HRIS - Pricing, More Information

HR Information Systems Buyer's Guide -HRIS pricing

Per BuyerZone - check out for free quotes: Understandably, prices for HRIS systems can vary tremendously: a basic HR information package for a 20-person business is not in the same ballpark as a customized enterprise-level HRIS for a 2,000-employee corporation. Even two fairly similar businesses can wind up with very different prices for HRIS software — and both be getting a fair deal.

The scope of your HRIS implementation will have a big impact on the price. A basic transactional system can provide significant benefits to your business — but won't cost nearly as much as a system that includes talent management and other strategic functionality.

Don't buy on price alone
Choosing the right HRIS software should involve careful consideration of your needs, evaluation of features and capabilities, and comparisons of dealers. Specifically, it's about more than just price.

If you're comparing three solutions with fairly similar price tags and a fourth that's half the price of the others, you can bet there’s something lacking from the discount package. Placing undue emphasis on price can lead to a purchase that ultimately fails to deliver the benefits you should expect.

Moreover, skimping on price early on can cost you more in the future. Even if you only have 50 employees now, if you plan on expanding to 100 in the next couple of years, it makes sense to buy a system that can accommodate that growth.

Basic HRIS pricing
The main cost for client-server HRIS software comes from the per-user licenses you'll have to buy for the software. A 50-person company can expect to pay between $2,000 and $5,000 to purchase software licenses.

Note that some vendors target firms with 100 employees or more, so smaller buyers may encounter minimum prices that make client-server systems a much more expensive proposition. Larger companies may see even higher per-user costs as the systems grow in complexity and scale: $80,000 for a 300-user system, for example.

Very small companies may be able to buy packaged software for $500 to $1,000, but those types of systems offer very little in the way of customization and may not be able to grow with your business. If you do choose to start with a small HRIS, make sure you'll be able to export your data so you can upgrade to a more comprehensive system in the future.

ASP-based HRISes are usually priced per employee per month. Depending on the modules you choose, you can expect monthly fees of $4 to $10 per user. While that may seem stunningly inexpensive compared to the client-server license fees, remember that you'll be paying that cost every month as long as you use the software. For example, 100 users at $6 per month adds up to almost $15,000 by the end of the second year — and you could use an HRIS for 10 or 20 years.

Whichever type of hosting you choose, you'll have to pay installation or consulting costs for customization and setup. These fees can range from $2,000 to $40,000 and up, depending on the amount of work required and the size of the installation.

Make sure that consulting and installation fees and responsibilities are spelled out in the project estimates, as well as the contracts. Hidden charges for upgrades, annual maintenance, customization, or training can drastically skew your price comparisons, as can different prices for administrator licenses, user licenses, and server licenses. Make sure the vendors present a complete cost picture up front.

Support and training costs
Make sure the pricing information you get from each vendor details what training and customer support is included — and how much additional help costs. Some vendors provide unlimited telephone and online support; others charge by the minute or per incident after a set amount of free support.

Training is usually priced separately. You may be able to choose from on-site, off-site, web-based, or video training, all at different price points. It's usually worth having at least some training to get your staffers up and running. Once you see how the system is working, you can then decide if you need more advanced training.

Storage Area Network (SAN) Overview

Good info found on computerweekly.com - All networks generally include some form of storage. Traditional network storage was located inside, or directly connected to, individual file servers that were often scattered across workgroups throughout an organization.

This resulted in a cumbersome, complicated, multiple-server environment that was virtually impossible to organise or secure. A storage area network (SAN) overcomes these problems by moving storage resources off of the common user network and reorganising those storage components into an independent, high-performance network. Storage performance is enhanced using a fast interface (e.g., 2 Gbps or 4 Gbps Fibre Channel) (FC) that connects storage servers and storage devices through an array of switches and hubs to form a fabric that supports both redundancy and high availability. San technology also supports important storage features, including disk mirroring, data backup/restoration, data archiving/retrieval and data migration.

San components and architecture

A storage area network is typically assembled using three principle components: cabling, host bus adapters (HBA) and switches. Cabling is the physical medium used to interconnect every San device. Sans can use both copper and optical fiber cabling, though the choice of medium depends on the speed and distance requirements of the San. Slower or shorter distance connections can be made through copper cables, while faster or longer distance connections are achieved through optical cables. Optical fiber cables can be single mode or multimode. Single-mode (or monomode) fiber is designed to carry only one light signal over long distances, while multimode fiber can carry multiple simultaneous light signals over short distances. Optical fiber also uses several different kinds of connectors, so it's important to select connectors that are compatible with other components of the fabric.

Each server or storage device in a San fabric requires an HBA. The HBA can exist as either an expansion card that fits into a compatible expansion slot in a server, or it may be a chip integrated directly into the server or storage device. An HBA typically offloads data storage and retrieval overhead from the local processor, improving the server's performance. Cabling is used to connect the HBA's port to a corresponding port on a switch.

A switch is used to handle and direct traffic between network devices. The switch accepts traffic, and then relays the traffic to the port where the intended destination device is attached. In a San, each storage server and storage device connects to a switch port. The switch then relays traffic to and from specific devices across the San -- this series of switched interconnections form the San "fabric," which can easily be scaled or changed. An intelligent switch serves the same basic functions but incorporates high-level San features like storage virtualisation, quality of service , remote mirroring, data sharing, protocol conversion and security.

San connectivity and protocols

Storage area networks are also defined by their interconnection scheme, which usually falls into either FC or iSCSI. FC technology is clearly the most popular approach for enterprise data center Sans. FC supports communication between servers and storage devices at 2 Gbps, though 4 Gbps implementations are now common, and 10 Gbps implementations are expected in the future. FC traditionally uses optical fiber cables to interconnect devices and is still employed over long distances. Today, short distance FC implementations can be achieved with coaxial and twisted-pair copper cables. FC can operate directly between two devices (point-to-point), or network multiple storage devices through a switch or arbitrated loop. FC technology is compatible with SCSI and IP protocols.

iSCSI is an emerging Internet Engineering Task Force standard that allows SCSI commands to support data storage and retrieval over Ethernet networks that include LANs, WANs and the Internet. By leveraging the broad acceptance of IP networks, iSCSI technology is expected to strengthen the San market and has already found acceptance in small and midsized organisations for basic San deployments. Since Ethernet networks generally work up to 1 Gbps, iSCSI isn't as fast as FC, which starts at 2 Gbps. However, iSCSI is less expensive than FC, and Ethernet is well-understood by any IT professional. In addition, 10 Gbps Ethernet is on the horizon and could also threaten FC's established position as the San networking technology of choice.

San management

Creating a storage network is more involved than simply cabling servers and storage systems together. Storage resources must be configured, allocated, tested and maintained as new devices are added and enterprise storage requirements change. Management is a vital part of San operation, so it's important to select tools that can minimise the time and effort needed to keep a storage area network running.

Storage resource management (SRM) applications are designed to monitor and manage physical and logical San resources. Physical resources include storage arrays, RAID systems, tape libraries and FC switches, while logical storage features involve file systems and application-oriented storage elements (e.g. Oracle database files). It's usually best to select one tool that can provide centralised management of the entire storage infrastructure through a single console. Ideally, a centralised SRM tool should be able to detect storage resources, evaluate their capacity and configuration, and measure their performance. The SRM tool should also be able to affect changes to the configuration and support consistent policies across the various storage technologies being managed. San management tools are available from EMC Corp., Symantec Corp. (Veritas), McData Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., IBM, Sun Microsystems Inc. and CA Inc.

In actual practice, selecting a San management/SRM tool can be an extremely challenging process -- usually because each tool accomplishes its suite of tasks in a unique way. Consequently, a good management tool should offer heterogeneous support, being able to accurately detect, discover and visualise a San across a variety of network equipment, storage systems and operating systems. The tool should provide meaningful monitoring and reporting features, including performance measurement, and that data should provide practical information that can help an administrator identify and resolve problems within the San.

HRIS - Vendor Selection

HR Information Systems Buyer's Guide-What to look for in an HRIS vendor

Information is courtesy BuyerZone.com - check out for free quotes. When you buy HRIS software, you're also selecting a new partner for your business. Choosing the right vendor is just as important as choosing software that's easy to use and includes the right features.

First, remember that HRIS software packages can vary tremendously in scope and functionality. Look for a vendor who takes the time to understand your needs and works with you to recommend an appropriate solution — not one who just pushes their product as a one-size-fits-all answer.

The way a vendor approaches the sales process can also give you some valuable insight. Good salespeople are willing to tell you when something you request is hard or impossible, while less reputable vendors might just gloss over potential problems.

HRIS resellers and HRIS software developers
The HRIS market consists of both software publishers that sell their systems directly, and resellers who provide consulting and installation services to go with third-party software. Neither approach is inherently better than the other, but you should be aware of which you're dealing with.

When working with a reseller, you'll have to do a little extra investigation into the software publisher. Look at their history of software updates: recent updates and new releases indicate a commitment to the software. Ask how the publisher handles bug reports and feature requests, and how often they release new versions. Also, find out how upgrades impact any customization work you've done: you don't want an upgrade to wipe out your custom fields or labels.

Customer service and training
As with any complex software, you should expect occasional problems or outages. While "guaranteed 99.5% uptime" and other vendor assurances are fine, more important is how they react when something does go wrong. Inquire about their support policies: when do they have live support staff available by phone? Do they guarantee a specific response time? What kind of training do their reps have? Are there fees for support?

The vendor should offer training for everyone who will use the system. Many businesses prefer having a trainer come to their office, but that's not always possible. Web-based training can also be effective, if done properly. Regardless of how it's conducted, training should take users through the basics of entering data, running reports, and troubleshooting typical problems.

Finally, the vendor should be able to connect you with references who use their software. Ask for references to customers similar to your business in size and specialty, if possible. Call the references and ask questions such as:

• Has the system improved your HR operations? How?
• What modules do you use?
• Does it do everything you expected? What is missing?
• Are your employees satisfied with it? What do they like or not like?
• Have you expanded your system since your originally purchased it? How was that process?
• How does the vendor react when you have problems?
• What do you like least about the software?
• Overall, was it a good investment? Why or why not?

Government looks beyond servers - Virtualization 5

Applications on demand

The Defense Health Information Management System Program Office is pushing forward with application virtualization to give clinicians remote access to patient medical records in the AHLTA electronic records system.

DHIMS' information management/information technology solutions help collect, manage and share health data throughout DOD.

“We have over 100,000 end-user devices and the three services — Army, Navy, Air Force — have their own requirements for those end-user devices that we want to be respectful of,” said Capt. Michael Weiner, DHIMS' chief medical officer.

“That has given us some challenges," he said. "So we have looked at the areas of virtualization.”

A challenge DHIMS faced was giving clinicians access to patient records while they are in field clinics. When loaded on a desktop PC as a client, the AHLTA program is bigger than Microsoft Office, requiring a lot of power, Weiner said.

To give doctors in remote field units access, AHLTA has been put on servers using Citrix’s XenApp application delivery system, which lets them retrieve medical information from anywhere using any device. XenApp manages applications in the data center and delivers them as an on-demand service.

DHIMS has deployed the technology at Camp Lejeune, where Navy medical personnel can serve the Marines Corps, which does not have its own medical system. There are many small clinics at Camp Lejeune where doctors need access to AHLTA, Weiner said.

“We have a provider who is in a tent in a clinic in the field with the Marine unit,” he said. “We’d like them to be able to pull up all the health care information that has been recorded on that patient.”

DHIMS officials plan to extend the capability to Army, Navy and Air Force reserve units.

“We want to ensure that while those servicemen and women are on active duty, clinicians can pull their data up and document it into the DHIMS system,” Weiner said. For example, a reserve unit from Maine might want to see what care was delivered to its members while they were on active duty. “So wouldn’t it be great for their care provider in the reserve unit to see what was documented?”

Weiner said XenApp is being used at military hospitals in Portsmouth, Va., and Camp Lejeune. However, other services use other virtualization systems on the market, such as VMware’s ThinApp and Microsoft App-V, formerly SoftGrid.

Government looks beyond servers - Virtualization 4

from GCN.com - The agency first tested virtualization of its e-mail system. But based on e-mail volume and system configuration, the information technology team realized that the system wasn’t the best candidate, said Ron Hardin, the department’s CIO. The IT team looked toward mission-critical systems, such as those associated with environmental research, data warehousing and accompanying front-end applications, and the team decided to start there.

After doing an assessment, the team identified about 65 servers that it could virtualize.

The department now runs applications from those machines on seven HP blade servers.

The migration to virtual machines has reduced energy consumption by 30 percent and could lower maintenance and support costs by 40 percent, Hardin estimated.

Future plans are for agency officials to move software-as-a service and service-oriented architecture applications onto the virtual environment.

A place for desktops

Just as all applications might not be suited for server virtualization, desktop virtualization might not be suited for all environments.

Users typically don't notice when their organization virtualizes a server environment, said Jim Smid, data center practice manager at Apptis Technology Solutions (ATS). Users don’t know whether it is virtualized or deployed on a physical server -- it makes no difference to them.

But desktop PC virtualization is a different story.

In such a setup, users have a thin-client monitor, keyboard and small appliance to pull their unique desktop image and applications from a server that resides in a data center. Such an environment makes it easier for administrators to manage and secure the desktop because users basically have a diskless workstation. But mobile employees, for example, who need to work anywhere, anytime might resist such a system.

Yet, during the past year, there has been a push toward desktop virtualization in the government sector, especially in controlled environments, such as training facilities and laboratories, he said.

For example, many military bases across the country have facilities in which they bring in groups of people for training on software or other technologies, he said. IT administrators need to give those machines a baseline configuration that would allow for different environments.

So desktop virtualization is a cost-effective way for administrators to provide customized desktops to users and then refresh them for the next round of people, Smid said.

“There are tools available to very quickly roll out a consistent image to a lot of different folks,” Smid said. That gives them the ability to work independently without needing administrators to deploy physical infrastructure for everyone who receives the training, he said. Military facilities are deploying desktop virtualization solutions from Citrix and VMware for such deployments, he said.

EPA is considering desktop virtualization but only for specialized environments in which employees need access for routine administrative duties and secure information, Galbreath said.

“We’re treading very carefully on that,” she said. “But right now a lot of those folks have two machines” — one for the confidential information, the other for e-mail and Internet connectivity.

“We’re trying to evaluate how we can use desktop virtualization and still ensure the security of keeping the two separate,” she said.

Government looks beyond servers - Virtualization 3

From GCN.com -Within the Wintel/Linux infrastructure, DISA has about 4,500 server environments in its data centers. The agency has virtualized about 750 of them.

The biggest challenge the agency faces is ensuring that applications can move seamlessly from the physical to virtual worlds because the agency does not own the application, Rivera said.

Another challenge is more cultural. “I have had to prove to customers that the move to a virtualization environment doesn’t [degrade] performance or efficiencies,” he said. “It is educating a customer base that their application [still] sits in their own domain where it is under their own control.”

Meanwhile, EPA is just starting a multiyear effort to address server sprawl in computer rooms spread across the country.

The agency has one main data center located in Raleigh, N.C., that hosts all the agency’s enterprisewide applications. The facility has about 450 servers with 120 terabytes of storage and a petabyte of data on tape.

However, the agency has 40 computer rooms, small data centers that officials want to drastically cut down to a few, said Myra Galbreath, chief technology officer and director of EPA’s Office of Technology Operations and Planning.

EPA started dabbling with virtualization about four years ago with the implementation of IBM P Series Unix-based servers, she said. That system offered logical partitioning of workloads, and as a result, EPA data center managers were able to put about 36 virtual instances across six physical servers.

Later, EPA adopted 3Par storage technology, which lets agency managers support increased storage provisioning and data duplication. That helped reduce the volume of data that EPA needed to replicate to its disaster recovery site.

Last year, local sites and laboratories started to get into server virtualization, Galbreath said. The agency is trying to assess what has worked best, so officials can set a standard that all local sites can adopt.

EPA also has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Green Grid, a consortium of industry and government organizations that promotes energy-efficient computing, to study how the small computer rooms can reduce power consumption.

“There has been a lot of work on large data centers but not a lot on small computer rooms," Galbreath noted. "And lots of government [agencies] have these small computer rooms."

As EPA tackles server virtualization in small, decentralized computer rooms, Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality has achieved a more energy-efficient data center with HP blade servers and VMware software.

Government looks beyond servers - Virtualization 6

Storage: the last frontier?

from GNC.com - Planned maintenance is the primary cause of downtime on a computer system. Storage virtualization is one way to mitigate or eliminate those planned downtimes, some experts say.

“We’ve been doing virtualization of storage through IBM’s Storage [SAN] Volume Controller for at least three years,” said Tony Encinias, chief technology officer of Pennsylvania’s Office of Information Technology.

“Virtualized storage reduces the down time when we have to restore or migrate data offsite,” Encinias said.

Virtualization of storage will a huge future requirement for the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality, Harkin said.

For instance, much of the department’s documentation work — retention schedules and permits — is done on paper. Now the department must digitally store all of that information, he said.

There are many different types of technology that can be used for storage virtualization. The right fit depends on the environment, ATS’ Smid said.

For an agency with a small IT shop that struggles with utilization issues — for example, an IT department does not use all its storage capacity or its storage area is tapped out –- there are relatively inexpensive technologies.

For instance, storage arrays from NetApp and Hitachi can boost the utilization rate and give those agencies the flexibility to move applications from one storage array to another or move one virtual machine to another.

With those solutions, the storage array is used as a front end and everything behind it is virtualized, Smid said. That technique can be effective in a small environment that does not have a lot of transactions that could act as a bottleneck, he said.

For large environment, companies such as EMC work with a storage-area network infrastructure. The company’s approach is to push the virtualization layer to the network, so the burden doesn't weigh on any single storage device. The SAN handles the virtualization, Smid said.

The solution also is more scalable, although it can be more expensive.

“But if you [have] utilization range in the 20 to 40 percent on your storage arrays and you can deploy something where you can double that, the cost of the virtualization infrastructure very quickly pays for itself,” Smid said.

Human Resources Information System (HRIS) Overview

HR Information Systems Buyer's Guide- What are HR information systems?

From BuyerZone.com's overview - An HR information system (HRIS) is a software package that provides a complete management system for human resources activities in small-to-medium-sized businesses. They help streamline administrative procedures, manage employee benefits, reduce the need for paperwork and manual records, and keep track of all personal and job-related employee data.

HRIS can handle management of benefits for both HR personnel and company employees. HR directors can import payroll and benefits data into HRIS from in-house and outside sources. This allows them to manage all facets of HR from a single location. It also provides employees with self-service access to their accounts. With a secure system that requires a log in ID and password for each user, employees can check vacation balances, review benefits data, and update personal information without having to first contact HR staff.

HRIS basic features
In lieu of standardized paperwork, HRIS allows employees to fill out forms online, make changes based on life events, and get information on their benefits at any time. Rather than "pulling an employee's file," HR personnel can reference any information about an employee through the system, including personal information, benefits, number of dependents, emergency contacts, and job history.

HRIS include both standardized and customized reports. Standard reports feature templates for various administrative purposes including employee reviews, record keeping, OSHA, workers' compensation, employment history, and absence tracking. Customized reports be created that incorporate categories and information unique to your business.

Most HRIS applications have a comprehensive tracking system. You can keep tabs on employee attendance to determine vacation and sick time accrued, how many days were used out of a vacation bank, and how long one has held a position at the company. It also lets you track longer absences such as family leave and jury duty. In addition, HRIS tracking capabilities can maintain grievances filed by or against the employee stemming from discipline, disputes, and complaints.

Even though HRIS allows employees to have self-service access, you can set limitations. Many programs will allow you to customize which screens employees can view and whether or not they have permission to edit certain data.

HRIS buying checklist
Here are some helpful things to keep in mind before deciding to implement HRIS:

• How many employees will this support?
• How much can I afford to spend on an HRIS solution?
• Can HRIS help me save my company money?
• Will my staff and I need training to learn how to use the software?
• Has the HRIS provider worked with businesses like mine in the past?
• Can I test the software before purchasing?
• What technical support options do I have if something goes wrong?

HRIS Pricing
You have two options for purchasing HRIS: an in-house (or "boxed") software system or via license.

With in-house software, you own the rights to the program and can install and uninstall at will but it is very pricey, costing several thousand dollars plus maintenance fees and general updates.

To license software for small-to-medium sized businesses, you'll pay $500-$700 for a single-user system (one administrator) and $900-$1,200 for a network/multi-user system (multiple administrators) to chart 75-100 employees. It then costs a few hundred dollars extra for additional employees in increments of 100. Larger companies can find HRIS solutions starting at $1,000 and up.

The price of the service will often include 30 days of free technical support by phone and email and also software maintenance. You may have to pay extra to extend the warranty beyond the 30-day window.

HRIS Tips
Get help. Software may provide Help documentation in both printed and online form. Decide which format is useful for you and find out if the vendor offers it.

Try it before you buy it. Some companies may provide a free trial period before you purchase to see if the HRIS program is right for your business.

Additional options. Some HRIS programs will include all applications while others provide basic functionality with costs for add-ons such as job application tracking.

PC or Mac. Most HRIS software is compatible with many versions of Windows but some vendors may offer software that you can use in both PC or Macintosh environments.

Government looks beyond servers - Virtualization 2

Moreover, to meet the rising demand, vendors such as Citrix Systems, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and VMware are pushing virtual infrastructures or solutions that encompass the various flavors of virtualization.

Server virtualization yields results

Virtualization can make a single physical resource — such as a server, operating system or storage device — appear to function as multiple resources. Or it can make multiple physical devices appear as a single resource.

Before DISA could move virtual machines to its on-demand computing model, it had to tackle server sprawl, power consumption and, most of all, the underutilization of its infrastructure.

As a service provider to the military services and DOD agencies, DISA works with its customers on application development and any type of virtualization at their own facilities.

“Each customer comes with their own requirements, and we work with them on an individual basis," Rivera said. "And sometimes they come with their own design."

Underutilization of resources is common in data centers. On average, if an Intel-based server that runs Microsoft Windows — known as a Wintel machine — is not virtualized, it is probably running at about 7 percent utilization, and that’s a liberal estimate, Rivera said.

So DISA must convince its customers that it makes sense to move to virtualized servers to a common platform. To save money, the agency has standardized its infrastructure for Wintel and Linux servers on VMware’s ESXi virtualization platform, Rivera said.

Several years ago, DISA adopted capacity-on-demand contracts with original equipment manufacturers. The agency buys capacity as a utility and only pays for what it uses. Hewlett-Packard provides DISA's Windows and Linux environments, in addition to a virtualization solution on top of that capacity-on-demand contract, he said.

VMware ESXi users can quickly create virtual machines through a menu-driven start-up and automatic configurations. It lets operations managers create virtual machines or import a virtual appliance with direct integration between VMware ESXi and the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace.

In the Unix environment, DISA is creating virtualization with Sun Microsystems’ Logical Domains, which partitions workloads on one physical server and HP’s virtual server environment for HP-UX systems.

Government looks beyond servers - virtualizing desktops, applications and storage

From GNC.com - Government Computer new - Virtualization is on the verge of extending its reach into agency enterprises.

During the past year, server virtualization, which is the ability to run multiple instances of operating systems concurrently on a single hardware system, gathered momentum in the government sector. But increasingly, federal and state agencies are expanding — or at least thinking about expanding — beyond servers to apply virtualization to applications, desktop PCs and network infrastructures.

The Defense Information Systems Agency, for one, is taking virtualization into the cloud.

DISA recently deployed the Rapid Action Computing Environment, a cloud-computing infrastructure that lets Defense Department personnel quickly provision virtual machines so they can test and develop applications before putting them to real use.

Through a common Web portal, DOD and military service users can purchase a virtual machine. Within 24 hours, it will be set up for them, said Alfred Rivera, director of DISA’s Computing Services Directorate. They’ll pay for it on a monthly basis, and when they are finished, the virtual machine will be decommissioned, he said.

“We’re working to fine-tune some of the security issues but, in essence, it allows our customers to provision a virtual machine with memory, storage and [other] capability so they can download their applications to do test and development before they migrate to a pure production environment,” Rivera said.

Meanwhile, officials at the Defense Health Information Management System (DHIMS) program are moving forward with application virtualization technology that gives clinicians at Camp Lejeune, N.C., remote access to patients’ medical records stored in AHLTA, the military’s electronic health records system.

However, the most common use of virtualization is still for servers, as agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency look to consolidate their many server rooms.

States also are getting into the act. Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality has implemented blade servers and virtualization software to reduce computing costs and save energy and space in the agency’s data center. And Pennsylvania has embarked on an initiative to virtualize the state’s entire data center.