„Kern goes Azure“: msg Plaut accompanies the Kern Group to the cloud
msg Plaut supported the Kern Group in implementing the Microsoft Azure Cloud and successfully completed the project within one year. With the gained agility, flexibility, and potential cost savings resulting from the migration to the cloud, the internationally operating Swiss company has positioned itself for a secure future.
The Kern Group is a manufacturer and global supplier of products, solutions, and services in the field of enveloping and packaging systems, as well as parcel terminals. Last year, they faced necessary modernization steps. The existing local virtualization environment needed to be renewed. To secure the future of the entire corporate group, they decided to migrate to Azure.
Challenges and Solutions
Benjamin Stuber, CIO of the Kern Group, on the decision for the cloud solution:
„Our company has grown organically, and as a result, our IT structure has become complex. Until now, our subsidiaries operated with independent IT systems, and there were isolated solutions in various areas. Since we planned to centralize processes as part of the system renewal, we decided on Microsoft Azure Cloud.“
The starting signal was given in February 2020, and a duration of one year was planned from the initial assessment to the final training of the employees. After developing the migration strategy and prioritizing the steps, the foundational infrastructure, the core of the migration, was established on Azure. Following that, the critical „move“ of the company‘s data took place with the migration of servers and services from the local Hyper-V environment to the cloud.
To seamlessly connect the subsidiaries with the headquarters, standardization of services and the connection and migration of local data were also necessary. With the centralization and optimization of licenses, another major cost factor for the group was alleviated. After training the IT department of the Kern Group, the project was successfully completed on schedule in February 2021.
Bundled expertise promotes innovation
Thanks to the excellent collaboration between the expert teams of msg Plaut and Kern Group, the Swiss producer of document processing and logistics systems has been able to benefit from leaner, agile, and highly efficient structures since February. The successful migration to the Microsoft Azure Cloud offers the Kern Group numerous advantages:
- Massive reduction in server room expenses by replacing existing hardware. Services and virtual machines that are not needed can be terminated, resulting in lower costs.
- Cost reduction as servers, maintenance, facilities, etc., are no longer required - freeing up funds for investments elsewhere.
- Flexible services through a rental model instead of investment costs („pay as you go“).
- Future-proof services that can be individually tailored to changing requirements at any time.
- Quick response to new challenges or customer demands is possible.
- Highest availability and resilience for critical systems. This can be configured individually for each service, eliminating the need for a total investment for all systems.