damian Rzewuski, Cloud Transformation Program Manager, Renault Group
Gaetan Parisse, Head of Architecture for Infrastructure Engineering, Accenture France

*Executive summary:* Renault Group, a French automotive manufacturer, needed to close its historical corporate data centers and migrate a massive landscape of over 1,700 applications to the cloud. Because its previous modernization capacity was only about 70 applications a year, the full migration would have taken 20 years — but by partnering with Accenture and Google Cloud, Renault used Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) to rapidly lift and shift 85% of its applications. This approach preserved existing IP addresses and required no immediate app redesigns, allowing Renault to seamlessly close its corporate data centers and build a bridge to future cloud-native innovations.

*Challenge:* Renault Group operates in 114 countries and manages an enormous IT ecosystem. To reduce dependency on historical data centers, the company set an ambitious goal to close its corporate facilities by the end of Q1 2026. However, with an application landscape of more than 1,700 apps and a modernization capability of just 70 applications a year, Renault realized it would take two decades to fully transition its infrastructure. The company needed a highly structured way to accelerate its migration speed without causing disruptions to the business or embarking on time-consuming code rewrites.

*Solution:* To hit the aggressive timeline, Renault leaned on its 10-year relationship with Accenture to build a dedicated cloud migration factory. Together, they chose Google Cloud VMware Engine (GCVE) as the core platform to serve as a bridge between their existing IT and future cloud-native solutions. GCVE allowed Accenture's teams to perform a massive lift and shift migration, moving specific workloads — even those that did not natively support the cloud — while maintaining their original IP addresses. This strategy made the transition completely transparent to the rest of the business.

*Result:* The migration enabled Renault to safely close its legacy data centers and transition 85% of its massive application landscape to GCVE. Through the high availability and resilience of Google Cloud, Renault achieved infrastructure capabilities that far exceed their previous on-premises environments. With its infrastructure modernized, Renault is now positioned as a software-driven company, ready to advance to fully cloud-native solutions like Google Kubernetes Engine and Compute Engine.

*Highlights and key takeaways from our interview with Damian Rzewuski and Gaetan Parisse:*

→ “We have been working with Accenture for more than 10 years now. And when you deal with that kind of migration, you need to have a partner that knows you and understands your business. This is the case for Accenture.”

→ “This project allowed Renault to close its historical corporate data centers and to become a more software-driven company through secure and progressive migration.”

→ “With Google Cloud and Accenture, Renault Group is building the new way to transform ISIT.”

*Google Cloud products used:* Google Cloud VMWare Engine

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