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Elant, Inc. Turns to IBM and BladeFusion for Improved Patient Care System

Posted on: Thursday, 8 June 2006, 09:00 CDT

IBM, BladeFusion Technologies and Jade Systems today announced that Elant, Inc., a leading health and long-term care provider, has consolidated twelve distributed HP servers to one IBM BladeCenter running BladeFusion OE(TM), increasing the power and speed of its data center, and providing 100% application redundancy and uptime, thereby equating to immeasurable increased processing efficiencies.

As a growing not-for-profit organization serving more than 2,500 people daily through its network of facilities, home care agencies and community services, Elant turned to blade servers -- a thin computing 'shell,' or chassis, that can be easily scaled out with additional computing blades -- for a more streamlined and easy to manage infrastructure. By implementing a combined hardware and software computing platform based on IBM's BladeCenter HS20 blade servers running 64-bit Intel Xeon processors and BladeFusion's OE middleware, Elant was able to consolidate its disparate array of applications and HP systems resident at multiple locations onto a single platform, at one location.

The consolidated architecture results in streamlined infrastructure maintenance, and improved network remote management as well as dramatically reduces Elant's power consumption and eliminates datacenter cooling issues. Additionally, BladeFusion's OE(TM) high performance and high availability middleware allows Elant to provide cutting-edge patient care services. All of these network improvements and gained efficiencies have significantly reduced Elant's IT support costs.

"With BladeFusion OE managing the blade operating environment, provisioning each blade with operating system, network and other computer settings was a simple drag and drop function," said Georgiana Steiner, CIO, Elant, Inc. "Due to the simplicity and scalability of blade servers, we were able to quickly and easily migrate our distributed HP server environment onto IBM BladeCenter, allowing us to reinvest the valuable time and money we saved into resources to provide better care for our patients."

"The powerful system performance of IBM BladeCenter, coupled with BladeFusion's middleware, offers small to medium size organizations such as Elant the speed and agility to cost-effectively transform an aging, unwieldy infrastructure into a computing platform that better positions the organization to more rapidly and effectively serve its patients," said Juhi Jotwani, director, IBM BladeCenter solutions.

BladeFusion OE is a blade operating environment middleware that enables rapid deployment, integration and unified management of multi-application services on industry standard blade server platforms. Residing between the blade server's physical, network and application layers, BladeFusion OE allows users to configure network and application services with a simple drag and drop function. Offering a unique 'N+1' high availability architecture for failover, BladeFusion OE continuously monitors the blade server's network application services environment to ensure high service availability and performance throughout its lifecycle.

"BladeFusion OE blade operating environment middleware enables organizations such as Elant to migrate from distributed IT environments to blade server-based computing architectures, quickly and with ease," says Udi Paret, president, BladeFusion Technologies.

"Jade Systems worked closely with Elant to identify and implement the most effective blade solution possible," commented John V. McCann, president of Jade Systems and a Premier IBM Business Partner. "Elant was keen to quickly migrate their aging HP server infrastructure to a powerful, easy to manage, highly available solution. After a thorough review of our client's IT infrastructure services requirement, we felt that IBM's BladeCenter platform with BladeFusion's OE operating environment middleware would serve Elant's requirements perfectly."

For more information about IBM BladeCenter, go to: www.ibm.com/bladecenter.

About Elant, Inc.

Elant, Inc., a community-based, not-for-profit organization, is a leading provider of healthcare and other community services for older adults and chronically ill people of all ages. Established in 1985, Elant has grown rapidly from a 120-bed nursing home to a comprehensive system of organizations that provides a full range of health and housing services. On any given day, Elant serves more than 2,500 people through its network of facilities, home care agencies and community services. For more information on Elant, Inc., visit www.elant.org.

About Jade Systems

Jade Systems is a complete Information Technology (IT) Solutions Provider to large, medium and small clients. In operation since 1992, Jade offers services and technology solutions concentrated locally in the tri-state area of NY, CT and NJ, and nationwide. Jade provides quality products from IBM and most other major manufacturers and outstanding service for its quality-conscious clients. Jade is proud to be an authorized sales, service and value-added solutions provider for many of the foremost technology industry manufacturers. Jade's strong partnership with IBM, BladeFusion and other industry leaders ideally position the Company as a single source for IT expertise in building, maintaining and protecting the reliable information technology foundation necessary to conquer clients' challenges and achieve all their technology goals. For more information, visit www.jadenet.com.

About BladeFusion Technologies

BladeFusion Technologies is the leading provider of high performance Blade operating environment middleware solutions that enable rapid deployment, integration and unified management of multi-application services, on industry standard Blade Server platforms. Residing between the Blade server's physical, network and application layers, BladeFusion OE(TM) allows users to configure network and application services with a simple drag and drop function. Offering a unique 'N+1" HA architecture for failover, BladeFusion OE continuously monitors the Blade Server's network application services and dynamically re-configures the environment, as and when required, to ensure high service availability and performance throughout its lifecycle. For more information, visit www.bladefusion.com.

The following are either trademarks or registered trademarks of International Business Machines Corporation in the United States or other countries or both: IBM, the IBM logo and BladeCenter. For a list of additional IBM trademarks, please see www.ibm.com/legal/copytrade.shtml. All other company/product names and service marks may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies.

 Media contacts:  Tim Willeford IBM Corporation 978-878-3245 twilleford@us.ibm.com  Mr. B. Chandrasekhar BladeFusion 650-903-2283 chandrasekhar.b@bladefusion.com

SOURCE: IBM and BladeFusion Technologies

Source: MARKET WIRE

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