THIN CLIENT COMPUTING IN A COMPLEX HEALTH-CARE ENVIRONMENT – A CASE STUDY Submitted by: Perry Kjargaard Manager – Application Development and Integration Saskatoon District Health 701 Queen Street Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7K 0M7 Phone (306) 655-8403 e-mail: pk@sdh.sk.ca Nunzio M. Fortugno Principal – Cylinea Systems Corporation 327 Schubert Place NW Calgary, AB, Canada T3L 1X2 Phone (403) 560-1144 e-mail: nunziof@cylinea.com Michael Leydon President – QCC Communications 201 – 116 Research Drive Innovation Place Saskatoon, SK, Canada Phone (306) 249-0220 e-mail: mikel@qcc.sk.ca Guy Paterson Director – Information Systems and Telecommunications Saskatoon District Health 701 Queen Street Saskatoon, SK, Canada S7K 0M7 Phone (306) 655-8515 e-mail patersong@sdh.sk.ca Thin Client Computing in a Complex Health Care Environment Page 1 - A Case Study Kjargaard
INTRODUCTION Saskatoon District Health (SDH) is a fully integrated healthcare organization located in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada. The district is responsible for all healthcare services within its boundaries. SDH consists of three major acute care hospitals located within the metropolitan area of the city. The district is also responsible for the provision of all public health, home care, long-term care, mental health, laboratory, pre-hospital, addictions, and community health services and operates several rural community health centers. The district has 8,000 employees in 40 locations. It serves as a primary care provider for a population base of 330,000 and as a tertiary care center for a population of 1 million. As a major referral center, over 60 percent of the medical care provided by the district is to clients from outside its boundaries, including many from remote aboriginal communities. Clients utilizing the services of SDH are drawn from an area of 651,900 km 2 —an area equivalent to the size of Oklahoma, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Indiana combined. The SDH Information Technology Group is responsible for the deployment and management of integrated healthcare information systems for the entire district. As part of a series of projects initiated in 1997, SDH was faced with a massive deployment of an integrated healthcare information system for the entire district. One of the key objectives of this “Project Connect” deployment was the provision of a desktop environment that would be capable of supporting new clinical applications and would also provide the ability to use existing legacy applications and desktop productivity software, as required by SDH business units. The desktop technology deployed also needed to be able to support near-term future technical initiatives, such as the use of J ava-based applications. During the early stages of the project, the SDH Project Connect Technical Team identified an emerging technology known as “thin client” architecture. The Project Connect Team carried out a review of literature, cost evaluation, and technical proof-of-concept lab test. The purpose of the investigation and test was to answer the following questions: • Is the new enterprise application client software compatible with a thin client architecture? • What size of thin client middle tier server is necessary to obtain reasonable performance under a series of predefined and variable load conditions? • Is the thin client architecture robust enough for the enterprise environment? • What effects will the three-tier, thin client, execution server/ application server architecture have on the backbone and horizontal portions of the network? • What are the potential long-term benefits of deploying a thin client architecture? Using the test results, we prepared a cost model and a technical review of the thin client architecture showing the fit with our technical architecture blueprint and the potential economic impact Thin Client Computing in a Complex Health Care Environment Page 2 - A Case Study Kjargaard
of the thin client architecture to SDH. To assist us in successfully implementing the thin client architecture, we utilized a number of external consultants who have assisted in co-authoring this paper. Cylinea Systems Corporation undertook the initial technical design and background investigation, developed a test methodology, and reviewed the test results. QCC Communications assessed communications issues during the test phase and provided analyses of network implications. REVIEW OF TECHNOLOGY AND POTENTIAL BENEFITS Thin Client Architecture Thin client architecture is reminiscent of pre-PC computing environments where simple “dumb terminals” on users’ desks were connected to a central processing host. In such environments, management and administration activities were concentrated on the host processor. The cost of operating the terminals was low; the availability (uptime) of the terminals was primarily dependent upon the availability of the centrally managed host and tended to be quite high . With the advent of personal computer (PC) workstations, a great deal of complexity was shifted from the central computer room to the desktop. The increased power at the desktop allowed for more flexible and powerful applications, as well as easier-to-use and more engaging graphical user interfaces (GUIs). This “thick client” architecture allowed a significant distribution of computing power and placed a great deal of the control of an organization’s information technology (IT) resources into the hands of users. While expert at their own jobs, users typically did not have the qualifications necessary to manage computing resources for the long-term benefit of the organization. By the late 1980s, it became apparent that the downside to the PC environment was that the increased complexity at the desktop now resulted in high costs of ownership. PCs are much more complex than terminals; they have mechanical disk drives that can fail or that can be used for unauthorized installation or copying of software and data. The PC operating software is under the control of the user, who is then able to make configuration changes (either by accident or by design) that have an impact on the function of the desktop. This double-edged sword led to significant increases in the operational costs required to maintain thick client desktop environments. Thin client architecture provides many of the benefits of a thick client (GUI, powerful and flexible applications, ease of use) while minimizing many of the disadvantages. The client device or network station—often called a network computer (NC)—is a minimalist version of a PC, with a keyboard, mouse, video display, a small processor with memory, and a network connection. The processing power of an NC resides on centralized execution servers and boot servers, which are under the management and administrative control of the IT specialists within an organization. The end users interact with the NC just as they would with a conventional PC. There is a network connection, a high-resolution display, keyboard, mouse, and, if required, sound input/ output Thin Client Computing in a Complex Health Care Environment Page 3 - A Case Study Kjargaard
(I/ O) devices. The key difference is that other than those I/ O devices and a small local processor, the terminal has no other components. The processing is performed on the execution server. This “thinning” of the client removes the requirement to have a fully configured PC client on the user’s desktop, and, as we will describe, leads to significant reduction in the total cost of ownership (TCO) of the entire network. Industry estimates have placed the long-term cost of ownership of a thin client environment at one-fifth to one-tenth the per seat cost of a thick client environment. With potential savings of this magnitude, Project Connect chose to investigate the suitability of this technology for use within the SDH. The operation of the NC devices within the SDH project architecture is illustrated in Figure 1. Figure 1 – NC Operation Overview Start-up / Initialization Files Thin Client Boot Thin Client Server Workstation IE Browser A p p s via Citrix N T C i t r i x (Java Option B) Execution Server (Java Direct to Thin Client's Internal JVM) JAVA Code Financials and Medical Inventory Server (Java To JVM on Execution Server) JAVA Code Execution Server SDH Network Backbone Switch UNIX Middle Tier Note that the architecture is a hybrid and makes use of both NCs and PCs as required within the district. The goal was to achieve an architecture that is robust as well as cost effective to maintain and support, but that does not limit the ability of the SDH IT infrastructure to support a mix of past, current, and future business-critical applications. TCO and the Thin Client Cost Model Often overlooked by IT groups implementing new systems is the total cost of ownership (TCO). The TCO includes all the costs that will be incurred during the entire life cycle of an IT environment. Industry watchdogs have estimated that the monthly cost of ownership for a conventional thick client desktop is over $900 per seat ($10,800 per year). Experience of the SDH Technical Team members has shown that the cost per seat can vary dramatically. On one end of the spectrum, a large energy firm in Thin Client Computing in a Complex Health Care Environment Page 4 - A Case Study Kjargaard
Recommend
More recommend
