John Lewis is trying to tame its software suppliers, to
cease their "unfair" licensing practices, put an end to
"upgrade-itus", and block their hypnotic influence on its IT
department.
The retailer wants to put software suppliers in their place so
it can get on with its attempts to virtualise its servers. The
virtualisation project has got snarled up under some "stubborn
resistance", said Gary Hird, technical strategy manager at John
Lewis, and software suppliers are to blame.
Hird said,"We have got a big bone of contention about
certification of software to work in a virtualised environment
[and] we want software licensing models that are fair.
The issue is so great that he called on the whole industry to
tackle it."We are trying to get suppliers to support software on a
virtualised platform. We perceive a number of our major software
suppliers as lagging behind. It is in their interest in some ways
to lag behind. We would contend it is not in their long-term
interestto do that," he said.
Hird refused to name names, but said he was asking major
suppliers not to penalise it on software licensing for running a
virtualised environment.
"We need them to recognise the world is going virtualised and to
not price things unfairly. If we want to virtualise a server but
face a larger bill for the software, we want to make sure our
software bill doesnot go up," he said.
In cases where a supplierwanted to charge more money because its
software had been loaded onto a virtualised server supporting more
applications on a larger host of processors, and its licence was
charged according to the number of processors on which the software
was loaded, John Lewis was having to avoid virtualising.
The retailer's virtualisation plan hasassimilated over half its
X-Series servers andall its P-Series servers. Its mainframes were
virtualised years ago. It is trying to virtualise the rest as part
of a strategy to
cut costs and embrace green IT, a subject on which Hird has
written a book. The plan hasalso broughtthe end to an era of beefy
computers running demanding software.
Thinking of thin clients
"We also want to avoid upgrade-itus, by which I mean the
tendency to have a vicious circle of new hardware that is driven by
new software and so on. We want to challenge thecycle we seem to
have got into for the past 15 years or so of upgrading everything
every couple of years," he said.
That plan might even involve the retailer shelving its 16,000
PCs and replacing them with thin client computers. "It seems to
make sense to go thin client," he said.
Its PCs would normally be up for a refresh in a year, but he
said that wouldnot happen this time. About 40% of its estate is
five years old, 37% is one to three years old and 23% is four years
old. John Lewis would normally replace its PCs after five or six
years. But it is asking what they can be replaced with, and whether
the IT department might support the retailer's growth plans "more
cheaply than we have in the past".
Thin client had many advantages, he said. They were more green,
less expensive, had lower support costs, easier installation, lower
maintenance, better security, and allowed more mobility. The IT
department had shown a switch to thin client could work
technically, and there was a goodcost case. But it still had to get
"proper user hearts and minds buy-in". It would try todo this by
trialling the technology.
Getting more control of its IT assets meant more than squeezing
costs, however. Hird said he was trying to "combat" the "negative
influence" his software suppliers had on his IT department.