Case Study: Alibris achieves 6x faster searches and real-time inventory updates with SanDisk Fusion ioMemory

Alibris Throws The Book At Sluggish Searches

Alibris, a leading online marketplace for independent sellers of books, music, and movies, was hampered by an overloaded SAN and a single Oracle OLTP server hosting both inventory processing and full-text search. Resource contention caused slow searches and deep database queues, risking stale inventory views that could cost sales, but budget and latency constraints ruled out a simple SAN upgrade or disk-based replication.

Alibris deployed Fusion ioMemory ioDrive cards on two dedicated search servers and replicated the inventory database with virtually no latency, allowing the search application to run separately. The change delivered 6x faster searches, eliminated inventory queuing and SAN maintenance from the search layer, increased search capacity 3–4x, and reduced load on the SAN—improving customer experience, conversion, and operational efficiency.

Alibris

John Shearer

Director of IT