Client story Transforming Business Resilience at Reece with Full Data Centre Exit to Microsoft Azure

Business Challenge

Australian building supplier, Reece Group operates a vast network of branches and warehouses serving tradespeople and commercial customers across Australia and New Zealand. Its technology estate underpins inventory, logistics, point-of-sale and analytics — systems whereuptime and timely data are mission-critical.

The environment was a mix of modern applications and legacy platforms, including a production data warehouse running on hardware more than a decade old. IT leadership faced a strategic choice: continue supporting fragile infrastructure - risking disruption to reporting and downstream processes - and absorb escalating costs or execute a controlled migration to cloud with the right governance and operating model. Changes in data centre licensing prices were expected to significantly raise the costs, which would have made the current approach unsustainable.

As its trusted Microsoft partner and incumbent Licensing Services Provider, Reece selected Insight to design and build a secure cloud foundation, migrate business critical workloads with minimal disruption, and uplift cloud operations so application teams could safely and efficiently operate in Microsoft Azure.

Solution

Creating a Secure, Scalable Azure Environment

The migration surface consisted of virtualised VMs, bare-metal systems, and
applications tied to third-party vendors. Some systems could be lifted andshifted; others required rebuilding or conversion to managed services.

The comprehensive programme was built on three pillars: a secure Azure landing zone, a repeatable migration factory, and hands-on workload migrations that balanced speed with modernisation.

Establishing a Secure Foundation

Insight built a robust, automated cloud environment aligned to Reece’s organisational structure, ensuring strong security, clear governance, and compliance from day one. This foundation combined flexibility for teams with operational controls, enabling safe, repeatable growth.

Streamlining Migration at Scale

A structured “migration factory” model was introduced to accelerate the migration process. This approach clarified roles, standardised procedures, and validated methods through a pilot before scaling up. The result was faster migrations, reduced risk, and minimal disruption—critical for a smooth data centre exit.

Modernising and Optimising Workloads

Insight executed a hybrid migration strategy: moving suitable systems quickly to Azure for immediate risk reduction while modernising key services to leverage advanced cloud capabilities. Legacy platforms were upgraded, integration continuity maintained, and cost and performance optimisation embedded at every stage, ensuring long-term efficiency and value.

Beyond technical deployment, Insight equipped Reece’s teams with the knowledge and tools to manage applications confidently post-migration. Training and operational guides ensured seamless handovers, while financial governance practices - including cost tracking and optimisation reviews - kept cloud spend
under control.

Migrating over 80 virtual machines avoided steep VMware licence hikes and delivered more than a 25% reduction in infrastructure costs not including the capital expenditure required for hardware refresh. The Azure landing zone now operates at full maturity across security, automation and DevOps, enabling enterprise-scalebackups, monitoring, and patching. 

Reece’s Data Centre Exit has transformed the organisation’s technology foundation, delivered rapid risk reduction which left Reece with a secure, well-governed framework for future growth. By retiring end of life hardware and modernising its data warehouse in Azure, Reece eliminated critical risk and unlocked predictable, high-performance operations.