Eurocash

The company has been operating since 1995 and its retail network at the end of 2020 included 1,573 small supermarkets (967 franchised and 606 owned) and 432 Inmedio press lounges. Moreover, the company has 180 wholesalers all over the country who provide services to a network of 9,317 local grocery stores. Eurocash Group employed over 21 thousand employees in 2020.

The system that supports the service of such a complex organizational structure is the supporting management system of the SAP ERP.

For greater flexibility and applications scalability, IT infrastructure security and optimization costs, the company decided to transfer the software for the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

The SAP system is the heart of the IT environment for many companies and is responsible for supporting basic functions in the company. The primary Microsoft goal is empowering our customers launching their critical applications and reducing workload levels thanks to SAP in the Azure cloud. Thanks to the cloud, they gain uninterrupted and secure access to the main information resources with the possibility of load definition as needed and flexible financing model - says a Microsoft representative.

During the quarter century of its operation, Eurocash has undergone the traditional evolution of its IT system. In the beginning, it was based on the internal company's infrastructure and resources. Along with its development, the management board opted for external hosting. Today the system IT Eurocash adopted a cloud model on the platform Microsoft Azure.

Due to the continuous expansion, Eurocash was looking for solutions that meet business fluctuations and provided the scale ability to meet current and changing needs.

We were looking for a solution that would give us more flexibility and scalability of our IT system and will guarantee the transparency of fees. – underlines the representative of Eurocash. - Due to the fact that our company operates throughout Poland, we also wanted the opportunity of uninterrupted access to resources from anywhere and in any time. The Microsoft Azure cloud platform has fulfilled these requirements, and additionally guaranteed us to increase data backup security and flexibility in the choice of the implementation model and the size of the computing resource.

Moving to the Azure cloud also means improving responsiveness to changes, the ability to configure the application in such a way that they always had the resources they needed, and in th event of the failure had the ability to distribute to another location.

Goals set by Eurocash in the context of the project:

• Increased flexibility and scalability;
• Improving the security of backups;
• Transparency of fees and cost optimization;
• Ability to configure the application in such a way as to always they had the necessary resources;
• In case of failure, the possibility of distribution to another location;
• Uninterrupted availability of resources;
• Possibility to select an appropriate calculation model;
• Possibility to select an appropriate implementation model;
• Increasing the ability to react to changes;
• Ensuring an appropriate level of security implemented solutions, especially in areas such as:
  • Virtual network access security;
  • Security of corporate data;
  • Access control to the corporate network;
  • Data encryption;
  • Protection of login data.

SAP software migration Microsoft to Microsoft Azure platform, in which specialists from SE16N and Microsoft participated, took about 3 months.

It was carried out in 4 stages:

1. Pre-implementation analysis with recommendations for execution.

The first one was the pre-implementation analysis, thanks to which recommendations for the implementation of the migration were made.

2. Preparation of project documents and technical.

The second one was the preparation of project documents and technical concept.

3. Preparation for migration from the technical side.

The next phase focused on ensuring readiness for technical migration.

4. Migration of ERP, PO, ERP Archive, ABAP receipts, FTP server.

At the last stage, the proper migration of ERP systems took place, PO, ERP Archive, ABAP receipts and FTP server.

It was crucial for Eurocash to ensure the appropriate security level of implemented solutions, especially in such areas as: securing access to the virtual network, security of company data, company network access control, data encryption and protection of login data.

During the project we managed to meet all expectations Eurocash and the new environment works in line with the previous one on-premise architecture - admits the representative of SE16N - By using Microsoft Azure, adding a resource or one setup takes place immediately, so time during the introduction of changes is not a problem. This is extremely important, as the users of the SAP system expect fast delivery of the solutions they need.

W trakcie projektu udało się spełnić wszystkie oczekiwania Eurocash i nowe środowisko działa zgodnie z wcześniejszą architekturą on-premise. – przyznaje przedstawiciel SE16N – Dzięki wykorzystaniu Microsoft Azure, dodanie zasobu lub jego konfiguracja odbywa się natychmiast, więc czas podczas wprowadzenia zmian przestał odgrywać znaczącą rolę. To niezwykle ważne, gdyż użytkownicy systemu SAP oczekują szybkiego dostarczania potrzebnych im rozwiązań.

Thanks to the migration of the SAP system to Microsoft Azure Eurocash has achieved all the goals of the project:

• Access to the resource base on demand;
• Possibility of easy scaling of the implemented solution in measure of changes taking place in the company;
• Effective infrastructure management;
• Lowering the costs of maintaining the company's IT system.

Due to the continuous expansion of our company, we were looking for effective model of access to IT resources, which would cope with continuous business changes and provide the ability to scale, adapting to the current needs. We found the solution in the offer of SE16N and Microsoft. I believe that the possibilities offered by Microsoft Azure make this solution grow with us, allowing for further development of the company and efficient service the business models we implement.- concludes the representative of Eurocash.