New Zealand's Warehouse Group is set to migrate the majority of its operations to Microsoft's Azure cloud.
The migration is described as a "multi-year project," and is hoped to see the company saving "millions" in IT-related costs over the next three years
According to Microsoft, the Warehouse Group has more than 750 on-premises servers and infrastructure that is approaching its end of life. In addition, it was seeing "substantial ongoing costs" for the maintenance and replacement of technology.
The company is working with cloud migration company Lab3 to move its applications to the Azure public cloud.
The Warehouse Group's general manager of group technology operations, Ankit Gupta, said: "It’s great for our stores to be able to rely on 24/7 accessibility, and no longer be reliant on a single data center on our premises. 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."
The migration process will be staggered over a 12-month period to avoid disruption to its stores. Thus far, around a third of its applications have already moved to Azure ahead of the launch of Microsoft's New Zealand cloud region.
The Warehouse Group will also be using Microsoft's artificial intelligence (AI) technology and is currently piloting the use of Azure MLOps (machine learning) to optimize product pricing, and generative AI to reduce manual updates on the product database.
According to the companies, using Microsoft's New Zealand North cloud region will improve energy efficiency by as much as 98 percent compared to using on-premises infrastructure.
“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 Vanessa Sorenson, managing director of Microsoft New Zealand.
"It just makes sense to share the load, and with our New Zealand cloud region being powered by 100 percent renewable energy from day one, we’re well placed to help local organizations reach their goals faster. We’re thrilled to support one of Aotearoa’s most iconic and environmentally conscious brands to adapt for the future and level up their progress on sustainability even further.”
Microsoft first announced plans to develop a data center region in New Zealand in May 2020, receiving approval in September of that year. In 2022, the company revealed that the cloud region would be powered by 100 percent renewable energy, later signing a 51MW geothermal PPA with Contact Energy. The region is expected to be operational in late 2024.
Other customers already signed up to Microsoft's upcoming cloud region in New Zealand include Whakarongorau Aotearoa, Fonterra, Auckland Transport, Te Tumu Paeroa, CCL, BNZ, ASB, PwC, and the Accident Compensation Corporation.
