RDB Benelux, The Netherlands subsidiary of South African database and operating system specialist, RDB Consulting, was recently responsible for the implementation of a database monitoring solution for the Ziekenhuis Rivierenland hospital's critical database environments.
The hospital, which is located in Tiel, now benefits from high database availability, reporting as well as improved access to information and systems reliability, which is key in light of the country's move towards an electronic patient information system.
The challenge
The Ziekenhuis Rivierenland's previous database monitoring and reporting of its Oracle database environment consisted of dealing with problems as they arose, therefore, calling in a specialist when and where needed and dealing with problems at hand.
Exacerbating the problem was the lack of resources that resulted in absence of a fulltime database administrator, due to capital constraints, as well as the overall lack of knowledge of the Oracle database environment.
As a hospital, Ziekenhuis Rivierenland's ability to gain access to critical information is an imperative part of its functioning on a day-to-day basis.
As such, the hospital felt that by changing its approach from a reactive to a proactive one, it could improve the efficiency of its database environment.
The hospital, therefore, decided to partner with a database, and more specifically, Oracle specialist that could proactively monitor its environment, also allowing it to gain immediate access to information and use reports as part of a predictive analysis system.
The solution
RDB Benelux proposed a complete ready-to-install database monitoring system, which consisted of a virtual appliance (VMware) containing the entire monitoring infrastructure.
Explains Bas de Klerk, Technical Director of RDB Benelux: "The benefit of the ready-to-install solution is that it requires very little configuration and can be up-and-running in a couple of hours. Furthermore, in order to simplify the process we designed the solution to monitor the hospital's database according to predefined templates, applied to their system components."
The five-day implementation saw RDB Benelux plug-in in the virtual appliance at Ziekenhuis Rivierenland, configure the VPN (virtual private network) to the RDB failover monitoring as well as define parameters, and lastly refine the thresholds based on the actual monitoring result of the environment.
The benefits
The Ziekenhuis Rivierenland Tiel hospital now benefits from a database environment, which is monitored by a database specialist company, which in turn leads to improved availability, system uptime and reporting. Because RDB Benelux controls the database and servers proactively, they are able to monitor when additional hard disk space is required and take action, ensuring downtime is averted.
The proactive monitoring solution is based on in-house developed tools combined with open source tools, which mean ongoing costs are reduced significantly due to the fact that no licences are charged. A service level agreement (SLA) ensures that response times are in line with the hospital's requirements.
The IT helpdesk has also been facilitated with a dashboard, which allows for visibility within the database monitoring environment.
Says Jaroslav Cerny, CEO of RDB Consulting: "As with many of our clients, this case demonstrates how businesses and organisations with a lack of in-house skills can improve efficiencies by outsourcing their database monitoring.”
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