Business issues
Kern Medical Center in Bakersfield, California, needed a reliable, high-performance solution for backing up the data held in its new McKesson Horizon Patient Folder document imaging system. At the same time, the medical center wanted a storage solution that could be expanded over time to back up a broad range of medical, financial and administrative data. Kern Medical Center’s approach to backup was server-centric. Each of the more than 40 servers in its data center hosted a tape drive for backup. System administrators relied largely on manual process for backing up data, tracking tapes and restoring files. Tape resources could not be shared among servers, leading to the under-utilization of some tape drives and cartridges.

Solutions
Datalink, a StorageTek® partner, worked with McKesson to design a comprehensive backup solution for the data held in Kern Medical Center’s McKesson system. The solution was designed to be scalable to accommodate a range of backup needs and rapid growth in the volumes of stored data. Solution components include: a StorageTek TimberWolf 9730 tape library for automated backup of distributed data; Quantum DLT 7000 tape drives for dependable data storage and retrieval; LEGATO NetWorker Power Edition software and Autochanger Module for storage management; McKesson Horizon Patient Folder document imaging system for medical record imaging and patient information.

Financial benefits
Automation of backup processes has produced significant savings in staff time. On a typical evening, the solution saves 90 minutes to 2 hours of IT staff time that otherwise would have been spent on the process of moving tapes in and out of drives and tending to other manual tasks. The medical center has also realized time savings associated with faster file restores. It now takes IT staff approximately half the time that it used to take to locate and restore a file from tape.

Business benefits
Kern Medical Center has moved beyond the limitations of manual-based backup processes. Backup now takes place automatically, with minimal staff intervention. In typical circumstances, tapes are handled only in the process of moving duplicate copies to an offsite facility for disaster recovery. Backup processes now take about four hours, down from eight hours or more with the previous backup scheme. The ability to complete backups in less time allows Kern Medical Center to continue to work within its backup windows as data volumes grow.

Technology benefits
The solution provides the scalability needed to handle expected future growth. In recent years, the medical center’s volume of stored data has grown at an annual rate of approximately 30 percent and the number of servers in the data center has increased fourfold. To accommodate growth, the 9730 library can be expanded to 30 cartridge slots and more than a terabyte of uncompressed capacity. It also offers the flexibility to work with diverse systems, including UNIX, Windows NT and Novell NetWare platforms.