Boscov’s consolidates with Linux and IBM

Boscov’s Department Stores LLC, which operates 35 department stores in Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York and Maryland, is moving its e-commerce systems onto a single, Linux-based IBM server, the company announced. It will be consolidating a number of functions from 44 servers running the Windows NT system.

Boscov`s will initially move its print and file server workloads to the IBM z900 and plans to move its e-commerce and database applications to Linux on the mainframe and replace four web servers with IBM’s WebSphere Commerce Suite Pro Edition for Linux for z900.

"A mainframe running Linux is a winning solution for our business," said Harry Roberts, chief information officer for Boscov`s Department Stores. "Over the last several years, we`ve added one server per month to our server farm. This meant adding a new server administrator for every 10 servers. The increasing complexity and difficulty of backing up the large and growing server farm was becoming a major concern. "

IBM says while a typical configuration of 750 Sun servers costs approximately $620/day in electricity to run, a single z900 -- running the same workload -- costs only $32/day. Furthermore, says IBM, the average server farm requires 10,000 square feet of floor space compared with only 400 square feet for a single z900.