In case you were wondering why you haven’t heard much from me since Thursday or so, I came down with the flu while out in LA. Since I’ve always wondered why so many healthy, young people get flu shots, I guess it was about time that I got nailed with the actual flu, not a cold with “flu-like symptoms” or whatever. Thursday night, I had a slight cough which I thought was maybe because of allergies, but by the end of dinner I realized I was really getting sick. By the time I was flying home on Friday, I was running a fever, downing Advil, and trying not to breathe on anyone (which is really, really hard in coach). When I got home, I didn’t eat, just changed and crawled into bed. Saturday morning, fever up to nearly 102 ° so it’s time to see the doctor.
By the way, whoever designed the flu test needs to work on improving it… there has to be a better way to test for the flu than sticking a swab up irritated nasal passages as far as possible. It hurts, it’s uncomfortable, and it sucks even if it is just for a few seconds.
Anywho, the point of the story is that the real, actual flu really, truly does suck. I spent nearly all of Saturday in bed. I had no desire to eat anything at all which, if you know me, is the real sign that I’m really sick. I still don’t have an appetite, actually, and only had something for breakfast because Heidi made me (pills, empty stomach, that sort of thing).
Another random aside, I can’t remember when I last had to get a prescription filled, but apparently CVS can. When I gave the pharmacist my card and prescription, she asked me to verify my address. The address they had was my second place in Boston. I think I lived there in 2000 (the Waltham St. place in the South End, for those of you that know). They knew, at a POS terminal in a store in a different state, what my address was five years ago. I’m assuming they have the attendant prescription data too, perhaps?
The implications are interesting. First, where is the data stored? Centrally? If so, they have some pretty good connectivity because she pulled that up within 5-10 seconds. The next question is how that connectivity is arranged. Do they have a private, dedicated network between their stores and their datacenter(s)? Or do they layer their network on top of the Internet (secured via VPN or similar)?
I’m not expert enough to go into all the tradeoffs, but I know more than enough to know that I would prefer the data be stored in secured data centers with dedicated network security staff. If any of that data is replicated out to the stores for speed or other reasons (I can’t imagine CVS would do this, mind you), all one would have to do is break into CVS and steal that computer. Imagine doing it in a high value location like, say, D.C. or the Financial District in NYC.
Like I said, I can’t imagine CVS replicating out the data, so I’m thinking that it would be pretty cool to see how they manage the connectivity between all of their store locations and wherever they store the data. Do all locations get the same connectivity, how do they manage hardware upgrades across locations, etc. A lot goes into making that kind of information available in a few seconds to the pharmacist filling your prescription.
December 19th, 2005 at 8:47 PM
I wouldn’t count out satellite for the connection to a central database. Some retailer (Walmart? CVS? Walgreens?) leased satellite bandwidth for this sort of data transfer. Became a source of great advantage, since you could fill prescriptions away from home. In the 1980s.
How much would it really cost to store this data locally? It’s a per-store cost, and doesn’t scale any faster than that. But it’s not a great solution.
Do you use a rewards card there? CVS rewards receipts include your current points balance, and a coupon when you exceed a certain balance. If you wanted to hack and test, shop at two CVS’s in rapid succession and see whether your points balance updates. No, you won’t get multiple valid coupons: if they have sent the data out to all stores, then the coupon code waiting for you is identical, and the second one will be just as effective as photocopying your original receipt and running that bar code a second time.
Short answer: such a small amount of data got transmitted in each direction that it’s not a network latency question. Database latency is the real question: how they can get that data so quickly. Probably using the same sorts of online transaction processing databases that the credit card clearinghouse uses during your swipe.
For what it’s worth, every travel agent has SAABRE terminals connected to a much more complicated database for airline reservations. The neat thing is that yes, CVS requires a database solution only an order of magnitude less complicated.
December 19th, 2005 at 10:54 PM
Someone mentioned to me that the prescription DB might actually be shared among many chains.
You’re right that the DB isn’t hard or the performance of it… The logistics of managing and securing the network across all of those stores, though… I wouldn’t want that job.
December 20th, 2005 at 4:47 PM
Cough, cough. Guess what Sujal gave me….