FedEx flying high on wireless technology

How's your IT and network department organized?

I'm part of FedEx Services, a services company under the FedEx umbrella. I report to the CIO, Rob Carter. We service the air and ground divisions of FedEx, our capital expense budget is roughly $1.5 billion per year and we have 5,000 employees worldwide. In the States alone, we have eight major locations, and we have more around the world. My role is to support the technologies and infrastructures, the networks, the computer operations, the field service and scanning systems. I have peer senior vice presidents that oversee the applications development and other aspects of IT.

FedEx has been exploiting wireless technology since long before most of your customers had ever heard of cell phones or PDAs. How did FedEx get its start in wireless?

The focus on instantaneous communication and customer access drove us to be a very large wireless user right off the bat. Back in the late 1970s and early 1980s, we were already very heavy into the wireless world. We first used the voice-dispatched networks, and then later on, we converted those to digital networks. For our pickup and delivery systems, we established two-way communications to the courier. Those systems both presented information to the couriers about what they needed to do, and delivered to our order-entry system data about package flows that we needed to back up in our databases.

We use our SuperTracker handheld scanning device, and now we have on-finger ring bar-code scanners for package information as well. We're currently in the process of rolling out 10,000 access points for our 802.11b WLANs. We have about 600 WLANs throughout the company. We've had 802.11 WLANs for about 5 years and upgraded to 802.11b 18 months ago.

Tell me more.

We had to start building sort of a wireless network, but of course in those days we called them radio networks. So we built a radio network and radio staff and acquired radio spectrum around the U.S. for our use.

As time marched on, it was clear that we could be much more efficient with spectrum and the way we managed our workforce if we made that a digital transmission. Then we created a system called DADS [digitally assisted dispatch system] that allowed the dispatchers to send text messages back and forth to the couriers.

We had a very quiet network from the couriers' point of view because the information could just show up on the CRT monitors, almost like e-mail. Because it's inconvenient for our couriers to run around with a bag of quarters and find pay phones to get in touch with the office, we went ahead and put voice communications on our vehicles. And we were the first to do that.

We got into wireless simply through necessity for our business. We were creating systems that were very effective in using the radio technology at the time. As time has marched on, we've become more sophisticated, and the world became more sophisticated. Wireless now is obviously very pervasive, and we're just using all that knowledge to leverage forward.

If you were to look at FedEx as a business, basically we are a series of networks that all interconnect. We're airplane networks, we're truck networks, we're courier van networks and we're telecommunications networks, and they all intersect at various points so we are probably the ultimate network company. What we do very well is networks.

Aside from being a wireless pioneer, what other major network challenges have you faced?

Mostly the size and scope of our network is the thing that makes it challenging. Just the sheer number of endpoints and the worldwide aspect keeps us working. If you think of the scale, all those threats and failure opportunities are magnified, and just the energies to manage the breadth of it, is probably the uniqueness of the FedEx networks.

Are there any revenue-generating aspects to FedEx's networks?

We don't resell the network. But the applications we run that are network intensive have been a tremendous asset - one of the obvious ones is www.fedex.com, which saves costs in dealing with customers and generates new business. It's another one of those easy-to-access, very responsive parts of the company. We have more than 15 million tracks per month on the site. And thousands of packages per day shipped across the fedex.com site. We've had that in place since 1994, and we were the first shipping company to have an online option for customers.

What about the even faster 802.11a products now emerging?

802.11b will serve our needs well into the foreseeable future. 802.11a is being considered for certain niche applications, such as wireless point-to-point bridging at our hubs and other locations that have large bandwidth requirements.

Where's your network headed?

We have a very robust private network that we built up over the past 25 years. Our intention is to move back to the public network arena for a lot of different reasons. We're going to move to a public network structure because the coverage has gotten very robust, the cost has come down and the speed has gone up. We've hit a crossover point where going to the public network just makes a whole lot of sense. We will be looking at 2.5G and 3G networks as they get deployed, and we'll move that into our product family. And the main thing we're going to use those networks for is to move - I call it the edge of the network - out to the courier himself or herself rather than into the vehicle. We'll actually end up saving money and getting more service out of it. Obviously there's a one-time investment we have to make on the conversion side. But it should help with all our customer access issues, and it makes us even more powerful to manage our courier force.

What other projects are on tap?

We're rolling out a next-generation courier device to supersede our SuperTracker that will feature Bluetooth technology and 2-D scanning. We're continuing to deploy wireless deeper into our business functions. Our salesforce will be equipped with wireless laptops and is going to have a lot of 802.11b-type connections.

What's your advice for others rolling out wireless applications?

The first lesson is, you really can't say wireless is just like any other data communication network because wireless, under the best of circumstances and with the most sophisticated providers, cannot guarantee 100% transmissions. With the best system in the world, I could still walk into a building with a lot of steel and won't get a communications path. So any time you're dealing with a wireless solution, you have to design your application to be disconnected for brief periods of time.

It's important that the group implementing the wireless network has some wireless experience, rather than strictly a traditional data network background. There are different physical characteristics to a wireless network than a router network. For example, wireless network designers need to closely consider the surrounding environment when locating access points. If, say, there are lots of cardboard boxes in front of a wall that happens to have an access point on the other side, you won't get decent connectivity. And you've got to design your applications to be aware of the inherent restrictions of wireless systems, such as blips in connectivity. Application developers can write the application in such a way that it won't lose everything if connectivity fails for a few seconds.

What are the major differences between managing wireless and wired networks?

Wireless communications presents its own set of challenges. Everything is triggered off the initial site survey. Understanding the facility, the area to be covered, etc., is critical to designing a good wireless network. The number of access points, placement, choice of antenna and everything that goes into designing a good wireless network are all based on the initial survey.

Another challenge is managing user expectations relative to wireless. No matter how hard you try or how well a wireless network is designed, it's not the same as a traditional wired network and will never provide what a wired network does. Very early on we define coverage requirements and level set expectations. After the installation is completed, we take [radio frequency] measurements across a grid of the covered area, then do periodic follow-ups with the users to make sure the networks are still meeting their needs.

Do you have an integrated management system or separate tools for your wireless and wire-based networks?

Most of our management tools and resources are separate, but we're looking at platforms that will allow us to integrate the network management and support function for both types of networks.

How has the company addressed wireless' security shortcomings?

We've done two things. We have a vice president of information security who addresses the security interests of all our data. We have a whole staff whose mission in life is to protect FedEx from any kind of intrusion or attacks, and wireless just falls into the same area as we develop our wireless network and move more to the public arena. We're also making doggone sure we never impact a customer with any kind of security issues, so we're very careful. We connect with many of our customers, and it's a major effort we're always addressing.

Considering the size of FedEx's network, what issues keep you up at night?

I always worry about if we've missed a single point of failure, and that's from both the physical and application sides. We routinely review our architecture - everything.

Another thing I always think about is making sure that IT at FedEx is creating value-added applications. Because if my job is perfect and we don't have any cool applications running, then it's of little value. I work very closely with the business users and the other IT applications developers so I can feel confident that we're making sound decisions on our features and functions, because we have a finite resource and we're trying to do the right things with it.

I know FedEx deferred its air shipments to its ground force in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, but did the network experience any problems during or after the attacks?

Actually it worked very well during all that. We were able to transport packages to our ground network from our air-force networks. Our mantra during that, from an IT perspective, was to make sure all of our systems were working perfectly through the disaster. Because we felt that if FedEx was working well, that was the best thing we could do to help the Sept. 11 problem.

How does FedEx ensure business continuity from an IT perspective?

We have a multi-data-center strategy. There are three major data centers and a couple of smaller ones. We've got two data centers in Memphis that are 35 miles apart, and they are very robust. Then we have one in Colorado Springs, Colo., that is very robust as well. These are all Class A data centers with high security. They are all interconnected with fiber links or super high-speed communications links, and they are manned 24-7. We just spread the risk out.

Has FedEx changed its network strategy much since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks?

The network strategy itself we have not changed. We're just looking and rechecking all our security efforts. I call it Fort FedEx. We're double-checking to make sure we have this very well-orchestrated network design that is recoverable and extensible.

How do you motivate your staff in such a down economy?

We focus on cultivating a positive work environment, fostering teamwork and giving employees an opportunity to explore new and fascinating areas of technology and how they can be applied here at FedEx.

What was your first PC?

I'm going to date myself now. You've probably never even heard of an IBM model 30. That's the first thing I started programming on, and my first PC was a floppy disk drive, NEC version of an IBM PC. It only had 16K in it or something like that.

When was your first experience on the Internet?

Other than basic searches I had done, I got kind of hooked on eBay. I'm restoring an old car, a 1962 Corvette, and I was looking for that special wing nut or something, and I started using eBay to do those kinds of searches. I guess I'm mostly an eBay junkie from time to time.

What kind of computer network do you have in your home?

At home, I've got a little wireless LAN, with a laptop and three PCs, and they're all networked together. And I have them hooked back into the FedEx network. It's just a little consumer-grade network hooked into a router that goes back to the FedEx network. So when I am at home, I'm still at work - which I'm not saying is a good thing.

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