Hospitals have unique and challenging storage needs, as they are required to store every X-ray and medical record they create, and IBM is reaching out to that market with a system being unveiled Wednesday at a healthcare industry event.

IBM is using the concept of grid computing--many computers linked together to share processing power--to store and retrieve medical images and other records within a group of hospitals. It featured its Grid Medical Archive Solution (GMAS) at the American Telemedicine Association convention this week in Nashville.

GMAS combines IBM System x servers with Intel processors, its System Storage model EXP3000 and support from IBM Global Technology Storage Services. Although that package has been on the market for a while, it now also includes software from IBM partner Bycast Inc., a provider of management software for grid environments.

Orlando Regional Healthcare, a hospital network in Florida spent $600,000 for a GMAS system this year for two data centers serving seven hospitals.

The storage management software was an important consideration, said Alex Veletsos, chief technology officer for Orlando Regional. Data sent to one data center is automatically copied to the other, but the software screens for corrupted files and prevents those from being copied.

"Usually when you do block level replication at the storage-area network (SAN) you are replicating everything including corruption," Veletsos said. "This provides for replication without the possibility of corruption."

Orlando Regional paid about $600,000 for an IBM system with 50 terabytes of storage capacity, he said.

Hospitals have unique storage needs that are driving demand for grid storage, said Craig Butler, business line executive for IBM's storage archive business. Hospitals have to save image files of X-rays, computed tomography (CT) scans and magnetic-resonance imaging (MRI) scans. As the resolution of MRIs increases, so do the file sizes, said Butler. Doctors treating a patient in an emergency room need quick access to that patient's medical history to make a diagnosis.

Hospital economics also drives technology needs, said John Webster, principal IT advisor at the research firm Illuminata Inc.

As stand-alone hospitals are acquired by large corporate hospital groups, IT resources are often consolidated, said Webster. Even when hospitals remain independent, a group of them may pool IT resources to save money.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.

Whitepapers

• The Trend from UNIX to Linux in SAP(r) Data Centers
• Secure Wireless Printing Options
• Improve Virtual Storage TCO by Comparing Vendors
• Making IT Invisible
• Best Practices for VMware ESX Server
• Virtualizing Storage for VMware Success

View more DATA CENTER whitepapers

Webcasts

• Branch Office Trends and Best Practices
• Data Protection and Application Availability for Your VMware Environment with Veritas NetBackup and Cluster Server for VMware ESX
• Making NetBackup Highly Available with Storage Foundation HA
• Best Practices for Deploying WAN Optimization for Disaster Recovery
• Tips and Techniques for Remote Data Backup and Delivery
• WAN Optimization Landscape

View more DATA CENTER webcasts

Special Reports

• Executive Guide: Storage Heats Up
• Symantec State of the Data Center Report
• Data Centers: At the center of the action
• Executive Guide: Virtualization Reality Check
• Executive Guide: Data Center Decisions
• Get More From Your WAN

View more DATA CENTER special reports