They do but the UPS was being used for the toaster :p  

I'm guessing that either they didn't think about it, or they thought about it and accepted the risk for the cost savings.

Would have thought their in-store POS systems could run in an offline mode?

They are fairly big now. I'm surprised if a few hours sales wouldn't add up to a fair bit. But eh. Maybe they figure people will just come back the next day in most cases, or go buy online anyway.  Proper site redundancy can cost a fair bit to both implement, and maintain, and sometimes cause more problems than it solves.

wally22: I was at PaknSave Manukau when the power went out. The till screens stayed on and the lights came back on in approx 5 seconds. They can't afford to lose an hour of trading!

Big difference is AFAIK all supermarkets have a onsite generator that is not only capable of running the lights, computers etc but the very LARGE compressors that keep all the fridges and freezers running.
to give you a idea of how big the supermarket I used to work at had a 6l V8 diesel running the genset

How long was their system out for? Did it last the duration of that power cut we had earlier?

That's interesting that a company specialising in technology would let something like this happen. I would have thought something so critical to their business would be hosted in the cloud where it would be be available almost 24/7. Then again being a technology company they would have access to the equipment and skills to be able to run this on site. 

Without knowing the ins and outs of their system, wouldn't it be safe to assume they could have a failover setup running out of one of their stores?
I.e. if their head office is flooded by a burst water main, the POS system would immediately switch over to a backup running out of their Manukau branch or one in the South Island. That way something that could be a very localised event doesn't impact on all of their stores.

Given their entire system went down I would guess they host their systems at their head office instead of across multiple data centers which I would expect a major retailer to do. Anything you have more than one store you should either have centralised systems in a data centre or each site running independently. 

hyperman:

 

wally22: I was at PaknSave Manukau when the power went out. The till screens stayed on and the lights came back on in approx 5 seconds. They can't afford to lose an hour of trading!

 

 

 

Big difference is AFAIK all supermarkets have a onsite generator that is not only capable of running the lights, computers etc but the very LARGE compressors that keep all the fridges and freezers running.
to give you a idea of how big the supermarket I used to work at had a 6l V8 diesel running the genset

 

If you go to a data centre you will see container gen sets, They house 16L TDI Straight 6's. 700HP/2000Ft pounds at least. 

And if your a crazy european, You can get a V16 Mitsi 2500KVA genset.

http://dpxpower.nl/dpxnew/new/bouw/diesel-generatoren/mitsubishi-s16r2-ptaw-2-500-kva-dpx-15662/048dd6c1-dd76-4b23-9e08-e852ad2f4144.html

At my work we have a 49L V12 and couple of 15 litre V8's - all twin turbos.

Gets a bit noisy during a power cut...

Let's all jump to conclusions without knowing what's happened!  Like a UPS fault, or generator failure. Or maybe they don't have any backup.

Anyway, jumping in:

Gosh I can't believe this has happened.

I bet this makes them think twice and they'll double check their 20m high wall is built too to withstand flooding.

They have one, right?

So perhaps they did have a process.

You cant blame a tech company for going with a solution that is simple.

1) If the power is out at head office and tills dont work, eftpos terminals at branches will still go

2) Website can provide pricing info to tablets at the POS desk

3) Calculators can assist with writing paper reciepts.

When I worked for the warehouse 8 years ago, our branch had a large battery based (not genset) UPS that ran the windows NT server upstairs, which contained a full stock database, two checkouts and you got out the zipzap for eftpos transactions

I assume PBTech is in auckland central? If so then they probably havent had to think about a power cut since they started - the auckland blackout is now out of the CBD collective memory, and a CBD usually has the priority in a blackout.

raytaylor:

 

So perhaps they did have a process.

 

You cant blame a tech company for going with a solution that is simple.

 

1) If the power is out at head office and tills dont work, eftpos terminals at branches will still go

 

2) Website can provide pricing info to tablets at the POS desk

 

3) Calculators can assist with writing paper reciepts.

 

 

 

When I worked for the warehouse 8 years ago, our branch had a large battery based (not genset) UPS that ran the windows NT server upstairs, which contained a full stock database, two checkouts and you got out the zipzap for eftpos transactions

 

I assume PBTech is in auckland central? If so then they probably havent had to think about a power cut since they started - the auckland blackout is now out of the CBD collective memory, and a CBD usually has the priority in a blackout.

 

Don't worry about insurance because your house hasn't burnt down before?

raytaylor:

 

I assume PBTech is in auckland central?

 

Nope, Manukau. 

Im not saying its a good thing, i guess I am trying to make two points

1) Businesses learn from problems. I dont know how long PBtech have been around for but they may not have reached the point where they implement a backup solution, or been prompted.

2) None of us actually know what their backup plan is. Perhaps they have decided to stop sales during the outage as its not a big enough loss for them, or perhaps they have a process for staff we dont know about. Either way its not for us to decide.