A comprehensive product capable of detailed monitoring of applications and networks

Riverbed Technology Korea (www.riverbed.com/kr) announced that it has supplied its integrated performance management solution, SteelCentral, to Ministop (www.ministop.co.kr), the only combo store in Korea that combines fast food and convenience stores.

While carrying out the recently completed 4th system replacement and improvement project, Ministop established an integrated monitoring system for the smooth management and maintenance of its overall IT infrastructure, including systems, networks, and applications. By introducing the Riverbed SteelCentral Suite, it implemented an efficient integrated monitoring environment through clear data and quantification regarding failures and performance issues.

Kim Nae-hyeong, Team Leader of the Ministop Headquarters System Team, explained, “The role and influence of IT are so significant that convenience stores are essentially systems businesses. When a failure occurs, we are unable to effectively respond to the problem because we cannot identify the responsibility among various maintenance companies. Furthermore, problems frequently disappear without the exact cause being identified or determined. The core objective of this system implementation was to improve customer service and employee productivity by resolving these issues.”

Ministop stated that the reason for selecting the Riverbed product was that it is the most comprehensive product capable of accurately identifying the cause of problems and providing specific solutions through detailed monitoring of applications and networks.

"Team Leader Kim stated, 'Silo-style monitoring and analysis had limitations in properly identifying the actual causes of problems, so through integrated monitoring, we were able to significantly improve problem-solving efficiency and establish a reliable and stable environment.' He added, 'For example, in the process of identifying the issue of degraded user response processing times, we discovered through Riverbed SteelCentral's multi-metric chart analysis that the direct cause was pure server processing time delays unrelated to throughput or the number of connections.'"

In particular, Ministop is highly satisfied as the responsibility for the problem and the clear cause have been identified among various maintenance companies.

Team Leader Kim stated, “While we trust the expertise of the outsourcing firms for each sector, there were also concerns about a potential monopoly,” adding, ““After establishing the integrated performance system, we were able to grasp the situation based on accurate facts and take the initiative to address problems. As a result, we were able to track down and resolve over 90% of previously intermittent issues of unknown cause, and in some cases, handle them simply within a few minutes,” he explained.

Recently, I played a pivotal role in the successful completion of the project by identifying and contributing to improvements regarding client terminal performance degradation issues that arose during the web migration of Ministop's headquarters ERP system. This has ultimately led to the alleviation of the burden of system monitoring at the headquarters level, improved employee productivity, and cost savings by preventing redundant investments in IT systems and maintenance.

Ministop plans to build an integrated performance management system that encompasses not only the headquarters but also individual stores in the future, thereby creating an environment where the entire system can be monitored and failures can be prevented.