Drakes' John-Paul Drake, Bob Soang, Roger Drake and Glenn Sutcliffe.
Adelaide-based managed services provider, Nuago has used Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) to replace the ageing IT environment for independent retail grocer Drakes Supermarkets.
The new infrastructure will help support the retailer’s $125 million automated distribution centre based in South Australia in Edinburgh North.
The supermarket brought its distribution in-house and modernised its IT environment in an effort to lower costs and pass those savings on to customers, Drakes CEO Roger Drake said.
The new distribution centre features advanced robotics technology, warehouse management, point of sale and enterprise resource planning (ERP), all to enable the retailer to respond to real-time stock demand.
“Drakes understands the value of its data and the insight it gives into the purchasing profile of its customers. So, it makes perfect sense to ensure that proprietary information is internally retained,” Nutanix A/NZ managing director Lee Thompson said.
“By taking its distribution in-house, Drakes is taking control of its infrastructure and helping drive the future of retail.”
Drakes aims to expand the HCI environment across all stores and wholesale arms, whereby it currently operates 60 stores across South Australia and Queensland, employing more than 6,000 staff.
In the long term, the retailer also has its eye on using the Nutanix Xi IoT edge intelligence platform, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide real-time data insights, along with video analytics, to create new personalised experiences for customers.
It is also considering migrating to the Nutanix AHV hypervisor to support its 250 virtual machines (VMs).
“We’ve seen our warehousing and IT requirements more than double in the past few weeks, and we’ve maintained 100 per cent availability across all of our systems,” Drakes IT manager Phillip Romano added.
“To remain competitive and retain customer loyalty, we need to drive efficiency and create personalised experiences. We see Nutanix and Nuago as key to building the technology and infrastructure we need to do that.”
