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How an Indian-origin expert is reshaping enterprise cloud migration with zero-downtime strategies
The digital world will be developing at a frantic pace in 2025, and cloud computing will change the entire world of business, a fact that is evident not only in the backbone of business innovation globally. Nowhere is this change more noticeable than in India, where the cloud market is registering exceptional growth. The International Data Corporation (IDC) has stated that the Indian public cloud services market will top $25.5 billion by 2028, with a CAGR growth of 24.3% from 2023 to 2028.
Supporting the reliable cloud services that businesses heavily use, there are these specialization workers who work in the domain of system integration challenges that are of a very high level of difficulty but at the same time, they do not stand in the way of the ongoing operations. One of these professionals is Prashant Dathwal, who besides the Bay Area, has achieved recognition even beyond.
"The fear that every face of the company would be totally justified – downtime has a huge impact on the enterprise, both in dollars and unsatisfactory customers," says Dathwal, the Senior Principal Member of Technical Staff at Oracle, located in Santa Clara, Silicon Valley. Oracle, a technology giant that has been providing database services for decades and expanded into cloud services and AI, is known for handling some of the world's most mission-critical enterprise systems.
As Dathwal explains, his approach to migration comes from years of experience understanding both technical systems and business priorities. When faced with moving more than 15 of his large-scale business customers from legacy systems to the latest keystone Oracle environment, Dathwal concentrated not only on technical transition but also on assuring that business productivity was not disrupted.
The endeavor was not merely task-oriented but it needed a bundle of detailed arrangements and well-performing actions. These systems handle millions of transactions daily, with enormous responsibility and absolutely no margin for error.
"The key challenge was developing a multi-phase synchronization approach that allowed both systems to run simultaneously during transition," Dathwal explains. "We had to carefully map data flows, create verification checkpoints, and implement automated rollback protocols at each stage to ensure business continuity."
It was not only that Dathwal's crew did not create any downtime trouble, but they were also able to manage to enhance the performance of the whole system. "We have not only moved them from one version to the other without any downtime but, in the process, they actually increase system performance," he says.
While at Oracle, Dathwal helped solve the critical problem of helping enterprises modernize their aging systems without disrupting operations; at Financial Engines, he confronted an issue of a different sort - but it was the kind that really stood out the impact of technical choices on the aspects of a business. The company's marketing team was struggling with an outdated content platform with cumbersome workflows and complex integration requirements. This technical limitation forced marketers to navigate through multiple systems and manual approval processes, which led to a situation when the launch of every new campaign became a matter of weeks rather than a simple procedure.
"The frustration of the marketing team members was palpable," he remembers. "These were the creative professionals whose thoughts the technical restrictions were stifling."
By redesigning the content marketing platform from the ground up, Dathwal implemented a cloud-native architecture on AWS that replaced the fragmented legacy web services. His team created a unified system that automated approval workflows, streamlined content creation processes, and integrated previously separate partner systems. This comprehensive rearchitecting eliminated redundant steps and technical bottlenecks, ultimately reducing a typical multi-week-long process to just 2-3 days. This change went further than just technical metrics – the company was now capable of quick response and increased customer acquisition due to this new tool.
In the fast-moving technology culture of Silicon Valley, one does not obtain awards easily, or their significance is minimized. When Dathwal won the "Cases and Faces" award for his innovations in Data Analytics and Big Data on March 9, 2025, it was a gesture of the way he was thinking about transforming intricate data systems to a form that is friendly and readily usable by the business user.
"Awards are not the goal but they do help to validate that you are solving problems that matter," he says humbly.
His efforts on the Personalization and Experimentation platform at Atlassian demonstrated to the world that Dathwal is highly skilled at linking technical possibilities with business outcomes. The new platform he contributed to was the one that transformed product messaging in the company.
One of the good inventions of Dathwal was his efforts on the Personalization and Experimentation platform at Atlassian. "The possibilities for machine learning and AI are too great to ignore," he says, expressing newfound enthusiasm for possible ventures by starting a venture should the opportunity emerge.
"The projects that give you the most satisfaction are ones where you can connect the dots to technical work to business outcomes," he thinks. "With the personalization platform, we were able to provide teams across Atlassian with the ability to make decisions based on actual user behavior, not just gut feel."
His increasing recognition in the sector is also acknowledged in his EPA fellow membership and his senior member status in IEEE, a distinguished professional group for electrical and electronic engineers.
Dathwal has also developed QRMingle, an innovative digital networking application intended as an alternative to standard business cards. The app enables users to create customizable profiles with photos, background images, personal details, and social media links. These profiles can be instantly shared via QR codes, allowing seamless contact exchange at conferences and networking events. Though the web app is still in early stages, it is already in production, and users are actively enrolling.
He has seen bright technical solutions die because they don't solve the actual business requirements, and business-driven solutions die when they don't consider technical realities. The key is to "bridge that gap." The true value of digital transformation is not just in the application of technology but in how that technology enables new business capabilities.
