Faster firewall helps retailer speed Web transactions

Computerworld - Although some online retailers kept holiday shoppers queued for nearly 15 seconds while their Web transactions were processed, Jcrew.com rang them up in an average of just over 4.5 seconds, according to performance measurements conducted by Keynote Systems Inc.

The transaction performance achieved by the online unit of New York-based J. Crew Inc. was partly due to a new firewall system that the retailer had its Web hosting provider, Digex Inc., deploy prior to the start of the holiday rush, said J. Crew CIO Paul Fusco.

Based on J. Crew's experience, Laurel, Md.-based Digex last week announced that it will make the firewall system, which is built around technology from Espoo, Finland-based Nokia Inc. and Redwood City, Calif.-based Check Point Software Technologies Ltd., available as a service to other corporate users.

Although firewalls can help to maintain security during e-commerce transactions, they can also slow down communications between shoppers and online order processing systems, said Matthew Berk, an analyst at Jupiter Media Metrix Inc. in New York.

For example, Fusco said, J. Crew "ran some simulations where we choked our old firewall." That result, along with projections that more of the company's catalog sales will eventually be moved online, prompted J. Crew to test three new firewall systems last year. Fusco wouldn't name the other products tested.

Fusco said that during the latter part of 2001, J. Crew's online transaction volume increased by more than 30% compared with the same period in 2000. But the company reduced its average transaction processing time, according to Keynote's measurements - a result that Fusco attributed primarily to the new firewall.

San Mateo, Calif.-based Keynote said Jcrew.com was among the top four of the online retailers it checked for transaction speed during the holiday season. The other sites were owned by Plano, Texas-based J.C. Penney Co., Seattle-based Nordstrom Inc. and eToys.com, which is owned by KB Holdings LLC in Pittsfield, Mass.

Holiday Onslaught

J. Crew had Digex install Nokia's IP740 firewall appliance in September so it would be ready for the onslaught of online holiday shoppers, according to Fusco.

The IP740, which is made by the Nokia Internet Communications unit in Mountain View, Calif., is a hardware device that integrates Check Point's FireWall-1 software.

Berk said special-purpose firewall appliances such as the IP740 can often increase performance compared with installations in which firewall software is installed directly on servers also running order processing applications.

But the kind of setup being used by J. Crew isn't cheap. Digex said the high-speed firewall service costs $3,755 to $7,450 per month, as much as 40% more than its standard firewall offering.