Virtualization with Dell Helps Cure Growing Health Car...( Health care ...),Health

Health care organizations

ROUND ROCK, Texas (Business Wire EON) June 30, 2008 -- "Many health care IT organizations today operate under the mantra that 'more is better' when it comes to managing their data," said James Coffin, vice president, Dell Health Care and Life Sciences. "Virtualizing the IT infrastructure fully illustrates the idea that less is more for even the largest organizations to maintain their ability to maximize their technology, lower the cost of ownership, and reduce energy usage."

MedStar Health

MedStar Health, the largest healthcare system in the Baltimore/Washington region, has worked with Dell on a virtualization solution, reducing its number of physical servers by 20 percent, resulting in easier maintenance and management and lower power and cooling costs. Ultimately, this results in better patient care because the IT staff can focus on strategic priorities, such as electronic medical records and computerized physician order entry.

MedStar Health comprises seven hospitals and 19 other healthcare businesses serving more than half a million patients each year. Originally, every hospital had its own servers, creating an unmanageable infrastructure. The Dell team worked with MedStar Health on a virtualization assessment to determine which servers and applications were suitable to move to a virtualized environment. Throughout the process, Dell tested the performance and made adjustments while training the MedStar Health team so they could continue their progress.

The MedStar Health team and Dell implemented a VMware solution, dramatically decreasing the number of physical servers in the data centers. Of the over 1,000 servers, 335 have been virtualized onto 18 VMware® servers, clearing several server racks.

"Through virtualization, we have reduced the complexity and cost of managing our s
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