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 Solid Foundation For The Home Depot Network To access a gif file of the Centerfold graphic, click here. It may take some time to load in your browser! By Mona R. Litt The Home Depot is the place to go when you're making renovations. But how does the retailer keep tabs on thousands of employees nationwide while also keeping track of every hammer sold? The Home Depot maintains a solid and redundant high-speed ATM network that connects all 500 stores throughout the United States and Canada. "Our greatest challenge is knowing what's run ning on the network at any given time," says Dan Haumann, The Home Depot's manager of network systems. "Once our employees have a connection, they can run anything over the network without contacting me or my staff." More than 10,000 employees use the network during the business day. The largest network segment is the Store Support Center (SSC) in Atlanta. Approximately 2,500 workers use the centralized environment for accounting and maintenance. The 155-Mbps ATM system provides the backbone for all store locations. Departments use 10-Mbps Ethernet, and the entire network runs TCP/IP. 3Com Corp.'s CELLplex 7000 and SuperStack II Switch 2700 switches, along with 3Com's Transcend Enterprise Manager, comprise the high-speed ATM LAN. The SSC data center uses Hewlett-Packard Co., Data General, Tandem and Novell servers and IBM Corp.'s ES 9000 mainframe. The headquarters resides on a three-building complex, with buildings within a quarter-mile of each other. Fiber connects two of the structures, creatin g a diverse route for the network to travel. One more building is planned to open by May 1997, extending existing dual ATM links to be set up on every floor for additional redundancy. The ATM network provides room for the 20 percent to 25 percent annual growth increases The Home Depot experiences, according to Haumann. The Home Depot plans to expand its intranet by 1998. "We need to find how to present the information in the best possible way," Haumann says. The company has an intranet Web server installed, which maintains a document library on the network, so employees can gain access when necessary. The retailer's Web site lets customers access information about store locations, annual reports and investments. Lotus Notes offers employees access to discussion databases containing issue lists and staff meeting details. People communicate with one another without the constant need to meet in person. The SSC staff uses videoconferencing to reduce travel expenses and lost time because of staff meetings, and still have face-to-face contact. Many tasks are accomplished by logging on, rather than boarding a plane. |
Updated January 10, 1997 |
