"Mainframe + Linux" for Integration

"Mainframe + Linux" for integration-Linux Enterprise Application-Linux server application information. The following is a detailed description. How can we integrate the load of hundreds of servers running across regions distributed across hundreds of branches? At present, the platform that combines large hosts with Linux should be a relatively ideal solution.

Hannaford Brothers is headquartered in Maine and operates 200 supermarkets, Food and Drug stores in Maine, New York, Vermont, New York, and Massachusetts with over 24 thousand employees.

In the retail industry, the emergence of large supermarkets and the reduction of profit margins make the entire market extremely competitive. In this case, the cross-regional retailer with a history of 120 began to host hundreds of servers (each store has four to five servers) a few years ago) load on an IBM z990 large host to improve customer satisfaction and service quality.

Hannaford Brothers believes that "the only way to integrate key data from hundreds of servers into a system is to choose a large host with high reliability and availability ."

After this system integration, tens of thousands of chain stores can access the same latest data at the same time, these include warehousing experts who monitor product selection and receipt instructions in real time, and sales staff who use wireless handheld devices to order various products for the store.

Now, as the business volume increases and the number of partners increases, they hope to replace z990 with System z9 with more load support capabilities, more partitions, and more powerful virtual functions, "on a Sunday evening, we spent 30 minutes smoothly transferring data from the z990 mainframe to the new System z9 mainframe, this brought the end of a several-year IT transformation project at Hannaford Brothers. Through this simple transformation, we have increased the workload performance by 50%, "said Bill Homa, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Hannaford Brothers.

Currently, the System z9 mainframe serves as the core server of the Hannaford Brothers chain supply chain network center, providing support for the company's more than 200 retail stores and 5 major distribution centers, it supports 80% of the total business volume of chain stores. With this system, Hannaford Brothers employees can use a variety of portable devices to access data in real time, thereby improving inventory management of warehouses and providing purchasing forecasts and processing of goods orders directly issued by field personnel. In addition, Hannaford Brothers's IT systems run the supply chains of the two Florida chain stores Kash n' Karry and Sweetbay.

At the same time, all data, inventory control, payment, and order processing of Hannaford Brothers partners and suppliers run in 23 separate partitions at the same time, these partitions run on the SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9 and z/OS Operating Systems of System z9.

The Hannaford Brothers chain stores support the following applications on the new mainframe + Linux:

A Linux-based IBM WebSphere system supports a supplier portal application that allows partners to generate order items directly, arrange the loading and unloading platform for storing goods, and check the payment and order status.

A Computer-Aided ordering system that collects data from stores to central databases on the mainframe, analyzes the data through a new application, and generates inventory replenishment orders. In addition, this system can help shipping personnel to ship the right goods to the designated store at the right time and instruct the store administrator to place the goods in the right place, at the same time, it can also clearly identify the excess inventory that cannot be sold during the renewal period, and remind the Warehouse administrator to promptly handle these items to help increase the sales profit.

So how does the Hannaford Brothers chain store handle the retired z990? The answer is to build a disaster recovery system, and the new z9 host is at the core of this disaster recovery strategy. Hannaford Brothers uses the primary method of connecting the primary data center running System z9 with another data center configured with the retired z990 server and in the STANDBY state. All data running on the z9 host is copied to this remote center and stored on a high-end IBM enterprise storage server and tape, A remote disaster recovery system is formed.

Analysis of Typical Cases of integration in "mainframe + Linux"

User name Hannaford Brothers

Industry Retail Industry

200 supermarkets, Food and Drug stores distributed across different regions, with 24 thousand employees

The main project integrates the load of hundreds of servers distributed across more than 200 branches

Solution: Large host + Linux

Project benefits: the workload performance has increased by 50%. Tens of thousands of employees can access the same latest data at the same time, these include warehousing experts who monitor product selection and receipt instructions in real time, and sales staff who use wireless handheld devices to order various products for the store.

Application features
A host provides support for the company's more than 200 retail stores and five major distribution centers, supporting 80% of the total business volume of chain stores.

All data, inventory control and payment and order processing of partners and suppliers run on 23 independent partitions at the same time

Connect the primary data center running System z9 with another z990 server configured with a "retired" server and a data center in the "standby" status, and then use storage servers and tapes, A remote disaster recovery system is formed.