Healthcare Organizations Deploying FalconStor

FalconStor Software, Inc. announced that healthcare organizations worldwide are deploying FalconStor’s data protection solutions for high availability and disaster recovery (DR) of business-critical applications that must comply with data security, privacy and retention policies. Healthcare customers are discovering that by implementing FalconStor’s data protection solutions effectively, they are cutting the time of managing their data in half compared to previous solutions they have used.

FalconStor works with all types of large and mid-size healthcare organizations, including hospitals, associations, blood banks and medical centers whose need for data backup and recovery is crucial to more than just their bottom lines. Organizations such as Florida Blood Services, Pinnacle Health, The Gastroenterology Associates of Cleveland, Grey Healthcare, Baylor College of Medicine and Community Health Centers Alliance all chose FalconStor’s solutions to meet constant availability requirements.

"FalconStor has created an easy and flexible way for healthcare institutions to protect and manage their data, introducing greater efficiency and the promise of uninterrupted access to critical applications," said Wendy Petty, vice president of North American sales at FalconStor. "Beyond the cost savings, business process improvements and regulatory compliance enabled by FalconStor’s data protection solutions, our products help these organizations focus on their primary mission of delivering quality healthcare services instead of worrying about whether or not patient data is secure."

FalconStor delivers complete data protection to support millions of electronic medical records (EMRs). FalconStor’s technology has been deployed in customer data centers that include both Microsoft and VMware environments, eliminating the need for tape and providing faster restore times. This is critical for IT managers who need instant availability of financial and healthcare applications. Healthcare IT managers cannot afford the time required to complete tape backups, nor can they afford to hinder the performance of their emergency services or suffer lengthy recovery times in the case of accidental deletion or loss of patient records.

The healthcare industry abides by strict compliance requirements beyond the regulatory compliance aspect of IT operations. The rapid availability of data is critical to the quality and level of service that healthcare providers and payers offer to their patients and customers. FalconStor is working with healthcare institutions to give them the peace of mind that all data is secure and available. In addition, FalconStor solutions meet the stringent requirements for records retention and patient-information protection mandated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).

"As we plan our move to all-electronic medical records, we have made a more comprehensive disaster recovery and business continuity plan a priority for the organization to ensure 99 percent availability," said James Andrassy, IT manager of Gastroenterology Associates of Cleveland, a private medical practice. "FalconStor’s products just work with respect to restoring data that has been lost or rebuilding the server or partition within a short period of time. The DiskSafe technology available through FalconStor CDP is just amazing – no other solution has allowed me to rebuild a 500 gigabyte partition in as little as 15 minutes and have the server up and running."

"When multiple, strong hurricanes were hitting Florida several years ago, we decided to implement a disaster recovery process, locating a DR site 40 miles inland," said Dan Higley, information systems engineer, Florida Blood Services. "We implemented FalconStor CDP to replicate data to that site and make it accessible for quick and easy restores; it ensures that important information within our blood donor information system, Progesa, is protected in the event of a hurricane or other disaster. We enjoy the flexibility of how FalconStor CDP is hardware-independent, allowing our data to be protected on both existing storage and additional equipment investments."

"With approximately 320 servers and 5,000 users, we were relying solely on the tape-based solution, StorageTek SL500, using CA ARCserve as the front-end for day-to-day backup and disaster recovery. Backup times were slow, mounting tapes was cumbersome and locating data during the recovery process was difficult," said Chris Mohr, network analyst, PinnacleHealth, a non-profit, regional system based in Harrisburg, Penn. "The time it took us to go live with FalconStor VTL with integrated deduplication was like flipping a switch. The FalconStor appliances are an all-in-one solution that cuts tape usage in half, reduces data center costs and helps reduce restore time from hours to minutes."

"We have addressed the twin challenges of explosive data growth and limited storage capacity with a single, powerful solution – FalconStor VTL," said Chris Watkis, IT director, Grey Healthcare Group (GHG), which specializes in advertising, education and interactive marketing for the medical and pharmaceutical industry. "The technology integrated easily and seamlessly into our existing infrastructure, and its deduplication capabilities gave us the ability to address all of our business continuity issues. Our recovery time objective (RTO) lowered from several days to less than one day, and we are compliant with health industry guidelines, giving us complete confidence in our deployment and reducing our administrative workloads."

"In terms of foundation, our hospital tends to be very traditional in our technology approach as far as addressing storage," said Ed Eshlem, systems administrator of Central Maine Healthcare, central and western Maine’s resource for health and wellness. "We’ve cut our backup times in half just by using FalconStor VTL. Our restores are fast, and we’ve had really good support in terms of making it happen. The technology was up and running quickly, fully integrated with our existing backup system. It addressed our storage needs while keeping our traditional model – everything we needed in a data protection solution that can provide immediate access for our doctors, patients and workers."

More information on FalconStor and healthcare