by Compellent Technologies, — May 03, 2010
IT departments in the healthcare industry, from OEMs to frontline care providers, are facing profound pressure on their data center infrastructures. Mark Manning from McKesson tells his story, describing McKesson’s infrastructure before and after Compellent and why storage really does matter to the world of business.
9:02 am – Mark Manning, Chief Ditchdigger, for McKesson’s EnterpriseRx division is presenting on his infrastructure before and after his Compellent implementation.
9:04 am – EnterpriseRx is the McKesson flagship application for pharmacies. Most of McKesson’s customers are hospitals, outpatients, chain and individual pharmacies.
9:06 am – McKesson has invested heavily in technology to provide better customer service and improve staffing productivity.
9:07 am – There is an unbelievable amount of data out there – when the record comes in, when it goes out, who handled it, etc. There are a lot of improvements that can be made to enhance the customer experience, including things like email and accounting, laboratory data and compliance management.
9:08 am – All records need to be retained, nothing can be deleted. In addition, there’s a big shortage of pharmacists, so while data grows, it’s becoming harder for pharmacists to manage it all.
9:09 am – In 2009, less than 25 percent of US physicians utilized HER systems.
9:11 am – From the time you’re born to the time you die, you generate a lot of records. Every visit to the dentist office, the doctor office, etc., generates health and medical records.
9:15 am – Since 2005, EnterpriseRx has grown to 150 customers in 800 locations across 13 time zones. In 2008, EnterpriseRx had two EMC SANs and one StorageTek SAN. Storage management was at an all-time high, application performance was impacted, and EnterpriseRx was hit with availability issues.
9:18 am – In 2008, we had about 23 customers in about 300 stores. Our SANs were completely maxed out, and we were just throwing more and more storage at the system with very little forethought. Cracks started to develop.
9:20 am – The feeling was best described by a coworker of Mark’s: Imaging you’re in a cactus field, naked, and a tornado comes along…
9:21 am – We decided that we needed a solution that not only kept us afloat, but helps us and keeps us ahead of the competition.
9:22 am – McKesson’s technical needs included a solution that provided scalability, flexibility, restoration of individual databases, multi-site disaster recovery and cost savings from power and cooling.
9:23 am – McKesson’s human needs included manual ILM, quick and easy cloning, reductions in operating costs, idle redundancy and risks for more “hands off” time and more sleep! At the time, the division had 12 people in three locations.
9:26 am – McKesson’s customer service needs included excellence in customer service, quick and complete resolution of IT issues, high availability of customer data, the ability to react to customer requests, and technology partner who know, understand and deliver on McKesson’s demands.
9:28 am – As part of the IT upgrade process, McKesson:
- Conducted market research
- Consulted other business units and industry professionals
- Considered EMC, HP, NetApp, 3PAR and Compellent
- Performed a Proof-of-Concept on Compellent:
- Performance capabilities
- Survivability after failures
- Storage provision process
- Copilot customer service
- Backup, recovery and cloning
- Adding storage to array without downtime
- Automated ILM (Fast Track and Data Progression)
9:33 am – The installation process involved in using a customer to go live with the system. There was one minor issue that was taken care of in one day. McKesson and Compellent both said, “I do!” and surprisingly, even McKesson’s most risk-averse customers were rushing to the front of the line to make the switch. Mark migrated 37 TB of data within a week, and they immediately saw incredible results.
9:35 am – McKesson is in the honeymoon phase. The Compellent SAN collects usage data, can recover from disaster quickly, Enterprise Manager provides a report on how the system is working, and now Mark can spend time fishing with his son.
9:39 am – After an important restoration, other employees thought it was a miracle. Mark told them, “No…it’s Compellent.” Now, the IT team refers to BC and AC: Before Compellent and After Compellent.
9:41 am – McKesson continues to grow with Compellent. Customers continue to enjoy fast response times and on-time deliverables, McKesson is enjoying shorter development lead times, faster turn-around of solutions and fixes, and Copilot responses are over the top. In addition, Compellent continually asks for input and delivers on requests.
9:45 am – One time, Copilot found out that Mark’s team urgently needed some new parts that were not available locally. Copilot had a jet in the air with two of everything the team needed, including an engineer that day.
9:50 am – Mark says that Compellent can’t fly under the radar anymore.
9:51 am – Mark’s team manages 903 volumes across 532 of raw storage at three locations with three people.
9:54 am – Most people may not know this, but Mark said that EMC stands for “Easily Migrates to Compellent”!
9:56 am – Mark’s business unit president is proud of his Compellent installation. He’s happy to go against the grain.