4-page Case Study - Posted 9/19/2008
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Swiss IT Provider Reduces Management Costs by 50 Percent with Messaging Environment
Based in Switzerland, HINT is a leading provider of IT solutions—including hosted messaging solutions—for the healthcare industry. In the past, the company ran different messaging environments for each customer, but this proved time-consuming and expensive to manage. Without standardized processes, it was also difficult to integrate new customers. To reduce costs and increase flexibility, HINT decided to consolidate its messaging infrastructure. Working closely with Microsoft and HP Services, the company deployed Microsoft® Exchange Server 2007 running on HP servers. This simplified management and lowered maintenance costs while offering customers advanced messaging capabilities. Importantly, the environment is helping to increase turnover through the fast, cost-effective addition of new customers.
Situation
HINT develops and delivers IT solutions for healthcare organizations in the German-speaking area of Switzerland. The company was established when two independent hospital IT departments merged, so staff have detailed insight into the challenges and demands particular to the healthcare environment. As a result, HINT is recognized as a leader in its field.
To build on this lead, it’s important that the company can combine its appreciation of customers’ needs with a strong understanding of how emerging technologies can support new ways of working. This, in turn, requires solid partnerships with technology suppliers who can help the IT team identify and deploy solutions quickly.
Historically, HINT hosted a separate, customized IT infrastructure for five hospitals. Each hospital had its own applications and Active Directory® service. Together, these provided a total of 2,500 users with a range of business-critical technology. This included five distinct messaging environments: two running on Microsoft® Exchange Server 5.5, one on Microsoft Exchange Server 2000, and two on third-party solutions. The messaging environments used direct attached storage (DAS).
This system allowed HINT to give each customer a centralized, highly available, secure solution tailored to their individual needs. These features are essential. Clinical staff need reliable communications channels 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but a wealth of sensitive data means that hospitals are acutely aware of the need for security. Meanwhile, they need solutions that can evolve alongside medical and legal developments.
However, these disparate systems also created a number of challenges: high hardware and software costs, complex management, and slow, expensive integration of new customers. Kurt Häfliger,
System Engineering, HINT, says: “To improve services and expand our customer base, we needed to move our messaging systems onto a single, consolidated infrastructure.”
Key requirements included:
- Simple, standardized processes to reduce maintenance time
- Low total cost of ownership and reduced operational costs
- Flexibility and advanced functionality to create customized solutions
- Low-cost scalability to allow easy addition of new customers
- Reliable storage to provide maximum data security
Solution
Microsoft Gold Certified Partner HINT turned to its primary technology providers—Microsoft and HP Services—for advice. Häfliger had already worked with both Microsoft and HP to consolidate various elements of the IT infrastructure using HP hardware and VMware virtualization software.
“We wanted to base our new infrastructure on high-performance hardware, running software that would give us the very latest features in messaging technology,” says Häfliger. “We have worked with Microsoft and HP Services for two years, so it made perfect sense to use their combined expertise to identify the right solution.”
The two technology providers proposed a solution based on an EMC CX3-20 storage area network (SAN) and HP ProLiant DL360 and DL380 servers running Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.
“We thought about Microsoft Exchange Server 2003, but the workshops and presentations provided by Microsoft and HP Services convinced us that the advanced features offered by Exchange Server 2007 would improve our customer solutions. They also allayed our initial concerns about being an early adopter.
“By choosing Exchange Server 2007, we not only met all our initial objectives, but avoided the need for another upgrade in two or three years,” says Häfliger.
The HP ProLiant servers also run VMware ESX server software, which allows HINT to run customer systems on unique virtual machines that sit alongside each other on a single physical server. To prepare the existing infrastructure for the migration, HP Services also installed the Active Directory®. This standardized the directories used by the five hospitals.
Häfliger depended on Microsoft and HP Services to migrate all existing mailboxes without disrupting users. “An hour without e-mail could have disastrous consequences in a hospital environment. To even consider the project, we had to be confident that the migration would be seamless. The close alliance between Microsoft and HP reassured me that the project would run smoothly, despite this being the first rollout of Exchange Server 2007 in Switzerland.”
In January 2007, Microsoft and HP Services began work to install the hardware, deploy Exchange Server 2007, and migrate the 2,500 mailboxes. They used a range of migration tools, including Quest Software Exchange Migration Wizard—a dedicated tool for transferring data from Exchange Server 5.5 to Exchange Server 2007. For the hospital running Exchange Server 2000, they used Quest Software Migration Manager for Exchange to ensure a seamless migration. Microsoft provided road-mapping services, technology updates, and licensing arrangements, while HP Services defined the Exchange Server 2007 architecture and coordinated the deployment. By March, all five messaging systems were running on the new infrastructure. The migration was seamless, with no disruption to users.
“There were some technical challenges along the way, such as issues around firewall configurations, but HP Services and Microsoft responded skillfully, ensuring that we didn’t cause disruptions for users or delay rollout,” says Häfliger.
Benefits
By consolidating its messaging infrastructure with Microsoft Exchange Server 2007 running on HP servers, HINT has simplified management and lowered maintenance costs. With advanced features, customers have a better experience and the company is seeing an increase in turnover.
Rapid Integration of Customers Drives Growth
With ready-to-use templates in Exchange Server, HINT can migrate new customers 30 per cent faster. In fact, the company acquired and migrated a new customer with 500 users within just eight weeks of migrating the last existing customer. Now that Häfliger and his colleagues can integrate additional customers using simple, repeatable processes, the technology is a foundation for growth, rather than a limiting factor.
“We added another 500 users in just eight weeks,” says Häfliger. “Without the solution installed by Microsoft and HP, we could never have done this—mainly because of the time and cost involved. It’s better for everyone. Customers benefit from advanced solutions delivered faster, while we have new opportunities to expand the business. We have enough capacity for the next three years’ growth, according to our estimates.”
Häfliger and his team can easily extend server memory to make room for new users and give existing customers flexible limits on mailbox sizes. The current server configuration will accommodate another 3,000 users.
Increased Automation Reduces Maintenance Time by 50 Per Cent
Now that the IT team follows the same processes for managing all messaging systems, they spend less time repeating individual tasks. For example, they can set up rules in Exchange Server to automate management processes that cover all customer solutions. User-friendly graphical interfaces helped to ensure that they adapted easily to the new environment. Häfliger and his team also use the Exchange Management Shell, a technology based on the Windows PowerShell™ command-line interface that reduces administration by helping IT staff to automate routine tasks.
In the past, five team members spent two hours a day managing the system. With fewer manual processes, this now takes just one hour, giving them more time to spend on strategic work. Importantly, they have time to integrate new customers, as well as explore innovative ways of improving the company’s IT environment.
HINT is currently finalizing the purchase of a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement. This volume licensing program will help the company to buy the latest software products simply and cost-effectively.
Standardization Saves $U.S.2,800 a Month on Operational Costs
With less duplication of work, the IT team is more productive and the company invests less time and money in routine work. Team members can now use their combined knowledge to maintain the system as a single entity. “In the past, we needed different skill sets to manage each environment.” Häfliger says. “Now, we have a single, shared knowledge base that we can use to manage the entire system. As a result, we can coordinate system management more easily, set up new services faster, and reduce the amount of time spent on basic maintenance. This has created savings of $U.S.2,800 a month.”
Customer Satisfaction Improves with Advanced Solutions
Customers can now customize their solutions by choosing from a range of additional features. This includes next-generation mobile messaging. Exchange Server gives users access to a single mailbox for e-mail, voice, calendars, and contacts from a variety of devices. This is a valuable addition for clinical staff, who often need to communicate quickly with colleagues while working across different departments. “Our customers are very happy with the solution,” says Häfliger.
Advanced Storage Protects Customer Data
In addition, Exchange Server includes built-in technologies that give HINT’s customers improved protection against spam and viruses. This includes Microsoft Forefront™ Security for Exchange Server, which integrates multiple scan engines from industry-leading security firms into a comprehensive, layered-solution, helping HINT to protect its Exchange Server messaging environment from viruses, worms, spam, and inappropriate content.
They will also benefit from new data replication capabilities, such as Standby Continuous Replication (SCR), which works as a backup server, replicating e-mail data to a second server. This will better protect e-mail data, increase availability, and reduce the need for tape backup. “With the advanced security features in Exchange Server 2007, we can offer customers additional reassurance that their messaging system will be robust and highly available,” says Häfliger.
Expert Knowledge Transfer Helps Ensure Success
Microsoft and HP Services took joint responsibility for the project—from initial planning and design, to testing, installation, and migration. Their knowledge of the third-party software used to migrate third-party messaging systems also proved invaluable.
Häfliger says: “Buying reliable technology is just the first step in making customers happy. We also need to work with partners that understand our way of thinking, so we can customize and optimize the technology to match our specific needs. The partnership between HP and Microsoft gave us the industry insight and expertise we needed.”
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: http://www.microsoft.com/
For more information about HP products and services, visit the Web site at: http://www.hp.com/
For more information about HINT products and services, visit the Web site at: http://www.hintag.ch/
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
