Press Releases
3PAR Delivers For E-Commerce Grocer FreshDirect
Fast-growing New York City Grocery Leverages Utility Computing for Seamless Operations
Fremont, CA, US - October 26, 20043PAR®, the leading provider of Utility Storage, announced today that FreshDirect (http://www.freshdirect.com), the largest and fastest growing on-line provider of fresh foods in New York City, has purchased the 3PAR InServ® Storage Server for its mission critical web-based ordering system, and a second InServ Storage Server to handle its corporate and production applications. The Queens-based firm, which regularly prepares and delivers over 8,000 products to over 100,000 customers, selected 3PAR over other vendors for performance, scalability, simplicity and ability to support always-on operations.
"Our IT is now poised to enable the expansion of our business," said Myles Trachtenberg, Chief Technology Officer at FreshDirect. "3PAR has helped us retain orders and enhance our customers' experience by creating a faster, more available environment."
FreshDirect, with over $100 million in revenues, has flourished by leveraging e-commerce, distribution and supply chain best practices. Through direct relationships with fresh food suppliers and its own 300,000-square foot food processing facility, FreshDirect provides fresh produce, meats and baked goods at prices 25% lower than that of traditional markets. Within 12 to 24 hours of being placed, orders are prepared and delivered to customers' doors by a fleet of over 100 trucks during a pre-selected 2-hour time window. Over 1 million individual items are prepared and delivered on a weekly basis. FreshDirect's unmatched value and convenience has driven rapid expansion that has placed significant strain on critical IT operations and performance.
Previously, an aging and brittle web architecture was hampering future growth for FreshDirect. Issues with storage, in particular, were causing unacceptably slow web transactions during peak hours. Upgrades and changes to this infrastructure were either difficult to implement or caused excessive downtime. To remedy this situation, and prepare for future growth, FreshDirect set out to create a high-performance and highly scalable infrastructure that could be managed non-disruptively 24 x 7. FreshDirect selected a 3PAR InServ S400 Storage Server with 6 terabytes of capacity as the foundation for a true Utility Computing environment. With 3PAR, FreshDirect has been able to cut web transaction times by 85%, even as peak usage has tripled.
In addition to 3PAR, other key technologies implemented by FreshDirect include Egenera, VMWare, NetScaler, and BladeLogic. Together, these elements combine to deliver an efficient, easily managed and always-on e-commerce infrastructure for FreshDirect's Linux-based application environment, which consists of Oracle 9i RAC, BEA Weblogic and Apache.
"We believe customers need to move toward Utility Computing infrastructures," said Stephanie Balaouras, Senior Analyst at the Yankee Group. "This means the ability to scale out storage seamlessly and cost-effectively."
FreshDirect purchased a second InServ Storage Server with 6 terabytes to consolidate general corporate applications, including Microsoft Exchange and file services that were spread across a large heterogeneous direct-attached storage (DAS) environment. Demonstrating its consolidation value, the second InServ Storage Server was later easily upgraded with an additional 6 terabytes to accommodate SAP test and development, and a "sortation / pick and pack" application. This upgrade was non-disruptive and took less than an hour to complete. "Changes like this used to require a professional services engagement and took up to a week to complete," said Trachtenberg. "With 3PAR, we can adapt much more rapidly and cost effectively."
"3PAR Utility Storage is ideal for growing e-commerce companies," said David Scott, CEO of 3PAR. "Our customers appreciate that they can grow into their storage platform, maintain high service levels, and provision in a pay-as-you-grow fashion."About 3PAR
3PAR® (NYSE: PAR) is the leading global provider of utility storage, a category of highly virtualized, tightly clustered, and dynamically tiered storage arrays built for utility computing. Organizations use utility computing to build cost-effective virtualized IT infrastructures for flexible workload consolidation. 3PAR Utility Storage gives customers an alternative to traditional arrays by delivering resilient infrastructure with increased agility at a lower total cost to meet their rapidly changing business needs. As a pioneer of thin provisioning — a green technology developed to address storage underutilization and inefficiencies — 3PAR offers products designed to minimize power consumption and promote environmental responsibility. With 3PAR, customers have reduced the costs of allocated storage capacity, administration, and SAN infrastructure while increasing adaptability and resiliency. 3PAR Utility Storage is built to meet the demands of open systems consolidation, integrated data lifecycle management, and performance-intensive applications. For more information, visit the 3PAR Website at: www.3PAR.com.
