It costs a lot to maintain all the different systems necessary to run a retail business. To complicate matters, the systems are distributed so in addition to all the computers at headquarters, there are servers located in the stores, distributions centers, and warehouses. The CIO has to keep these systems up-and-running, tuned to perform, and secure from both internal and external threats. Its a tall task made even more complicated by various regulations.
Staples recently took a step in the right direction by selecting Oracle Enterprise Manager to ease adoption of ITIL and automate compliance controls for PCI and SOX. Retailers that don't already have a comprehensive systems management implementation are probably overspending on IT support.
A good systems management product will monitor systems for hiccups, provide the ability to tune for performance, manage configurations, and collect audit logs -- all from a central console. Today's system administrators need to "manage many as one" if they are to be efficient. So as retailers look to squeeze costs out of their existing infrastructure, they should give serious consideration to systems management.
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