1. IBM Systems and Technology Healthcare
Case Study
Medical University of
South Carolina
Alleviating performance problems with IBM System x
and BladeCenter solutions
The Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) started in 1824 as a
Overview small private medical school in Charleston. Since then, it has grown
into a top public health sciences center, with a 700-bed teaching hospital
The need
(MUSC Health) and a comprehensive academic institution that trains
In its ongoing commitment to delivering
students in medicine, nursing, pharmacy, dental medicine and other
highly reliable IT services, MUSC needed
to make a number of IT infrastructure disciplines. The university graduates more than 2,500 healthcare profes-
investments—with a view to both improv- sionals each year.
ing IT performance and reducing costs.
The solution MUSC Health is highly regarded in a number of medical specialties,
including neurosciences, cancer care, transplants, digestive disorders,
MUSC implemented IBM System x®
3850 X5 and IBM BladeCenter® HX5 pediatric medicine, cardiovascular care, musculoskeletal disorders and
servers with efficient Intel® Xeon® respiratory medicine. The institution was named one of “America’s
processors across multiple clinical
Best Hospitals” in 2009 by U.S. News & World Report.
environments, while also migrating
from UNIX-based systems to Linux.
The IT department of the organization is equally impressive, supporting
The benefit approximately 15,000 students, faculty and staff, and providing the IT
The IBM solution eliminates a clinical and services required to support more than one million patient encounters
financial transaction backlog, supports
each year.
better patient care through real-time
information access, and accommodates
massive growth while reducing costs. “We’re here to serve the medical community, and the end result of what
we do is patient care.” says Jack Hoffman, team leader for UNIX systems
at MUSC. “If the IT systems aren’t doing their jobs, that means the med-
ical staff can’t do their jobs. That’s how we look at it.”
Alleviating performance headaches
As part of the organization’s ongoing commitment to delivering highly
reliable IT services, MUSC recently made a number of IT infrastructure
investments—with a view to both improving IT performance and reduc-
ing costs. Hoffman says these projects started on the UNIX side of the
data center with the deployment of a more robust server infrastructure
to support MUSC’s massive Cloverleaf implementation.

2. IBM Systems and Technology Healthcare
Case Study
“Cloverleaf is basically a traffic cop for financial and clinical transactions,
from patient registration and billing to lab work,” Hoffman explains.
“For us to be able to “This single environment handles all those transactions, interfacing
have better technology with Oasis, Epic, McKesson, Practice Partner and Keene. Over the
course of the day, it’s taking hundreds of thousands of transactions.”
and have it at a better
price—you can’t get MUSC had been running Cloverleaf on a handful of UNIX-based sys-
any better than that.” tems but was plagued with ongoing performance problems. Hoffman
says the systems were running at 99 percent utilization around the clock,
but transactions were still backing up by the thousands. It was a major
—Jack Hoffman, team leader for UNIX sys-
tems, Medical University of South Carolina problem for Hoffman’s team, which couldn’t add new interfaces or other-
wise grow the system without further impact to system performance.
Upgrading the existing hardware seemed like the smoothest course
of action initially. Says Hoffman, “We were looking to replace those
machines with some larger UNIX-based systems, but what we discovered
is those systems were not suitable for the single-thread architecture of the
Cloverleaf application.” At this point, Hoffman’s team began researching
infrastructure alternatives that would alleviate the transaction backlog.
Making the move to Linux on System x
MUSC evaluated IBM, Dell, HP and others, visiting briefing centers and
running demo equipment onsite before deciding on the IBM System x
3850 X5 platform. Working with IBM Premier Business Partner
Dynamix Group, MUSC procured two x3850 X5 servers, delivered with
energy-efficient Intel Xeon processors. In the process of implementing
those servers, MUSC migrated from the UNIX operating system to
Linux.
“The performance we got out of those two boxes was incredible,”
Hoffman reports. “Our utilization went from 99 percent to about
2 percent.” And Hoffman says the transaction backlog has disappeared,
leaving the door wide open for expansion. “This environment is going
to continue to grow,” he says, “but we’re confident that we’ve got what
we need for the next three to five years.”
Extending the success of System x
Shortly after migrating the Cloverleaf application to System x, MUSC
embarked on a second project to refresh the McKesson server environ-
ment, which supports in-patient applications. Based on the performance
results the team saw from the x3850 X5 in the Cloverleaf environment,
MUSC implemented nine additional x3850 X5 systems running in
multiple Oracle RAC clusters to support McKesson—also with
Intel® Xeon® processors.
2

3. IBM Systems and Technology Healthcare
Case Study
“We were really pleased with what we saw out of the
Solution components IBM X-Architecture®. And we were really happy with the price point
that we were getting. Being a state institution, budget is important.
Hardware
For us to be able to have better technology and have it at a better
● IBM System x® 3850 X5 price—you can’t get any better than that.”
● IBM BladeCenter® HX5
● IBM System Storage® DS8300
● IBM XIV® Storage System Hoffman says his team was impressed with how smoothly the System x
● IBM Storwize® V7000 implementations went, as well as with the rapid rate of acquisition.
● Intel® Xeon® processors
“Implementation was fairly simple—we did it ourselves,” he says.
Software “And the acquisition process was very quick. I’ve noticed that IBM can
● IBM System Storage SAN Volume deliver things faster than other vendors can.”
Controller
● Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5
● Oracle
A prescription for better patient care
Over the years, MUSC has been no stranger to IBM. The organization
Business Partner recently migrated its VMware environment from a competitor to the
● Dynamix Group IBM BladeCenter HX5 platform. The solution supports a burgeoning
virtualization infrastructure, with more than 600 virtual machines
currently in production and more added every day. MUSC also runs
IBM Power Systems™ and a wide range of IBM storage solutions,
including IBM System Storage® DS8300, IBM SAN Volume Controller,
IBM XIV® Storage System, and IBM Storwize® V7000.
For Hoffman, being able to rely on IBM boils down to one benefit:
“We can do the things that we’re supposed to do. We can get the transac-
tions done in a timely manner. Our point of care is faster because of
the performance of these systems, which means that our physicians and
nurses are more successful at their jobs, which means that patient care
is better. That’s really all that matters to us.”
For more information
To learn more, contact your IBM representative or IBM Business Partner,
or visit us at: ibm.com/systems/x
For more information about Medical University of South Carolina, visit:
www.muschealth.com
For more information about Dynamix Group, Inc., visit:
www.dynamixgroup.com
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4. © Copyright IBM Corporation 2012
IBM Systems and Technology Group
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Produced in the United States of America
January 2012
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