Northampton General Hospital goes virtual with Tracline and Fujitsu Siemens Computers

Enterprise level virtualisation to reduce power consumption and improve productivity

Bracknell, 03 June 2008 Fujitsu Siemens Computers and its healthcare partner Tracline today announced they have been chosen by Northampton General Hospital to deliver a comprehensive data centre solution. Tracline will provide a solution based on Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMERGY servers, NetApp storage and VMware as part of a project to reduce energy consumption and improve productivity by reducing time spent on activities such as back-up.
Northampton General Hospital (NGH) is a medium-sized district general hospital, located close to the centre of the town of Northampton. Serving a local population of 360,000, it has an annual turnover of more than £170million, and more than 600 beds and 14 operating theatres.
Tracline is a Fujitsu Siemens Computers partner and a leading supplier of computer hardware and services to the healthcare industry. Tracline will install and maintain the Fujitsu Siemens Computers servers and NetApp storage which will be deployed as part of a virtualization project.

NGH anticipates that rationalizing and consolidating its 75 servers, storage and backup strategy will save in the region of £435,000 over a 3 year period. Currently the time alone spent on routine IT tasks such as back-ups and administration stands at around 2 hours per day. With the new servers and services this will be reduced to less than 30 minutes allowing more efficient utilisation of IT staff.

By virtualising and consolidating multiple units of older hardware onto the Fujitsu Siemens Computers PRIMERGY units, NGH will also reduce its power consumption and carbon footprint.

Mark Gilkes, IT Support Manager, Northampton General Hospital explains: As you can imagine, in a clinical environment it is critical to have secure, resilient and failsafe systems, but the continual rise in power consumption and associated cost can no longer be ignored . We were also reaching the physical and electrical limits of our data centre so virtualisation and consolidation makes real sense.

The procurement of new hardware will undoubtedly increase the effectiveness of our infrastructure. It will allow us to significantly improve the management of servers, reduce total cost of ownership and increase productivity of staff, in turn allowing us to deliver a better service to the Trust.

Andy Elliott, sales director, Tracline comments: Health organisations like NGH need specialist expertise when it comes to deploying technology. Virtualisation makes real business and environmental sense so it is something as lot of hospitals and trusts are looking into. Our role as partners is to ensure these projects go as smoothly as possible, delivering benefits without disrupting critical daily operation.

Derek Browning, healthcare technology specialist at Fujitsu Siemens Computers concludes: It is proven that virtualisation saves space, power and money. Fujitsu Siemens Computers servers enable that to happen without sacrificing business critical systems and with partners like Tracline, we are confident that we can replicate these savings in hospitals and trusts across the UK.

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About Fujitsu Siemens Computers:
Fujitsu Siemens Computers is the leading European IT Infrastructure Provider with a strategic focus on next-generation Mobility and Dynamic Data Center products, services and solutions. With a platform and services portfolio of exceptional depth, our offering extends from notebooks through desktops to enterprise-class IT infrastructure solutions and services offerings. Fujitsu Siemens Computers has a presence in all key markets across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, with Infrastructure Services extending coverage approximately 170 countries worldwide. Leveraging the strengths, innovation and global reach of our joint shareholders, Fujitsu Limited and Siemens AG, we make sure we meet the needs of customers: large corporations, small and medium enterprises and private users. The company is a pioneer in providing environmentally conscious technology and processes, throughout the lifecycle of each product, and is a member of the Climate Savers Computing Initiative and Green Grid organizations. To meet stringent international standards for corporate social responsibility, Fujitsu Siemens Computers is a member of the United Nations Global Compact.

For more information on Fujitsu Siemens Computers, please visit: www.fujitsu-siemens.com, for Corporate Social Responsibility please see www.fujitsu-siemens.com/aboutus/sor/index.html.

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crawford.warnock@citigatedr.co.uk