The Power of Being There ®
A change in philosophy
The foundation for good health starts with selecting the best care from the best resources.
Mercy Health Partners (MHP), a member of Catholic Healthcare Partners (CHP), and a
recognized leader in providing quality, cost-effective healthcare, further embraced that
philosophy by examining their IS functions after acquiring another regional health system.
An initial checkup revealed that to provide better service for patients visiting the hospitals in
the CHP network, there was a need to update their server philosophy.
CHP, based in Cincinnati, needed to combine their autonomous regional IS data center
functions to provide a more effective and efficient application deployment. Of utmost interest
was the consolidation from several regional data centers to the company’s two Ohio mega
data centers located in Cincinnati and Youngstown.
“Our core challenge is to provide cost-effective application deployment to desktops,”
explained Ben Patrick, senior database administrator for Mercy Health Partners. “We are
spread across the country and every regional system on our network has its own copy of
most of the applications. We had multiple copies of the same application, on multiple servers
with multiple people managing that technology. The goal is to consolidate hardware to one
of two facilities, and then come back and examine consolidating the same or similar
applications to an effective solution.”
In addition to the consolidation of the two organizations, MHP was outgrowing its current
data center and faced many issues with regular KVM (keyboard, video and mouse) switches.
“It’s been one of the best
purchases this company has ever
made and has enabled us to do
tons of cost saving features and
initiatives. We’ve definitely cut
data center space.”
Ben Patrick
Senior Database Administrator
Mercy Health Partners
Case Study
Digital KVM solution is perfect prescription
for healthcare partners data center upgrade
Avocent DSR™ solutions offer local and remote access in one KVM switch. They are scalable,
flash-upgradeable and require only 1U of valuable rack space.
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0703-MHP-CS
Create new space
“We had major space requirements,” said
Patrick. “The KVM switches we had were
outdated and were limited in their reach.
The cable wires were too short and it was an
absolute octopus of wires running from here
to there. It was way too complicated to be
cleaned-up. Also, there was no way to get
reliable remote access data to the servers
from home or outside the office without
being physically on-site at the data center.
Coupled with the major issue of vendor sup-
port and how to enable our vendors to have
secure remote access, the old KVM switches
just weren’t effective anymore.”
MHP turned to Avocent to help reduce the
redundancy, move the servers from regional
data centers to the centralized mega data
centers and enable secure remote access
functionality for vendors.
“We have two different places where Avocent
systems are deployed,” said Patrick. “We do
all our desktop testing and management
across the DS1800 units in our build room.
In the data center itself we use the DSR4160
switches and have so far installed 20 of 35
for the Cincinnati mega data center.”
MHP’s server environment consists of
approximately 150 Windows NT and
Windows 2000 servers, 13 Novell servers and
23 Unix servers. Through the consolidation
sponsored by CHP, the Cincinnati mega cen-
ter would house an additional 550 Windows
NT/2000 servers. Patrick noted that CHP
selected the Avocent solution because it
allows multiple users per switch, has true IP
connectivity, is reliable, handles NT domain
authentication, and allows remote access for
administration of servers.
Improved security with Avocent KVM
“One of the problems we had with the tradi-
tional KVM was once someone had signed-in
to the data center they could hop on any
server they wanted – there was no security
log,” he said. “With Avocent’s DSView
TM
software, we can lock down who can gain
access to each server, when they can have
access, and monitor any activity. It also
improves the access to administrators working
on the servers. Now, we can get to them
from anywhere we need to.”
Patrick explained that because the Avocent
solution authenticates against the NT
domain, they were able to establish practices
and procedures for vendor access that would
allow either no access or limited access for
vendors or other users.
“Under the vendor support model, we can
watch who is in the system and it allows peo-
ple who are watching others to do their work
rather than just simply watch the vendors,”
he noted. “At the same time, someone can
jump in and help out without fighting for
mouse control like on application-based
remote viewers. Our analysts can be more
efficient in their work because they are at
their desk rather than in the data center
where no one can reach them. This solution
allows us to get our everyday business done.”
Optimistic about the future
Patrick was also impressed with Avocent’s
commitment to research and development,
and providing quality products that improve
data center functionality.
“The biggest features that appealed to us
were product enhancements, quality control
and dedication to the product. The fact that
Avocent was doing a lot of R&D on the
product was very important to us. We knew
that anyone investing in that much R&D
would continue to enhance and improve their
products. It shows that end-user comments
can have influence on future enhancements.”
Patrick recognized the importance of buying
a switch that can be upgraded without doing
a full switch replacement. And, he appreciat-
ed the ability to be in one building and have
the servers in another. He also acknowledged
that they were able to do the consolidation
because the Avocent technologies allowed
regional administration while maintaining a
centralized data center.
“It’s been one of the best purchases this
company has made and has enabled us to do
tons of cost saving features and initiatives,”
he said. “We’ve definitely cut data center
space. With the migration of the other center
to ours, the total cost effective footprint has
been expanded with the release of more mon-
itors, keyboards, and space around the data
center to manage those servers. It has allowed
for other initiatives to go on as well that
wouldn’t have taken place without Avocent.
“Avocent switches are the most expandable,
non-cost based expansion option out there.
It’s scalable, reliable and customizable. It’s
managed to fit the needs of what we are real-
ly looking for in a product. The built-in
administrative tools that came out in the last
release are phenomenal – remote deployment
of the firmware upgrade, the administrative
Web view as well as SNMP.
There’s no other
switch out there that does it,” Patrick con-
cluded.
About Avocent
Avocent is the leading worldwide supplier of
KVM switching and connectivity solutions
that provide IT managers with access and
control of multiple servers and network data
center devices. Avocent was formed in July
2000 by the merger of leading industry inno-
vators Cybex Computer Products
Corporation and Apex Inc. Avocent’s KVM
solutions are distributed by the world’s
largest server manufacturers and installed in
Fortune 100 companies around the world.
Headquartered in Huntsville, Ala., Avocent
has locations in Redmond, Wash.; Sunrise,
Fla.; Chelmsford, Mass.; Austin, Texas;
Shannon, Ireland; London; Steinhagen,
Germany; Tokyo; China and Singapore. Visit
www.avocent.com for more information
about Avocent products.
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