Published on 16-May-2007
Validated on 03 Aug 2009
"The IBM solution has really accelerated our value to the business." - Justin Hawley, director of IT, Devon Health Services, Inc.
Customer:
Devon Health Services, Inc.
Industry:
Healthcare
Deployment country:
United States
Solution:
Energy Efficiency, Optimizing IT
IBM Business Partner:
Devon IT, Inc
Overview
Devon Health Services, Inc. provides innovative healthcare products and services that combat rising industry costs. After adding servers over the years to keep up with growing IT demands, the company finally reached power capacity.
Business need:
Rather than investing in additional power infrastructure or a larger backup generator, Devon Health took this opportunity to evaluate other computing options. They needed a solution that would address the power issue while expanding the company's capacity to deliver quality service.
Solution:
Devon Health chose to consolidate on IBM BladeCenter®, targeting 28 servers for consolidation, including the two HP servers hosting the company's core enterprise application.
Benefits:
The implementation has already resolved the power issue and reduced the number of racks, consoles and network connections in the data center. More importantly, the BladeCenter has enabled Devon Health to take advantage of new solutions, while easier management and higher reliability are allowing the IT department to focus more resources on high-value projects.
Case Study
For 15 years, Devon Health Services, Inc. has provided innovative healthcare products and services that combat rising industry costs. Based just outside of Philadelphia, the company's most familiar product is the Devon Health national Preferred Provider Organization (PPO). But as a national healthcare cost-management company, Devon Health's core business is the processing of healthcare claims.
Claims processing poses unique IT challenges, explains Justin Hawley, director of IT at Devon Health. "We work with a lot of different partners," Hawley says. "Every day we deal with file exchanges in various formats, job scheduling, timelines and task automation. System reliability is key, especially during core business hours."
Power issues
Devon Health had been adding servers to keep up with the company's IT demands over the years, creating a mixed-vendor environment that included Dell and HP. "We got in that rhythm where we were buying a new server with every new application," Hawley explains. He and his team were poised to add two new servers to the mix as part of a project to upgrade the infrastructure for the company's mission-critical application--a repricing software product that handles 80 percent of the company's workflow. That's when they made an alarming discovery.
"We had literally run out of power," Hawley says. "Our electrician informed us that we were actually drawing more power than the circuit breaker was rated for. Luckily it had never gone down, but it could have popped at any time. Rather than spending money on a larger backup generator or finding ways to bring in more power from the street, we started looking at other alternatives. That's what brought us to the IBM BladeCenter."
Devon Health chose the BladeCenter HS20 and an IBM System Storage DS400 storage area network. They immediately migrated the core enterprise application from two HP servers to the BladeCenter, which also hosts the company's file server, Web server, print server, database server, CRM application and backup domain controllers.
"We've already retired enough physical servers that power is no longer an issue," Hawley reports. The company has targeted 28 servers for consolidation, and they anticipate reducing the number of racks and consoles from seven to two, as well as reducing the number of network connections.
In addition, the BladeCenter is hosting a virtual hosted client solution, reducing many of the costs and challenges related to traditional desktop environments. Benefits include reduced susceptibility to theft and viruses, increased standardization and easier deployment of new users.
Accelerating business value
Hawley says the blades have allowed the company to upgrade operating systems, which has enabled them to take advantage of new solutions. Centralized management, along with higher reliability, has also freed up IT resources. "We're now able to pursue projects that actually generate revenue for the business--and we're handling them more efficiently," Hawley says. "The IBM solution has really accelerated our value to the business."
"IBM BladeCenter is the centerpiece of our data center," he continues. "It's bringing us up to today's standards and setting us up for the next five to 10 years."
For more information
Contact your IBM sales representative or IBM Business Partner. Visit us at: ibm.com/systems/bladecenter
For more information about Devon Health Services, Inc. visit: www.devonhealth.com
Products and services used
IBM products and services that were used in this case study.
Hardware:
BladeCenter HS20, Storage: DS400
Legal Information
© Copyright IBM Corporation 2007 IBM Systems and Technology Group Route 100 Somers, New York 10589 U.S.A. Produced in the United States of America May 2007 All Rights Reserved IBM, the IBM logo, BladeCenter and System Storage are trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States, other countries or both. For a complete list of IBM trademarks, see ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml Other company, product and 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.