Case Studies in Brief - November 9, 2007
Glenvill Group Builds Storage Foundation Using DataCore SAN Virtualization
Glenvill Group, an Australian construction company, enhanced storage management productivity, responsiveness and business continuity using DataCore Software’s SANmelody for storage virtualization infrastructure.
Glenvill transformed its IT infrastructure incorporating a new scalable solution for data storage when it moved to a new purpose-built head office recently. SANmelody is a reliable storage infrastructure foundation that meets the company’s changing business requirements for the long term. In addition, the company gained flexibility and storage networking using iSCSI SAN connectivity over Ethernet for application delivery to users as well as Fibre Channel SAN performance and redundant data protection for Exchange and database back-ends.
“Since we were building a new IT center from the ground up, we really didn’t want to worry about storage details or failures. Our focus was on making sure we could manage growth, respond rapidly to new requirements and keep our business-critical applications and services up and running,” stated Michael Dickson, general manager, Glenvill Group. “DataCore has done the job for us. The SANmelody solution has been running for almost a year now with 100 percent uptime, allowing us to concentrate on managing and growing our business, not worrying about our IT storage needs.”
Indiana PERF Selects Information Builders
Indiana Public Employees’ Retirement Fund (PERF), a government agency that serves the needs of more than 220,000 public employees and retirees throughout Indiana, selected WebFOCUS software to standardize reporting, business intelligence and information delivery throughout its organization. The software will help employers process retirement applications and deliver pension checks to Indiana citizens.
Indiana PERF started using WebFOCUS in April to provide greater visibility into the multistep process of reviewing retirement applications and qualifying retired workers for pension checks. With the new software, PERF can spot missing information immediately and contact workers promptly, which has enabled PERF to cut down the time it takes to issue checks to eligible workers, from as many as 180 days to as little as 30 days from the date of retirement. Additionally, PERF can process 10 percent more retirement applications with the same staff and for the same amount of money as before.
PERF now plans to use WebFOCUS for all enterprise reporting throughout the organization and is training 30 people to develop new types of reports. "WebFOCUS is our tool of choice not just for retirement reports, but for all administrative, financial and operational reporting going forward,” said David Huffman, deputy director and chief technology officer at Indiana PERF. "Our business is now driven by direct access to current information, which is something that never happened here before.”
New Orleans’ Largest Health Provider Selects IBM and Initiate Systems
Ochsner Health System is the State of Louisiana's largest non-academic health system and also its largest private employer, consisting of seven hospitals, 32 health centers, fitness centers and a hotel. The health system recently acquired three New Orleans community hospitals and is now in the process of merging disparate patient information and management systems. Ochsner Helath System selected IBM and Initiate Systems, Inc. to improve the capabilities of its electronic medical record (EMR) system.
Under terms of the agreement, IBM and Initiate will customize Initiate Patient, an advanced enterprise master person index (EMPI) solution for the sharing and management of patient data in an environment of rapid expansion and across highly disparate patient registration systems.
In addition to Ochsner’s recent growth, the health system is still dealing with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, which caused a massive dispersal of population that is now trickling back into to the region.
“We needed a sophisticated EMPI that would help us manage through the chaos, accurately detecting duplicate patient records across our systems while maintaining the integrity of our data, so that patients can easily be cared for in any one of our facilities throughout the region,” said Chris Belmont, Ochsner assistant vice president, corporate information systems. “We contracted with IBM and Initiate to take patient data from our hospitals and consolidate them under one ‘master’ enterprise person index to achieve our goals of greater patient safety and satisfaction as Ochsner continues to grow.”
Norfolk Southern Corp. Chooses MicroPact’s Labor Relations Software
Norfolk Southern Corporation selected entelliTrak’s Labor Relations (LR) Edition by MicroPact for use at its headquarters and in the field.
MicroPact will integrate entelliTrak’s LR Edition with Norfolk Southern’s enterprise document management system, enabling them to store case files, track grievance data, create daily activity reports, status reports and data trend analysis reports. The LR Edition will reduce paperwork and facilitate access to the data from field locations.
“The LR Edition is a proven application with a great track record,” explains Growson Edwards, director of Business Development for MicroPact. “We design our products to include 90percent of what a customer in that industry needs. They only require slight modifications that are specific to their company, and they are ready to go.”
CopperKey Selects Sybase
CopperKey, a predictive marketing software and solutions company, chose Sybase IQ to power Predictive IQ, its rebuilt data analytics system.
Sybase IQ analytics server produces combines a column-based data structure with patented indexing and a scalable grid. Compatible with standard hardware platforms and leading analytics applications, Sybase IQ offers high performance at a fraction of the cost of alternatives.
“CopperKey offers on-demand analytics through our software as a service business model so our analytics performance is critical to business success. When our data system crashed last November, we knew we required a new data management architecture that would not only deliver optimum performance, but also be highly scalable,” said Peter Vanderlee, executive vice president at CopperKey. “In Sybase IQ, we discovered an incredible query performance that we were unable to get with any alternatives. One task that used to take 72 hours with our regular database - a full three days - was down to about 40 minutes using Sybase IQ.”
