WalMart's profile of computing and network infrastructure Essay

WalMart's profile of computing and network infrastructure - Essay Example So our ties to Bentonville, Ark. - where Sam Walton opened the first store that bore the Walton name and where Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., is still based - give us our foundation. Another Walmart.com goal - providing easy access to more Wal-Mart - is evident in the more than 1,000,000 products available online and in the innovative businesses that Walmart.com continues to develop, such as Music Downloads and 1-Hour Photos, which gives customers the convenience of ordering products online and picking them up at a local Wal-Mart. In short, Walmart.com is passionate about combining the best of two great worlds - technology and world-class retailing - to give customers a wide assortment of their favorite products, Every Day Low Prices, guaranteed satisfaction, friendly service, convenient hours (24 hours, 7 days a week) and a great online shopping experience. According to Mark Schmidt, senior director for information services at Wal-Mart, the installation of NCR System 3000 processors -- which began last month in the Springfield, Mo., stores -- is the second phase of a systems upgrade at the chain that began in August 1990 with the installation of Hewlett-Packard's HP 9000 Model 375 system. The retailer chose to purchase both systems so that "we have two vendor partners to bank on," said Schmidt. Approximately 800 of Wal-Mart's stores will use the HP system and the other 800 will use the NCR system. Both models are open-system computers and both use the UNIX operating system, allowing intercommunications and compatibility. "We can take data tapes from one to the other if we had to," Schmidt added. Tony Fano, vice president of NCR Retail Systems Division, said, "The NCR 3445 support of UNIX V.4 matches Wal-Mart's UNIX open systems strategy. Because it is based on industry standards, the NCR 3445 can provide enterprise-wide computing solutions based on open systems components and cooperative processing." NCR's System 3000 is a seven-level family of scalable, compatible, general purpose computer systems that support the industry-standard operating systems -- UNIX V.4, SCO UNIX, OS/2 and MS-DOS. Wal-Mart had been using the IBM Series 1, which was installed in 1979. "It is a proprietary system. We wanted something more open, so we could be independent of a vendor if we needed to be, said Schmidt. "We needed a system with more capacity. We wanted one that was open and scalable -- to go in relatively small and then grow," said Schmidt. The installation of the HP 9000 Model 375 was completed last month, according to Schmidt. He said the chain is aiming at Aug. 1 completion of the NCR installation. The NCR 3445 will provide connections between NCR and non-NCR point-of-sale controllers and pharmacy systems with Wal-Mart's central computer in its headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. The NCR and HP systems are configured to support up to 16 terminals in a Wal-Mart store. According to Schmidt, the systems currently are doing traditional applications, such as payroll, general accounting and merchandise reorder. Potential applications include financial management, sales analysis and labor management (Tahmincioglu, 1991). Wal-Mart has signed a multimillion