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Walmart Open Sources Its Cloud Platform To Take On Amazon (walmartlabs.com)
Mickeycaskill writes: Walmart is effectively open sourcing its OneOps cloud platform, with the source code set to be uploaded to GitHub at the end of 2015. By making the cloud platform open source, Walmart is taking the fight to Amazon Web Services by giving developers a chance to avoid vendor lock-in. Walmart argues that OneOps has four main advantages: cloud portability, continuous lifecycle management, faster innovation, and great abstraction of cloud environments. The company says that the move should increase competition between cloud service vendors. "We're enabling any organization to achieve the same cloud portability and developer benefits that Walmart has enjoyed,"said Jeremy King, CTO of Walmart Global eCommerce and head of WalmartLabs.
Amazon is a tech company, Walmart isn't. I guess somewhere at Walmart HQ there has been a conversation like that:
A) Damn! Our sales are dropping! Which company has taken our customers?
B) I've heard of Amazon to be successful. Its an internet retail store.
A) Can we buy some "Internet" for us too?
B) Internet isn't bought, its a network for communication.
A) Either way, can we roll it out?
B) We could, but Amazon has a major head start and has much more experience in that field
B) Also, they largely benefit from synergies from their cloud services.
A) We have to get that experience too. And we must get those synergies!
A) We must become better than them, and win them on their own game! We are longer in the business than those computer-kids!
B) Ok, boss.
WalMart and Amazon are fucking retail stores, not tech companies. I'm not trusting them or their "clouds" with my data.
Actually Walmart is a tech company, a pioneer in the field. Technical innovation had much to do with their success. They went digital in the 1970s, automated inventory tracking, electronic purchase orders and payments, data mining on sales, etc. All cash registers were reporting sales to a minicomputer in the back, every fifteen minutes the minicomputer sent the data to headquarters. Headquarters had near real time visibility on product sales and could view this data at various levels from national to regional to state to city to individual stores.
This incredible near real time data is how they got huge multinational corporations to agree to buy into the Walmart digital supply chain, they offered them access to this near real time data for their corporation's products.
They did extensive data mining. Using the behaviors observed to balance inventory between regional distribution centers. Again, automated. Hurricane forecasted for Florida and/or the Gulf. Shipping orders are automatically generated moving pop tarts from mid west distribution centers to Florida and Gulf distribution centers. Their data mining noticed a spike in pop tart sales, among other things, when hurricanes are forecast.
Walmart computerized their inventory, supply chain, ordering and payments back in the 1970s. This includes automation, inventory at a store gets to a certain level and a shipment order is automatically generated to resupply from a distribution center. Distribution center gets to a certain level and excess is transferred from other distribution centers or a digital purchase order gets sent to the product's manufacturer.
Cash registers were networked to the minicomputer in the store, reporting all transactions. Stores were networked to HQ via satellite and reported sales every 15 minutes. HQ did massive data mining at national, regional, state and local levels. Optimizing store inventory for local tastes. Again, 1970s.
Their data mining was such that recognized patterns were added to the automated supply chain management. For example when hurricanes are forecast pop tart sales spike in florida and the gulf. Their software monitors weather reports and when hurricanes are forecast they automatically ship pop tarts from midwest distribution centers to florida and the gulf.
Amazon followed where Walmart pioneered. Don't be so sure Walmart can not pose a serious threat with respect to logistics and supply chain management.
Walmart is the biggest employer of H1B visa workers year after year.
Foreign workers are not locked in a store, but they are locked in terrible work conditions, low-end housing and basically economic slavery. Meanwhile Walmart is getting in the cloud business to allegedly help customers avoid vendor "lock-in". The audacity of those people.
lucm, indeed.
Yup, for many years the Walmart data warehouse was the largest in the world. They were the first to hit 1TB (in 1992!), 10TB, 100TB, and 1PB.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.