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Robert Half Technology helps industry giant to design turnkey database server environment

Company Profile
Industry: Broadcast/Entertainment
Location: Los Angeles, California

Business Situation
Our client - a high-profile subsidiary of a worldwide broadcast and entertainment entity - utilizes off-site screening rooms to accumulate data from groups of people who are asked to view pilot and concept television shows and then record their opinions. This data, once compiled, is used to judge the likability of the show, and may help determine whether or not it will air on the network. When we began working together, the client had the capacity to host database servers for the off-site screening rooms and was able to compile the information on their servers for later review and analysis on viewer patterns, preferences, opinions, etc. The existing environment consisted of nine NT 4.0 servers: a PDC, BDC, two SQL 7.0 servers, two IIS 4.0 servers, an FTP server and two processing servers. For a number of reasons - including performance degradation, data corruption, significant downtime and the fact that NT 4.0 is no longer a supported platform - an entirely new Windows Server 2003/Active Directory environment was deployed to run and support the mission-critical application. Robert Half Technology was contracted to provide professionals to augment the client's staff and implement a fast, turnkey solution to the challenge.

Project Scope
After analysis of the existing NT 4.0 environment, Robert Half Technology consultants designed a new environment that consisted of a primary and secondary server. Users were migrated to the new system with the AD Migration Tool and custom group policies were set. Net Share Tools were used to verify permissions, MSDCS records, TCP, site connection, UDP and replication status. A new Zone was installed to create a Forwarding Lookup Zone with Dynamic Update to serve the Internet traffic. Two SQL 2000 servers (software and hardware clustered) were installed. A new SQL instance and database were created and users were migrated to the new DB with proper permissions. IIS 6.0 was installed on two servers as a redundant link with a Foundry switch for load balancing of traffic. FTP server was installed to gather and provide filesharing transactions. Testing was conducted by our client at the completion of each phase to ensure system integrity and data structure.

Client's Return on Investment
The Robert Half Technology team assisted the client's staff to create a stable, redundant and fault-tolerant environment that ensured at least 99.99% uptime for data collection, and also freed valuable in-house resources that would otherwise have been spent supporting the old environment - all well within budget and in less time than estimated.

The client chose Robert Half Technology for our technological excellence and previous successes in supplying resources for past projects. Robert Half Technology's available pool of experienced IT consultants also was a critical decision point. Because we represent individuals from our database of more than a half million pre-evaluted IT professionals, Robert Half Technology was able to provide the client with the resources and expertise needed to quickly complete the project.

Our client considered the Robert Half Technology experience a true partnership. They spoke highly of our team's responsiveness, as well as their ability to identify the proper skill sets needed. Because of the cost-effectiveness of engaging Robert Half Technology, they will continue to call on us for future projects.