The information technology infrastructures in place at many retailers are complicated. Most have not only a corporate data center, but also a variety of devices and systems at their stores, including POS systems, surveillance cameras, scanners, kiosks and the like.

Mervyns, the Hayward, Calif.-based chain of neighborhood department stores, is no exception. The company’s corporate data center houses several hundred servers, running a mix of Windows, Linux and AS400 operating systems, along with numerous applications, says Joe Guisti, senior manager of IT operations. At the same time, each of the company’s approximately 180 stores has dozens of devices, says David Cheong, senior manager of store technology.

Not surprisingly, ensuring that this range of systems and applications is operating smoothly is challenging. To help in this effort, Mervyns’ IT department works with CITTIO, a San Francisco-based provider of systems-monitoring solutions. CITTIO’s WatchTower application helps Mervyns keep tabs on the servers at its corporate headquarters, as well as the applications and devices in place at its stores.

“We help customers monitor their IT ecosystems,” says Jamie Lerner, CITTIO’s president and CEO. “We create a single pane of glass to let them look at everything.”

Complicating matters for many retailers is the fact that these devices are increasingly inter-connected. In the past, most POS terminals could function as long as the stores had electricity, Lerner says, but that’s no longer the case. Now, most devices are connected to the corporate network: if the stores lose that connection, the POS systems shut down, often annoying customers and prompting abandoned purchases.

At the same time, most stores lack on-site IT support: as a result, any fixes need to be made automatically through the network — or be so simple as to be implementable by store-level associates.

Ideally, problems never arise — or, at the very least, are quickly contained. By monitoring the equipment, CITTIO makes it possible to intervene before problems arise. For example, a monitoring solution should let management know if the POS terminal is running out of hard disk space before it refuses to complete another transaction.

WatchTower can keep tabs on the equipment and applications likely to be found within the stores, as well as the corporate data centers; it also checks operating systems, software applications, routers, switches and other network components. Moreover, it does this in an automated fashion.

Once a retailer installs the software on its network, the application automatically searches the network to discover all the devices and applications connected to it. This capability is critical, given the dismal success rate of many network management deployments.

In fact, 70 percent of the 750 respondents to Network Computing’s 2007 reader survey indicated that they had never actually finished a network management deployment. While the survey was somewhat tongue-in-cheek, it does highlight the difficulty of deploying large-scale network management solutions.

By automatically deploying across a network, CITTIO’s solutions help its clients avoid complicated, drawn-out installations that often remain partially finished. Once it’s found the equipment, WatchTower studies its operation and notes when performance falls outside prescribed parameters. “It allows stores to get control of all their equipment,” Lerner says.

Reduced deployment time
At the same time, deploying the software is fairly straightforward and quick. Because the applications are configured to automatically hunt across the network for the components to monitor, a 100-store chain can be deployed in a matter of weeks, Lerner says. Moreover, it’s not necessary for IT staffers to physically go to the stores to configure the software, which traditionally has been a large chunk of the expense of implementing monitoring applications.

“The license fee is dwarfed by the cost of flying someone to each store,” he says. “Our automation technology drastically reduces the manpower required.”

The notification can be tailored to various users: the IT staff can get a detailed explanation of the problem and its likely causes, while management can get a dashboard of summary data. Or, a regional manager can tailor the application to show data only for the stores within his territory.

The price of the software can be calculated on a per-store price, based on the number of pieces of computing equipment or the retailer can pay a monthly fee and allow CITTIO to host the software itself.

While CITTIO wouldn’t fix any problems its software discovers, its employees could handle the software administration and make sure that information on out-of-compliance systems is transmitted to the appropriate employees and managers.

No matter which pricing method a retailer chooses, the return on investment results from the retailer’s enhanced ability to detect potential problems and take corrective action before customers and store operations are impacted, says Lerner. This can reduce unplanned outages and downtime, which cause delays and frustrated customers and lead to abandoned purchases. This should also reduce inaccurate or late store reporting of financial results.

Greater uptime also increases the productivity of employees, as they’re less likely to be sidelined by malfunctioning systems. This has become increasingly important as more sales associates use technology not only to ring up sales, but also to check stock at neighboring stores and enroll customers in loyalty programs.

Customization capabilities WatchTower, which Mervyns uses on a license basis, monitors available disk space, as well as CPU usage and memory. “Our team can be pro-active when problems appear” and decide if it makes sense to add hardware or software or to remove some applications in order to remedy the problem, Guisti says. Without CITTIO, the process would be “much more manual.”

More significantly, the administrator would be more likely to miss potential problems, given the range of operations he or she would be expected to keep tabs on. A manual approach also would leave the system administrator with less time to focus on day-to-day support.

Guisti and his team also are working with CITTIO to use some of the customization capabilities available within WatchTower. For instance, they may program WatchTower to monitor some applications that are specific to Mervyns.

Mervyns uses WatchTower to monitor store-level equipment and devices, says Cheong, who oversees the POS VLANs (virtual LANs), each of which includes about 35 devices, from POS terminals to access points.

Because deployment of CITTIO began just a year ago, it’s too early to determine the degree to which system downtime has been reduced, Cheong says. However, because he and his team are able to log into the system to view information on the servers’ operations, they’re more likely to notice potential trouble spots and take preventive action. Previously, no one at headquarters would know of any problems in the field until a store manager called.

Cheong’s next task will be to put the POS terminals onto the CITTIO application. As stores are added, the number of devices under CITTIO’s watch will leap from about 177 to 4,000 – turning that single pane of glass into a panoramic window.