SearchForce, Inc.

Using Sun Startup Essentials Program to Implement a Fast, Reliable Web 2.0 Services Platform

Founded in 2004, SearchForce is a Web software as service provider focused on maximizing ROI on search engine marketing (SEM). With 50 million keywords under management and more than US$100 million in spend passing through the system, SearchForce’s platforms make it possible to track and bid on relevant keywords across multiple search engines in real time. SearchForce provides agencies and advertisers with one unified interface for search engine marketing and portfolio management.

Customer Challenges

Achieve the highest server performance at the lowest price
Perform a complete datacenter refresh and migration—new servers, storage solutions and hosting facility—without negatively impacting new product release
Meet or exceed Service Level Agreements (three 9s) for system uptime
Build a scalable, high-performance, high availability platform at an affordable price

Solution

Leveraging the Sun Startup Essentials program, SearchForce migrated from a Dell server running Linux environment to an integrated, energy-efficient and affordable Sun platform.

Business Results

70% decrease in power consumption
3x increase in server throughput with sub-second response time
Achieved 99.999% system uptime
Accomplished a complete datacenter migration in concert with a new product release in just 3 months
Simplified storage management and superior data protection
Lowered total cost of ownership for the infrastructure to run the business

Products and Services

Story Details

When ad agencies with hundreds of clients and a vested interest in the search engine performance of millions of keywords need real-time data, they turn to SearchForce, Inc. By offering to secure each client the best price per keyword to obtain a desired position on a designated search engine, and delivering real time data on cost-per-click metrics, SearchForce has developed a devoted customer base. Its innovative business model brings a commitment to customers to detect unanticipated surges or drops in online traffic. The model also creates a need for the company to commit to high-performance systems to help it lead in the burgeoning search engine marketing sector.

SearchForce knew its success as a business was dependent on its technology choices, so it committed to an upgrade in its IT infrastructure. With a new product release on the horizon, it needed to upgrade its data center and migrate it to a new facility—in just three month’s time.

" As a result of going to Sun, we improved our response time and we’re sitting at less than ten percent system utilization with five times the business we had nine months ago. We have a scalable server and storage platform that can provide air cover for our sales team, and reports we get from our enterprise customers say that there’s nothing faster out there. "

— David Simon, Chairman, SearchForce, Inc.

It began the upgrade process with a hard look at the platform it was then using—Red Hat Linux ES4 on Dell servers—which had trouble scaling to the company’s growing needs. SearchForce began comparison shopping in earnest, benchmarking servers from major vendors on a series of key metrics—power consumption, processor speed, throughput and, of course, price.

SearchForce was impressed with the two to three times increase in throughput advantage it saw testing the Solaris 10 Operating System on Sun Fire X4600, X4500, X4100 and X2200 servers. Then it signed up to Try and Buy the Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers with UltraSPARC T1 processors.

With a 70 percent decrease in power consumption versus the prior solution, SearchForce found the UltraSPARC T1 with CoolThreads technology in the Sun Fire T1000 and T2000 servers to be very energy efficient—drawing less than one amp sustained, even on boot. Not only could the Sun servers handle two to three times the load of the old machines, they could do it consuming about one quarter of the electricity.

To complement the server platform, SearchForce selected a storage area network (SAN) based on two Sun StorageTek 6140 arrays with 20 terabtye total capacity. The Sun SAN was connected by 4 gigabyte Fibre channel switches to the Sun server environment. With pay-as-you-grow scalability and non-disruptive upgrade options, the Sun StoragekTek 6140 arrays defined SearchForce’s approach to its storage needs. The 6140 arrays allowed the company to migrate from its current storage platform to one with simplified management, high availability to critical company data and superior data protection—all at an affordable price.

After selecting the right products, the next step was identifying a cost-effective option to bring the entire solution together in time to accomplish a complete datacenter refresh and migration. SearchForce needed to complete a complex undertaking including hardware, software, operating systems and storage—in a limited time frame.

To help reach its goals, SearchForce participated in Sun Startup Essentials, a program with pricing and other incentives that Sun offers promising young companies. Thanks to Sun Startup Essentials program, SearchForce was able to spec, purchase and deploy an integrated server and storage platform that could scale to meet its future needs. As a result of the program, SearchForce lowered its total cost of ownership on the hardware and software platform to run its business. To complete the solution, the company purchased SunSpectrum Support.

The company has since deployed the new datacenter solution in advance of its scheduled product release and is enjoying the benefits of its new server and storage platform, including a ZFS file system, virtualization and Solaris Containers for optimized system performance. It has also been able to offer its customers 99.999 percent service levels. SearchForce recently purchased a new Sun SPARC Enterprise T5220 server for its environment. And as its business continues to grow, SearchForce plans to build out its platform with more high-capacity Sun systems.

David Simon, Chairman, SearchForce, Inc., concludes, "Through the Sun Startup Essentials program, we migrated from Dell servers running Linux to an amazingly affordable Sun server and storage platform. This was not an instance of us going to Sun saying, 'Hey, can you help us out?' This was Sun saying, 'Hey, how can we help you?' The result was a huge success, and a very satisfied customer.”