Dell today announced that The
Watershed Addiction Treatment Programs, which operate inpatient and
outpatient treatment centers in Florida and Texas, have doubled the
access speed to its applications and data by replacing its enterprise
storage infrastructure with a new Dell Storage hybrid flash array. The
Watershed also has deployed virtualization using Microsoft Hyper-V for
their private cloud environment, which is based on Dell servers, storage
and networking technologies. As a result of the new IT, The Watershed
employees have faster access to patient information and can spend more
time on patient care.
For nearly two decades, The Watershed has helped more than 35,000 people
with addiction recovery. Each day, more than 600 employees—including
nurses, physicians, psychiatrists, paramedics and behavioral health
professionals—use devices to view updated patient health information and
share it with other professionals across the organization’s nine
locations. However, as the organization grew, giving those employees
fast access to the patient database became a major challenge due to a
slow, aging IT environment that sometimes experienced system outages.
To address the challenge, The Watershed wanted to deploy a full
end-to-end solution from a single vendor that could quickly support
the entirety of its needs with a high performing and cost-efficient
solution.
“What we do here all comes down to treating addiction and saving lives,”
said Christopher Crosby, chief executive officer at The Watershed
Treatment Programs. “All of our efforts are focused on that, and if
technology gets in the way, we can’t accomplish our mission. We’re able
to remove technology as a barrier by using an end-to-end Dell solution.
Technology is now a facilitator that enables us to increase the number
of patients we can support and, more importantly, the quality of care we
can give.”
The organization deployed a hybrid flash storage solution, based on Dell
Storage SC8000 controllers and SC220 enclosures, which feature Dell
Data Progression intelligent data placement technology that optimizes
storage costs by automating where data is stored between different types
of high performing flash drives and lower cost hard disk drives. This
allows The Watershed to have critical databases and Citrix environments
run primarily on faster performing flash storage while “colder” and
archival data moves to lower cost drives. The Watershed also deployed Dell
Networking N3048 and N4032
switches for performance and low latency.
The Watershed deployed a private cloud based on eight clustered Dell
PowerEdge R920 rack servers, each with 1TB of RAM, as well as Dell’s
OpenManage systems management portfolio. With a server built for
performance, greater automation and easier management, The Watershed can
better support the organization’s growth plans. Before implementing
their private cloud solution, The Watershed IT administrators had no
method to support expansion to additional locations. The organization
now knows it can grow quickly.
“Using our new private cloud infrastructure, The Watershed has been able
to dramatically improve network performance. As a result, employees have
faster access to critical applications,” said Trevor McCain, Citrix
administrator, The Watershed Treatment Programs. “With the Dell private
cloud, we can stream applications twice as fast as our previous
solution, which enables our end users a more seamless experience in
their interaction with the technology. For example, our employees can
log on and get access to the network in six seconds because of the new
Dell technologies we have in place, including servers, networking and
storage.”
The Watershed also deployed Dell
Wyse thin clients to deliver virtualized desktops for secure
delivery of apps and data to the endpoint. The Wyse endpoints connect
back to the organization’s Citrix and Microsoft Hyper-V environments,
which are supported by the Dell PowerEdge R920s and Dell Compellent
Storage arrays. The organization also uses Dell Storage Live Volume, a
business continuity feature, to deliver 100 percent system uptime for
its patient database and other end-user applications.
“From end user devices to the data center to the treatment center,
Dell’s differentiated cloud solutions are providing end-to-end support
to The Watershed employees, enabling them to treat patients faster with
improved access to information,” said Jim Ganthier, vice president and
general manager of Engineered Solutions and Cloud at Dell. “Dell’s suite
of cloud solutions, software and services provide secure and rapid
access to patient information and critical applications thus delivering
improvements in both the quality of patient care and increasing the
number of patients The Watershed can serve.”
The Watershed partnered with Dell
Implementation Services to deploy the new private cloud solution’s
back-end technologies, and the organization also worked with Dell
Financial Services (DFS) to finance the entire end-to-end solution,
from servers to storage to networking, over a period of five years. By
working with DFS to finance the private cloud, The Watershed was able to
manage its cash flow by spreading the payments over time.