Data storage solution saves terabytes for West Yorkshire NHS IT services
Summary
| Customer profile |
The Wakefield Health Informatics Service (HIS),
Wakefield, West Yorkshire, UK
- 2000 desktops and laptops
- 60 servers
- Windows operating system
|
| Products |
- CA BrightStor Data Availability Suite
- CA BrightStor Storage Resource Manager
- CA Cleverpath Portal
|
| Key
benefits |
- Expected to deliver 40% saving over three years
- Estimated 4TB reduction in unnecessary data
- Cuts data restore times from hours to minutes
- Saves up to three days a month on data backup administration time
- Reduces daily backup period by 50%
|
|
Key IT processes |
- Automates many data storage management processes
- Enables self-service functionality
- Key business information delivered through a portal
- Delivers technical information in a clear and easy-to-use format
|
The Wakefield Health Informatics Service (HIS) is a shared provider of IT
services to a group of NHS organisations comprising of the Eastern Wakefield
PCT (Primary Care Trust), Wakefield West PCT and the South West Yorkshire
Mental Health Trust, as well as, 42 general practices (GPs) in the Wakefield
area in NE England. Wakefield HIS provides a range of services including server and
network operations, software deployment and end-user technical support to
4,000 NHS users across 150 locations. Wakefield HIS centrally manages all of the data coming out of these NHS
organisations. One key issue the NHS as a whole is facing, and therefore
Wakefield HIS as a service provider, is how
best to manage their increasing reliance on
IT to improve healthcare provision. Wakefield HIS is working to ensure that
their IT environment is able to deliver applications being developed under
the National Programme for IT — which aims to transform the way the NHS
works through IT.
The increased reliance on IT as an enabler of improved healthcare services
has resulted in an increase in the amount of data that needs to be managed.
Currently the volume of data doubles every 12 to 15 months. These issues
were also putting pressure on resources associated with managing and storing
data. Gareth Bridges, IT systems manager for Wakefield HIS, said, “Demand from our customers for
more complex applications, exponential data growth and increasing mobility
meant our existing data management capability was simply coping. For
example, we had six different data backup servers running three different
kinds of tape which was complex and time consuming to manage. It required,
one person, full time to deal with backups alone.” Wakefield HIS contacted a number of other NHS trusts to find out how they
had dealt with these problems and found that several organisations were
using technology from CA to enable a more centralised and intelligent
approach to data storage and management. Wakefield HIS, which had used some
of CA’s tools in the past, looked at the company's BrightStor suite of products,
carried out its own product benchmark and concluded that CA’s products
offered more innovative features and was
considerably faster. Bridges said, “CA BrightStor is a very cost
effective and scaleable solution because it offers pretty much the same
functionality for small business needs right up to large enterprise. Whereas
to get similar functionality from the other products we looked at would have
meant buying the very expensive enterprise versions from the start.”
Wakefield HIS is using the CA BrightStor Data Availability Suite to manage
all the processes involved in a complete data storage solution, including
data backup and restore, for the entire region covered by Wakefield HIS.
Backup takes place overnight, and if there are any problems, alerts are sent
to an engineer who is able to access the system and fix them remotely.
“Traditionally we haven’t had many problems, but it’s reassuring to know
that jobs can be restarted and completed overnight rather than having to
wait until the following morning where the working day would be impacted,”
says Bridges. BrightStor Storage Resource Manager (SRM), which is one part
of the Suite, enables the reporting on storage and backup activity such as
on the type and age of files. It enables Wakefield HIS to manage data better
by indicating how much storage is left for a specific user or on a specific
server and the age and status of archived files. This information is fed to
the CA Cleverpath web portal providing NHS business managers with
easy-to-read storage information. The portal is updated every eight hours so
that managers can access up-to-date information.
“What’s good about the portal is that non-technical business managers can
access this information in a clear and meaningful way and thereby more
effectively manage end-user activity,” said Bridges. The new system will also help Wakefield HIS support mobile workers. It is currently rolling
out a facility in the CA BrightStor software that enables laptops to carry
out local backups while disconnected from the network. When re-connected
either directly or remotely, the software automatically backs-up to a
server. Because of this, each laptop user will also be able to carry out
their own restores. This will significantly reduce the amount of restores —
around 88 restore requests a year — that Wakefield HIS will have to perform
on behalf of its users. Improving healthcare service delivery
"The benefits we get from using CA technology are helping to develop an
environment where we can manage and even reduce the rate by which the volume
of our data is increasing. This helps to ensure that we have an IT
environment capable of supporting and delivering new healthcare applications
and one which supportive of mobile working,” says Bridges.
Wakefield HIS
estimates that it has saved as much as four terabytes of unnecessary data by
removing old and duplicated files. Bridges says, “CA BrightStor gives us a
much better idea of how storage is used and has enabled us to deploy a more
intelligent policy where we’re making considered decisions rather than just
throwing more storage capacity at the problem.” “In addition, CA is
helping us to improve customer service. We’re now able to reduce the time it
takes to find and restore a file from around two hours to just a few minutes
and that means users get a much better service and the Wakefield HIS isn’t
wasting time running around dealing with menial tasks,” says Bridges. The
CA technology is saving Wakefield HIS up to three days a month by making the
data management and storage process simpler and easier to control. Wakefield
HIS estimates that CA BrightStor has helped to save as much as 40% of
data management costs over three years compared to its previous approach.
Bridges says, “CA BrightStor has helped to make a number of processes much
simpler, to the extent that users can do these for themselves. Although it’s
nice to know the support is there, our customers don’t want to have to rely
on IT. It’s much quicker for the user and it means that we no longer need to
baby sit backup jobs and can concentrate on other activities that deliver
more value to customers.” CA’s innovative approach to licensing its data storage software has
dramatically simplified administration for Wakefield HIS. Instead of having
to licence each storage device, it is now based simply upon volume of data
which cuts out a lot of administration time. “It’s the first time I’ve seen
this approach to data management software tools and it shows that CA has a
fresh and innovative way of thinking,” says Bridges. Computer Associates Ltd is exhibiting at Storage Expo 2006 the UK's largest
and most important event dedicated to data storage, now in its 6th year, the
show features a comprehensive free education programme, and over 90
exhibitors at the National Hall, Olympia, London from 18-19 October 2006
www.storage-expo.com
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