• Jenkon selects Dell enterprise solutions to optimize its technology infrastructure to deliver specialized web services for some of the world's largest companies
  • Dell's end-to-end solution saves Jenkon up to 22 percent annually on bandwidth costs and reduces database copy time by 94 percent
  • Solution also provides Jenkon much greater flexibility in providing more robust service-level availability options


Dell's end-to-end solutions enable Vancouver, Washington-based Jenkon to empower the sales forces of some of the world's most recognized brands through specialized web services and turnkey software. Due to the effectiveness of its cloud-based Software-as-a-Subscription (SaaS) solutions, Jenkon's customers-which include many Fortune Global 500 companies-are increasingly engaging Jenkon's wide portfolio of software products on a subscription basis.

Each year in the U.S., more than 15 million people sell a total of over $30 billion in goods and services directly to others.[1] They are the sales forces of such famous brands as Avon, Unilever, The Body Shop, Tupperware and many more, all of which have international direct selling operations, too. Jenkon has supported this profile of companies with specialized software solutions for nearly 40 years.

Jenkon turned to Dell as a trusted partner when the company's previous technology vendor could not provide solutions that supported its rapid growth and future strategy.

"Across all our clients, the number of direct sales consultants who engage Jenkon's services is in the multimillions, and we provide them not only portals to track sales and commissions, but also many thousands of websites where their customers can order products and services," said Steve Shinsel, director of IT, Jenkon. "Uptime and availability are everything to these customers, but our previous IT scalability had physical limits and we lacked multilayered redundancies critical to support the company's vision, our exponential growth and market opportunities. That's when Dell stepped-up."

Leveraging Dell solutions, Jenkon began overhauling its IT infrastructure and implementing best practices, starting by optimizing all customer databases away from Jenkon's collocated production environment to its development and quality assurance environment. That required scrubbing and copying more than 100 databases, some of which could take 13 hours to transfer over a wide area network (WAN). After installing a Dell SonicWALL WXA 4000 WAN Acceleration Appliance, the largest databases were transferred in under an hour. The SonicWALL WXA solution saved Jenkon more than just time; the company is paying for two-thirds less bandwidth while getting more performance.

To ensure customers' invaluable sales data is fully protected from threats, Jenkon deployed a Dell SonicWALL E-Class NSA next-generation firewall, enabling granular control and greater network visibility to protect each client's data with finely tuned settings. The built-in VPN capabilities allow Jenkon to securely connect the company's two data center locations and SonicWALL Mobile Connect easily enables their customers' direct sales forces the means to access their services via tablets and smartphones.

To ensure its SQL Server database environments deliver optimal performance, Jenkon uses Dell Software's Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise monitoring solution. With Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise, Jenkon's database administrators can monitor the health and performance of their SQL Server environments anytime, anywhere, and thanks to the Spotlight mobile app, from any device, enabling the team to proactively identify potential performance issues before they surface. Once Spotlight on SQL Server Enterprise finds an issue, employees can then use the SonicWALL Mobile Connect app to VPN into the office and manage servers directly-all while working remotely from their smartphones. In addition, Jenkon uses Dell Software's LiteSpeed for SQL Server backup, compression and restore solution, enabling the company to quickly and efficiently back up and move SQL Server data across their environment.

Additionally, Jenkon is able to offer customers higher levels of support since implementing Dell's PowerEdge servers and Dell Networking switches at its dual IT environments. Some of Jenkon's databases had previously run on legacy-architecture, physical servers. Now that Jenkon's racks are comprised of PowerEdge servers, the company has hundreds of virtual machines running on them and can support customer database development, customer staging and disaster recovery.

Dell EqualLogic storage is the final piece of the IT overhaul. Previous storage was not fast enough to keep up with Jenkon's applications. Dell EqualLogic allows these same applications to run at 10 times their previous speed, enabling Jenkon to use fewer resources on the servers while simultaneously providing a better product to its customers.

"Some of the most successful companies in the world trust Jenkon to support their sales staffs both because of the proficiency and reliability of their best-in-class SaaS offering," said Matt Baker, executive director of enterprise strategy at Dell. "The end-to-end breadth of Dell's solutions approach brings accelerated benefit to Jenkon's IT environment, benefitting their customers and their business overall. Dell PowerEdge servers, Dell Storage, Dell Networking switches, Dell Software and Dell SonicWALL work together to provide Jenkon greater agility, availability, security and performance that scales with them as they continue to grow."

"As a hosting company, it's critical that our business applications be highly available for our customers at all times," said Shinsel. "Our new environment has not only shortened development cycles but allowed us to deliver an even better customer experience. We can scale to any size that our customer requires and manage any environment globally."

With Jenkon's dual IT hosting environment implementation realized through Dell's end-to-end enterprise solutions, the company can ensure that its service level agreements meet greater uptime requirements, allowing Jenkon to expand the market for its SaaS-based offerings with a new competitive edge.

For more information on how Jenkon has enhanced their customer support with end-to-end Dell solutions, watch the following videos: Network Security

  • End-to-end Dell Solutions
  • Information Management
  • Servers, Networking and Storage


About Dell
Dell Inc. listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. For more information, visit www.dell.com.

Dell, PowerEdge EqualLogic and SonicWALL are trademarks of Dell Inc. Dell disclaims any proprietary interest in the marks and names of others.

[1] Direct Selling Association, 2011 Growth & Outlook Survey Report: U.S. Direct Selling in 2011 (NOTE: Both sales and sales force numbers have held steady since 2007, so these numbers should not go out-of-date.)

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