Mainline Professional Services Helps Midwest Allergy & Asthma Clinic with Disaster Recovery Software Solution
One in six Americans suffers from environmental, food, drug or skin allergies, and finds relief at clinics such as the Midwest Allergy and Asthma Clinic (MAAC) in Omaha, Nebraska. The clinic's experienced doctors have been providing relief to allergy sufferers since 1958, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of allergies, including hay fever, asthma and allergic skin diseases.
MAAC's doctors and healthcare professionals rely on their IT system to help them better serve patients by keeping accurate patient records, evaluations, tests and treatments, and by completing scheduling and billing tasks in a timely manner.
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The Challenge...
- Customer server configured to use only 4 of 6 hard drive slots
- Less than 15% of system's hard drive space available
- New solution needed to be delivered in 40 hours
- Budget constraints were a significant factor
The Solution...
Mainline Professional Services enabled the customer to run the software solution of their choice, solving issues the software vendor could not solve themselves.
The Results...
- DR solution is up-and-running, on-target and within budget
- Customer found a trusted solution advisor in Mainline
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The Challenge
Tony Adams, MAAC IT Manager, is responsible for ensuring that the IT solution driving MAAC is stable and reliable. He was experiencing major challenges with the server, which had been configured to use only four of the server's six hard drive slots, meaning less than 15% of the system's hard drives were free for use.
Adams knew that he needed disaster recovery/disk-imaging software to protect the business and take advantage of the extra disk space on the server. He decided to get help in identifying the best solution for the clinic and called Mainline Information SystemsTM, an IBM Premier Business Partner.
"When the Mainline account executive called me, we were on the phone for quite a while, and I knew that I had the right person to help me," he said. "I was impressed with the way Mainline was structured to help customers, no matter what technology solution they purchased."
Selecting the Solution
Through the solution design process, the pros and cons of various disaster recovery software and solution components were discussed, and solution requirements were clearly defined. MAAC required software that could take a snapshot of the existing server image - both the OS application and data - and put it up on the NAS (network attached storage). Two additional hard drives would then be added.
The alternative to this solution approach was to install the OS and all data manually, which would have taken days. Since Adams only had a weekend to get it done, from Saturday afternoon to Monday morning, this imaging software solution would be timely, as well as cost-effective.
The Mainline account executive reviewed several disaster recovery software options, with only one product offering falling within Adams' price range. Another more expensive option was recommended by the Mainline team as the preferred solution for the customer. So, Mainline persuaded the vendor to deeply discount the software to meet the customer's budget considerations. Despite Mainline's recommendations and the discount from the third-party vendor, Adams decided to go with the cheaper software solution.
"Although the client executive didn't agree with my choice, he got behind my decision," said Adams. "The disaster recovery software provider was not on the Mainline vendor list, but he found a way to purchase what I wanted, giving me the solution of my choice."
Mainline Professional Services provided technical support, even though the selected software was not typically sold by Mainline. Mainline holds more than 400 technical certifications across numerous disciplines. As a result, several Mainline engineers had the necessary technical expertise required to provide implementation services.
"Although Tony didn't follow my recommendations, I believe that once he called on me, my job was to serve as an advocate for him to get him what he wanted. I think about how I would like to be treated if I were a customer, and that motivates me to go the extra mile for every customer I have," said the account executive.
Overcoming Issues through Mainline's Expertise
When he began the installation of the replication software, Adams immediately found a glitch - the new software would not recognize the system's network card. He worked with the third-party disaster recovery software provider to address this, as well as other issues that came up, but they were not able to solve the problems.
"There were a number of other glitches, and we worked frantically through the night trying everything to get the solution up and running," Adams recounted. "I had the tech support number at Mainline, and they were able to field specific questions, and for that I was grateful. For example," he continued, "we figured out that we had to manually install windows before the disaster recovery software was able to see the underlying hard drive. Once this was done, I could deploy the image to the server. Mainline provided the needed insight to make this solution run."
Solution Results
"We increased the disk space and memory on the server and, as a result, the disaster recovery software ultimately met our needs," said Adams. "More importantly, we formed a partnership with Mainline because they demonstrated their willingness to provide what we needed. That impressed me."
"Looking forward, we are planning to streamline our processes and do as much automation as possible," he said. "Mainline will certainly be included as a 'trusted advisor' in any decisions we have to make."
For more information about this solution, call your Mainline account representative or call Mainline directly at 866.490.MAIN (6246). |