September 25, 2000

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Web-Site Scalability
One-Stop Access: Maintenance, Repair, And Operating Supplies

By Jean-Christophe Cimetiere

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Designing a fully distributed and transactional system from scratch is certainly the best solution, and this is exactly what TotalMRO.com did.

TotalMRO.com is the latest E-commerce initiative launched by W.W. Grainger Inc., which offers one-stop online access to maintenance, repair, and operating (MRO) supplies. TotalMRO.com is available through business-to-business E-commerce platforms such as Ariba's B2B Commerce Platform and SAP's Business-to-Business Procurement product.

TotalMRO.com was implemented with participation from major MRO distributors whose annual sales represent about $12.5 billion or 3.5% of the overall MRO market (estimated to be $350 billion). TotalMRO.com chose BEA Systems Inc.'s WebLogic Server and Enterprise JavaBeans technology for the implementation of its application.

"We selected WebLogic Server for its ability to meet our technical and business requirements," says Mark Benyovszky, chief technology officer of

TotalMRO.com. "Moreover, BEA's track record in high-volume transaction processing environments will enable TotalMRO.com's technology solution to more easily scale to the anticipated transaction volumes."

The complete architecture includes a high-speed Internet connection and redundant Cisco routers coupled with Cisco Local Director (network load balancing). Several Sun Microsystems' servers host the WebLogic application server, as well as a cluster for the Oracle database.

TotalMRO.com's performance benchmarks were conducted during the development phase to ensure its viability.

Return to main story, "Business Drives Web Usability."

Illustration by John Howard

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