Johannesburg, 25 Jul 2002
One of SA`s largest private medical schemes, Medihelp, has implemented a storage area network (SAN) to provide efficient access to and safeguard its corporate data.
According to Reinette Fourie, executive manager: information technology at Medihelp, the SAN incorporates a 16-port Brocade fibre switch, three application servers all running SQL Server on Windows 2000 and a backup server configured with Legato backup software. "The backup server is currently also connected via the SAN to an ADIC Scalar 1000 tape library system."
The company`s justification for implementing the SAN was a practical one. "The vast accumulation of data on our corporate network over the past few years has led to the untenable situation where it was simply not possible to backup all our data across the LAN - the backup windows was simply too small."
Deploying the SAN provided the means of ensuring reliable backup, and restore, procedures. Medihelp`s primary network environment is Novell-based and Fourie also intends to incorporate it into the SAN. "We also have a two terabyte EMC Symmetrix storage subsystem, partitioned 50-50 for our SAN and the mainframe environments," she adds.
The current capacity of Medihelp`s new ADIC Scalar 1000 library, configured with four LTO tape drives and 150 tape cartridges, is 30 terabytes. It has potential to grow to as many as 48 drives and 938 cartridges, offering a total expansion capacity of 187 terabytes.
"At this point it is inconceivable that we will ever need that much but we certainly have the scalability to meet our future data storage needs," explains Fourie.
Christo Briedenhann, senior account manager at Datacentrix, says the new SAN dramatically improves the ability to manage and retrieve data in an efficient manner. "We`ve been active assisting Medihelp to develop its IT infrastructure for some time now.
"Our brief was to investigate the products in the market and assist in making a comparison on the basis of their specific needs," he says.
Fourie continues: "As a result of the evaluation process, we decided on Legato for our backup software, the ADIC Scalar 1000 tape library and Brocade products on switching side. This complemented our existing infrastructure, comprising mostly Hewlett-Packard servers and the EMC Symmetrix box."
Since implementation, Medihelp has seen a dramatic reduction in the time needed to perform its backup processes. "Previously, we needed an entire weekend to do a full backup. Now, we can complete the job in a matter of hours - with commensurate performance benefits in terms of restoring data as well," comments Fourie.
The Datacentrix-installed SAN also fits into Medihelp`s plans as far as its disaster recovery strategy is concerned. "It completes the centralisation of our data on the EMC Symmetrix and allows us to replicate data and systems at a second site more effectively and without compromising bandwidth on the LAN," she adds.
"The reality is that, without a stable IT infrastructure and its constituent systems, we would be unable to fulfil our mission, which is to enhance quality of life through the cost-effective and efficient financial cover of healthcare services, in particular those that are life-saving and life-sustaining," concludes Fourie.
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