Tesco speeds up web shopping with Microsoft

Online supermarket is among the first to use new database technology

Tesco.com has become one of the first users of Microsoft’s new database technology, to help maintain the performance of its web site.

The online retailer offers new internet customers a facility to create a ‘favourites’ shopping list using historical store purchase data recorded as part of the Clubcard loyalty scheme.

But the firm’s database was struggling to meet a 60-second upload target under the strain of processing 892 million rows of transactional data taken daily from the Tesco mainframe.

‘It can be daunting, especially for first-time online customers, to trawl our 20,000-item grocery catalogue to prepare their first order,’ said Tesco.com IT manager Nick Lansley.

‘But the stability and availability of Tesco.com favourites was in jeopardy. The main reason for this was the sheer size of the data sets we were having to process.’

With more customers accessing their favourites on the site every day, the database had to be taken down for up to 12 hours a day for maintenance.

‘It is a key differentiator,’ said Lansley. ‘If the experience isn’t fast enough customers will go elsewhere.’

The company installed a beta test version of SQL Server 2005, reducing maintenance to four hours a day. And a new tool, SQL Server Integration Services, has made transfer of data from the mainframe much faster.

Tesco.com will now begin migrating to the full version of the Microsoft software, which was officially released this week.

Lansley says the new product’s online indexing ability could eliminate maintenance completely, helping to maintain customer satisfaction with Tesco.com by ensuring the availability of an up-to-date favourites list.