University Hospitals Leicester Turns to Atlantis Computing, Centralis and IBM

IBM Corporation announced that University Hospitals of Leicester (UHL), one of the biggest National Health Service trusts in the UK, deployed a VDI solution to increase the performance of the centralized desktops for more than 14,000 doctors, nurses and administrative staff.

Experiencing declining desktop virtualization performance, an aging fleet of PCs and increasing infrastructure management costs, UHL relied upon IBM Business Partners Atlantis Computing, Inc. and Centralis Ltd with IBM Corp. to design and implement a new IT infrastructure based on IBM PureFlex Systems and Atlantis ILIO storage optimization software. UHL also chose the VMware Horizon Suite to further transform its desktop computing environment.

The integrated implementation is currently in the first phase of deployment and has already reduced UHL’s capital expenditures (CAPEX) cost per desktop by 50%. System boot-up time is now under fives, compared to the previous 15 minutes. Log-in time has been reduced to less than 10s. Both improvements are helping to increase staff productivity and allowing UHL’s doctors and nurses to see more patients and spending more time with patients while providing better care. UHL estimates it will save millions of pounds in operational, management and data center costs over the lifetime of the project.

“In addition to cutting our operational costs, the improved security and centralized control of our desktop transformation allows us to more easily prove compliance with National Health Service governance directives,” said Dave Rose, head of design authority, UHL. “Furthermore, the improved performance realized with our new desktop virtualization implementation is allowing our doctors to spend less time waiting to access their devices and more time with their patients, thus improving the care we provide.”

The UHL VDI solution consists of:

• ILIO Diskless VDI software to allow the use of local server RAM as storage for the virtual desktops, lowering cost and improving desktop performance;
• PureFlex System to combine compute, storage and management into a single infrastructure to optimize and automate the deployment and maintenance of workloads;
• VMware Horizon View  stateless and persistent virtual desktops to provide the security and control of centralized desktops and deliver increased performance and simplified management; VMware Horizon Mirage to centrally manage physical desktops used by junior clinicians; and VMware Horizon Workspace to provide secure access to and control of data on any device while reducing infrastructure management costs.

“Migrating from a complex legacy IT environment onto a new architecture is all about risk management,” said Bernard Harguindeguy, CEO, Atlantis Computing. “Choosing proven technologies with hundreds of deployments allows customers like UHL to deploy with confidence, while reducing the overall cost per desktop dramatically.”

“NHS Trusts rely on IT to deliver effective healthcare and IT is under pressure to cut cost while improving performance, access and user experience,” said Peter Wilkins, CTO, Centralis. “We passionately believe in the benefits of virtualized desktops and have worked with UHL to deliver industry-leading performance, great user experience and significant cost savings through a VDI solution optimized for health care users.”

Since being launched in April 2012, more than 8,000 clients from 100 countries have selected PureSystems, which offer clients an alternative to current enterprise computing models, where multiple and disparate systems require significant resources to set up and maintain. The PureFlex System enables organizations to efficiently create and manage an infrastructure. PureApplication Systems help organizations reduce the cost and complexity of deploying and managing applications. PureData Systems are tuned for cloud computing and can consolidate more than 100 databases on a single system. In addition to the common web application patterns supported by PureApplication System, the combination of both PureData and PureApplication Systems can be used for end to end transaction workloads.