Australian Harris Farm Markets Seals in Freshness With IBM Flex System

IBM Corporation announced that Australian fruit and vegetable retailer Harris Farm Markets has selected an IBM Flex System solution to help support its business growth and reduce IT costs and complexity.

The solution will boost the performance of its critical systems including its ERP system to bolster Harris Farm Markets’ commitment of offering its customers the freshest quality produce possible through its 23 stores across New South Wales.

The IBM Flex System deployment underpins a broader solution from business partner Hands-on Systems designed to support Harris Farm ‘s continuing growth for at least ten years. As part of its emphasis on scalable efficiency, the solution will reduce Harris Farm ‘s data footprint by up to 80% through real-time data compression; and optimize application performance using IBM’s ‘easy-tier’ functionality, which automatically transfers load between high-performance HDDs and SSDs during intensive periods of operation.

"Harris Farm ‘s reputation rests on our ability to offer the freshest quality produce possible," said Simon Maizels, CIO, Harris Farm Markets. "By optimizing our ERP system with state-of-the-art hardware performance, the IBM Flex System will allow us to build on that reputation by offering us unprecedented capacity and response time when managing our supply lines, analytics and automatic stock replenishment systems. Additionally, the solution will enable us to grow our new online delivery service which we plan to expand to the Sydney metro area in 2013."

Working with Hands-on Systems, IBM will provide Harris Farm Markets with a customized Flex System which will include an IBM Flex System Enterprise Chassis; two IBM Compute nodes; and an IBM Storwize V7000 storage system.

"Even before designing the solution, we were confident that IBM Flex System would provide Harris Farm with unmatched performance and potential for future growth," said Earl Paras, Hands-on Systems. "The adaptability and scalability of the IBM Flex System range fit Harris Farm ‘s long-term IT growth and quality-assurance strategy perfectly."

Flex System will replace Harris Farm’s existing IBM systems configuration to meet projected requirements for storage and applications. The solution is expected to be delivered by mid-January 2013.