Moving a Multi-Company Group off Aging On-Premises Hardware

The challenge

The group's shared infrastructure — file servers, domain controllers and internal business applications — ran on ageing on-premises hardware split across a head office and a second branch. Each company had grown into the arrangement rather than planning it, so there was no consolidated identity system tying them together and no backup strategy anyone would want to test.

Where we came in

The hardware was the visible problem, but replacing it in place would have bought a few years and the same conversation again. We treated the migration as the moment to consolidate — one identity system, one backup standard, one place the infrastructure lives — rather than lifting the existing sprawl into a data centre.

What we did

• Connected the head office and the branch office to a new Azure virtual network over site-to-site IPSec tunnels
• Consolidated separate domain controllers into a single cloud-hosted directory with synchronised identity across the group
• Migrated the primary file server and application servers into Azure's Canada Central region
• Implemented layered backup with daily, weekly, monthly and yearly retention

Where it landed

• Core infrastructure now runs in Azure Canada Central rather than on hardware at end of life
• Both offices reach it over secure tunnels, and identity is unified across the affiliated companies
• Backups follow a defined retention schedule instead of an ad-hoc routine