Virtual Reality: virtualisation and the NHS
Virtualisation is a word that has started to creep into common usage. But what does it mean and why might the NHS be interested? Nick Saalfeld offers a quick introduction.
The problem with any discussion of “virtualisation” is that the term has come to have several meanings. Worse still, it’s all horribly… conceptual.
Let’s avoid getting too abstract with a little history lesson. As little as ten years ago, if you wanted technology to help you with something, you bought a computer and ran some software on it.
Then servers came along: powerful computers doing much the same thing, but sitting in cabinets rather than on desks, and connected to networks so whole offices could access their data.
So far so good. But most large organisations, including the NHS, ended up with a surfeit of powerful computers, generally dedicated to running one task each in complete isolation from one another. This often made sense when they were installed, but there are several drawbacks to the approach.
“The key is to think of computing assets - like processing power and data storage - as resources.”
Firstly, most of these systems have superior computing power 24/7 that is only used every now and then. Think of a monthly payment run. Most of the time, a computer dedicated to this task is doing nothing.
Secondly, installations were executed by individual suppliers, working to solve specific problems. Systems never had to talk to each other, and the incremental benefits of interoperability got left behind. The power and staff needed to run them also grew exponentially.
Virtualisation down on the (server) farm:
The concept of virtualisation pulls all this apart. The key to grasping the idea is to think of computing assets - like processing power and data storage - as resources rather than as physical machinery.
Initially, virtualisation was developed for big computers, such as mainframes. It allowed those physical computers to be split into several parts – virtual machines – each of which could run its own operating system and applications – those assets that would once have been tied to a particular machine.
Virtualisation can also be applied to collections of machines. A great leap forward in terms of making this possible has been the adoption, over the past five years or so, of broadly open standards, such as IP protocols for communications or XML and its many derivatives for formatting datasets. “A virtualised desktop network can be centrally administered, and software locked down.”
These allow information to be shared usefully across assets, making better use of the hardware resources that organisations already own. For example, a small server farm can now perform multiple functions - storing and handling data at maximum capacity.
This interoperability makes it easier to commission and shift new hardware, too. Expanding a data storage facility, for example, is as easy as plugging servers into a rack – yet virtual machines can also be concentrated on as few real machines as possible, conserving energy in the process.
Virtualisation on the desktop
Virtualisation can also be applied, even more dramatically, to the desktop (PCs and laptops). Traditionally, desktops have run their own operating systems and applications. But on a virtualised desktop, user interfaces, operating systems and applications can be delivered independently. This can be a huge benefit to IT administrators.
Desktop PCs are the Wild West frontier of any network. Despite the best efforts of IT personnel to keep things consistent, users often install applications, browse the web, change configurations, plug in devices or just spill coffee over their keyboards until every PC looks and works entirely differently from every other PC on the same network.
In contrast, a virtualised desktop network can be centrally administered, and software locked down. On PCs running under a virtualised regime – such as Microsoft’s SoftGrid - applications are run without being installed on client machines at all. "...on a virtualised desktop, user interfaces, operating systems and applications can be delivered independently. This can be a huge benefit to IT administrators."
Microsoft’s Richard Lane says: “Softgrid is an important addition to the NHS Enterprise Agreement for England. Through the use of Softgrid technology, applications that require different version of Java, for example, can be run on the same PC.”
Virtualisation in healthcare
There are other reasons for the NHS to be interested in virtualisation. Virtualised systems are transparent to the user. On a virtualised desktop network, for example, employees can sign in anywhere and always see their “own” PC.
This goes a long way in something like the NHS, where clinicians have higher priorities than going on training courses to learn about many IT systems. And if the process of accessing data is the same whether the data’s on a local server, a new server or an externally provided server, training costs - and helpdesk calls - can be reduced.
Centralised IT resources also solve a growing skills gap; something which should not be lost on the public sector, which finds it hard to compete with private firms on pay and benefits.
Virtualised systems need less maintenance and need it from a reduced skills-set. Indeed, there’s a fully-fledged skills library just for the virtualisation discipline - the IT Infrastructure Library, or ITIL.
The technique has also been shown to give the greatest return on investment in data-heavy organisations: that is broadcasters, financial services companies and…healthcare organisations. Few organisations need as much data - or need to move it around fast and frequently - as trusts. "On a virtualised desktop network, for example, employees can sign in anywhere and always see their “own” PC."
Analyst Mark Clark of the Butler Group writes: “Fragmented data needs to be centralised. Hospitals can drive better and more flexible access to data by moving from a siloed approach to information storage [in which] medical and other applications share a common storage infrastructure. Use of virtualisation technology can create, as far as users are concerned, one big pool of data.”
And unlike many businesses, trusts are dispersed. They operate on many sites and often have satellite locations – surgeries, mobile workers and so forth - to boot. Pooling IT resources and making them available through common user and technology interfaces represents a massive future cost saving.
Benchmarking Virtualisation
What sort of cost saving? For an analysis of the early adopters, it’s necessary to look to the US, where pressure from purse-holders (usually insurance companies) has made cost savings more visible. Research house IDC quotes a project at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, whose savings to date total $20million.
These “hard money” savings should be evidenced within 18 months, but successful virtualisation projects demonstrate other benefits. Virtualisation is a “back office” process, so organisations should aim to achieve:
- A reduction in their IT infrastructure operating budget, both in real terms and as a percentage of overall administrative spend.
- A reduction in helpdesk calls and an improvement in first-call resolution rates.
- Reduced time and cost in both desktop and server maintenance overheads.
Virtualisation as a disruptive technology
Many IT experts see virtualisation as the next big thing for their industry. Microsoft’s chairman, Bill Gates, wrote a famous memo in 2005 that suggested it could bring about a “sea change” by allowing software to be decoupled from machines and delivered in new ways, such as over the Internet. "The vision is to deliver “the right computing resources to people virtually anytime and anywhere, while creating an IT environment that is more efficient, flexible and cost effective.”
Since then, Microsoft and other companies have been looking for ways to harness the concept. Last week [on 21 January 2008], Microsoft Corporation announced a company-wide strategy to “help accelerate the broad adoption of virtualisation” as part of a new “ vision” for “Dynamic IT.”
The vision is to deliver “the right computing resources to people virtually anytime and anywhere, while creating an IT environment that is more efficient, flexible and cost effective.”
Practically, the strategy includes the acquisition of a virtualisation provider (Calista Technologies), a new alliance (with Citrix) to improve interoperability and market a desktop solutions.
It also includes some changes to licensing to allow businesses and home users to run Vista in a virtualised environment, and new tools to support the deployment of Microsoft’s own virtualisation software.
Where do I sign?
For organisations, preparation for a formal virtualisation process is as much about effective process management as it is about commissioning new equipment. Marshalling existing IT resources in order to use them more effectively demands a full schematic assessment of IT, people and skills.
The good news is that as well as the ITL knowledgebase, NHS trusts can engage with Microsoft’s Infrastructure Optimisation (IO) process.
By using the NHS IO online assessment tool – find more details below – you can establish a straight line between where your organisation is and where it wants to be (a co-ordinated IT infrastructure with resilience, capacity and cost control all neatly aligned).
Another port of call should be Microsoft System Centre Virtual Machine Manager. VMM takes the pain out of mapping physical resources against usage patterns and virtualised requirements. It will help IT managers to construct the most effective – and easy to administer – virtualised environment.
Unsurprisingly, the preparation work means there is an overhead to extracting best value from IT investments; but it is a strategic overhead. Get the thought processes right and the cool new kit will follow.
Related Links
Microsoft's NHS Infrastructure Optimisation Assessment tool
The NHS IO tool has been recently updated as an online resource. IT Directors will shortly be invited by email to join the Microsoft Resource Centre and take the online assessment. On completion of the assessment a detailed and personalised report indicating where your NHS organisation is placed on the infrastructure Maturity model will be generated. The report will also include advice on next steps.
If you would like to find out more in the meantime, please email us at nhsweb@microsoft.com
Tags: Butler Group, Calista Technologies, Citrix, data, Dynamic IT, interoperability, IT Infrastructure library, ITL, Mark Clark, Richard Lane, server farms, softgrid, virtualisation, Vista