Debenhams has gone live with an integrated datawarehouse appliance that is to replace its existing database. The department store group said it expected the system to reduce IT costs and return data queries more swiftly.

The Netezza Performance Server (NPS) integrates database, server and storage functions in a single server appliance. It is able to deliver replies to data queries faster than traditional systems because information is stored, filtered and processed in one place, said Netezza.

Debenhams will use the NPS system to analyse terabytes of trading data generated by its 120 stores in the UK and Ireland and transaction data from its website.

The retailer had been using an  IBM DB2 database running on a central iSeries platform and Microsoft SQL Server as an e-commerce database. It also used DataMirror's Transformation Server to integrate and replenish transactional data in real-time between its website, call centre and stores.

Debenhams intends to replace its existing IBM-based datawarehouse with the NPS system. It said it expects to achieve better performance and lower total cost of ownership from the system.

IBM said it would not comment on the Debenhams deployment.

Steve Kircher, IT director at Debenhams, said, "Using the Netezza datawarehouse appliance, we can shrink query times. Until now, we have traditionally started loading trading data from the previous week into the data mart every Sunday. This could take the entire day to complete and sometimes into Monday morning. The NPS system is capable of executing this task in a fraction of the time."

In addition to Debenhams, the Netezza system has been adopted by the Carphone Warehouse, Orange and Amazon.