Woolworths brings clouds together under a new 'Group Hosting Service'

Woolworths is setting up a new group hosting service that will present its public and private cloud resources to the business as a “consistent operating environment”.

The retailer said today it has engaged Dell Technologies “to bring together its public and private clouds” and to provide the underpinnings of a private cloud environment.

It will also consume some hosted offerings, including virtual desktop and data protection as-a-service.

“With a presence in more than 1000 communities across Australia and New Zealand, we have a vital role to play in meeting the essential needs of tens of millions of customers every week,” Woolworths Group CIO John Hunt said in a statement. 

“To help us better manage this task, we’re working with Dell Technologies to launch Woolworths Group Hosting Service, which marries our public and private clouds into one seamless system.”

The foundation of the hosting service is Dell Technologies Cloud Platform or DTCP, which was launched last year and is marketed as a way to run a hybrid cloud environment.

DTCP is powered by Dell hyperconverged infrastructure and VMware cloud foundation software.

“Through the Dell Technologies Cloud, Woolworths manages many of its mission-critical processes and applications, from the distribution of goods via its Blue Yonder warehouse and transport management applications, and HR and payroll management for 215,000 team members via the Kronos Workforce application,” Dell Technologies said in a statement.

A private cloud, housed across two Woolworths-run data centre facilities in Sydney, is managed by Dell Technologies. 

Woolworths will consume compute from this private cloud infrastructure on a usage basis, taking up what the vendor calls ‘Dell Technologies On Demand’.

“Woolworths [is acquiring] on-premises IT with an as-a-service consumption model,” Dell Technologies said.

“With a better understanding of capital and operating expenses, the retailer can better plan future budget requirements.”

iTnews understands that Woolworths had some legacy Dell Technologies infrastructure and VMware software, but they were not configured as a cloud service.

The retailer is expected to migrate legacy workloads into the new private cloud service.

“Woolworths needs guaranteed systems availability and near real-time data integration across its support offices, stores and distribution centers to enable 24x7 operations,” the vendor said.

“Woolworths also needs the ability to scale applications to meet spikes in demand capacity caused by unforeseen events like Covid-19.”

“With Dell Technologies Cloud as the foundation of its hybrid cloud model, Woolworths has a reliable managed approach for their supply chain, logistics, warehouse management and other mission-critical applications,” Dell Technologies A/NZ senior vice president and managing director Angela Fox added.

Woolworths is known to run certain applications on public clouds, including Microsoft Azure and Google cloud platform.