Full Data Centre Migration to Cloud for National Retail Group
100% of data centre infrastructure migrated to Azure — data centre fully decommissioned. We delivered this outcome for National Retail Group (500 users across 18 stores) by combining Azure, Azure Site Recovery, Azure Front Door into a single strategic engagement.
What National Retail Group was facing
A national retail group with 18 stores across the UK was operating from a single on-premises data centre whose lease was expiring in 6 months. The data centre housed 12 servers running their e-commerce platform, inventory management, POS integration, customer database, and financial systems. They needed to migrate their entire data centre to the cloud within 6 months — with zero disruption to 24/7 e-commerce operations, no data loss, and a clear cost reduction. They also needed to improve their disaster recovery posture, as the single data centre was a single point of failure. The complexity of migrating 12 interdependent servers across 18 retail locations required a migration partner with deep expertise.
How we solved it
We designed a comprehensive data centre-to-cloud migration strategy with a 5-month execution timeline. We began with a full dependency mapping of all 12 servers and their connections to 18 store locations, then designed a target Azure architecture with regional redundancy, Azure Front Door for global e-commerce load balancing, and Azure SQL Database for their customer data. We used Azure Site Recovery for continuous replication, migrated in 4 phased waves over 14 weeks, and ran parallel operations for 3 weeks before final cutover. We implemented Azure ExpressRoute for dedicated connectivity to all 18 stores, configured Azure Backup with geo-redundant storage, and designed a disaster recovery architecture with automated failover to a secondary Azure region. Post-migration, the data centre was fully decommissioned ahead of lease expiry.
What we delivered
Tools and skills applied
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Related services & insights
The retail expertise and technical capabilities behind this engagement.
Services
IT & Cloud Infrastructure Migrations
End-to-end IT and cloud infrastructure migration services — from assessment and planning to zero-downtime execution and post-migration optimisation.
Cloud Services & Support
Cloud services and support — architecture design, migration, and ongoing management of Azure, AWS, and hybrid cloud infrastructure.
Server Backup & Disaster Recovery
Comprehensive server backup and disaster recovery solutions to protect your data and minimise downtime.
Tech Insights
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Sources & further reading
Independent guidance from UK regulators, standards bodies and technology vendors that underpins the advice on this page.
- Microsoft LearnAzure documentationReference documentation for the Microsoft cloud platform.(opens in a new tab)
- Microsoft LearnAzure Well-Architected FrameworkMicrosoft's guidance for building reliable, secure and cost-efficient cloud workloads.(opens in a new tab)
- National Cyber Security CentreCloud security guidancePrinciples for selecting, configuring and operating cloud services securely.(opens in a new tab)
- National Cyber Security Centre10 Steps to Cyber SecurityThe UK's baseline framework for protecting business systems, people and data.(opens in a new tab)
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