The MX Group, one of the fastest growing managed healthcare groups in South Africa, has laid the foundation for its future growth with the purchase and installation of a four-processor Sun E4500 server from Sun Microsystems value-added reseller MGX in a deal worth more than R1 million.
As a consequence, with several years` headroom catered for in the server, MX can confidently embark on a number of new business initiatives, including one of Web enablement.
"The MX Group has been expanding rapidly, growing from 200 to 500 people, and with more than 1 million lives under administration," says Niel Claassens, MD of MX Healthcare IT, a joint venture between MX and outsourcer and Informix specialist i.NJA. "Late last year we conducted an audit review of all technology being used by the group, and found our hardware, an IBM RS/6000, was not coping with the volume. We went to market and MGX, with some highly competitive pricing and a commitment to urgent delivery, won the contract."
The server is "immaculate", says Claassens, "with lots of headroom to cope with the volumes of data we generate - we`re at 100 Gigabytes and growing, especially as we make our systems Web-facing."
A four-Sparc II server, the Sun E4500 is fitted with 4GB of RAM and 8MB cache per processor. MX`s integrated healthcare applications were written inhouse and run against the Informix database.
"The overall system was installed, converted from AIX to Sun Solaris and live in three weeks," says Claassens. "MGX`s service and expertise were immaculate. This type of support is exceptionally important for us, as we do not have the indepth skills ourselves. The system has been exceptionally stable, with no downtime at all. Performance has been outstanding: we average 1 000 concurrent users, and we can hit peaks of 1 300, and the server shows no degradation in performance."
Claassens adds that the benefits MX has enjoyed have been near-immediate. "Apart from the ability to expand the business without the need to change our technology platform, we have prevented technology creating a backlog. Our business turnaround has improved significantly, which means we are already enjoying return on investment after just a few months."
MGX has also tailored a "competitive upgrade path to ensure we can continue growing", notes Claassens.
Choosing the right server can have a significant impact on a business, says Carol van der Spuy, Sun GM at MGX. "Scalability, reliability, affordability, manageability and high performance are all critical for a group such as MX. All of these attributes are in evidence in the solution we provided."
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