Businesses can’t help legacy technology as it continues to age and disrupt system applications, employee payroll, and other essential processes. The sensitive ecosystem of the healthcare industry, in particular, can be jeopardized and its ability to serve patients negatively impacted. This is why most healthcare systems are implementing Stromasys based Charon legacy server emulation solutions in strategic partnership with ASA Computers.

So what exactly are the benefits of choosing Charon for legacy system virtualization?

Prioritize Critical Traffic Over Non-Critical Data

A lot of traffic flows through the databases of healthcare systems, some more important than others. Certain types of information, if not prioritized over less time-sensitive data, can prove to be detrimental to the health of patients in critical conditions. A virtualized network can be optimized to divert less important traffic and prioritize critical applications in real time.

This is especially important when large data files upwards of 1 GB per patient is transacted between database systems. An example is the Position Emission Tomography (PET) scanner which creates a multidimensional model of the patient’s body. If this information is not sent to the radiologist in real time, it can prove to be detrimental to the patient’s health.

Allow Hospitals to Expand Their Networks Quickly

Deploying networks to new locations can take a significant amount of time to the tune of several months if a hardware-centric networking model is used. In contrast, a virtualized network system can allow the data to go live in as little as a few days. Healthcare systems can start to operate as single units in a short span of time and go online.

This is important when hospitals have multiple locations to expand into, the healthcare system can use virtualization to its benefit by becoming both efficient and quicker.

Prepare for Large Scale Disasters

Large scale disasters are a common occurrence in the healthcare industries, and these include the widespread flu, epidemic, or natural disasters. Such events can choke the flow of information in healthcare organizations that do not have a robust network to handle a large influx of bandwidth in a short period of time.

Staff is forced to make do with the infrastructure they currently have. Purchasing more hardware or bandwidth isn’t the solution because it’s an uphill task. Moving to a virtualized ecosystem is a lot more efficient.

Decreased Burden on IT Department

Due to their nature, healthcare network systems need to be live on a continuous basis. It’s difficult to find IT staff that can commit the required strenuous work hours during weekends and night. Senior personnel generally work during the day shift, making it difficult to find IT personnel with a high degree of expertise. This talent shortage coupled with unexpected emergencies can place undue demand on unprepared servers.

Moving to a virtualized network supported on Charon based legacy server emulation can minimize the amount of time IT staff spend performing their duties such as software updates and patches.  One of the advantages of virtualized networks is that the IT staff only has to work on a few pieces of equipment compared to traditional on-premises solutions that come with several boxes for different functions such as routing, WAN acceleration, and security.

There is little doubt that virtualized networks improve security, enhance network efficiency, and provide better healthcare systems to patients.