One of the UK’s
most successful companies for Internet shopping is Tesco.
When the market-leading supermarket needed to
replace the 280 servers used to run this service, it faced
a tight deadline and a challenge to save money by maintaining
legacy label printers. Thanks to the Perle low-profile UltraPort
4 port serial card, Tesco has retained its
legacy printers, upgraded to new servers, and avoided extra
costs.
Tesco is one of the worlds leading retailers
with 2,318 stores and 367,000 people. Tesco Home Shopping,
the Internet home shopping service, was launched in 1995 and
later became Tesco.com. Internet sales are now around three
quarters of a billion pounds.
The Picking Control System for the home shopping
business is a bespoke application that used to run on 280
in-store Fujitsu servers under Microsoft Windows NT. The application
not only downloads a picking list to PDAs for shelf pickers
but also prints customer box labels on 600 Epson printers.
Four Epson label printers were connected to each Fujitsu server
via a legacy Perle serial card. The total system prints over
100,000 labels each day and was feeling the strain.
 “The
success of Tesco.com means every bit of the system has to
work to its full capacity” said Technical
Consultant Rob Langley.
When the Microsoft Windows 2003 operating system
became available, Tesco spotted an opportunity to upgrade
to Microsoft .NET technologies for easier application integration.
Tesco also wanted newer, more powerful, Compaq servers but
this raised a problem. The Perle serial cards installed in
the old Fujitsu servers - in use for up to ten years - could
not be moved over to the new Compaq servers. The Compaq systems
needed smaller low-profile, new generation 3.3 volt serial
cards.
Tesco’s investigated 3 possible
solutions:
- Purchase 600 new network based IP printers.
This was a very expensive option that was quickly ruled
out.
- Purchase an alternative serial card from
another Serial Card manufacturer. Investigation
into this solution uncovered the problem that the card did
not support the current Epson printers using Tesco’s
standard network cabling. “In order to get the right
handshaking to the printers, we had to use RJ48 connectors
on 10 core cable. However, in-store cabling was standard
RJ45 8 core (CAT5) cable,” said Langley. The stores
would have needed extensive re-cabling
- Two months before the planned Compaq server
rollout, Perle’s new low-profile UltraPort 4 universal
3.3v/5v serial card became available. This very flexible
solution for serial connections supported the
right printer pin-outs, instantly solving the cabling problems.
“The new Perle solution was
ideal, as it appeared to be the only card on the market that
worked with our existing Epson LM-60 printers on our cabling,” said Langley.
The work to install 280 new servers then got
underway. In a project of this size, it was important to automate
as much of the software installation work as possible. For
example, the operating system, applications, and devices would
be pre-configured centrally, then the new server delivered
to the appropriate store and a fi nal short confi guration
made. Many such tasks are handled by Windows scripting, needing
very limited operator input.
 Tesco’s
contacted Perle to discuss complex technical issues with regard
to the scripting techniques used. Langley says that Perle’s
technical support staff responded quickly and went the “extra
mile” against tight project deadlines. Working closely
together, Perle enhanced the driver for the UltraPort Serial
Cards and tested it to support Windows unattended scripts.
“Perle’s pre-sales support
was second to none, I cannot over estimate the help they gave
us when we were in a difficult situation with very short timescales,” said Langley.
With the last technical hurdle overcome, Microsoft
Windows NT 4, a Perle low-profile UltraPort 4 serial card and the current Picking Control System were installed onto
the new more powerful Compaq/HP NT4 servers. The server rollout
into all 280 stores was completed in August 2004. Software
agents in the servers alert Tesco technical support staff
to any hardware problems. Operating system and application
software updates, including any for the Perle UltraPort
Serial Cards, are managed and delivered remotely. The next
step for Tesco involves upgrading the servers to the Windows
2003 operating system and new .NET business applications developed.
The new servers have worked well, giving the
application software a much needed performance boost and an
opportunity for regular business updates. The Perle UltraPort
Serial Cards - backed by a lifetime warranty and free software
updates - are also proving versatile and reliable. Tesco believes
that the new hardware now has suffi cient power to cope with
several years of increased usage and software enhancements.
But the only work necessary so far has been to install some
faster Epson printers to cope with higher label printing volumes.
With the help of Perle technology, Tesco’s home shopping
business continues to forge ahead.
|
