LANs in this network will answer to the mainframe; Sears Technology manages one logical, SNA network - massive - Sears Technology Services Inc - company profile - Cover Story

Software Magazine, July, 1991 by John Desmond

Sears Technology Services, Inc. is moving to client/server computing in a mainframe Systems Network Architecture (SNA) context.

The Schaumberg, Ill,-based firm delivers computing services to all Sears Roebuck department stores, Coldwell Banker real estate offices, Dean Witter Financial Services, Inc. locations, Discover Card customers, Prodigy Services Co. subscribers, and Allstate Insurance Co. insured.

Created in January 1989, STS employs 1,400 to run data processing for the $50 billion enterprise. STS absorbed Sears Communications Networks, created in 1984 to integrate all Sears network operations.

IBM account control is alive and well here. The firm's SNA network has over 285,000 logical units (LU2) defined in a single, logical wide-area network, managed by IBM's NetView. The firm feels well-served by SNA and has no plans to replace it.

The configuration also has: 1,000 local-area networks (LANs), and over 20,000 LAN workstations; approximately 50,000 PCs that may be networked, such as to one of the firm's 325 3745 front-end processors; 74,000 terminals and 40,000 point-of-sale devices. Thus, PCs are still outnumbered by terminals.

To STS, IBM account control translates to not wanting to give up any of the integrity checks and controls it has developed for its computing system ove the years, as its users move to move intelligent devices on their desktops.

"We have refined what's available in the IBM SNA product set, to automate it and manage it to a greater degree," said Gary Weis, senior vice president for STS networking and technology services. "So frankly, when we get involved in some of these newer things, manageability a lot of times is a step backwards."

This enhancing of SNA was borne of necessity. Sears consolidated 10 data centers into three--Schaumberg, Dallas and Co.umbus, Ohio--in a project completed just over a year ago.

STS committed to OS/2 as its PC operating system early on, and thus, like IBM, is endorsing Windows today within the context of OS/2. Following from the commitment to OS/2, the most widely installed LAN server is IBM's LAN Server, although pockets of Novell NetWare do exist.

To STS, network management and operations management are synonymous with IBM's NetView, and STS is committed to managing its LANs centrally. This includes Sears Logistics Services, Itasca, Ill., which has over 650 OS/2 requestors on a Token-Ring LAN; the Dean Witter complex at River Woods, Ill., also a large LAN; the Discover Card complex in Sandy, Utah, with over 500 nodes; the Sears Catalog Co., Chicago, with over 800 OS/2 nodes; and the STS building itself in Schaumberg, which has over 600 Token-Ring connections. Sears plans to install 4,000 more PCs, all running OS/2 2.0, when the offices of the Sears Merchandise Group move from the Sears Tower in downtown Chicago to the suburban Hoffman Estates. That move is planned for the spring of 1992.

Eventually, the firm fully expects to replace most of if not all of its terminals with PCs, and most if not all of those will be networked. Thus, STS is busy prodding IBM to add function to NetView and having its developers fill gaps in the product.

"There's been alot of comment that the Novell/IBM announcement signaled the default win by Novell of all the LAN business out there. I don't hold that view," said Weis. He is convinced that IBM is serious about the LAN management software business. "They plan to continue to offer LAN management products, and to excel at doing that," Weis said.

When a user wants an application written to the Novell application programming interface, STS will support it under the OS/2 version of Novell NetWare.

The company puts a high premium on maintaining central control over its network. "The optimal solution would be a continued enhancement of a centrally architected management solution to the LAN environment, with centrally architected management points of presence," Weis said. "We focus on extending our view of the elements in the LAN from a central view. That is, in today's world, not a perfect thing yet."

The firm uses IBM's LAN Administration Manager, an adjunct to NetView, to report on network topology-related errors and automatically or manually react to the errors. "In handling operations erros, we're probably the furthest along," said Dave Hormel, director of network management software development.

STS is beginning to implement remote control software, via an IBM product called DCAF (Distributed Console Access Facility). "That will allow us to take over a machine on a LAN from a remote site, so we can better diagnose application software-type problems, as opposed to topology issues that the LAN Administration Manager product addresses," said Doug Zitkus, network analyst, LAN support and development at STS.

The LAN Administration Manager product allows a network analyst to identify a LAN problem, but not necessarily to fix it. For this, STS would like to see the product extend to protocol analysis. "It provides alarm indication and operations management, but it does not allow you to go down to the protocol level and do diagnostics," Zitkus said.