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Medi-Clinic Deploys Riverbed To Support Private Cloud Computing Strategy
Published Jun 28, 2010
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Riverbed Technology the IT performance company announced that Medi-Clinic, one of the largest private hospital groups in the world, has deployed 58 Riverbed® Steelhead® appliances and the Central Management Console (CMC) at its Southern African operations. The wide area network (WAN) optimization deployment will support Medi-Clinic’s existing private cloud computing strategy and allow Medi-Clinic to avoid a bandwidth upgrade, which would have cost an additional R5m ($653,000) per year. The company recovered the initial capital investment within 11 months and has seen an 80% improvement in file download speeds, which has resulted in a dramatic improvement in employee productivity.
Medi-Clinic Southern Africa is an established leader in the private hospital industry, with 93 sites across South Africa and Namibia. These sites consist of hospitals, practice management units, nursing recruitment agencies, a hospital equipment manufacturing site and regional offices. Medi-Clinic Southern Africa employees rely heavily on SQL applications, including systems such as patient and pharmaceutical administration, hospital events management, infection control and emergency center administration. Other systems include practice management, human resources management and financial systems.
Medi-Clinic (www.mediclinic.co.za) is an established leader in the private hospital industry and operates on three platforms: Medi-Clinic Southern Africa, which comprises around 13,000 employees and over 50 multi-disciplinary hospitals in South Africa and Namibia; Medi-Clinic Switzerland, where Hirslanden, the largest private hospital group in Switzerland owns 13 hospitals; and Medi-Clinic Middle-East, with a controlling share in EHL Management Services, which operates the largest private healthcare group in the UAE.
Medi-Clinic implemented a private cloud computing initiative and centralized certain critical IT systems to its central data center. While this strategy reduced management overhead costs, it also led to user complaints about the length of time it was taking to access critical applications and the intranet. Deon Myburgh, group information communications technology (ICT) operations manager for Medi-Clinic Southern Africa, calculated that the company would need to double its current bandwidth to improve application performance, which would cost an additional R5m ($648,000) per year, and still this option would not completely address performance issues. “We needed to find a solution that was cost-effective, would support our private cloud environment, and would improve employee productivity,” said Myburgh.
Having ruled out a bandwidth upgrade, Medi-Clinic Southern Africa tested WAN optimization products from a number of vendors. “While some other alternatives looked fantastic in terms of statistics provided to the IT department, our users saw no improvement in file access times,” noted Myburgh. “In contrast, users saw a real difference when we tested the Riverbed Steelhead appliances. In one test, accessing the intranet was reduced from 80 seconds to nine seconds. Our users were extremely impressed.”
With Steelhead appliances installed in 58 locations, Medi-Clinic Southern Africa has experienced a 3x reduction in bandwidth utilization and an average 80% improvement in file download speeds. The reduction in the time taken to access files and applications has resulted in a dramatic increase in employee productivity. Selecting a Riverbed WAN optimization solution has enabled Medi-Clinic Southern Africa to reap the efficiency gains from its cloud computing initiative without sacrificing user productivity.
“Taking into account hardware costs, improved user productivity, and better management of our network, we are extremely satisfied with the Riverbed implementation,” explained Myburgh. “Riverbed is now a critical component of our organization. Our decision to use Riverbed has delivered significant returns.”
For more information:
Orient Planet PR & Marketing Communications
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Posted by
VMD - [Virtual Marketing Department]
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