WHSmith storage revamp paves way for IT update

High-street retailer begins storage infrastructure overhaul

WHSmith is reviewing its IT infrastructure strategy following successful completion of the first phase of a storage overhaul.

The retailer has revamped the storage provisions for its newspaper and magazine distribution business, and in doing so has created a template for updating its infrastructure and disaster recovery strategy across the company.

‘The initial project was to overhaul storage in WHSmith News, because our existing storage was coming to the end of its life and licences,’ said Rob Wilson, WHSmith News chief technology officer. ‘So we took the opportunity to look at this part of our infrastructure as a commodity.’

The News division worked with consultant Capgemini to install a three-tier, pay-as-you-go storage architecture from vendor EMC. Now high-performance storage devices, disks and tape manage and back up 21TB of data every day.

The unit also installed a storage management software environment and EMC’s OpenScale pay-as-you-go billing system.

The News division has halved its annual costs, enabled continuous daily archiving and significantly cut backup times.

This first phase will pay for itself a year earlier than the three years originally envisaged, and has allowed the retailer to become an application service provider (ASP), using the up-to-date WHSmith News storage environment to offer services to other companies.

‘We are now able to flex with the business needs and provide ASP services, which we were never able to do before,’ said Wilson.

‘Part of our future plan is to grow the ASP environment. A lot of synergies can be gained, and the second part of the phase is to take on the more complex Retail and Travel environments.

‘We are reviewing the technology in our data centres, and the outcome of that will enable storage and internal disaster recovery that will match the performance needs across every business.’