Published: 12 Nov 2024
Cloud Migration Aimed At Significant Cost Reduction And Productivity Gains
The Warehouse Group, one of the largest retailers in New Zealand, is migrating the bulk of its operations to Microsoft Azure in a large-scale project with over 750 on-premises servers
The Warehouse Group, one of the largest retailers in New Zealand, is migrating the bulk of its operations to Microsoft Azure, a substantial multi-year project aimed at creating cost savings worth millions over the next three years.
With more than 750 on-premises servers, and infrastructure reaching the end of its useful life, The Warehouse Group faced substantial ongoing costs for maintenance and replacement of existing technology. As part of its business optimisation strategy, it is moving its applications to Azure public cloud. This will no longer require the company to manage its own infrastructure, providing predictability around cloud costs with greater resilience and security.
Microsoft recommended LAB3, which enables us to use AI-powered migration tools like Dr Migrate, which uses automation to identify key applications to move to Azure first and achieve the best cost savings, rather than reinvent the whole process ourselves.
Ankit Gupta — General Manager of Group Technology Operations, The Warehouse Group
Challenge
The Warehouse Group decided to move its applications to Microsoft's public cloud, meaning the company will no longer have to manage its own infrastructure, providing predictability around cloud costs as well as greater resilience and security.
"It's great for our stores to be able to rely on 24/7 accessibility and no longer be reliant on a single datacentre on our premises," said The Warehouse Group general manager of group technology operations Ankit Gupta. "Risk reduction is paramount, and if anything happens to a location in the public cloud, our connection will automatically switch to an alternative site, giving us better resilience and keeping our systems going."
Approach
LAB3 and The Warehouse Group designed the migration process to be staggered over a 12-month period, minimising disruption to stores.
The key objective was to ensure the business' more than 12,000 employees didn't notice any difference throughout the project.
The Warehouse Group will also be able to take advantage of LAB3's expertise and intellectual property to accelerate the use of Microsoft's product suite, including its latest AI technology.
"The cost predictability associated with its cloud transformation in Azure will help The Warehouse Group optimise retail pricing and securely adopt innovative AI technology, putting it in an extremely strong position for the next decade and more," said LAB3 CEO Kerry Purcell.
Microsoft's New Zealand North cloud region would also be up to 98 per cent more energy-efficient than standard on-premises infrastructure, and LAB3's Dr Migrate tool would allow the retailer to monitor the carbon footprint of its cloud use.
The migration process is happening in stages, with around a third of the group's applications already moved ahead of the local Microsoft cloud region opening later this year.
Impact
The Warehouse Group is already piloting Azure MLOps machine learning to optimise product pricing, as well as generative AI to reduce manual updates to its master product database.
"Right now, every business, especially in retail, is being challenged to do more with less, understand their customers better, keep up with the rapid development of AI and be more sustainable," said Microsoft NZ managing director Vanessa Sorenson.
It's great for our stores to be able to rely on 24/7 accessibility and no longer be reliant on a single datacentre on our premises.
Ankit Gupta — General Manager of Group Technology Operations, The Warehouse Group