French Hospital Deploys BLADE for Virtualization of Patient Records Database

Centre Hospitalier d'Avignon, a public hospital in France offering emergency, short-term and long-term care, reportedly has deployed BLADE’s SmartConnect with VMready to automate and secure the hospital's network.

 

The solution helps critical patient records databases run securely and efficiently using VMware vSphere 4 in an IBM (News - Alert) BladeCenter environment.

 

Before deploying the solution the healthcare facility sought to evaluate BLADE Network Technologies' approach to network virtualization as officials wanted to know if it could fulfill their needs for easy-to-implement virtualization.

 

Although management was sure their records database application could operate more efficiently using VMware on its IBM BladeCenter servers, they understood that manual reconfiguration of the underlying network might potentially expose critical patient information to unauthorized access.

 

Centre Hospitalier d'Avignon's IT department worked with IBM to evaluate BLADE’s approach to network virtualization and found out that BLADE's SmartConnect with VMready software worked seamlessly with VMware vSphere4 to eliminate the need for manual intervention whenever virtual machines moved from server to server. Also, it helped ensure that only authorized personnel could access patient records.

 

The tests made the French hospital confident about their decision and they are now using BLADE's SmartConnect with VMready, along with BLADE's BNT 1/10G Uplink Ethernet Switch Modules across its IBM BladeCenter data center environment.

 

Madam Hélène Sol, IT Manager, Centre Hospitalier d'Avignon, said that BLADE’s approach to network virtualization provides most of their medical professionals with administrative software and data that operates securely and efficiently using IBM BladeCenter with VMware vSphere4.

 

The hospital was specifically looking for a high-availability architecture in two geographically separate computer rooms configured in a mirror architecture including a new clean room in the new hospital under construction, she explained.

 

Officials discovered that an IBM BladeCenter solution with VMware vSphere4 and a NetApp SAN addressed their demand as the combination of the three solutions provided a better solution in relation to competitors' offers.

 

“The latest technology implemented by IBM and VMware fully met our requirements for security, availability, scalability, processing speed, resources optimization, and ease of ownership and administration,” Sol said in a statement.