Hyperic is a key part of SpringSource’s modern application infrastructure platform, which provides solutions for building, deploying and managing applications, and is ideally suited for today’s virtual and cloud-based environments. Hyperic saves significant time for the single IT person at Baylor by ensuring that systems fundamental to ongoing brain research are kept online and sending alerts quickly if a problem occurs.
The Hyperic-monitored systems within the lab consist of 30 servers, with 25 to 30 of them being VMware-based virtual machines. They collect information from five MRI machines, copying the data to a storage-area-network as necessary.
“I am the only IT person running this operation, and that is not a problem thanks to SpringSource Hyperic,” said Justin King, network administrator with the lab at Baylor College of Medicine. “The product provides me a snapshot view of what is going on across my systems, and I can delve in if there is an issue and see what the problem is without having to spend a lot of time figuring things out.”
A disastrous scenario avoided by Hyperic involves capacity. The MRI machines generate a significant amount of data, and from time to time the servers storing the images will come close to running out of room. Hyperic alerts King to this eventuality, and he is therefore able to react and rectify the problem before data is lost.
Among the many business benefits King and the Baylor College of Medicine receive from Hyperic:
- High availability, fast response time and rapid time to resolution-Baylor’s IT response time is now minutes, rather than hours or days, as King is notified of problems the moment they happen. Hyperic’s rapid monitoring information allows King to quickly identify a problem fix. Since issues are identified and remedied quickly, King benefits from limited system downtime.
- Reduced staff resource costs-The monitoring capabilities provided by Hyperic, and the fact the solution helps to quickly fix concerns, has enabled King to remain the only IT person within the organization.
- System monitoring for next-generation data center technologies-The neuroimaging lab has deployed virtual machines and many of its most critical systems rely on those resources. Hyperic seamlessly monitors virtual servers in the same way as physical servers. Keeping the entire system online allows scientific brain research to continue uninterrupted.
