Microsoft SQL Server
Customer Solution Case Study
Department Store Chain Speeds Reporting,
Saves $600,000 a Year in Technology Costs
Customer: Stein Mart
Web Site: www.steinmart.com
Customer Size: 16,000 employees
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Retail and distribution—
Apparel retailing
Partner: Pragmatic Works
Partner Web Site:
www.pragmaticworks.com
“Querying data is much faster than before with the new
solution based on SQL Server 2008 and SQL Server Fast
Track Data Warehouse. Now, our executives can access
the latest business data on time.”
Ilan Wajsman, Data Systems Manager, Stein Mart
Customer Profile
Stein Mart, based in Jacksonville,
Florida, is a growing department store
chain that offers discounted fashion
merchandise for men and women. The
company also sells home decor, linens,
and shoes.
Florida-based Stein Mart, a large department store chain,
wanted faster data reporting and new analysis capabilities. It
switched from an IBM-based business intelligence system to a
Software and Services
 Microsoft Server Product Portfolio
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise
 Microsoft Office
− Microsoft Office SharePoint Server
2007
 Technologies
− Excel Services in Microsoft Office
SharePoint Server 2007
− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Reporting
Services
− Microsoft SQL Server Fast Track Data
Warehouse
Business Needs
Hardware


HP ProLiant DL785 server
HP StorageWorks MSA2000fc
G2 SAN storage
For more information about other
Microsoft customer successes, please visit:
www.microsoft.com/casestudies
solution based on Microsoft SQL Server 2008 built on HP
technology platform. As a result, Stein Mart runs weekly sales
reports in 3 hours instead of 14 and has reduced its monthly
technology costs by U.S.$50,000. The company also has new
tools for business analysis and forecasting.
Founded in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1902,
Stein Mart is a department store chain with
268 stores in the United States. The stores
specialize in brand-name clothing,
accessories, shoes, and home decor at
prices up to 60 percent lower than
competitors.
As a player in the competitive retail
industry, Stein Mart relies heavily on upto-date data analysis and reporting. For
example, company executives meet
regularly to discuss the latest sales and
inventory reports. “They compare planned
versus actual sales performance and look
at what’s working or not working in terms
of in-store promotions,” says Ilan
Wajsman, Data Systems Manager, Stein
Mart. “It’s critical that they receive this data
promptly for each planning session.”
However, the company’s data warehouse
system, which was based on IBM DB2 and
AS/400 data servers, had performance
issues that often led to data reporting
delays. “There were database column and
row limitations on the AS/400, so we could
only keep a certain amount of data,” says
Wajsman. “Also, because of performance
issues, we couldn’t bring our transaction
log data into the data warehouse quickly
enough.” As a result, weekly data
processing took at least 14 hours. Wajsman
says, “On a regular basis, the data wasn’t
ready for planning sessions.”
Pragmatic Works deployed the solution on
an HP DL785 G6 server and an HP
StorageWorks MSA2000fc G2 storage area
network.
Stein Mart also needed to improve its
business analysis capabilities. “Our business
revolves around merchandise reports that
compare sales data, but we really wanted to
become more analytical and be able to do
data mining, sales forecasting, and analysis,”
says Wajsman.
Now, sales data is loaded sequentially into
partitions in SQL Server 2008 using parallel
loads. The solution also uses data
compression to shrink the company’s
multi-terabyte data warehouse to less than
2 terabytes, which helps increase data
query performance.
Cost was another major issue. The company
was spending thousands of dollars a month
in hardware, licensing, and maintenance
costs to support its AS/400 data warehouse.
Benefits
Solution
In August 2009, Stein Mart began the
process of evaluating business intelligence
offerings. After looking at technologies
from Oracle, Netezza, and Microsoft, the
company decided on a new Microsoft
solution based on Microsoft SQL Server
2008 Enterprise database software, SQL
Server 2008 Reporting Services, and SQL
Server Fast Track Data Warehouse. The
solution also includes Excel Services in
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007.
SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse is a
set of reference architectures for data
warehousing that uses pretested HP
technology and helps increase SQL Server
2008 scalability to up to 48 terabytes. The
solution uses balanced configurations that
can provide up to 200 MB per second per
processing unit core.
Stein Mart worked with Microsoft Gold
Certified Partner Pragmatic Works to
migrate the AS/400 environment to SQL
Server 2008 and to convert data reports
from the old system to the new system.
Using the new solution, Stein Mart
produces sales reports much faster than
before and expects to improve its market
analysis and business forecasting. The
company will also reduce its system
maintenance costs by $50,000 every
month.
Speeds Reporting Processes
Stein Mart can now load data sequentially,
which means data is loaded faster, and
larger data amounts can be queried. As a
result, weekly sales reports are processed
in less than 3 hours, compared to 14 hours
with the previous system. “Querying data
is much faster than before with the new
solution based on SQL Server 2008 and
SQL Server Fast Track Data Warehouse,”
says Wajsman. “Now, our executives can
access the latest business data on time.”
Improves Analysis and Forecasting
With its new solution, Stein Mart now has
the ability to pull transactional data and
analyze its business from end to end.
Using SQL Server 2008 Reporting Services,
for instance, the company can perform indepth business analysis of its transactional
database. “With SQL Server 2008 and SQL
Server Fast Track Data Warehouse, we can
look at our entire transaction history and
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SUMMARY.
Document published April 2010
do market analysis and business
forecasting, which we could not do
previously,” says Wajsman. “Now, for
example, we will be able to study the
correlation between promotions and
sales.”
These capabilities make it possible for
Stein Mart to use data to demonstrate
business success. “This technology gives us
the ability to be more fact-based as a
company,” says Wajsman. “We can make
business decisions based on demonstrated
sales history.”
Saves $50,000 in Monthly Costs
By implementing the Microsoft solution,
Stein Mart was able to consolidate its
AS/400 data warehouse into one industry
standard hardware server, which
contributes to a monthly savings of
$50,000 in hardware leasing and
maintenance costs. “We will be able to
eliminate 95 percent of the monthly costs
related to the previous system,” says
Wajsman.
Also, Stein Mart IT employees will no
longer need to spend their time managing
the AS/400 servers. “Maintaining that
system required multiple employees with
diverse skill sets. We need fewer people to
operate the new system,” says Wajsman.
“The time savings helps us focus on
business and customer challenges, rather
than technical ones.”