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IBM to Power Staples Data Warehouse
Staples Inc.will deploy an IBM SP supercomputer in a new enterprise data warehouse. The solution will help integrate merchandising information across Staples’ business channels, strengthening the retailer’s ability to identify emerging retail trends, manage business operations more effectively and maximize revenue generation.
The company decided to extend its data warehouse to merge information from several databases and make it available from a single repository. The system will contain all the information generated by the company’s various online and offline businesses.
The heart of the solution is 64-processor IBM SP supercomputer. The SP -- a parallel computing system comprised of up to 512 separate computers -- provides the scalability necessary for large data warehouses. Staples’ SP supercomputer runs proprietary decision support applications that sit atop IBM’s DB2 Universal Database Enterprise Extended Edition. Data is stored on four terabytes of IBM SSA disk and is backed up daily by Tivoli Storage Manager onto IBM 3590 tape drives.