Customer Stories / Software & Internet
iCIMS Boosts Customer Experience Focus by Migrating to Amazon RDS for SQL Server
Talent acquisition software vendor iCIMS improved performance by migrating nearly 6,000 databases to Amazon RDS for SQL Server. The iCIMS Talent Cloud helps organizations build winning workforces.
Industry Challenge
Talent acquisition software vendor iCIMS works with massive volumes of applicant data. The company wanted to reduce the operational overhead of database management to free up employees to spend more time on value-added tasks and improving the customer experience. iCIMS offers artificial intelligence–driven complete-hiring applications for job candidates, human resources managers, and executives.
The company also partners with other organizations, including job-board vendors, payroll, and talent-development firms. As such, iCIMS requires seamless integration to achieve that data flows smoothly across its vast network. “Another big part of our application, which adds to the complexity of the data load, is that we have more than 750 different partner applications that integrate to our solution,” says Al Smith, chief technology officer at iCIMS. With more than 180 million applicants per year and more than 2.7 million users worldwide, the company needed a high-performing solution for managing its complex data.
iCIMS’s Solution
To help simplify database management and boost customer experience, iCIMS turned to Amazon Web Services (AWS). Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it simple to set up, operate, and scale SQL Server deployments in the cloud to meet database needs. iCIMS migrated nearly 6,000 customer databases—270 TB of data—from 35 self-managed clusters to 100 widely-spread, optimized Amazon RDS for SQL Server instances with automated deployment.
The entire process took 3 months: 7 weeks of planning, 4 weeks of testing and dry runs, and 2 weeks for the actual migration. During that time, the company experienced no business disruptions, with a total downtime of less than 4 hours. “That less-than-4-hour downtime was the win,” says Smith.
Having our team be able to not spend cycles on undifferentiated work was really important for us to scale our business.”
Al Smith
Chief Technology Officer, iCIMS
Benefits of Using Amazon RDS for SQL Server
After the migration, iCIMS saw a 25–30 percent reduction in database CPU usage, with browser search response times cut by more than 40 percent. The company also experienced improvements in database management tasks, such as maintenance, patch management, and audit and compliance, by using fully managed Amazon RDS for SQL Server features. This freed up its engineers to focus on value-added tasks that benefit its customers while accelerating its path to innovation. “Having our team be able to not spend cycles on undifferentiated work was really important for us to scale our business,” Smith says.
After investing in Amazon RDS for SQL Server, iCIMS has seen a positive return on investment, including enhanced scaling and more time for teams to focus on the company’s purpose. iCIMS also switched from the Enterprise Edition to the Standard Edition of Amazon RDS for SQL Server, after determining that its application did not require the additional offerings.
“Radical simplicity has bigger and higher value than radical optimization,” says Smith.
About iCIMS
iCIMS delivers enterprise hiring solutions across every stage of the talent journey. iCIMS has a community of nearly 6,000 customers, including 40 percent of the Fortune 100, that collectively employ more than 33 million people around the world. iCIMS has seven hosting sites and seven data recovery centers worldwide.
AWS Services Used
Amazon RDS for SQL Server
Amazon RDS for SQL Server makes it easy to set up, operate, and scale SQL Server deployments in the cloud.
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