Datacenter in Action

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server represents a new approach to buying, installing, and maintaining a Windows server. Buying a preloaded system from an authorized OEM and turning to that OEM for both hardware and OS support is a mainframe paradigm. As with a mainframe, Datacenter's price is high—well beyond the range of even the most expensive commodity Win2K server—so opting to migrate to Datacenter is a major investment.

As I talked to administrators at companies that have made this investment, I found a variety of reasons for implementing Datacenter and a variety of Datacenter hardware solutions. The motivations and implementations of two companies in particular—Health e Connex (HeC) and Cisco Systems—might mirror your enterprise's concerns. Even though you might not yet be considering a Datacenter implementation, an overview of these two companies' decisions might give you some insight into when and how Datacenter could address your company's scalability problems.

Health e Connex
"Data where it's needed, when it's needed. That's my mantra," declares Ray Pedden, executive vice president of HeC. As an application service provider (ASP) for the medical community, HeC provides financial software for insurance companies, managed-care organizations, third-party administrators, and medical providers. These customers need immediate, around-the-clock access to information.

HeC's business is founded on the ageless theory that if you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door. "In medicine, the business process should be a straight-through process, but it's not. There are all these expensive detours," explains Pedden. "Traditionally, one out of three medical claims is sent to the wrong place. Half of the claims that are denied are never followed up to see what the problem is and whether the denial is valid. The average accounts receivable for a medical provider is 150 days, and most health organizations are spending $30 to $50 in administrative costs to collect a $20 copay. Our business is designed to eliminate those detours." However, the mousetrap to catch these troublesome mice requires powerful, sophisticated computer technology.

The Problem
Each HeC customer accesses software designed specifically for that company's needs. Of course, different types of customers have different software requirements, so HeC must offer a variety of applications.

Insurance companies, managed-healthcare companies, and third-party administrators need to update and query their subscribers' information in the HeC database. In addition to checking subscriber information, these HeC customers need to process claims they receive from medical providers.

Medical providers also require a wide range of services from HeC. These providers query HeC about patients' eligibility and insurance information.The providers also ask HeC for information about whether patients are covered for procedures. HeC queries insurance companies and returns this information to medical providers. HeC also receives claims from medical providers and delivers these claims to the insurance companies. To handle patient payments that involve credit cards, HeC uses standard e-business credit card authorization processes.

HeC began with 10 servers running on a Windows NT 4.0 network. Six servers housed a Microsoft SQL Server database, and four servers provided software to customers. However, as HeC's customer base grew, so did the number and types of services that HeC wanted to offer. Pedden explains, "As we began to put together all the processes, I realized I could buy a whole bunch of servers and fill a large room with them, or buy an expandable box that would give me the I/O processing capability I needed." Pedden began looking for a system that could deliver the right software interface to each customer, provide excellent response time, and run a database that would hold all the necessary customer information.

The Solution
To deliver customized applications to customers, the company settled on Win2K Server Terminal Services (in application server mode). To store customer data, HeC chose SQL Server 7.0. As a platform for the applications and database, HeC selected a Unisys e-@ction Enterprise Server ES7000 computer running Datacenter.

The ES7000 has 16 processors, 12GB of RAM, and a disk subsystem consisting of one ESM6700 disk unit and one ESM7700 disk unit. The system has four partitions, with four processors assigned to each partition. (For more details about the ES7000, see Forefront, "Datacenter: Up Close and Personal," page 31.) Unisys loaded Datacenter on the ES7000 computer and delivered the box to HeC's support company, GlobalCenter (recently acquired by Exodus Communications). GlobalCenter's IT personnel installed the software applications and tested them in a lab environment for 3 days. The Datacenter machine then went online, running parallel with HeC's existing servers. After 24 hours, when everyone was satisfied with the new box's performance, HeC stopped directing traffic to the original servers, and the Datacenter server remained online alone.

Two of the ES7000's partitions run Terminal Services in application server mode. These partitions boot from internal IPLs and hold the application software that HeC customers need; customers use Terminal Services Advanced Client (TSAC) to access the software. Datacenter's built-in load balancing maintains performance levels.

The other two partitions are database servers running in a clustered configuration, using Microsoft Cluster service, which is part of Datacenter. The clustered partitions boot from the ESM6700 disk unit and share 360GB of storage on the ESM7700 disk unit. The boot drives are RAID 1 (mirrored); the data storage uses RAID 1 for logs and RAID 5 for data, with a hot spare.

HeC also has two 2-way Unisys e-@ction Enterprise Server ES2024 computers, each with 1GB of RAM, running Win2K Server. These machines are the domain controllers (DCs) that authenticate users; the systems also act as DNS servers. The ES2024s act as a redundant pair to provide load balancing and failover. For administrative tasks, the ES2024s and the ES7000 run Terminal Services in remote administration mode. "This is all off-the-shelf technology. There are no rocket scientists needed here," declares Pedden, adding, "It's almost like going back to the stone age of computing; in effect, our customers are sharing time on a mainframe."

Pedden explains that the decision to house the Datacenter server at GlobalCenter provided bonuses that a location in HeC's computer center couldn't. GlobalCenter has a fiber network, and Pedden says that his customers are getting nanosecond reaction time. "When you get the level of power that Datacenter provides," he comments, "the only bottleneck is the pipes."

GlobalCenter also takes care of maintenance, backups, and other administrative tasks. GlobalCenter uses a generator-based power backup, so even power outages of long durations won't shut down the system. (GlobalCenter also maintains HeC's original servers and keeps them up-to-date; HeC can hot-switch back to those servers if necessary. However, Pedden says all evidence indicates that such a switch won't be needed, and HeC expects to drop this redundancy plan eventually.) The IT staff uses Terminal Services in administration mode to upgrade customer software and add new software as needed. Unisys technical support staff also uses Terminal Services in administration mode to work with the server. HeC's IT staff never sees or touches the box. "For us," jokes Pedden, "this Datacenter computer is an example of virtual reality."

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