Problem

When BI-LO Stores acquired Winn-Dixie Stores Inc. between 2012 and 2015, there were several challenges that arose as a result of the acquisition. One of the major problems was that BI-LO's Data Center needed to be recreated on the floor of the Winn-Dixie Data Center in Jacksonville, FL, and named GVLII. Additionally, BI-LO store traffic needed to be moved to Jacksonville Data Center (GVLII), six Winn-Dixie Warehouse Networks needed to be decommissioned, and the acquired BI-LO Store Circuits had to be upgraded to T1.

Moreover, network devices had to be configured, staged, and shipped to convert BI-LO store networks to the existing Winn-Dixie store network design. Acquisitions such as Piggly Wiggly and Sweetbay stores also required configuring, staging, and shipping network devices for conversion into Southeastern Grocers' network design. Lastly, store restructures such as open/close/banner changes added complexity to the project over the years.

Solution

To tackle these challenges head-on, a team of experts with diverse skill sets from BI-LO and Winn-Dixie was formed and worked collaboratively towards achieving our objectives. We began by recreating BI-LO's Data Center located in Mauldin, SC on the floor of the Winn-Dixie Data Center in Jacksonville, FL, and named it GVLII.

We then moved BI-LO store traffic to Jacksonville Data Center (GVLII) and then upgraded the acquired BI-LO store Circuits to T1-access while configuring, staging, and shipping network devices for converting BI-LO stores into the existing Winn-Dixie store network design. We also configured, staged, and shipped network devices for converting Piggly Wiggly and Sweetbay Stores into Southeastern Grocers' (SEG) network design.

Process

While the new GVLII was being constructed by the Network Design and Infrastructure teams. I worked closely with BI-LO's data center team to inventory vital operational circuits and plan with our AT&T SE team to move BI-LO's OC-12 SONET ring traffic to Winn-Dixies OC-48 SONET ring. Once new circuits were established from the BI-LO stores to GVLII store traffic was moved to GLVII by failing over to the primary circuit to the new GVLII head-end circuit. This was repeated across the BI-LO banner until all of the stores primary and secondary were connected to GVLII.

While the BI-LO store network design was different than Winn-Dixies', the infrastructure had a lot of similarities, Cisco routers, switches, and access points along with a WLC at the store. The Design team built router, switch, and WLC configurations for all of the BI-LO stores. The NOC team would then configure, stage, and ship new network devices on a per-store basis following the Conversion team's schedule. The NOC would coordinate the shipment arrival according to the main project field tech's scheduled arrival. On conversion day the NOC would remotely talk the tech through; the new switch(es) install, UTM install, new switch port VLAN assignments, and push new startup configurations to the required network equipment.

After a reboot of all the network gear by the remote tech, the NOC team would confirm connectivity to all infrastructure devices remotely. Verify network and end device are connected to the correct VLAN switch ports, and troubleshoot any issues. Then ensure the store's wireless network came back online and connected to the new network.

Results

Once completed all retail stores consisted of the same network design. This provided the Network Operations Team with the ability to support a unified network infrastructure for future projects and acquisitions. With the unified retail network troubleshooting network issues became more efficient as stand-alone or one-off scenarios were limited to a few locations instead of each location being designed differently.

Team(s)

This project required members of every department, technical and non-technical, from both companies to work closely with each other to complete this project successfully.

BI-LO and Winn-Dixie Data Center Integration