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a.s.r. Website Platform Migration

The a.s.r. corporate platform moved off Sitecore and Vite onto headless Contentstack and Nuxt.js, over a track of more than a year, while it stayed up for visitors the whole way.

  • Clienta.s.r., one of the largest insurers in the Netherlands
  • Period2024 to 2026
  • RoleFreelance full stack engineer
  • TeamScrum team of 7 developers, 9 people in total
  • DurationA track of more than a year
  • Server side rendering on the new platform, where the stack it replaced had none.
  • A content model rebuilt around how the business actually works, agreed with editors and architects before any of it was migrated.
  • Quarterly plans I built and presented, and the architecture conversations that made the transition plan hold.

Context

a.s.r. is one of the largest insurance companies in the Netherlands and its corporate platform is a working publishing operation, with editors in it every day. Replacing the CMS under that is not a technology swap. It changes how those people do their jobs, which is why the hard conversations were the valuable part.

The challenge

Sitecore and Contentstack do not model content the same way, so a faithful one to one migration was never available. Some of what editors relied on could not be recreated in the same shape, and saying that out loud early, with a workable alternative beside it, was better than discovering it at go live. Meanwhile the site had to stay up: visitors, campaigns and search all carried on while the foundation under them was being replaced.

What I did

  • Set the requirements with the team, functional and technical both, which is where a migration is actually scoped or quietly left open.
  • Took the transition plan to the a.s.r. architects, at the start of the track, raised the concerns I had about implementation and sequencing, and worked the answers out with them.
  • Made the quarterly plans and presented them, so the business could see what was landing when, and say something about it while there was still time to act on it.
  • Translated the content model, from Sitecore structures to Contentstack, with editors involved, and found alternatives where the old way of working could not be recreated.
  • Built features on the new platform, in Nuxt.js against Contentstack, so the migration delivered working pages rather than a finished plan.
  • Kept the stakeholders aligned, across editorial, business and engineering, throughout, which on a track this long is most of the job.

The outcome

  • The platform runs on Contentstack and Nuxt.js, with server side rendering where it previously had none.
  • A content model that fits the business rather than the old CMS.
  • Editorial work got simpler, and the operational overhead that came with the old setup went with it.

Technologies used

  • Contentstack: The headless CMS the platform moved to.
  • Sitecore: The CMS it moved from.
  • GraphQL: The API layer over the platform.
  • Azure: The cloud platform the work is built, released and run on.
  • Azure Pipelines: The deployment pipelines behind the releases.
  • TypeScript: The language across the new application.
  • Tealium: Tag management across the site.
  • Nuxt.js: The new application framework, bringing server side rendering.
  • Vue.js: The component layer, carried across into Nuxt.js.
  • Vite: Part of the legacy stack that was replaced.
  • Playwright: Automated coverage of the migrated flows.

A replatforming is decided in the content model and the stakeholder conversations, and that is where I would start on yours.