File data growth is a problem for just about every IT department, but it’s especially acute for those in the Life Sciences industry. As medical imaging and other technologies evolve, the associated files grow in size and complexity. Yet these files need to be easily accessible and retained for long periods. So how does a company without an unlimited IT budget actually manage file growth without constantly buying more expensive hardware?
Last week, at BioIT World, I had a chance to discuss how a leading medical imaging provider is not only managing file data growth, but saving $1.3M annually with Nasuni cloud file storage. We count numerous leading bioscience, big pharma, and medical research companies as valued customers, but Austin Radiological Association (ARA) is one of our longest-standing partners in cloud.
ARA manages medical images for 17 imaging centers and 22 hospitals. The organization digitally stores 900,000 exams each year, and these images range from 18 MBs for a basic CT scan to 392 MBs for a 3D tomography image. ARA has to make all of these files easily available to its radiologists, comply with medical and legal retention requirements, and satisfy HIPAA regulations — all while operating within budget.
Doing so isn’t as simple as leveraging cloud object storage. There are plenty of cloud-washed solutions out there that will claim to be able to help, but cloud needs to be utilized in the right way. For example, if ARA had chosen a so-called cloud solution from a traditional storage vendor, then one of its 20-MB files would command roughly 100 MBs of object storage capacity. In contrast, that 20 MB file only takes up 16 MB with Nasuni, thanks to dedupe and compression.
Nasuni also requires far less on-prem storage to re-compose and cache files — a lightweight VM does the trick. ARA’s file data growth rate would have demanded new storage hardware investments of $1.3M annually, but with Nasuni, capacity scales entirely in the cloud, not on local hardware. The solution minimizes data egress and the associated costs, and it delivers faster retrieval performance for files that aren’t cached locally. For ARA as a business, that translates into:
- $1.3M annual capex savings
- High-performance access to images
- Scale, or the ability to serve an unlimited number of sites and clinicians
- Increased exam processing efficiency
Meanwhile, the IT department at ARA has what their CIO R. Todd Thomas calls a true “set it and forget it” file storage solution that meets his storage requirements, eliminates the need for separate backup and DR, and protects them against ransomware.
Oh, and did I mention that $1.3M annual expenditure they get to avoid?
