Published on 11 Nov 2008
"Besides consolidating our servers, we reduced our cabling significantly. Out of the box, the IBM BladeCenter required just a few uplinks—power, Ethernet and fiber channel— and immediately all 14 servers were connected." - Sentry Data Systems
Customer:
Sentry Data Systems
Industry:
Healthcare
Deployment country:
United States
Solution:
Information Infrastructure, Linux, Server Consolidation, Virtualization
Overview
Sentry Data Systems (Sentry), based in Florida, serves pharmacies and hospitals in over 20 states throughout the United States. From compliance and pharmacy transaction processing software to a healthcare business intelligence platform, its software focuses on easing healthcare specific processes and challenges.
Business need:
Sentry’s core infrastructure required substantial computing power and high-speed storage. Four difficult-to-administer racks of large servers supported the company’s day-to-day business processes, costing much energy, effort and money to run. Sentry wanted to accommodate its growing business while simplifying the design and administration of its underlying IT infrastructure.
Solution:
Sentry began by consolidating on an IBM BladeCenter® H chassis that supports 14 IBM BladeCenter HS21 servers running the Red Hat Linux® operating system. The new solution greatly simplifies system administration by enabling the company to access and manage all hardware remotely from a single console. All cabling is integrated within the BladeCenter technology, reducing the amount of wires previously needed for power and remote access.
Benefits:
• Reduces operating costs and offers remote administration
• Increases storage capacity and performance
• Reduces server footprint and amount of cabling
Case Study
Overview
Sentry Data Systems
Deerfield Beach, Florida,
United States
www.sentryds.com
Industry
• Healthcare
Product
• IBM BladeCenter H chassis
• IBM BladeCenter HS21
• IBM System Storage DS4700 Express
• IBM SAN Switches
Sentry Data Systems (Sentry), based in Florida, serves pharmacies and hospitals in over 20 states throughout the United States. From compliance and pharmacy transaction processing software to a healthcare business intelligence platform, its software focuses on easing healthcare specific processes and challenges.
Challenge
Performing over 110 million operations per day, Sentry’s core infrastructure required substantial computing power and high-speed storage. Four difficult-to-administer racks of large servers supported the company’s day-to-day business processes, costing much energy, effort and money to run. As Sentry’s growth increased its data volumes, the resulting processing loads pushed the company’s storage environment to its capacity limitations. Sentry wanted to accommodate its growing business while simplifying the design and administration of its underlying IT infrastructure.
Solution
Sentry began by consolidating on an IBM BladeCenter® H chassis that supports 14 IBM BladeCenter HS21 servers running the Red Hat Linux® operating system. The new solution greatly simplifies system administration by enabling the company to access and manage all hardware remotely from a single console. All cabling is integrated within the BladeCenter technology, reducing the amount of wires previously needed for power and remote access.
To boost capacity within its storage environment, an IBM System Storage™ DS4700 Express disk system offers better performance and 33.6TB of high-speed physical storage capacity to accommodate Sentry’s growing data volumes. And to consolidate its switch fabric and increase reliability, Sentry deployed redundant IBM SAN Switches.
Benefits
• Reduces operating costs and offers remote administration
• Increases storage capacity and performance
• Reduces server footprint and amount of cabling
“Besides consolidating our servers, we reduced our cabling significantly. Out of the box, the IBM BladeCenter required just a few uplinks—power, Ethernet and fiber channel—and immediately all 14 servers were connected.”—Sentry Data Systems
Components
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Hardware:
BladeCenter H Chassis, BladeCenter HS21, Storage: DS4700 Express
Software:
Linux
Operating system:
Linux
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2008 IBMSystems and Technology Group Route 100 Somers, NY 10589 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America October 2008 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo. ibm.com and BladeCenter are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries, or both. If these and other IBM trademarked terms are marked on their first occurrence in this information with a trademark symbol (® or ™), these symbols indicate U.S. registered or common law trademarks owned by IBM at the time this information was published. Such trademarks may also be registered or common law trademarks in other countries. A current list of IBM trademarks is available on the Web at “Copyright and trademark information” at ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the United States, other countries, or both. Other company, product or service names may be trademarks or service marks of others. References in this publication to IBM products, programs or services do not imply that IBM intends to make these available in all countries in which IBM operates. Any reference to an IBM product, program or service is not intended to imply that only IBM’s product, program or service may be used. Any functionally equivalent product, program or service may be used instead. Offerings are subject to change, extension or withdrawal without notice. All client examples cited represent how some clients have used IBM products and the results they may have achieved. Performance data for IBM and non-IBM products and services contained in this document was derived under specific operating and environmental conditions. The actual results obtained by any party implementing such products or services will depend on a large number of factors specific to such party’s operating environment and may vary significantly. IBM makes no representation that these results can be expected or obtained in any implementation of any such products or services. THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED “AS-IS” WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED. BLC03019-USEN-00
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