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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.
lower prices.
That point holds true for Wal-Mart, but since Amazon has always been 100% Internet based (and especially after they started making Kindles) they do count as a tech company. Not saying you should trust their cloud, though.
You were critically hit for no damage. The bruise will look nice, and maybe the scars will make good party talk.
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 has enough money they can just do it like Microsoft does. Keep throwing money at it. Piles of cash have always made up for innovation and experience.
Forgive me for being ignorant, but if I download this 'Cloud platform', precisely what can I do with it?
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Dude, go back to the cows.
Walmart is first and foremost a tech company . Their computerized logistics chain is the essential technology that enables them to be a multinational behemoth rather than a typical regional discount store chain. This has been true for decades.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Fail.
Walmart is a tech company that happens to sell (a lot of) stuff. Walmart Information Systems Division is 3000+ people, including some highly trained developers, network and systems engineers, and information security specialists.
It is one of the best tech firms I have worked for in my 35yr tech career. Don't believe me? Spend a week in Bentonville, AR (and another week in San Bruno, CA) and talk to some tech folks.
Walmart is doing something like $300,000,000,000 per year in sales now, yet I can buy something at a Walmart store, immediately go to a different store for a return and when they scan my receipt the order comes up immediately. All the while about $9500/second in transactions is being dumped into their database.
Yes, they are a technology company.
Amazon isn't as big but they're still doing amazing stuff, also a technology company.
Do you have ESP?
I wonder if their IT staff get locked into the datacenters at night.
THIS!! a thousand times. People have no clue how tightly controlled their logistics chain is and believe it or not they have some very high tech built in-house to get that beast to be as efficient as it is.
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 went digital in the 1970s. Cash registers on a LAN to the mini in the back. The mini on a WAN to HQ. HQ getting complete register transaction histories from all stores every 15 min. Massive data mining to optimize store inventories for local preferences. Automated store ordering of products from a distribution center (DC), automated DC ordering of products from manufacturers (or transfer from another DC with excess inventory). Walmart pioneered this stuff. Its part of how they crushed the competition.
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.
Walmart runs OpenStack (as can be seen here: https://www.openstack.org/summ... ). It will be interesting what they want to open source, maybe they have built a management layer on top of OpenStack or even their own "distribution".
"Is it friday yet?"
Amazon was an expert of getting the widget to my door without me leaving my couch.
My time isn't free. Add up the time and fuel it takes to drive to Walmart the time it takes to shop Walmart and the time it takes sometimes just to check out. It's cheaper for me to have Amazon deliver a box of toilet paper exactly when I need it than to remember (and forget) to get some at Walmart.
Amazon's figured out the 'last mile' to the customer. Walmart still puts that on me to get it from the end of their supply chain. Amazon makes sure it gets to my door.
I'm waiting for someone to release reusable shipping containers. I should be able to schedule deliveries of products to my house not stand in line in my 'free time'.
No! Their workers can go get a fucking education and get a job that pays them a living wage just like I did. When i first came to this country I worked 3 jobs (BK in the afternoons at 3.65/hr, back when minimum wage was 3.25/hr, McD's opening in the morning at 4.25/hr, and washing cars on the weekend) and put myself through school at night while working those 3 jobs because I made the determination at that time that I wasn't going to come all the way to America to be making anywhere near minimum wage when i'm 40