New datacentre crucial to Tesco's online strategy
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a case study from ComputerWeekly New datacentre crucial to Tesco’s online strategy
a case study from ComputerWeekly
Streamlined datacentre
will drive Tesco’s future
Retail giant’s clicks-and-bricks strategy will be made possible
by a £65m datacentre in Watford, writes Bill Goodwin
Tesco has reserved up to 30,000ft2
of space in the Sentrum datacentre.
Below: Coolers on the roof of the
Watford datacentre
Supermarket chain Tesco sees its future in bricks and clicks – the combination
of digital technology, the internet and traditional supermarket stores.
It is developing technology that will allow customers to scan and pay for their
groceries with mobile phones as they shop, or have a single item delivered to
their door at the click of a mouse.
The retailer plans to deliver these innovations not just in the UK, which accounts
for the lion’s share of its business, but in a growing number of Tesco outlets in
the US, Asia, and Eastern Europe.
To support these ambitious plans, Tesco is investing £65m in a state-of-the-
art datacentre that will provide the infrastructure to power its clicks-and-bricks
strategy.
The high-efficiency datacentre on the outskirts of Watford will cost between 25%
and 50% less to run than Tesco’s existing datacentres.
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It will allow the retailer to save millions of pounds per year in energy costs
and management fees within three years – a welcome boost for Tesco, which By the numbers
reported its first drop in profits in 20 years in October 2012.
Capacity
The datacentre will host the infrastructure for Tesco.com and the group’s • 5,000ft2, expandable to 30,000ft2.
management information systems and food replenishment systems, with more
infrastructure to be added over time. Power
• 1.2MW, expandable to 6MW.
It will provide the flexible capacity to meet the needs of the business over the
next 10 years, Tomas Kadlec, Tesco IT director for infrastructure and operations, Efficiency and cooling
told Computer Weekly. • Tier 3 rated.
• 1.2 PUE, compared with 1.6 PUE to
“This is a major building block to deliver technology to our customers and 2.0 PUE for older Tesco datacentres.
colleagues, and to expand our dot com and banking business,” he says. • Cold aisle cooling.
Tesco has secured a highly flexible, competitive deal with datacentre specialist IT infrastructure
Sentrum. • 350kW of Teradata racks, running
the group reporting system.
It will allow Tesco to scale its IT resources up and down, depending on business • Over 1,000 physical server blades,
needs, while paying only for the space and energy it consumes. 85% virtualised, running the UK
retail and dot com infrastructure.
• Bank infrastructure runs on HP
Datacentre strategy Blades and IBM AS400 servers,
running AIX and Open VMS.
The project has its origins in 2010 when Tesco turned to management • IBM 2196 mainframe, running
consultants, Deloitte, to help it develop a long-term datacentre strategy. Tesco’s food replenishment
system.
“The main problem was that we needed more space. The second problem was • Over 6PB of disk storage.
that we didn’t know how much space we needed. And the third problem was
that it felt like we were paying too much for the space we had,” says Kadlec.
Deloitte worked with Tesco to create a map of 21 datacentres in the UK, US and WAN roll-out
Europe, charting how much Tesco was paying per volt of power in each.
planned for 2013
The review revealed wide variations in the costs and the efficiency of each
datacentre. It recommended consolidating to a smaller number of much more Tesco is tendering for a wide area
efficient buildings. network (WAN) that will allow it to
supply data and voice services to its
Tesco had traditionally built and managed many of its datacentres itself. They international businesses.
were often built next to existing depots and stores.
The project will allow Tesco to provide
But it became clear that a third-party datacentre provider might be a better IT services through, what is in effect, a
option. And Kadlec and his team were under pressure to put together a private cloud computing service.
convincing business case to persuade the board.
The network has three components:
“It was a major cultural change. It required a sign-off from our board because a spine, which provides international
historically we are known not only as a good retailer but as a good property connectivity; in-country networks,
developer,” says Kadlec. which link different stores together;
and the in-store networks.
Procurement began in December 2011. Deloitte and Tesco sent requests for
information to 22 suppliers and requests for proposals (RFPs) to eight. By Christmas 2012, Tesco will be able
to offer IT services, such as merchan-
“We put together a very thorough RFP, defining the scope, the design, the dising and forecasting to its outlets in
requirements of the datacentre,” says Michael Fitzgerald, operations lead for Europe and the US, from its data-
Tesco datacentres. centres in Letchworth and Watford.
Tesco shortlisted two datacentre suppliers, before opting for Sentrum, a And by 2013, says Kadlec, there will
datacentre company that until now has focused on providing services to be a single network covering all 14
financial services companies and investment banks. countries where Tesco operates.
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Tesco’s datacentre uses state-of-the-art cold aisle cooling
“Sentrum seemed to be a lot more flexible in the commercial environment. Its
space was Tier 3 and of the right quality,” says John Winstanley, partner at Sentrum site
Deloitte.
Security
“The challenge was the marriage of flexibility and good commercial cost. They • CCTV monitoring every door,
were very good on both, not just one of those,” he says. power and air-conditioning unit
• Double vehicle and pedestrian
In March, Tesco’s board approved the £65m contract for a state-of-the- gates
art datacentre offering up to 30,000ft2 of space to power up to 6MW of IT • Fingerprint-operated secure
equipment. entrance doors
• Bombproof data hall
Tesco was able to use the knowledge of its own datacentre to secure a highly
competitive price. “Other suppliers might gulp if they knew the figures,” says. Site power supply
Winstanley. • Two independent 40MVA power
suppliers, each capable of
“We had been looking at some of the datacentre space in Asia and we could supporting the site independently
not get anywhere near the price. In the UK, it is a very good price,” he says. • Back-up generators capable of
providing power for 72 hours, or
The deal is unique in the UK because of its scale, says Franek Sodzawiczny, continuously if fuel tanks are refilled.
founder and chief development officer at Sentrum. It is taking a huge area and a
huge amount of computing power, he says. Fibre links
• Fibre from multiple providers are fed
The datacentre uses highly efficient state-of-the-art cold aisle cooling. It has a to the site from three independent
power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.2, substantially better than some of channels.
Tesco’s legacy datacentres, which are rated at 1.6 or 2.0 PUE.
Sentrum provides the datacentre services and buildings, while Tesco is
responsible for supplying and installing the equipment. The retailer has a
separate agreement with HP to manage the hardware.
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The dividing lines of responsibility in the contract are very clear, says
Sodzawiczny. Developing
“There are clear lines of communication and a clear understanding of who does a modular
what which makes for a healthy relationship,” he says.
datacentre design
Under the deal, Tesco only pays for the space it actually uses. That is important
because business requirements might change significantly over the next 15 Faced with ever-growing demands
years, says Jeptha Allen, programme manager for Tesco. for computing power, Tomas Kadlec,
IT director for infrastructure and
“The flexibility within the deal that we have here, both in taking space and power operations at Tesco, wanted to find a
was essential to us, and that is what really appealed to us. None of the other way of managing datacentres more
suppliers really came to us with that flexibility,” he says. efficiently.
“The exercise was how we can stop
Delivering the goods ahead of schedule the ever-growing demand for more
capacity in the datacentre, and how
Tesco had a tight time-window to commission the new datacentre. we can deploy our equipment in the
datacentre in a more structured,
In the event, Sentrum was able to deliver the site to Tesco ahead of schedule, methodical and smarter way,” he says.
said Sodzawiczny. “That comes down to the fact that it was a clear brief and we
had a clear understanding of what was required,” he says The first step was a major refit of
Tesco’s primary datacentre in
The new Watford-based datacentre will operate in parallel with Tesco’s existing Letchworth, Hertfordshire in 2010.
1.5MW datacentre in Letchworth. Working in tandem, they will provide Tesco That meant upgrading and replacing
with greater resilience and better recovery process, if equipment fails. outdated equipment and virtualising
its datacentre servers.
“Historically, the recovery process was application specific, and was built
around restoring data from back-up. Now we are moving more and more into a “I still had equipment from 1996. I
real-time processing world, where we are replicating data across two different had big tape silos, the type you seen
locations,” says Kadlec. in James Bond movies,” says Kadlec.
For a business running a retail bank and a fast expanding web retail business, Kadlec introduced a simple standard
that level of resilience is essential, says Kadlec. “A scheduled maintenance modular design to the datacentre. It
window on a Sunday afternoon on the mainframe was fairly regular in the past. It allows IT staff to expand computing
cannot operate this way in the future,” he says. capacity very quickly – in days rather
than weeks.
With the new datacentre in place, Tesco plans to rationalise its portfolio of 21
datacentres down to a much smaller number. This modular approach allowed
Tesco to move quickly when it
Letchworth and Watford will act as central hubs to provide IT services to Tesco’s transferred its banking systems from
operations worldwide, through what is in effect a private cloud. its former partner, RBS, to its own IT
systems.
There will still be a need for some regional datacentres to meet local data
protection and privacy regulations, says Kadlec. The project will allow Tesco to Kadlec says he was, in effect, able to
reduce its IT infrastructure costs by a quarter – equivalent to several million a take the datacentre infrastructure
year – within three years. developed for the retail business and
deploy it again for banking.
The new datacentre will be between 25% and 50%, cheaper than Tesco’s older
datacentres. “If you walk through the datacentre
today, you see the retail environment
and the bank environment are
Reorganised teams virtually identical.
The consolidation project is providing an opportunity for Kadlec to reorganise “The only difference between them is
the infrastructure teams. an ugly green cage because of
Financial Services Authority
“We had many people solving the same problems in different countries,” says regulation,” he says.
Kadlec. “Now we only have to worry about each problem once.”
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This central approach will allow Tesco to introduce a common set of standards
and services right across the organisation. As a result, Tesco has been able to Tesco’s digital
move to a shared services model much faster than most other organisations,
says Deloitte’s Winstanley. future
“It has a common management and operating model. Globally it has have got Intelligent screens that can recognise
the same team managing all the different companies, in the same way, with the and interact with people as they walk
same common set of standards,” he says. by may be the stuff of science fiction
films, but actually we are not that far
So far, Kadlec has merged the bank and the dot com teams. This year, he plans away from that technology,
to reorganise the infrastructure team in Asia. according to Tesco’s CIO Mike
McNamara.
Kadlec is clear that the consolidation exercise will not mean fewer IT staff. “I
am not under pressure to deliver a head count. I am under pressure to deliver He sees a future when a shopper will
more,” he says. sit down on a digital table, order a
coffee and be able to view recipes
The size of the infrastructure team will be more or less the same, he says. based on his or her shopping list, or
“But it will be full of people jumping up and down with new ideas, rather than watch movie trailers from Tesco’s
reinventing the same projects. streaming video service.
“It’s about making sure we do the architecture, design and first-build once, The retailer is developing a micro-
and then deploy it many times. So I need to completely change the DNA of the delivery service for people who
people,” he says. realise that they are out of a vital
ingredient.
There will be three sets of teams under the new structure – an architect, design
and first-build team; a second team responsible for engineering services and “Our customer who is baking a cake,
operations; and separate in-country teams that will be responsible for deployment. forgets the flour. A couple of clicks
later, the flour is delivered to her
And with the new teams comes a new IT blueprint, which Kadlec calls the three home,” he says.
Vs. “Value – how can we make it cheaper and better. Velocity – how can we
get it faster. And no variation – whatever we deliver is the same across all the Today, you can use our mobile phone
countries,” he says. app to scan a product and add it to
your online shopping list. Tomorrow
you will simply take a photo of it, he
Building Tesco’s datacentre universe says.
Tesco worked with suppliers EC Harris and Red Engineering to provision the In the future, smartphones will act as
Sentrum datacentre, install the cabling and complete the design work. a clubcard and a shopping list, and
will be used by shoppers to pay for
Tesco’s Letchworth datacentre will act as the primary site for banking and retail. their groceries.
It will also host the infrastructure for the international dot com business, and half
of the dot com business for the UK. A total of 1.5MW of IT infrastructure. “When you come into our store, you
will connect with the Wi-Fi and may
Sentrum will provide the infrastructure for the online retail business and any new even get a personalised greeting
business activities. The dot com infrastructure is being rolled out first. informing you that your click and
collect order is waiting for you at the
It includes one of Tesco’s dual IBM z196 mainframes, used for ordering and till when you leave,” he says.
forecasting; UK payroll and HR; and credit card authorisation and settlement.
The second will act as a back-up on a disaster recovery site. “And maybe even a personalised
promotion exclusive to you.”
“We have delivered all the infrastructure that is required to decommission the
first datacentre. We are now in the process of migrating the applications,” says Video: Implenting the plan
Kadlec.
By the end of the year, Tesco expects to have a total of 1.2MW of equipment
installed. “There are other services at we would like to relocate before the
Christmas IT freeze,” says Jeptha Allen.
“Having said that, I don’t particularly want to run before we can walk. I want to
make sure we transition services in an orderly manner.”
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The next stage will be migrating the infrastructure for Tesco’s international
business across to Sentrum. Deloitte’s advice
Kadlec plans to transfer Tesco’s global supply chain management system to the to Tesco
new datacentre and the group management information system.
• Moving to fewer larger datacentres
But it is still business as usual for IT, he says. “We are not saying no new business would significantly reduce the cost
just because we are moving from one datacentre to another. We are actively Tesco was paying to run its
supporting business initiatives and we are preparing for Christmas trade.” infrastructure.
The new datacentre will provide a future proof platform for new IT projects, • Larger datacentres would provide
says Kadlec. One of his favourites is a project to provide free internet access Tesco with the expansion room it
in all Tesco stores. Another is an improved ordering and forecasting system for needed to support the
general merchandising. development of the business.
Kadlec’s next task is to sell Sentrum’s IT services to Tesco’s overseas business • A datacentre consolidation
units. “I already had the first off-site meeting with our CIO from Asia and programme would allow Tesco to
I am starting to actively promote this centre as the platform to build our deliver IT in a standard way across
international business. Sentrum is starting to become the centre of our the business.
datacentre universe,” he says. n
Behind the scenes of the Sentrum datacentre
by Bill Goodwin
I stand in the rain for an eternity before the security guard
appears. Can I see some photo ID?
“You look a lot younger in the photo,” he says, as he leads
me through two sets of security gates to the blue and white
building behind the perimeter fence.
This is Sentrum, an 80,000 data centre on an industrial
estate in Watford. It holds the IT equipment that powers
some of largest financial services companies. Its latest
resident is Tesco, which is busily installing the IT systems
that will power its web retailing and banking business over
the next 15 years.
I was met by Jeptha Allen, Tesco’s datacentre programme might sound dull, but it is essential,” says Fitzgerald. Most
manager, and Michael Fitzgerald, Tesco’s operations lead datacentres do not have enough storage space and that
for datacentres. They took me to a large empty hall, part of means spare parts have to be stored in corridors, he says.
the 30,000ft2 space reserved for Tesco IT systems.
Another room is for unpacking and building equipment. No
The room is bombproof, a relic from a previous resident. packaging materials can be taken into the datacentre itself.
Tesco plans to make good use of it, using it to house the “If you are removing tape from a cardboard box, fibres
servers that will hold Tesco Bank’s sensitive customer data. could get into the environment,” says Fitzgerald.
Tesco has five halls of dedicated space in the building. Security is everywhere – from a network operations centre
Most are empty, but it has a secured a deal with Sentrum, (NOC) fitted with bulletproof glass, to CCTV cameras
to only pay for the space as it is used. monitoring every aisle and doorway. There is a secure
entrance which weighs people as they leave and enter.
The plan is to expand in units of 5,000ft2, says Allen.
Gradually the centre will provide the IT services to Tesco’s Tesco has spent upfront to fit out the datacentre with optical
web operations and in its growing pool of stores worldwide. fibre and copper cabling. That means new equipment can
be installed very quickly. “It’s a 15-minute job to connect a
One room is set aside for storage. “A dedicated storeroom new server, rather than half a day,” says Fitzgerald.
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The fibre converges into distribution points around the The hall contains nine pairs of air-conditioning units, each
datacentre, which allow engineers to patch in new equipment with its own chiller on either side of the server cabinets. The
almost instantly. “It’s a legacy datacentre so we would have to units run in staggered pairs to ensure that each area still
run cable under the floor. It might take half a day to install and receives some cooling if a pair fails. “If we lose half of the air
commission. We have done the hard work upfront. It takes conditioning, the cooling is staggered so we have a lot of
longer to walk into the room than it does to patch,” he says. time to fix them,” says Fitzgerald.
The fibre cable, supplied by Corning, is highly flexible. You Tesco houses servers in medium density cabinets, which
could wrap it around a biro with very little light loss, says consume 6kW each. And there is a high-density area
Allen. The fibres are laid out with smooth curves, but when containing 25kW cabinets, enclosed in its own cooled
space is tight, that flexibility can be very helpful. room. Each high density cabinet can hold 64 blade
Tesco has opted for a modular design. Each set of server servers – four times the computing density of a traditional
cabinets have their own dedicated power supplies – power datacentre.
distribution units (PDUs) - for instance. The arrangement
makes it easier to schedule maintenance. The modular design makes expanding the space simple.
Fitzgerald says he can simply phone Tesco’s suppliers and
“If I make changes to a PDU, it’s only going to affect one set ask for a standard Tesco block. “From the point of picking
of cabinets. I know what is in them and I can talk to the up the phone and placing the order, I can have 200kW of
business and agree a window for the work,” says Fitzgerald. datacentre environment installed in 10 days,” he says.
Every device and cable in the datacentre is colour coded, Previously, by the time the cabinets were designed, and
making it easy to see at a glance what is there, says Allen. orders were placed for cabling, power and cooling
“I can look at a server and see very quickly that it has got equipment, the process would take at least four weeks.
resilient power coming from two resilient PDUs,” he says.
“That’s important because in our early datacentres, Allen hopes to have the dot com services installed by the
auditing is a lot of work. end of October – just before the Christmas freeze, when all
IT work is suspended. Then it’s a matter of consolidating
The datacentre uses efficient cold aisle cooling all the way some of the 21 datacentres Tescos has in the US and
through. The data racks are held in sealed containers, Europe and moving their IT equipment into Watford.
accessible by doors at either end. Cold air is pumped
under the floor and enters through vents to ensure that the “The whole deal was about flexibility. We don’t necessarily
temperature is never greater than 26ºC. know where technology is leading us,” says Allen.
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