Modernize Data Center Management to Streamline Retail Operations

With increasing pressure on the retail industry to constantly innovate in order to better serve customers, effective data management becomes essential. Retailers need to be prepared to properly manage and harness their data to mine it for insights to meet customers’ needs. This all starts with implementing the right data center management solution. A modern data center is an essential foundation for securing and harnessing the large amount of data it takes to build complex data models and conduct analyses.

By shoring up their data centers, retailers can stay ahead of the competition in the crowded retail landscape and make the most of the valuable customer data at their disposal. 

For retailers, having a modern data center network solution is critical for making the most of data analytics initiatives and processing all the data needed to keep operations running smoothly. Without an updated data center management solution in place, retailers run the risk of mishandling their data, face data center power outages, and interruptions to business operations.

One CDW retail customer, an American supermarket located in Texas, sought out a trusted partner to implement and support a next generation software-defined data center network to ensure a highly available, low-latency network. This customer wanted to ensure the seamless transport of data between two active data centers, without experiencing outages or interruptions in data transfer. This customer also wanted enhanced performance and greater visibility reducing Mean Time to Repair to prepare for business continuity and disaster recovery. They requested a private cloud infrastructure that would offer rapid, self-service application workload provisioning and integration between private and public cloud infrastructure.

For retail customers like this one, cloud or hybrid cloud data management solutions offer the ability to quality scale resources up and down according to demand. Accordingly, this empowers retailers to shift their data management needs according to demand – which is especially valuable in an industry that sees seasonal spikes.  

To meet the supermarket customer’s needs, CDW partnered closely with Arista to provide a highly resilient, modern, and automated network solution, powered by Arista’s Extensible Operating System (EOS). This solution is purpose built to provide a foundation for next-generation data center networks, which will allow the customer to stay current. In order to achieve greater visibility into the network, CDW also implemented Arista’s CloudVision application – a turn-key solution for network-wide workload orchestration, workflow automation, and real-time visibility into network operations. Arista also integrates with other components of data center solutions, allowing the customer to scale up and add on as needed.

As a result, the customer will save on operational costs, reduced CAPEX expenditures, reduce power expenditures, and a reduced data center footprint. At the same time, the customer will increase their agility and ability to scale to meet business needs. By implementing a modern data center solution now, the customer will save on costly fixes down the line.

For retailers like this one, having a modernized data center solution in place remains key for staying competitive in the retail industry. 

As the retail industry continues to evolve, it’s critical that your business’s data management solution can keep pace. Increased restrictions on data collection and the impending disappearance of third-party cookies require retailers to put more emphasis on first-party data collection – and mining that data for meaningful business insights.

Accordingly, a modern data center solution empowers your retail business to effectively store and manage all of that first-party data. For retailers now, it’s not just about capturing customer data but also figuring out how to leverage it properly to maximize business outcomes. Having a comprehensive data management plan can accomplish just that, and it also ensures your business remains compliant with customer privacy regulations. Securely storing and managing data – whether through a full cloud or hybrid cloud system – allows retailers to stay on top of their data analytics initiatives. 

Whether your retail business currently has an on-premises data center, a hybrid cloud solution, or you’re managing all data in the cloud, CDW can ensure that your data is securely and effectively managed so it can be put to good use.