Microsoft Virtualises US Store Giant’s Workloads

Microsoft announced today that Target Corporation is using Microsoft’s Hyper-V and Systems Centre technology to virtualise the machines running its core business-critical applications.

At the Microsoft Management Summit 2011 in Las Vegas, Microsoft announced that Target is running business-critical workloads for all its retail stores on 15,000 virtual machines using Microsoft virtualisation and management technologies, giving its IT department greater agility and economies of scale. The second-largest discount retailer in the US, Target has virtualised inventory, point-of-sale (POS), supply-chain management, asset protection, in-store digital media and more on Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Microsoft System Centre.

Targeting server footprint reductions

“Target’s investment in Hyper-V is a result of the strong technology partnership between our two companies,” said Jeff Mader, Target Technology Services vice president, in a statement. “With Hyper-V, Target can reduce our stores’ server footprints without sacrificing the mission-critical application performance that contributes to a superior retail experience for our guests.”

Based in Minneapolis, the retailer operates 1,755 stores in 49 states and operates 37 national distribution centres. Earlier this year, Target also scaled its deployment of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V to every US store in the chain. Applications, ranging from Microsoft SQL Server 2008 SP1, SharePoint 2007 and Exchange 2007 to third-party, line-of-business software, can now be deployed and managed more quickly, with 8,650 fewer physical servers to maintain, power and refresh.

Microsoft said Target also has implemented the Microsoft System Centre management platform to manage and patch more than 300,000 endpoints, ranging from servers and PCs to mobile inventory devices and POS registers. System Centre provides the automation, insight and data to help ensure Target guests can quickly find the products they need at the lowest possible cost and check out without delay.

Virtualising systems at scale

“Target is just one example of the kind of large-scale deployments we’re seeing with Microsoft Hyper-V and Microsoft System Centre,” stated Brad Anderson, corporate vice president of the management and security division at Microsoft. “Particularly as organisations are contemplating cloud computing, they find comfort in knowing the Microsoft platform can virtualise and manage all kinds of applications – Microsoft’s, a third party’s or homegrown – on a massive scale.”

Target and other Microsoft customers and partners will be onsite at the Microsoft Management Summit 2011, taking place from 21–25 March. More details on Target’s use of Microsoft virtualisation and management are available as a case study on the Microsoft website.