download.microsoft.comdownload.microsoft.com/documents/customerevidence/Files/7100…  · Web viewKlinikverbund Südwest provides comprehensive medical care to the people of the

Microsoft SQL ServerCustomer Solution Case Study

German Healthcare Network Engages Experts to Optimize IT Infrastructure

OverviewCountry or Region: GermanyIndustry: Health

Customer ProfileKlinikverbund Südwest, with four hospitals and two rehabilitation facilities, is one of the largest healthcare groups in southwestern Germany. Its 4,200 employees care for 70,000 hospitalized patients and 200,000 outpatients annually.

Business SituationTo address the increasing economic pressures on delivering public healthcare, Klinikverbund Südwest sought to streamline its IT operations while ensuring uninterrupted quality care.

SolutionKlinikverbund Südwest engaged Microsoft Service Premier Support, and Microsoft experts partnered with the organization to assess and consolidate its technology infrastructure and train its IT staff.

Benefits Streamlined infrastructure and

processes Improved IT services

“In the 25 years I’ve been working in IT, I’ve seldom met specialists with the kind of comprehensive product know-how that Microsoft Services Premier Support experts have.”

Hans-Ulrich Graf, Head of IT Division, Klinikverbund Südwest

Klinikverbund Südwest provides healthcare to people in southwestern Germany and needed to streamline IT, business, and service operations to address increasing cost pressures on the delivery of public healthcare. It decided to consolidate its three data centers into one data center that could serve its six locations. Realizing that it required comprehensive preparation and expertise to proceed, it signed a contract in April 2010 to engage Microsoft Services Premier Support, which provided Klinikverbund Südwest with on-site IT assessment, consulting, training, and support. With the help of Microsoft experts, it created a centralized data center, streamlined its server environment with virtualization, and consolidated its Active Directory services. Klinikverbund Südwest benefits from a more efficient infrastructure, enhanced IT capabilities, and reduced exposure to operational risks.

SituationKlinikverbund Südwest provides comprehensive medical care to the people of the districts of Böblingen and Calw in southwestern Germany. Since 2006, the organization has been running a network of four hospitals in the communities of Sindelfinger-Böblingen, Calw-Nagold, Herrenberg, and Leonberg. It also operates the two rehabilitation clinics. Südwest is one of the largest community healthcare groups in the area and reported revenues of EUR€270 million in 2010. Every year, its medical staff serves 70,000 hospitalized patients and 200,000 outpatients.

All Klinikverbund Südwest facilities have the medical equipment and personnel they need to treat patients. Each hospital has 24-hour emergency admissions, an internal medicine clinic, a surgery unit, X-ray equipment, and anesthetic units. For special and rare illnesses, the organization runs specialist centers. For example, Böblingen features a breast cancer treatment center; Sindelfingen and Calw have stroke treatment centers; and Leonberg, Böblingen, and Nagold operate gastrointestinal treatment centers.

The goal of the Klinikverbund Südwest network is to bundle together as many business processes and services as possible to relieve the increasing cost pressures on delivering public healthcare. While doing so, it aims to continue upholding the highest medical standards. The organization has 4,200 employees—including a 25-member team of IT professionals—and supports 1,500 PCs. To keep medical operations running smoothly, it needed to ensure that its IT operations provided robust performance. “To ensure

the smooth handling of processes within such a large organization, we must have a powerful IT infrastructure,” says Hans-Ulrich Graf, Head of IT Division at Klinikverbund Südwest. “When health and even life and death are at stake, patient data and operation schedules must be available at all times.”

In 2010, the organization decided to consolidate its three data centers into a single data center that could serve the organization’s six locations. It needed to optimize IT services in such a way that it caused the least disruption to hospital processes. “The data centers had grown organically over the years and were relatively heterogeneous,” says Graft. “The doctors and nurses sometimes couldn’t log into the network. Because of an unstable file server, patient data wasn’t always readily available. There were no uniform standards in the data centers, which resulted in a lot of administrative overhead.”

The project was a major challenge for the IT professionals at Klinikverbund Südwest, and it required comprehensive and competent preparation as well as direct access to technology experts. “We wanted to set up the IT environment in an optimal manner and be prepared to address risks and avoid problems,” says Graf.

SolutionOn Graf’s recommendation, Klinikverbund Südwest signed a contract in April 2010 with Microsoft Services Premier Support. The Premier Support offering is designed to comprehensively ensure the problem-free operation of Microsoft systems in an enterprise. A Technical Account Manager

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“The Microsoft experts used special tools and conducted interviews to analyze the technical structure of our installations … The result was an extensive report highlighting the potential for optimization and providing recommendations for specific measures.”

Hans-Ulrich Graf, Head of IT Division, Klinikverbund Südwest

(TAM) acts as a central contact partner and is often present onsite at the organization. The contract features a fixed number of support hours and extensive technical consulting services. “The Technical Account Manager was our central Microsoft contact,” says Graf. “He was onsite regularly and had a sound knowledge of our IT environment. Together, we discussed the technical strategy and planning of the server migration, agreed on milestones, and prepared for the next steps.”

The TAM worked with Microsoft Field Engineers to study the organization’s infrastructure, including Active Directory, a service available with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 that Klinikverbund Südwest uses to manage corporate identities, credentials, information protection, and system and application settings. They assessed how the organization employs its Microsoft Exchange Server mission-critical applications and the Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 database software. Microsoft experts also analyzed Klinikverbund Südwest IT processes and created a service map that identified the connections and dependencies between IT services. That map served as the basis for numerous service upgrades, ranging from improved problem resolution processes to optimized IT infrastructure.

“The Microsoft experts used special tools and conducted interviews to analyze the technical structure of our installations,” says Graf. “They mapped how these technologies functioned within the organization and revealed potential weaknesses. The result was an extensive report highlighting the potential for

optimization and providing recommendations for specific measures.”

The TAM provided assistance and orchestrated the assignment of tasks for the on-site implementation of a centralized data center. In addition, Premier Support experts provided Klinikverbund Südwest IT professionals with training and in-depth technical workshops on how to analyze problems and address them with concrete solutions. For particularly challenging technical situations, Microsoft provided Klinikverbund Südwest with Field Engineers, who used their deep product knowledge and access to Microsoft technologies to solve issues. In the case of engineering problems, the organization engaged Microsoft software developers to write code that addressed the organization’s needs.

With the support of Microsoft experts, Klinikverbund Südwest employed virtualization to reduce the number of servers in operation. The organization also upgraded to a Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 environment and consolidated its Active Directory services. Premier Support experts held workshops with Klinikverbund Südwest IT professionals to provide them with detailed knowledge about Active Directory including domain and location structure, password guidelines, directory service replication, and IP configuration.

“Today, instead of the original 400 servers, our IT infrastructure features only 240 machines in a highly virtualized environment,” says Graf. “While merging the data centers, we built a uniform Active Directory for all hospitals in our group. The idea was to provide a comprehensive

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“Thanks to the Technical Account Manager and the Field Engineers, we were able to consolidate and optimize our IT systems without any interruption to hospital processes.”

Hans-Ulrich Graf, Head of IT Division, Klinikverbund Südwest

solution by implementing common network login procedures.”

The restructuring of Klinikverbund Südwest data centers impacted third-party solutions—including SAP software and a hospital information system that stores patient data, service plans, and operations plans. Both solutions interoperate with Active Directory and SQL Server. “We were able to find the optimal solution to tricky questions related to migrating data and applications,” says Graf. “Premier Support experts provided enormous help in terms of commissioning the new data center.”

In April 2012, Klinikverbund Südwest extended its contract with Microsoft Premier Support for a third year. This gives the organization’s IT professionals confidence that they can rely on Microsoft to support upcoming projects, including the consolidation of SQL Server into a single cluster and the introduction of Microsoft Forefront Endpoint Protection 2010.

BenefitsBy engaging with Microsoft Services Premier Support, Klinikverbund Südwest has optimized its IT environment, expanded the knowledge and capabilities of its IT professionals, and reduced the risk associated with operating 24-hour healthcare facilities. “The Premier Support services are clearly delineated in the agreement, and our team’s acceptance of the solution is founded on the technical competence of the Microsoft technicians,” says Graf. “In the 25 years I’ve been working in IT, I’ve seldom met specialists with the kind of comprehensive product

know-how that Microsoft Services Premier Support experts have.”

Streamlined Infrastructure and ProcessesWith the assistance of Microsoft Services, Klinikverbund Südwest consolidated its data centers and created a centralized Active Directory infrastructure, making it possible for the organization to streamline its IT environment and processes and make it easier for employees to work efficiently. “Active Directory is now unified and stable and that is what is required for medical staff to access the network reliably,” says Graf. “Thanks to the Technical Account Manager and the Field Engineers, we were able to consolidate and optimize our IT systems without any interruption to hospital processes.”

Improved IT ServicesPremier Support experts provided in-depth training that improved the capabilities of the organization’s IT staff. In the event of an emergency, Klinikverbund Südwest can take advantage of 24-hour support available from Microsoft. “Thanks to training provided by Microsoft Premier Support, our IT professionals can identify errors and correct them,” says Graf. “Every IT professional at knows exactly what to do when an enterprise-critical application has problems. Plus, Premier Support is like having a life insurance policy for our 24x7 operations because the technicians at Microsoft are available quickly, whether it’s through the web, over the phone, or onsite.”

Reduced Operational RisksWith the risk assessments provided by Premier Support, the IT professionals at Klinikverbund Südwest can prevent issues

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before they disrupt healthcare service. “The risk assessments that Microsoft Premier Support experts conducted were particularly valuable to us,” says Graf. “Thanks to these assessments, we can quickly detect possible problems and take actions to address them immediately. Because we have a more robust and reliable IT infrastructure, we can focus on delivering the best patient care possible.”

Microsoft ServicesMicrosoft Services is a global team of professionals who are dedicated to helping customers maximize the value of their investment in Microsoft software. Microsoft Services touches customers more than 715 million times a year, helping them plan, deploy, support and optimize our technologies. They also work closely with Microsoft Partners by sharing their technological expertise and product knowledge on a regular basis.

For more information aboutMicrosoft Services, go to:www.microsoft.com/services

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For More InformationFor 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 in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Klinikverbund Südwest products and services, call (49) 07031 98 0 or visit the website at:www.klinikverbund-suedwest.de

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published June 2012

Software and Services Services− Microsoft Services Premier Support

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Microsoft Exchange Server 2010− Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise

Technologies− Active Directory