Bardusch – From on-prem to Azure – data centre migrates to the cloud

bardusch – From on-prem to Azure – data centre migrates to the cloud.

bardusch is a leading family-run textile services company offering high-quality workwear, protective clothing, linens and washroom hygiene products from its more than 20 sites in Germany and branches in six European countries. Tradition and innovation are the basis for modern and sustainable textile management and when making the switch from its on-prem data centre to Microsoft Azure, bardusch turned to the specialists at Azure and Bechtle to ensure successful migration.

Project details.

Services

Professional Services
Managed Services
Cloud

Industry

Trade / Service

Manufacturer

Microsoft

Company size

> 1,500 employees

Challenge.

Across Europe, some 90,000 customers from all industries rely on bardusch’s textile services. The family-run company headquartered in Ettlingen runs one of Europe’s most extensive textile logistics networks offering high-quality workwear, protective clothing, linen for hospitals and hotels as well as washroom hygiene products with a focus on sustainability through innovative technologies and investments. At bardusch, all processes—from washing machine control to product deliveries—are digitalised. The ERP system in the background, databases and internal washing machine controls (which machine washes what and when) were previously run from an on-prem data centre while the portal where customers logged their laundry was based on software developed by bardusch itself and was also hosted in the data centre.

Our decision to move the data centre into the Azure Cloud and to collaborate with Bechtle was a huge step for us, but its team handled all challenging moments with ease. We have found a fantastic partner in Bechtle on which our IT department can always rely and whose skills we can always trust in. Thanks to Bechtle’s Managed Services and Microsoft Azure’s flexibility, we are ready for whatever the future has in store.

Andreas Müller, Head of IT, bardusch GmbH & Co. KG

In light of contracts with the service provider coming to an end and no longer being extendible, bardusch decided to migrate its on-prem IT infrastructure to Microsoft Azure to connect its 20 European sites to a centrally managed cloud data centre and make them fit for the future. Time pressures meant that the migration had to take place following a lift and shift approach and bardusch wanted to migrate all applications into the cloud from where they would run as an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) exactly as they had in the data centre. It was also an important factor for bardusch to hand over management of the infrastructure, which was why the company was looking for an IT service provider that would handle migration and cloud service management.

Solution.

In Bechtle, bardusch found a partner that was by their side every step of the way—from data centre design and migration to operational responsibility for Azure. As bardusch’s long-term IT partner, Bechtle knew the entire IT infrastructure inside out and was therefore able to get down to work straight away in order to remain on track to meet a very tight deadline. However, to ensure the existing systems could be migrated to the Azure Cloud, some preliminary work needed to be carried out. Joint workshops were held in which governance and compliance policies were thrashed out, Microsoft 365 and cloud services as well as a Citrix approach were defined and an Oracle database and existing Enterprise Vault archiving platform precisely detailed. When it came to the network, Bechtle reviewed the communications status quo, actively tested the routing to the various enterprise interfaces, created vNet, SubNet and NSG and defined first firewall rules. In a final step, resource migrations were extensively tested with all relevant site-to-site VPN connections defined. During the onboarding phase, Bechtle double-checked the technical connection before migration began, defined a process and put together a concept for all services.

Once the applications had been successfully migrated to Azure, Bechtle took on responsibility for operating the Azure structure including operating system management, security updates and monitoring. A Security Operations Centre (SOC) run by Bechtle ensures the Azure data centre’s security so that any security incidents can be responded to quickly.

Business benefits.

With the migration of the data centre into the Microsoft Azure Cloud, bardusch now has a standardised and centralised IT infrastructure that supports the company’s growth. New sites can be added with ease, resources scaled and with Bechtle’s Managed Services, bardusch can use its IT resources more strategically for in-house processes, which in turn saves costs as operating an Azure data centre is transparent and thus easy to budget for. The cloud solution implemented and managed by Bechtle is an extremely good foundation for bardusch’s future growth and facilitates control over the IT infrastructure.