Cisco Managed Solution Improves Grocer's Debit/Credit Transactions

METRO was finding itself dealing with increasingly unstable communications links for the tens of thousands of transactions conducted each day. If service failed in a store, sales could not go through, and that store was losing over 70% of his tendering mode until the telco vendor could re-establish service.

The main goal was to replace the legacy communication links for POS and credit/debit card authorization with a solution that provided improved stability, redundancy, and increased performance. METRO wanted a solution that would allow for independence when it came time to select an ISP for individual stores. METRO management considered a number of firms for the implementation, including Infra-Solutions, which had already created network solutions for credit and debit processes for some others retailers. The final decision was between Infra-Solutions and two major telco firms.

"We needed to implement a new solution in 239 stores, and it was my responsibility to uphold the 'telco neutral' strategy, and to make sure that the right ISP vendor was chosen for each store," says Jacques Couture, a vice president for METRO. "Infra-Solutions won our business because they had the strongest plan to uphold the neutral position of telco ISPs for our different stores."

Infra-Solutions, operating out of Quebec, is a Cisco® Authorized Reseller that is entirely dedicated to the transport of secure IP data. The company provides for its clients secure, reliable, and redundant data-moving services.

"Regardless of the data transport requirements of a client, we can help ensure that any IP data reaches from point to point over a Virtual Private Network (VPN) or a private corporate network," says Denis d'Ambroise, president of Infra-Solutions. "By working with Cisco as our standardized routing and security partner, we can stage locally and ship globally, and have a VPN-based or corporate private network up in the time that it takes to connect the ISP or dedicated link into the end router." From that point, any Infra-Solutions client can move its data and know that the Infra-Solutions team is monitoring and managing their environment. The Infra-Solutions network will use any ISP connection, regardless of the technology and supplier, and will build the VPN network over those links. Its target client is the commercial/retail space, anywhere from one up to several hundred sites.

"Our unique business proposition allows us to leverage debit/credit POS via a managed WAN," says d'Ambroise. "So while Infra-Solutions is a managed WAN provider, we recognized how we can provide real value-add by providing transport for debit and credit purchase along with our WAN functionality. In this space, some things are very complicated, and others are fairly routine. We take the complicated pieces and make them routine via a managed, fixed-cost bundle to reduce operating costs, improve services, and remove dependency on internal resources."

The Infra-Solutions system allows the client to select the best technology and ISP in a given region, thereby improving reliability and stability. And because the price of the Cisco ISR is bundled into the monthly service fee, that cost is not an issue to the client. Infra-Solutions really provided the perfect fit for what Couture and METRO were looking for.

Infra-Solutions started the METRO project by performing a review of the existing architecture, both LAN and WAN, in the stores. The team then proposed a detailed architecture to deliver real-time monitoring and real-time support and provide a major increase in functionality. The architecture was then validated with the client.

Infra-Solutions could deploy a centrally-located, managed network based on an ISR (Integrated Service Router) platform, giving METRO the ability to add more services at the network edge as needed. For instance, if METRO decided that they wanted to add digital signage capabilities, the Infra-Solutions infrastructure could easily support that. By deploying its managed VPN solution, it would deliver the infrastructure through a centralized location, stay telco-neutral, and allow METRO to evolve the network without rebuilding it. Infra-Solutions could provide for METRO an end-to-end Cisco solution, based on a Cisco 1811 router with wireless capabilities, and a managed firewall at the network edge.

Couture chose to test the solution at 10 franchised locations to check its reliability and stability before approving a complete rollout to the initial 239 stores.

The Infra-Solutions system can transport all types of partner or supplier data, including debit and credit transactions, thereby eliminating the need for traditional communications methods such as dial-up connections, "datapac," or private WAN links. It provides stability and reliability through a redundant infrastructure, and is flexible to accommodate any number of different telco vendors. The initial deployments for ten stores in the Ontario area satisfied METRO that Infra-Solutions had the architecture and technology in place to meet its POS and communications needs, and then deployment to more than 220 more stores has been done..

"We used to be locked into a specific service provider even if it did not provide the best service in a particular area," says Couture. "Now when it is time to choose a provider for a specific store, we can find the best provider for that location. That increase in stability means fewer sales lost because of a connection going down."

Couture also finds it very valuable to have Infra-Solutions managing and monitoring the network. The Infra-Solutions tools perform real-time monitoring with real-time alerts, with the possibility of multiple escalations depending on the severity of a problem.

"Our fully managed service means that we are responsible for helping ensure network availability and problem resolution for our clients," says d'Ambroise. "Yet we want to maintain a very transparent approach with our clients. METRO or another client may have access to the Infra-Solutions monitoring tools if they want it."

Although the deployments are still under way in the Quebec area, Couture already sees that the solution from Infra-Solutions is less expensive than what METRO had before. D'Ambroise and his team knew the pricing in the market and based its pricing for Metro on the volume of deployments to deliver a very competitive price.

"Our number-one objective was to provide METRO with the required stability and infrastructure, and then to reduce operating costs," says d'Ambroise. "METRO is one of the largest grocers in Canada, and they took somewhat of a risk in working with us, a fairly small and new company. We wanted to make sure that we took care of them in every way possible." Couture is pleased with the results. The technology designed and managed by Infra-Solutions is responsible for processing more than 32,000 transactions per day. Stability, reliability, and functionality have improved, and are saving money. -Cisco