Dell Insight

(August 2003)

Download article (1.45MB)

Download Issue (6.99MB)

Challenge: Standardize the IT infrastructure of an application service provider (ASP) that provides talent management software and services for businesses in 130 countries by building large, high-quality private talent communities for Global 2000 companies

Solution: Deploy eight Intel^® Xeon^TM  processor-based Dell^TM PowerEdge^TM  2650 servers running Oracle9i^TM  Real Application Clusters (RAC), six Intel Xeon processor MP-based PowerEdge 6650 servers running Microsoft^®  SQL Server, three Intel Pentium^®  III processor-based Dell PowerEdge 1655MC blade server systems running the Red Hat^® Linux^®  operating system; deploy a Dell SAN based on the Dell|EMC PV51F Fibre Channel switch, Dell PowerVault^TM  650F storage system, and Dell PowerConnect^TM  3248 and 5224 network switches

Benefit: Cost-effective, high-performance systems that provide optimal uptime and performance, help lower IT and management costs, and provide high availability of global data centers

In a tough economic climate, recruiting the right talent to optimize productivity is a top priority for businesses. Hiring the right candidate can do wonders for a company's bottom line and future growth, but choosing the wrong person for the job can lead to workplace inefficiencies and tangible productivity losses.

Hire.com, a leading provider of talent management software and services, enables Global 2000 companies such as BP, Roche Diagnostics, Prudential, Reuters, Chiron, and Adobe Systems—whose career Web sites all run on Hire.com servers—to recruit and retain high-quality employees who will help their businesses stay productive and competitive. Hire.com's award-winning HireEnterprise Talent Management software suite empowers large companies to deliver more high-quality candidates to hiring managers by enabling corporations to build large, high-quality "private talent communities." The private talent communities allow Hire.com customers to build direct, ongoing relationships with candidates and provide them with the latest openings and news about their companies.

Hire.com pays the high price of the proprietary world

Several years after its inception, Hire.com was travelling toward a proprietary predicament. Although its infrastructure consisted of Dell^TM  servers running the Linux^®  operating system, the business also had taken on a number of servers running proprietary applications to match the systems of several new clients. The company began to feel the negative effects of managing and maintaining such large and complex environments.

Steve Davis, vice president of technology at Hire.com, knew the infrastructure needed to change in order to save money and prepare for company growth. "Using proprietary components in our architecture forced us to spend more in maintenance fees than we originally spent on the equipment itself," Davis says.

In addition to the high administrative costs, another concern for Hire.com was the need for a fast infrastructure that could be replicated at global data centers to meet the needs of an increasingly international customer base. "Many of our larger customers are in the European and Asia-Pacific regions, and our ability to deliver data to our locations there is crucial," Davis says. "Anything we can do to speed up our infrastructure helps mitigate the effect of Internet latency. After examining all of our components, we knew that the Dell offerings would fit our needs very well."

Dell, Intel, Red Hat, and Oracle deliver affordability, scalability

Since 1999, Hire.com's daily transactions have increased from 100,000 to 2 million. The company's database also has grown from storing the profiles of fewer than 1 million candidates to housing those of more than 8 million candidates today—all segmented into each particular company's private talent community. With this kind of large-scale growth, Hire.com needed cost-effective technology, particularly because it was planning to replicate its data centers globally.

To provide its customers with high-availability applications in an affordable way, Hire.com switched to Intel^® Xeon^TM  processor-based Dell PowerEdge^TM  2650 servers to run Oracle9i^TM  RAC on Linux, and PowerEdge 6650 servers to run Microsoft^®  SQL Server. This architecture also supports Hire.com's opt-in recruitment relationship marketing campaigns, which customers use to market information about their companies and open positions. For Davis and his team, the cost savings from the Dell-based infrastructure have been remarkable. "Now that we've made the switch to the Dell server line, we're able to upgrade our infrastructure and technology for the same cost that we were originally paying in maintenance fees for our antiquated hardware," Davis says.

Furthermore, Davis says, the move from a proprietary processor to the speedy Intel processors has helped garner excellent speed, performance, and savings for the company. Now, the Hire.com IT staff also can allocate workloads more effectively and predict the need for additional servers more easily—contributing to greater reliability, performance, and uptime. High availability helps create a positive experience for candidates who register and interact with the career sections of Hire.com customers' Web sites—all of which run on Hire.com's Dell servers.

Another factor that has contributed to cost savings is the modular nature of Hire.com's infrastructure. Dell blade server technology gives the company the ability to add new equipment only when necessary—and with ease. Hire.com can then efficiently forecast project costs, which ultimately saves the business money. "This new environment allows us to predict the cost of IT going forward," Davis says. "We literally can snap in Dell PowerEdge servers, which allow us to scale the cost of the Oracle^®  license more effectively. Once we get this infrastructure finalized, our capital expense savings for this year will be around 35 to 40 percent."

Dell Professional Services fills a partner position with Hire.com

When Hire.com was ready to implement blade server technology that was expected to have a significant impact on cost and space savings, Hire.com's partnership with Dell Professional Services (DPS) was indispensable. The company ultimately chose Intel Pentium^®  III processor-based Dell PowerEdge 1655MC blade server systems to run the Red Hat Linux operating system and Microsoft Application Center 2000, but only after receiving thorough technical advice and expertise from Dell.

"By giving us the equipment on which to test and validate our application, we were able to determine that Dell blade server systems were the right route to take, and we're now using Dell blade server systems throughout the data centers," Davis says. The company currently has multiple blade server systems and expects to benefit tremendously in cost and real-estate savings by implementing even more blade technology in the future. "When we consolidate our current infrastructure to a completely blade server system environment, the amount of cost and real-estate savings will be astounding."

Hire.com follows a career path to growth and success

With a Dublin, Ireland-based data center currently in production and plans for a data center in the Asia-Pacific region, Hire.com and its Dell infrastructure are prepared for growth on a global scale. In addition to the application and database servers, the company also has installed a storage area network (SAN) based on the Dell PowerVault^TM  650F storage system, Dell|EMC PV51F Fibre Channel switch, and Dell PowerConnect^TM  3248 and 5224 network switches. The SAN currently handles several hundred gigabytes of data, and the company estimates that this amount will quadruple over the next year.

For Bob Tate, vice president of marketing at Hire.com, Dell has been one of the company's biggest selling points to Hire.com's own customers, and will continue to be in the future. "Hire.com's IT environment is just getting better and better," he says. "Our equipment seems to run all of the time, and we've never lost a deal when we mention that we run our applications on Dell."