The PeerDirect Retail Ramp-up (R2) programme bundles technology and services to enable retail organisations to deploy distributed applications that allow individual stores to operate independently, with fully functional applications, without requiring constant connectivity to the head office.

Rick Parry, MD of Progress Software SA, says the programme is centred on PeerDirect Distributed Enterprise, a suite of products based on patented, bidirectional heterogeneous replication technology that enables decentralised deployment of business applications.

"PeerDirect-enabled applications improve the productivity of employees and store managers by ensuring that their critical retail applications are continuously available, even when disconnected from head-office systems," says Parry.

He adds: "The Distributed Enterprise suite of applications can boost worker productivity and improve business continuity by providing remote workforces with access to critical business applications, while bypassing some of the productivity pitfalls associated with traditional replication techniques and offline technologies."

With the R2 programme, individual store locations can operate their point-of-sale, back-office and radio frequency identification (RFID) applications independently from central office systems.

By insulating stores from network outages and slow response times caused by the network latency associated with traditional centralised application deployment, retailers can ensure operations are never disrupted by poor system performance, resulting in greater store revenue and improved customer service.

The PeerDirect R2 programme helps retailers and retail ISVs transition their applications to distributed architectures. It includes a proof-of-concept phase, including an independent return on investment analysis, customer integration services and special pricing on PeerDirect Distributed Enterprise.

PeerDirect Distributed Enterprise is based on patented technology that allows automatic bidirectional data synchronisation between any combination of databases, including products from Oracle, Microsoft, Progress, IBM, Sybase and Informix, as well as the PostgreSQL open source database.

It also provides native Linux support, meaning that retailers and ISVs have the option to deploy their applications across a pure Linux infrastructure, further reducing costs.

"Decentralisation is critical to retailers, because stores must be able to serve customers and remain productive, even if network connectivity goes down," says Parry.

"Additionally, point-of-sale systems today serve as general-purpose computers running human resources, inventory management, RFID and other applications. By using PeerDirect to distribute data across all locations, companies can ensure that employees always have access to these important applications. This results in more responsive customer service and improved profitability across all store locations."