| Backbone TV |
NEW Geoweb video
|
|
|
| Virtually the same: Virtualization in electronic health care |
September 11, 2008 |
 A large B.C. health organization needed more servers, more space, more electricity and more cooling. Instead, it virtualized the servers it already had
By Hailey Eisen
Electronic health (eHealth) systems promise many benefits, including better access to patient records, tighter security and improved diagnoses and treatment. The Interior Health Authority (IHA) of British Columbia saw many of these benefits following its recent eHealth implementation, but the new system came with one downside: three years in, IHA began to run out of data storage space.
This regional organization in the southern interior of British Columbia is responsible for the planning and delivery of local health services including public health, mental health, and residential, home and hospital care. A scenic rural setting, laid-back lifestyle and temperate climate make the B.C. interior a popular destination for retirees. Local residents tend to stay after they’ve retired, while middle-aged Canadians relocating from other provinces often settle here as well.
“We look at the issues facing our region as an impending tidal wave,” said Mal Griffin, IHA’s chief information officer. “The average age of nurses here is 48, and because of the length and intensity of their shifts, many will be looking to retire at the earliest possible opportunity.” While the IHA continues to actively recruit physicians and other providers, it is having trouble attracting younger health-care professionals.
With 17,300 employees and 1,300 physicians serving more than 750,000 people, the IHA continues to expand its breadth and depth of client services in an effort to meet growing demands.
“Technology is not the be all and end all but it is a strategic enabler to help the IHA deliver health care better,” Griffin said. “We realize that in order to provide care with fewer people we’ll need to use technology as a lever to help deliver quality services.”
As far back as 2005 the IHA began to search for alternative storage solutions in its central data centre, located in Kelowna, B.C. The system was approaching capacity and, with the eHealth initiative, an average of 10 new client services were being added per month. “It was at this time we realized we were running close to capacity,” Griffin said.
More rooms, more computers?
The data centre was located in the main hospital building, and engineers determined that the density and weight of the required servers were too much for the space. IHA began planning the construction of a new facility, a process still underway.
IHA moved some servers into another room in the hospital, but that kicked off additional costs for cooling and power. “And we continued to experience growth in our IT environment as a result of our need to provide electronic health-care services to connect physicians and clinicians in remote areas with specialists and other providers in urban centres,” Griffin said.
Then the health authority had a conversation with its corporate partner, EMC, a multinational storage and management company. EMC had recently acquired Palo Alto, Calif.-based VMware, a developer of virtual computing software. “VMware had a solution that would allow us to expand our computing capacity without increasing our footprint,” Griffin said.
 Virtualization allows one physical computer to do the job of multiple systems by sharing resources across multiple environments. Virtual servers can host multiple operating systems and multiple applications locally, freeing users from physical and geographical limitations, said John Gilmartin, senior manager of product marketing with VMware. “VMware virtualization is a software layer that sits in-between a physical server and the operating system,” he said. “It presents a software representation of hardware and creates what we call virtual machines, allowing an IT administrator to run many virtual machines simultaneously on one server.”
According to Gilmartin, virtualization solves a problem that many IT organizations experience. “They’ve invested huge amounts of money in large server infrastructures to support their business objectives, but they’re only using five to 10 per cent of the computing power of those servers,” he explained. “Since you can run many virtual machines simultaneously on one physical server with virtualization, organizations are able to drive up that rate of utilization to close to 80 per cent and then reduce the number of physical servers needed by an order of magnitude.”
Dollars back into health care
IHA implemented a one-year pilot environment for VMware’s virtualization. “We primarily used internal resources, training five existing server analysts on the new technology,” Griffin said. “Once we got the virtualization software up and running we confirmed that it was indeed the right way to go.”
 The testing stage was followed by a preliminary rollout called Phase One, which focused on 120 physical servers that needed to be replaced. “These servers were five years old and no longer serviceable under warranty,” said Kris Jmaeff, senior server analyst with IHA. These boxes, with the applications and data they housed, were moved to a cluster of six VMware ESX servers.
The main challenge IHA faced when it decided to proceed with virtualization was in convincing directors, managers, analysts and users that the technology was safe, secure and reliable. “We presented numerous detailed reports based on our test cases prior to making our decision,” Jmaeff said. “We also trialed Microsoft’s Virtual Server software, but at the time concluded that VMware was the better choice.”
“We were very pleased with the outcome of the initial install,” Griffin said. “The virtualized servers allowed us to meet our customers’ needs and continue to provide good and reliable service without having to expand our data storage centre.”
Virtualization not only solved the problem of IHA’s limited storage space but also resulted in dramatic cost savings. “The virtual environment allows us to use 70 per cent less power and 84 per cent less energy for cooling, resulting in an approximate savings of $70,000 per year,” Griffin said. That’s not to mention the savings as a result of not having to purchase 120 new physical servers. “Every dollar you take out of health care for computing needs is a dollar away from patient care.”
Virtualization has also simplified and hastened cloning and procurement of new servers, resulting in increased uptime and more secure and reliable disaster recovery.
Currently IHA has virtualized 225 of its 400-plus servers and is dramatically expanding the range of applications running in virtualized environments. “We’re working with our software vendors to ensure our critical applications can be run completely in a virtual environment,” Jmaeff said.
Virtualization is a non-disruptive process which can be introduced to an organization over time, said VMware’s Gilmartin. “It is possible to have a mixed environment with virtual and physical machines working simultaneously.”
While IHA is nearing completion of its new off-site storage facility (which will allow for the reallocation of physical space in the hospital for the purpose of delivering patient care) it plans to meet a goal of 80 per cent server virtualization within the next 18 months.
“This is one of the most successful computing projects we’ve accomplished to date,” Jmaeff said.
Greening at ENMAX
ENMAX is an energy distribution, supply and service company based in Calgary. The company, owned by The City of Calgary, has 1,245 employees and is responsible for providing electricity, natural gas and other services to more than 600,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers.
The company is always working to reduce its environmental impact, said Agnes Mah, manager for infrastructure services and information technology. “One of our top five corporate key performance indicators is the commitment to do ‘green’ business.”
According to John Gilmartin, senior manager of product marketing with VMware, companies that choose server virtualization are able to realize real and significant reductions to their environmental footprint. “For every server virtualized, customers can save about 7,000 kilowatt hours (kWh), or four tons of CO2 emissions per year,” he said. “That’s the equivalent of taking 1.5 cars off the road or planting 55 trees.”
In 2004, as a result of ENMAX’s rapid growth and resulting server sprawl, its IT department began a consolidation process and migration to VMware. “This was a Green IT initiative as much as a cost saving one,” Mah said. “We realized a huge environmental savings in terms of a significant reduction in hardware—metals, batteries, rubber, etc.—and electricity and gas.”
ENMAX was first able to consolidate 137 servers onto six hosts, thereby eliminating the energy required to maintain 131 servers. It realized savings of more than $1 million in the first three years on hardware purchases alone. Today, ENMAX has a total of 150 virtualized servers sitting on five physical servers.
“Going forward we plan to explore the possibility of virtualizing our desktop computers,” Mah said.
SIDEBAR
Virtualizing 50 servers prevents the following emissions annually:
> 68.2 tonnes of coal from being burned for electricity
> 341,192 lbs of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere
> 594 lbs of SO2 (primary factor in smog and acid rain)
> 34 lbs of particulate matter
> 989 lbs of nitrogen oxides
> 127,947 gallons of fresh water from being used to cool generators
Source: IT services company Long View in Calgary
GreenTrends Archive
|
|
|
| Green Innovation |
|
|
| Top 300 Issue |
 
|
| Gadget of the Week (Canadian) |
|
Pick the best 3G for you
RIM Blackberry Bold
Choosing the right smartphone is an important decision, and here’s the good news: while both the new iPhone and the Bold are excellent, the feel is entirely different, making it easy to choose.
more>>
|
| Gadget of the Week (Japanese) |
Sounds of Japan
Why record just the visual when you can capture the sounds as well.
more>> |
| Backblog RSS feed |
Click to subscribe  |
|
sponsored by 
