Scenario
At Lojas Renner do Brasil, the main network equipment connecting business units was slow and instability, generating constant failures in accessing the systems. The slowness also impacted other companies in the group, such as Lojas Camicado. In addition, constant user complaints have generated escalations in the company’s IT management and management.
The slowness was associated with the Network Core Switch high processing power, located in São Paulo Data Center. The equipment, which was consuming 80% of the processing, was responsible for connecting four Multi Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) links, three system servers used by the Distribution Centers and network devices throughout Brazil.
Strategy
Renner already had CAPEX (capital investment) for new equipment purchase. However, through a CIOs indication, Renner sought the services of a company specialized in Network Tuning. When it was hired, Nap IT had the challenge of identifying the high throughput root cause of the main Data Center network device, which operated at 80% of its capacity, thus avoiding the new equipment purchase.
Nap IT started its Network Health Check process and, after 16-hour-consulting, identified the slowness source that was related to the network device configuration. With the best market practices application, in line with the Network Tuning experience, the problem was solved and the equipment was changed from 80% to 10% processing.
Network Health Check also found that the Switch was discarding around 60 billion packets, and in a healthy IT environment it is not normal to have packet discards. In practice, it represents information loss that does not reach the receiver and that requires retransmission, causing the main network equipment overhead and, consequently, high processing consumption.
Results
After the Network Health Check, Lojas Renner avoided a new Data Center Switch Core investment, and signaled other improvements that would benefit its data network, making it stable, more secure and available. Datacenter Core Network Switch processing is down from 80% to 10%.
At the consultancy end, part of the investment that would be destined for the new equipment purchase was directed to other factors, such as Network Health Check and Quality Assurance analysis, delivered by other suppliers. The applied solution generated positive results in systems such as e-Commerce, Products Pre-Separation – that run in the Distribution Centers, the Camicado stores SAP, and other used by the financial and payroll.
www.napit.com.br/analysis-of-rede-network-health-check
