Case Studies Retail Success Requires Back-Office Performance and Agility

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	Retail Success Requires Back-Office Performance and Agility

Retail Success Requires Back-Office Performance and Agility

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms
Applicable Industries	Retail
Applicable Functions	Business Operation Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Predictive Maintenance Process Control & Optimization
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Software Design & Engineering Services System Integration
Challenge	A leading retailer faced the challenge of managing and integrating vast amounts of data generated from its global operations. With billions in annual revenue translating to thousands of dollars per second, the need for efficient data tracking, maintenance, and analysis was critical. The platform team aimed to build a centralized cache-as-a-service to streamline data integration across various systems, reducing redundancy and overhead. Without this centralized service, standing up new applications would take months, which was unacceptable for a high-load business processing millions of transactions per month. Read More
About Customer	The customer is a leading global retailer with a significant presence in both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce models. The company generates billions of dollars in revenue and serves hundreds of millions of customers worldwide. It has a massive, distributed IT team, including a platform team of nearly 150 technical professionals based in the United States and India. This team is responsible for creating and maintaining centralized middleware solutions for systems integration, supporting various back-office functions such as HR, real estate, and financial data. The retailer is known for its innovative and agile approach to technology, constantly exploring new open source solutions to enhance its operations. Read More
Solution	The retailer chose Hazelcast's open source version for its distributed cache-as-a-service due to its ease of use, community support, and documentation. After a successful six-month pilot, they migrated to Hazelcast IMDG Enterprise for enhanced security and disaster recovery features. The solution involved integrating Apache Kafka and IBM MQ as messaging layers feeding data into the Hazelcast cluster. The platform team built APIs to replace batch jobs, enabling a microservices-based architecture for agile development. Hazelcast IMDG provided a low-latency data plane, with the cluster replicated across multiple data centers for resiliency. The microservices were exposed through an API gateway, allowing robust services composed of fine-grained microservices. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Application Infrastructure & Middleware - Data Exchange & Integration

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Data Management Platforms

Applicable Industries

Retail

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Predictive Maintenance

Process Control & Optimization

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Software Design & Engineering Services

System Integration

Challenge

A leading retailer faced the challenge of managing and integrating vast amounts of data generated from its global operations. With billions in annual revenue translating to thousands of dollars per second, the need for efficient data tracking, maintenance, and analysis was critical. The platform team aimed to build a centralized cache-as-a-service to streamline data integration across various systems, reducing redundancy and overhead. Without this centralized service, standing up new applications would take months, which was unacceptable for a high-load business processing millions of transactions per month.

About Customer

The customer is a leading global retailer with a significant presence in both brick-and-mortar and e-commerce models. The company generates billions of dollars in revenue and serves hundreds of millions of customers worldwide. It has a massive, distributed IT team, including a platform team of nearly 150 technical professionals based in the United States and India. This team is responsible for creating and maintaining centralized middleware solutions for systems integration, supporting various back-office functions such as HR, real estate, and financial data. The retailer is known for its innovative and agile approach to technology, constantly exploring new open source solutions to enhance its operations.

Solution

The retailer chose Hazelcast's open source version for its distributed cache-as-a-service due to its ease of use, community support, and documentation. After a successful six-month pilot, they migrated to Hazelcast IMDG Enterprise for enhanced security and disaster recovery features. The solution involved integrating Apache Kafka and IBM MQ as messaging layers feeding data into the Hazelcast cluster. The platform team built APIs to replace batch jobs, enabling a microservices-based architecture for agile development. Hazelcast IMDG provided a low-latency data plane, with the cluster replicated across multiple data centers for resiliency. The microservices were exposed through an API gateway, allowing robust services composed of fine-grained microservices.

Impact #1	The centralized in-memory service based on Hazelcast IMDG Enterprise enabled the platform team to stand up new services in two days, compared to the previous two months.
Impact #2	The solution accelerated data access, allowing business teams to react faster to financial data.
Impact #3	The platform team appreciated Hazelcast IMDG for its ease of use, security features, monitoring tools, and dashboarding capabilities.

Impact #1

The centralized in-memory service based on Hazelcast IMDG Enterprise enabled the platform team to stand up new services in two days, compared to the previous two months.

Impact #2

The solution accelerated data access, allowing business teams to react faster to financial data.

Impact #3

The platform team appreciated Hazelcast IMDG for its ease of use, security features, monitoring tools, and dashboarding capabilities.

Benefit #1	Standing up new services reduced from two months to two days.

Benefit #1

Standing up new services reduced from two months to two days.

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Overview

Retail Success Requires Back-Office Performance and Agility

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit