Storage Management, High Availability, Data Protection, Remote Backup, and Data Deduplication

Executive Summary

Overview
The Servicio de Salud de Castilla–La Mancha (SESCAM) delivers healthcare services to the residents of Castilla–La Mancha, one of the 17 autonomous communities (regional governments) of Spain. SESCAM operates 18 hospitals with a total of 5,154 beds, eight diagnostic centers, and more than 250 local primary care centers.

Barriers
SESCAM’s service area, Castilla–La Mancha, is one of the most sparsely populated regions in the country. Delivering health services to such a dispersed population has led the institution to develop innovative systems for handling patient information, including records of office visits and diagnostic images such as x-rays and MRIs. SESCAM has grown rapidly over the eight years of its existence and therefore must invest in technology to achieve its goal of offering excellent care to all inhabitants in the region. At the same time, public budgets are getting tighter and all expenditures are coming under intense scrutiny. To meet these constraints, the SESCAM information technology (IT) team must maximize the value of capital investments while keeping operating costs low.

The Solution
Since 2003, SESCAM has standardized on a core set of Symantec software across its data centers and remote locations. Key products include Veritas Storage Foundation for storage management, Veritas Cluster Server for high availability, and Symantec NetBackup for data protection. Symantec consultants have aided the institution in the design and initial installation of the Symantec products. SESCAM also invests in Symantec training to maintain and grow the skill level of its professional staff. Recently, the institution expanded its use of Symantec solutions by installing Symantec NetBackup PureDisk, which provides data deduplication and enables disk-based backups of remote locations.

Benefits
A Total Operational and Economic Impact (TOEI™) analysis by Alchemy Group found that Symantec software delivered tangible business value for SESCAM. Actual and projected savings totaled more than $33.3 million for the period from January 2004 through December 2011. This TOEI was jointly developed by SESCAM senior IT executives and Alchemy Group. To ensure the integrity of this analysis, the assumptions and formulas were audited by an independent finance and accounting firm.