Slashdot Mirror
Sears To Convert Old Auto Centers Into National Chain of Data Centers
1sockchuck writes "Sears plans to convert dozens of Sears Auto Center stores into a national chain of server farms, saying it wants to be "the McDonald's or Starbucks of data centers." The strategy is an evolution of Sears Holdings' previously announced plan to turn old Sears and Kmart stores into IT centers. Instead, it will focus on the more than 700 Sears Auto Centers, which include many stand-alone cement buildings on mall perimeters. Ubiquity Critical Environments, the data center arm of Sears, will team with Schneider Electric to turn these sites into data centers. They'll use repeatable modular designs to add power and cooling infrastructure, targeting at least 23 smaller cities where there currently aren't many options for IT outsourcing."
I think it's commendable that Sears is trying something new instead of trying to sue its way out of irrelevancy. Whether or not it will work remains to be seen, though...
"We at Sears hold substantial real estate with high retail value. So we're going to turn it into something that is best located where nobody else wants to go, since that's where taxes and traffic are lowest."
Wait, what?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They only take Discover though.
I used to buy a lot of stuff from Sears. My shed and garage look like an advertisement for Craftsman. Sadly Even their tools have dipped in quality since being bought out by KMart. I know a few people who were pissed that they received a "made in China" replacement tool for one that was "made in the USA". I'm not as hung up on that. But when the original tool lasted for several decades and the replacement a few months, there's a problem.
The stores were dirty and disorganized the last time I was in one, which hasn't been for several months. In my area they also started closing at 7:00 or 8:00 pm, which has caused them to lose my business on several occasions. I'm not sure why anyone would trust their data in a place that they will never see when they can't even make the public areas of the store presentable. It's kind of sad to watch them die a slow death.
With questionable bandwidth.
A small server farm 10 miles away seams a bad compromise between local servers and a bigger data center.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
It was over when kmart bought them. Instead of getting kmart prices and sears quality. We got kmart quality and sears prices.
>Most of their internal systems are still green-screens, FFS!
So it probably works.
The POS in my wife's yarn store is text mode (python+curses).
It makes it a heck of a lot easier to maintain and you can log in from anything with ssh.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
"Most of their internal systems are still green-screens
and that's bad..why?
Have a system that's custom, specific, easy to enter data, and doesn't change is a good thin for data entry.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Will these Data-centers defraud their customers like the auto-centers did?
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/23/business/sears-auto-centers-halt-commissions-after-flap.html
Sears has been dead to me for at least 15 years, and it's not due to their irrelevancy. They have destroyed the public's trust in them with very long series of scams and deceptions. Remember the craftsman lifetime unlimited warranty on tools? Try getting them to fulfill that now... they just tell you they don't make that part anymore and offer you a coupon for a new wrench. Fuck sears, they should have died in the 80s.
You need three things to set up a server farm (apart from the servers and people to manage it..)
1. A Building with lots of floor space.... Yea, An ex-auto repair building could do for that. Check..
2. Connectivity to the internet... Uh, going to have to spend money on that one.. NO check..
3. Electrical power, backup power, cooling, security infrastructure? Uh on, we don't have that either... No Check... But you'd have to spend money of all this anyway.
I don't think this will work out all that well for them. All they have is floor space that is likely pretty expensive if it is located near any major retail but it will be fixed in size. They won't be building new buildings here or expanding by adding more stories. They won't be saving any money doing the conversion from auto repair stalls to server racks because they'd have to do that anyplace else they wanted to set this up. What's going to kill them is the network infrastructure, unless they don't care about reliability and have SLA's for their service that matches. Getting redundant high bandwidth links to these buildings could be expensive, if they are not already near high speed network connections. Comparing their costs to their competitors, I just don't see this working out. Their competition will be working on much larger facilities, located much closer to network infrastructure with lower cost structures and less limitations on their building sizes. Sears may be getting the building for free, but their other setup and operating costs will be higher.
About the only way this is going to pay, even marginally, is if they can use their unique locations to provide points of presence for services like Netflix or Amazon video to cache content locally or something along those lines. Other than that, I just don't see this working out.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Jumped the shark.
Or have malls been giving sweet deals to the big end cap stores?
Many mall owners are desperate. No new enclosed mall has been built in the US in the last ten years. (American Dream Meadowlands in New Jersey doesn't count; after two bankruptcies and a roof collapse, they're "on hold".) There are hundreds of dead malls in the US. If you have a use for mall-type space that doesn't have to be near customers, there's plenty of space available.
What's wrong with the green screen? Costco uses iseries/as400 pretty heavily on the back end. I work at a hotel that uses an iSeries to run it's hotel system and came from another that ran mutiple hotels on it.
Guess what? It just works. ZERO unplanned downtime. Can't say that about the windows and unix based systems like Micros and Opera.
I am going to guess at most larger retail the network is less than critical. I worked for a big box retailer for a couple years. I was writing financial software for them not store systems but I interfaced with the store systems developers and operations people a lot because obviously for financial cost control tools and stuff we needed lot of information about what was happening in stores each day.
The network isn't critical. Each box store has its own AIX cluster that hosts everything needed to support the registers, price guns, time clocks, etc. It manages all the stores inventory etc. A few times a day the mainframe sweeps up sales history, inventory levels, whatever demand adjustments the local manager has keyed in, selling exceptions, time clock info needed for payroll etc.
The store can run with the network down for a considerable period of time. About the only customer facing thing that might not work is the gift registry kiosk. Most employees would never notice anything was wrong either. Now after a couple days things might start to get interesting demand info won't be transmitted so you won't get restocked, you may be nearing a payroll window etc.
If its happens connections are down or expected to be for a long time the stores GM knows how run a job that will put all the information on LTO tape, and it can get couriered back to HQ if connectivity can't be restored.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Sears generally owns the properties, it doesn't lease them.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Apparently the other articles were not read about the fact that Sears outright OWNS most of their space across the country. They are turning buildings they all ready own outright into data centers. And not just auto centers either but retail stores they've closed.
Tell me what you believe...I'll tell you what you should see.
Disclaimer: I work at a Sears store (Well, while i'm finishing college, at least- I'll be an designer/engineer before long. )
I read about this a few weeks ago in an investor press release. It's a nifty idea for sure, but I feel like they're shooting themselves in the foot a bit. There are a *lot* of people who seem to rely on those auto centers, and it definitely brings foot traffic into the stores. People seem to love buying a set of tires, getting a ridiculous amount of reward points back, and then spending it on clothing, or tools and what have you.
I also really question if the back-end infrastructure exists for them to actually do this conversion to data centers as planned. I mean, they can't seem to get better then a 1 Mbps DSL? line to the store I work at (that EVERYTHING, far as I can tell; payment processing, computer terminals for training and paperwork, etc. is tied to) and just that alone seems to cause all kinds of sluggishness on the systems there. I mean, when a 2 minute training video takes 10 minutes to buffer, something just isn't quite right.
There's other issues as well with the IT infrastructure, I think the POS terminal is from 2004-ish, and the software functional, if the DOS style interface slightly archaic. Inventory management, again late 90's era Palm-OS based devices, which I really question how they're still getting repair parts for....
That said, they ARE trying to upgrade equipment. I know they're attempting to phase out the 90's era equipment and replace it with IOS devices (Which actually work rather well, kudos to an IT guy somewhere), but again our particular store doesn't seem to have that upgrade prioritized, for reasons even the regional manager doesn't understand. Heck, even a few stores are experimentally trying full-on RFID tagging. I truly wish I could do more to increase efficiency, but as a cashier, I'm rather limited in what I can do.
I'm sorry the last Sears store you visited was a total mess- I try to to the best I can in my area (mens clothing, lol) to keep things clean, but it's often a losing battle. We're understaffed, if for no other reason then the pay at Sears simply isn't competitive compared to other retailers nearby. For instance, Sams's Club across the street is $9 USD starting, meanwhile we're looking at minimum wage, with no opportunity for an increase.
I hear you about the tools as well- the American made stuff definitely had better quality control. Some of the wrenches and ratchets still are USA made, but I think globalization has been causing that to die a slow death. That said, lifetime warranty is lifetime- If you want to bring in a set of your grandpa's old, rusty craftsman wrenches and trade them in for new ones, You're more then welcome too.
It's been reported that the value of the real estate held by Sears Holdings is greater than the stock-market value of Sears Holdings itself. How can that be?
I've wondered exactly how "valuable" a dead KMart or Sears store really is. After all, what else can you turn it into? The more successful big-box folks like Wal-Mart and Home Depot already have their own big boxes. Plus, KMart and Sears stores typically are in older locations that are in retail decline. For example, the Sears Auto that's closest to me is outside a large indoor mall that's nearly vacant. And the KMart across the street from it currently is in the process of closing.
So what do you put in a retail location that nobody wants to shop at anymore? A data center, of course. Seems like an innovative idea.
However, it remains to be seen whether this will work as a business concept. For example, I assume access to network infrastructure is important. But if it does work, it would "unlock" the value of Sears' real estate that otherwise has little value.
Best of all, if a server rack ever needs to have its oil changed or its muffler replaced, it can be lifted at the touch of a button.
No, it's stupid. But here's what they should do: spin them off into 501(c) 3's and turn them into solar-based (and other) charging stations for electric autos. Use this to start a new brand. Gently and carefully test and enter the brand into your e-stores. Oh why is it stupid? I'm not sure. Probably better to turn those sites into Dr. Clinics, or blood-test labs. Get away from work to go to the Dr. and go shop!
In some ways I think data centers have gotten out of hand and created a market for less intensive, more retail-friendly versions.
I get that there's definitely a need for all the security and triple-redundancy that high end data centers provide. But I also think there's definitely a market for a less complex version that maybe doesn't have the kinds of security or redundancy that big operations have. Not zero redundancy or zero security, but a less involved version -- maybe less peering, less security, one generator instead of two, etc.
I work in SMB consulting and there's a certain number of clients who host their own systems in house but could benefit from putting them in a data center, but who don't quite want to pay the costs asociated with the standard model of data center. What they need is a rack with reliable power and cooling and better internet connectivity than they can get from a DSL line + Cable.
A "retail" data center might let them get their toes in the water and solve some short term problems without having to cross the Rubicon into "big time" datacenter use.
The most apt comparison I can make is Snap Fitness vs. Lifetime Fitness. Lifetime has more and better equipment, trainers, a pool, tennis, etc. But some people just want to lift weights and run on a treadmill.
Sad Really, Sears used to stand for something and unfortunately bad management and ineffective reaction to the marketplace has left them in the position of closing for good. I stopped shopping there permanently after a problem with an appliance, that had the service package and was still under warranty, wouldn't be serviced by them for weeks. They just couldn't get us an appointment. Much of what they sell you can get online from other vendors with better service and for better prices and that unfortunately will be the undoing of a lot of these chains so for me good riddance!
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Do they have a clue what they're getting into?
They might have the real-estate... but where the heck are they gonna get the fiber built to these facilities, and electrical infrastructure required to run them reliably? Huge capital expenditures....
Aren't all the small businesses moving into the cloud?
Is there really an underserved niche for more server farms, all across the country?
It seems to me that Sears and KMart have been taking turns going bankrupt since I was a kid.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
What the HELL are you talking about? Haven't you ever heard of CREDIT CARDS?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Those failed over to pots lines in the back room. Transparent to those at the register mostly but likely a little slower.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html