In the world of on-line business, if the technology that an e-commerce venture operates on fails, it`s tantamount to shutting up shop.
It`s for this reason that many on-line organisations are outsourcing their data storage and management requirements to companies that can do it best.
Healthbridge, an e-commerce service provider to the medical industry, is one of just a handful of South African companies that can claim to be a purely on-line business. The organisation handles thousands of transactions a day between medical professionals and medical insurance schemes over the Internet. Claims are processed and settled entirely on-line which speeds up payment for doctors and makes transactions more efficient as well as significantly less costly for medical schemes.
Healthbridge operations manager, Willem Buchner, says the company`s systems have to be reliable around the clock and that the data stored within it has to be totally secure and backed up.
"Medical records and financial information are particularly sensitive and we have to know that it is properly stored and managed," he says.
In an on-line organisation, if the system isn`t available, business is lost. "It`s like closing the doors of a physical shop," says Brian Michaels, product development manager at Internet Solutions (IS).
"In the digital economy, the most important currency is information. Whether it`s business records, transactional information or customer details, the data needs to be properly stored and managed."
Server Area Networks (SANs) are high-speed networks connecting application servers (like Healthbridge`s system) directly to storage devices by fibre switches. Connections are duplicated because it`s critical business information that`s being stored and retrieved - and it has to be available around the clock every day of the year.
Says Michaels: "Setting up SANs is extremely capital intensive and requires well-trained engineers to support the infrastructure. Outsourcing storage management to a service provider which specialises in providing storage facilities makes more business sense - it`s especially here where economies of scale come into play. The managed storage solution is designed for companies that require maximum availability and uptime for their on-line application and would like to eliminate the capex and management skills required to maintain these devices," he says.
"The managed SAN means we have huge amounts of disk space but, more importantly, that data is stored, secured and managed more efficiently" says Buchner.
Says Michaels: "Online applications have become critical to business and a growing number of companies are outsourcing the management of their ever-increasing demand for essential storage and backup facilities."
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Internet Solutions (IS) is South Africa`s leading provider of infrastructure foundations for electronic business and the forerunner in providing companies with effective connectivity solutions. At present, they connect over 1500 organisations to the Internet and over 3000 sites through their range of VPN Solutions, thus forming the primary electronic business community in South Africa.
IS offers a fully managed environment together with expertise in areas such as internet access, VPN`s, hosting, dial-up, security and data management. Their best-of-breed infrastructure is without equal and has been the preferred choice of leading companies since 1993.
As the Internet industry leader, IS is also dedicated to sharing its success with others by providing improved access to education and information to all South Africans, particularly previously disadvantaged communities.
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