FedEx signals 'zero mainframe, zero datacenter' operations by 2024
- Reference: 1657031928
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/07/05/fedex_to_close_all_datacenters/
- Source link:
At FedEx's [1]investor relations day held last week, CIO Rob Carter said FedEx had long been a leader in technology, claiming the company was first to introduce tracking, handheld computers and automated package sorting. The next big movement in tech, Carter went on to say, is migrating all of its systems to the cloud.
"We've been working across this decade to simplify and streamline our technology and systems to create value all along the way by improving productivity, security and reliability," Carter said on the call.
[2]
Along with closing its remaining datacenters, FedEx said its closure plans will eliminate the 20 percent of its mainframe fleet that's still in operation, with an eye toward "zero mainframe, zero datacenter" operations by 2024.
[3]
[4]
Trying to ascertain the size of FedEx's datacenter fleet is difficult – the company isn't forthcoming on how many facilities it has. According to datacenter tracking site Baxtel, FedEx only has one: Its Colorado Springs location, which was [5]opened in 2011 .
Nor is it easy to determine how many FedEx employees work at its datacenter(s) – the company [6]said it employs over 600,000 people, but only breaks those numbers down to its business units, not to location or job type. The Register has asked FedEx for comment but has yet to receive a response.
[7]
FedEx has been looking at its cloud options for at least three years, and in 2019 partnered with colocation company Switch to [8]host its western US operations at Switch's Las Vegas datacenter. The package company signed a 10-year contract with Switch, and while it's unclear what role Switch will play in FedEx's all-cloud future, that contract means it is likely to plays a part in it.
[9]Amazon delivery staff 'denied bonus' pay by AI cameras misjudging their driving
[10]Robocall bagmen admit they collected millions of dollars from victims scammed by bogus IRS officials, lenders
[11]Delivery drones: Where are they when we really need them?
[12]FedEx execs: We had no idea cyberattack would be so bad. Investors: Is that why you sold $40m+ of your own shares?
One service that might not see a large piece of FedEx's future cloud spending is Amazon Web Services; the company [13]decided to go with Microsoft when it launched its FedEx Surround analytics platform in Azure in 2020. That move came after a 2018 incident in which an AWS S3 silo belonging to FedEx and containing more than 120,000 customer records was discovered to be l [14]leaking data to the internet . FedEx uses [15]Oracle's cloud services as well.
We've asked the parties currently involved with FedEx's cloud operations if they can share information about the near future of their work with the shipping company and will update with any responses. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://investors.fedex.com/news-and-events/investor-news/investor-news-details/2022/FedEx-Presents-Deliver-Today-Innovate-for-Tomorrow-Strategy/default.aspx#:~:text=The%20Investors%20Meeting%20will%20be,materials%20presented%20during%20the%20meeting.
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YsRgHuvygZXwrX32oo6JBAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YsRgHuvygZXwrX32oo6JBAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YsRgHuvygZXwrX32oo6JBAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://newsroom.fedex.com/newsroom/fedex-unveils-green-data-center-in-colorado-springs/
[6] https://www.fedex.com/en-us/about/company-structure.html
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/front&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YsRgHuvygZXwrX32oo6JBAAAAE8&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://www.switch.com/fedex-signs-10-year-data-center-infrastructure-agreement-with-switch/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/09/27/in_brief_ai/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/24/robocall_scam_bagmen/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/30/why_no_delivery_drones_during_coronavirus_lockdown/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2019/09/19/fedex_execs_sued/
[13] https://news.microsoft.com/2020/05/18/fedex-and-microsoft-join-forces-to-transform-commerce/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2018/02/15/fedex_aws_s3_leak/
[15] https://www.oracle.com/customers/fedex/
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: "where it hopes to save an estimated $400 million annually"
And what, exactly, does FedEx think "the cloud" is beyond other people's datacentres...
And they still manage to lose packages and have others delayed "awaiting information for customs" which you've already given them.... multiple times.
Re: "where it hopes to save an estimated $400 million annually"
A datacenter where it can use opensource distributed database rather than paying DB2 licenses on top of the IBM OS licence.
A datacenter where it can buy extra capacity for the christmas rush without having to start pouring concrete in January to be ready for the December delivery of another mainframe.
And if they did their design correctly a datacenter where they can switch between Amazon.Microsoft/Goolge easily to get the best price rather than IBM looking at Fedex's profits and decided what next year's maintenance contract will be.
Call me old fashioned, but
I always cringe at the idea of giving up control of your servers like that. If there's some kind of service outage, you're at the whims of someone else's employees to fix it, you're trusting that they won't exfiltrate sensitive data, and that they aren't just outsourcing the job to some poor sap from India who's effectively held hostage by a visa and likely is thrown into the deep end with training that amounts to being told "don't drown."
Sure, some of those are risks even with your own employees, but you generally have more legal options open to you if you're the employer vs someone else. Plus, if you are hosting things yourself, presumably you have a few admins keeping an eye on the underlings. Even if the contracting company has a few admins supposedly watching the grunts, they're having to keep track of probably hundreds of different clients and it'd be pretty easy for something to slip through the cracks.
"where it hopes to save an estimated $400 million annually"
So, despite it being already openly stated that cloud does not savo you money, you expect to save not only millions, but hundreds of millions, by going to The Cloud TM .
I await the follow-up on how you are desperately trying to waive an enormous bill of $700 million.
Good luck.