Founded in 2013, Granite REIT is a Canadian-based real estate investment trust (REIT) headquartered in Toronto, Ontario.
The company acquires, develops, owns, and manages logistics, warehouse and industrial properties across North America and Europe. With over 100 properties that span approximately 62.9 million square feet of leasable area, Granite has established itself as a leading player in the industrial real estate sector.
In recent years, Granite experienced rapid expansion, increasing its customer base by 30%, headcount by 40%, and geographic reach by 15 new markets. To manage growth and unify operations across Europe and North America, Granite sought to upgrade its IT infrastructure and operations.
Having limited skillset available, Granite REIT was relying on several partners to help manage its IT infrastructure. This created inefficiencies in operations, communication lags across teams, and challenges scaling. Rather than continue stitching together solutions from many tech partners, Granite REIT needed a trusted technology partner that could provide a full-stack solution to consolidate and secure its infrastructure, while delivering scalable cloud and infrastructure management.
Granite REIT had previously been using Aptum’s Managed Disaster Recovery Service (DRAAS) for their private cloud. Aptum’s demonstrable expertise, trusted relationship and understanding of the scale and reach of Granite REIT’s operations across the two continents positioned it well to provide an integrated solution to meet Granite's needs. Aptum’s ability to seamlessly operate across the continents and ensure our applications.
Leveraging its international footprint and expertise managing complex hybrid environments, Aptum was selected to transform Granite's IT operations. Starting with an in-depth review of Granite's business objectives, Aptum formulated a phased modernization strategy.
In Phase 1,
Aptum focused on rehosting Granite's existing servers, databases, and workloads from private cloud to Microsoft Azure. Granite REIT already had invested in building skills and knowledge focused on Microsoft technologies within its IT team and organization, including M365 (Office 365 and inTune) and was also looking to adopt Sentinel. Given this existing Microsoft-centric technology skillset among staff, it made sense to extend into Microsoft's Azure cloud platform.
With the end of contract with one of its vendors approaching, Granite REIT had to migrate within a limited time frame. Despite this constraint, Aptum was able to seamlessly engage, design and build its new environment in Microsoft Azure and, then migrate the servers and different workloads on the new cloud ahead of schedule in under 8 weeks.
Phase 2 will refine Granite's new Azure environment through database optimization, storage enhancements, and application modernization. Ongoing, Aptum will deliver 24/7 monitoring, management and support across the hybrid environment.
Aptum will operate across North America and Europe to help with managing the different environments ensuring the business objectives are achieved with ease across hybrid cloud. Moreover, Aptum's multi-national capabilities allow Granite a single partner who can manage the complexity of varied environments, compliance requirements, and data sovereignty needs across different countries and regions, removing a massive operations and orchestration burden.
Granite REIT chose Azure for Azure’s scalability and wealth of innovative capabilities. Azure offers the scale to grow compute, storage, and other resources to meet demands, which was a major driver for choosing Azure. Having Aptum’s expertise to help optimize and manage Azure complexity issues, such as pricing, Aptum was able to amplify benefits of Azure’s strengths. Through knowledgeable guidance on how to best leverage Azure tools and navigate pricing models, Aptum empowered Granite to unlock Azure’s full potential.
The move to Microsoft Azure resulted in:
Cloud infrastructure allows Granite to scale computing power and storage on demand.
Granite can spin up new resources quickly to support changing needs. This agility and flexibility empower Granite to swiftly address changing business needs or new initiatives
Granite can redirect more of its talent and resources towards value-driving initiatives that further strategic objectives, essentially offloading key infrastructure responsibilities empowers the company to better focus on what matters most.
With Aptum’s Disaster Recovery services, Granite reduced RTO (Recovery Time Objective) and RPO (Recovery Point Objective).
Azure security tools and Aptum’s ongoing management fortify Granite’s defenses.
Consolidating data centers and leveraging Azure’s pay-as-you-go model provided on-going cost efficiency.
Granite REIT already had invested in building skills and knowledge focused on Microsoft technologies within its IT team and organization. Given this existing Microsoft-centric technology skillset among staff, it made sense to extend into Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform as well. Moving to Azure allows transferring know-how around Microsoft-based systems by tapping direct equivalents in the cloud.
Aptum was able to help the business applications run with no outage during the migration process, which was critical for Granite REIT. Any downtime of key systems would have resulted in major revenue losses.
Despite the competitive market of Managed Service Providers, as a Aptum’s level of service and level of deep understanding of Granite REIT’s needs and expectations meant that it was able to build a stable level of trust. Aptum’s diligence of understanding Granite REIT’s objectives to consolidate with Azure in Phase 1, as well as their Azure expertise, made Aptum a standout choice for the migration. Aptum’s solution-focused approach delivered comprehensive infrastructure transformation to enhance Granite's operations and position the company for the future.
Aptum stood out as the perfect partner for Granite’s cloud migration thanks to its blend of Azure expertise, collaborative ethos, and dedication. More than an external vendor, Aptum's team has become a valued extension of Granite itself, and the 24/7 support meant Granite REIT was assured that Aptum is supporting the business in each step. The comprehensive guidance, inter-team communication and support fueled Granite’s cloud confidence while granting freedom to stay focused on international business growth. Aptum's deep knowledge of the Azure platform and services guided the strategy and technical implementation, from planning to execution, Aptum's technical expertise made them the ideal technology partner.
