Red Wing Shoes Modernizes Its Data Foundation to Bridge Legacy and Cloud

Founded in 1905, Red Wing Shoe Company produces and sells durable footwear for industrial and lifestyle markets. The company’s mix of cloud and on-prem systems, including its ERP and evolving point-of-sale (POS) network, required a secure and efficient way to move and modernize data without abandoning existing infrastructure.

The challenge: Adapting legacy systems for near real-time analytics

Red Wing’s growing retail and analytics footprint demanded faster data movement between Salesforce, ERP, and store systems. Its existing DBAmp implementation had long provided reliable access to Salesforce data, but the company needed a more automated, multi-connector platform that could scale across both on-prem and cloud environments.

At the same time, the data team was managing 1,000 SSIS packages across the organization to handle extract, transform, and load (ETL) jobs. Each package had to be redeployed whenever a schema changed, creating heavy developer overhead and long lead times for updates.

The challenge was compounded by Red Wing’s field-sales model. Mobile retail trucks spent a week on the road visiting industrial sites, selling directly from laptops, and only syncing data when they returned. Pricing and inventory changes made midweek often never reached the field until after the trip.

Leadership wanted to modernize this architecture without losing control or incurring the high costs of managed ETL services. The team sought a unified solution that supported both its on-prem ERP and its emerging cloud-based POS environment, setting the stage for Microsoft Fabric adoption.

The solution: A unified, hybrid architecture with CData Sync

Red Wing implemented CData Sync as a single integration platform to connect Salesforce, ERP, SQL Server, and Microsoft Fabric. By hosting Sync on-prem, the data team maintained full control of credentials and performance while cutting replication time from several hours to just 15 minutes.

Sync replaced the complexity of all those SSIS packages with a single, automated framework. Schema changes that once required developer redeployment now update dynamically, freeing IT teams to focus on analytics instead of maintenance.

Incremental replication through Sync and its governed Workspaces feature simplified operations for multiple business units and reduced dependency on IT. The platform’s flexibility also allowed Red Wing to become an early adopter of Microsoft Fabric’s Open Mirroring, extending its existing on-prem replication framework to deliver near real-time data directly into OneLake.

Sync also played a pivotal role in rolling out Red Wing’s new EVA cloud-based POS system. The same field teams that once waited a week to sync their laptops now see live pricing and program data every 15 minutes. Updates flow automatically between Salesforce, the ERP, and the POS environment, ensuring the field, stores, and headquarters all operate from the same data.

The results: Faster decisions and a foundation for modernization

With CData Sync, Red Wing established a resilient, future-ready data foundation that connects legacy systems with cloud analytics.

• Reduced latency: Updates that once took hours now complete in minutes

• Lower costs: On-prem deployment eliminated managed-service fees and reduced compute overhead

• Operational visibility: Field and retail teams access up-to-date pricing, program, and performance data

• Fabric readiness: Early success with Open Mirroring proved a clear path to broader Fabric adoption

Red Wing continues to expand its Sync deployment as part of its Microsoft Fabric rollout, using the same hybrid foundation to support future analytics and AI initiatives.