Draft Document for Review November 15, 2007 3:27 pm | 4372ch01.fm |
This role covers an external IT professional that is called in to a store to perform
1.2 The retail environment
The retail environment comprises every type of store, from the apparel store with one or two cash registers, to a large super market chain with thousands of stores each having a variety of cash registers,
A typical IT environment for a department store is shown in Figure
The main application servers are located in a data center, most likely with a redundant setup, possibly even made
In each warehouse is a local server that handles transactions from POS systems and forwards the transactions to the central server. This setup enables a warehouse to continue operation even if the network connections are interrupted for shorter periods of time. Typically, this server is also used for local customizations such as the text on the printed receipts, local discounts etc. Larger warehouses will probaly have this system setup in a redundant configuration. Even if the applications are configured to use the central server in case the local server is unavailable, there may be performance requirements that justify such setup.
Alone in the area of providing a high level of availability for the application servers required for purchase transactions lies several technical challenges. These are mainly part of the network, servers and applications and are not the scope of this Redpaper. Much of this information can be found from other sources, including the IBM Redbook Enabling the On Demand Store with IBM Store Integration Framework,
Chapter 1. Introduction | 3 |
