As a global leader in refrigeration and climate control solutions, Beijer Ref Australia is at the forefront of providing sustainable HVAC technology across diverse commercial and industrial sectors. But behind the scenes, its legacy data centre infrastructure was under increasing strain, threatening business continuity, growth, and innovation.
With rapid business expansion and increased demand on systems availability across regional operations, Beijer Ref’s existing infrastructure was no longer fit for purpose. The environment was ageing, inflexible, and vulnerable to performance degradation and downtime, compromising the resilience of core applications and limiting their ability to scale.
Beijer needed a solution that could not only resolve immediate bottlenecks but also support their long-term digital vision.
Beijer Ref engaged Inlight IT to help reimagine its core infrastructure. The brief was clear: deliver a future-ready, high-performance platform that provides cloud agility with on-prem reliability.
The solution needed to ensure high levels of system reliability and uptime to support critical operations. At the same time, it had to be flexible enough to accommodate hybrid cloud workflows, giving the business the ability to scale as needed. A key focus was also on reducing the day-to-day burden on internal IT teams, minimising ongoing maintenance and support overhead. Finally, the entire environment had to integrate seamlessly with Beijer’s existing Microsoft licensing model and broader ecosystem, including Microsoft 365 and Azure services.
Working closely with Beijer’s internal IT team, Inlight IT architected and deployed a Microsoft Azure Stack HCI platform, bringing cloud-native architecture into the data centre.
The new solution delivered a fully virtualised infrastructure environment with high-availability clustering to maximise uptime and service continuity. Centralised storage and compute resources were integrated into a unified platform, making it easier to manage and scale. With native compatibility across Microsoft 365 and Azure workloads, Beijer could now extend capabilities into the cloud without disrupting existing systems. Enhanced features for backup, disaster recovery, and workload automation (powered by Altaro VM Backup and Windows Admin Center) further ensured operational resilience and efficiency.
Since deployment, Beijer Ref has seen a significant transformation in the performance and reliability of its IT infrastructure.
Core systems now operate with 99.99% uptime, providing peace of mind and operational continuity. The provisioning of new workloads has become significantly faster, supporting agile business needs without delay. Day-to-day IT complexity has been dramatically reduced, giving internal teams more capacity to focus on innovation and improvement. With a scalable, cloud-ready foundation in place, Beijer is now well-positioned to evolve toward hybrid cloud adoption without friction.
More importantly, this shift allowed Beijer’s IT team to move away from reactive maintenance toward long-term strategic planning, enabling IT to become a driver of innovation rather than a cost centre.
"With Inlight IT’s solution, we’ve taken a major step forward. Our infrastructure is now not just surviving our growth, it’s empowering it."
In today’s climate-driven economy, Beijer Ref’s ability to deliver mission-critical refrigeration solutions depends on a robust and agile digital core. By replacing legacy infrastructure with a modern Azure Stack HCI environment, Beijer has successfully mitigated operational risk and strengthened system performance across its national footprint.
The deployment has also aligned their technology stack with Microsoft’s strategic direction, unlocking further opportunities to innovate through cloud integration, advanced analytics, and secure collaboration. With scalable infrastructure in place, IT is no longer a limiting factor - it’s a competitive advantage.
Technologies Deployed: Microsoft Azure Stack HCI | Microsoft Hyper-V | Windows Admin Center | Altaro VM Backup