Case Study: Overstock.com achieves scalable, high-performance, reliable e-commerce infrastructure with Brocade

Overstock.com Selects Brocade for Massive Datacenter Overhaul

Overstock.com, founded on Patrick Byrne’s idea to sell excess brick-and-mortar inventory online, grew rapidly from $1.8M in bookings in 1999 to $541M by 2004. As the company expanded its Salt Lake City datacenter and built a new headquarters in 2004, it faced a technology challenge: move from DS‑3 to gigabit speeds, deploy a 10Gb-upgradeable network and a robust wireless LAN, and ensure scalability and low latency to handle daily traffic and 50–70% higher holiday peaks.

Overstock deployed a Brocade-based architecture—BigIron MG8 10‑GbE backbone switches, BigIron/FastIron edge switches, NetIron routers to ISPs, ServerIronXL load balancers, and IronPoint wireless access points—integrated with SUSE/Dell front-end servers and EMC storage. The result was a reliable, high-capacity network with 10‑GbE backbone and gigabit edge connectivity, scalable load balancing that kept the site available during peak periods, secure enterprise wireless for employees, and vendor support that matched Overstock’s growth plans.

Overstock

Shawn Schwegman

senior vice president, technology, Overstock.com