CASE STUDY: Medi-Clinic takes control of network performance

The Medi-Clinic Private Hospital Group, a leading provider of healthcare services in South Africa, has selected Compuware Corporation's Network Vantage and Server Vantage products to enable it to reduce spurious bandwidth usage across its Wide Area Network (WAN), improve server performance and increase productivity.

With advances in computer and network technology, companies like Medi-Clinic that require a high level of productivity from all staff within the organisation, have experienced exponential pressure on their connectivity and processing systems. Poor performance or unavailability of the WAN, servers or other computing resources at times of high demand is simply unacceptable for a company that is driven by operational excellence.

Medi-Clinic: A South African healthcare provider for over 20 years

The Medi-Clinic Group has been a provider of quality healthcare to the South African public for 22 years. With 47 hospitals and 18 branch offices and business units, the organisation is headquartered in Stellenbosch in the Western Cape, and provides employment for 12 500 people. Last year, the Group posted a turnover of more than R3,6 billion.

Deon Myburgh, IT Operations Manager at Medi-Clinic, says the organisation's large network covers its operations across the country. "Increased pressure on the network and connected systems requires us to always have a finger on the pulse, allowing for the early identification of any issues, improved capacity planning as well as the ability to act on the situation should anything go wrong," he says.

Myburgh adds that changes in the way business is conducted - in terms of increased reliance on the Internet and electronic communication - have put further pressure on Medi-Clinic's infrastructure and systems.

"An organisation such as our own deals extensively with medical aid companies - interaction with these organisations is now almost exclusively conducted via the Internet," he explains

"With electronic communication becoming the order of the day, strain on the WAN was a real problem. Determining what was running across the network and where the bottlenecks were, was a challenge on its own," Myburgh adds.

The company therefore sought a solution that would not only help it to rapidly identify network traffic, but would also give it the ability to manage its bandwidth resources for optimal performance of critical applications.

Compuware Vantage provides the answer

Medi-Clinic turned to Compuware Corporation for assistance.

Compuware conducted a comprehensive investigation of the organisation's infrastructure, followed by a Proof-of-Concept exercise which demonstrated that Network Vantage and Server Vantage would deliver the enhanced management and control sought by the hospital group.

Server Vantage increases application availability and reduces response times by examining applications, servers and databases, and identifying problems before they impact critical business processes. Network Vantage provides network performance management from an application perspective.

Targeted at WAN analysis, the understanding of link utilisation and the identification of traffic type, the solution provides management reports as well as detailed technical analysis, enabling Medi-Clinic staff to determine the impact of various applications and systems on the network as well as pro-actively manage business systems for optimal performance.

"We have many centralised systems and services with a Frame Relay, star-wired network with four large trunks converging into Head Office. Network Vantage WAN probes were installed on each trunk, capturing all inbound and outbound traffic," Myburgh says. "'The analysis of this data allows for the prediction and provisioning of network services."

Furthermore, Server Vantage agents were loaded onto 88 Wintel servers, providing detailed performance analysis and alerts.

"With the decentralisation of Active Directory, Microsoft Exchange and Terminal Services to hospital level, performance and availability of these servers is critical," says Myburgh. " The Compuware solution greatly aids management with a centralised console and an Enterprise Dashboard, allowing for a high level overview of all links and systems, highlighting any potential problems or alerts which allows for rapid intervention."

"We now have an understanding of what is happening as far as network traffic is concerned, giving us the ability to predict and plan ahead. With this information, under-utilised links and services can be downsized, with a resultant cost-saving. Since we now have the ability to analyse issues, we are able to pinpoint specific problems instead of simply increasing bandwidth. Finally, by baselining and monitoring servers, we can more effectively specify and maintain our servers, thereby providing a far better level of service to each hospital," he concludes.