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Banner Health Selects AppSense to Manage Costs, Optimize Performance of Growing Cerner Millennium Deployment; Increases Concurrent Connections By 100%, Saves 300MB of Memory, Adds Users With No Additional Hardware Investment

Posted on: Monday, 10 October 2005, 09:00 CDT

AppSense, a specialist in system performance and security, today announced that Banner Health, one of the largest nonprofit healthcare systems in the USA, is using AppSense Performance Manager to optimize performance, ensure business continuity and corral costs of its growing Cerner Millennium deployment.

AppSense Performance Manager enables IT to dynamically control processor, memory and system resources, and consolidate system infrastructure. Banner revealed that, with AppSense, it increased concurrent users by 100%, saves up to 300MB of memory on production servers and expects to reduce its server count by 20%, enabling the organization to complete an aggressive Millennium deployment without additional investment.

"After initiating our Millennium project, it became clear we needed to add more software modules and users. Our server farm couldn't handle the load without impacting performance. However, the budget didn't support additional investment," said Greg Davis, Citrix administrator for Banner. "AppSense made big promises about how it could enable us to ensure excellent performance for this larger-than-planned implementation without growing our infrastructure. They lived up to all their promises, and then some, right out of the gate."

There was no application hogging, users said Millennium performed better and, best of all for IT, AppSense Performance Manager required absolutely no configuration. It performed great out-of-the-box," Davis added.

Since implementing AppSense, Banner Health has realized many expected, and unexpected, benefits:

-- Increased concurrent users while saving room for growth

Immediately after bringing AppSense online, Banner realized it could support many more users on each server. Although they were able to get 100 users per server, Banner decided to run it at 50-60 concurrent users--still a 100% increase. This gives them breathing room for growth without having to buy new servers.

-- Projects 20% reduction in servers

Banner was concerned that it would have to add more servers to complete the Millennium roll-out. Doing so would also require additional floor space and power, and more IT support for the servers, the operating system and security patching tasks. AppSense is enabling Banner to eliminate the need for all of these by handling the implementation with 20% fewer servers.

-- Enhanced business continuity

Banner created a Citrix farm of 2 silos--one of which was idle--each running 16 servers, for the Millennium implementation. IT used the idle servers for patching/update projects and then migrated users to minimize downtime. However, as they added facilities and users, they had to pull 8 idle servers into active use, affecting Banner's ability to transparently handle these types of projects. AppSense enabled Banner to put more users on each production server--and save up to 300 MB in memory--letting them reclaim their idle servers and re-establish the 16/16 fail-over infrastructure.

-- Improved performance and end-user experience

According to Davis, AppSense's application clamping capability was an unexpected benefit. In the past, when a power user grabbed 100% of capacity, IT had to terminate the offending application and temporarily move it to another server. Not only was this difficult for end-user whose work was interrupted and then often had to be re-entered, it was a drain on IT, who had to dedicate a technician to monitoring servers and moving the applications. AppSense's CPU Clamper eliminated this problem. Interruptions and lag time are no longer an issue and server juggling is no longer needed.

-- Met physician demand for remote connections

Banner's physicians had wanted to view orders and reports without coming to the central facility. However, the project to enable this was on hold because Banner's servers couldn't support it. AppSense's ability to increase Banner's concurrent users enabled IT to allow central connectivity for remote offices, giving physicians the access required to more efficiently service their patients.

AppSense Performance Manager is part of the AppSense Management Suite, which enables enterprises to automatically secure, manage and optimize IT infrastructures, and reduce labor and capital costs. The Suite also includes:

-- AppSense Application Manager: automatically blocks 100% of unauthorized applications and executables, enabling IT to proactively secure systems in ways previously not possible.

-- AppSense Environment Manager: centrally sets-up, locks down and self-heals user environments.

"We're thrilled that Banner Health was able to optimize their Millennium performance while meeting aggressive growth goals Their fast realization of such tangible benefits is consistent with the results all of our customers achieve," said Paul Kenyon, Co-founder and VP of Business Development, AppSense.

Greg Davis will be discussing Banner Health's AppSense/Cerner implementation at the Cerner Health Conference on October 12, 9:45am in the Naples 1&2 conference rooms. The presentation is entitled, "Reducing Data Center Costs, Administration and Management."

About AppSense Ltd.

Today organizations of all sizes are challenged with improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their IT infrastructure. The drive to improve system security, increase performance and reduce costs, are common goals. AppSense software has solved these problems for thousands of organizations and is installed on hundreds of thousands of desktops and servers across the world in organizations such as EDS, Alstom, HP, Deutsche Borse, National Blood Service, British Telecom, Home Shopping Network, Daimler Chrysler, CSC, BAA and the Federal Aviation Administration. AppSense solutions have been designed for servers and desktops that are based upon the Microsoft Windows platform and are ideal for Terminal Servers, Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Servers, Web Services and other critical business systems. AppSense operates through a world-wide channel of certified partners with offices throughout North America, EMEA and Asia Pacific. For more information, visit www.appsense.com.

Source: Business Wire

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