Data Storage Solutions Offer Online and Off-site Flexibility
 |
Acuo Technologies (Booth 4980) is showcasing the latest version of the company’s DICOM Services Grid solution, a distributed framework for managing medical imaging volume. By freeing the archive function from PACS, the Acuo DICOM Services Grid allows healthcare institutions to own their own digital imaging data without future data migration headaches. Acuo is built on an open, services-oriented architecture that can aggregate/federate DICOM objects and query results, as well as virtualize and replicate storage assets.
Features in the latest release include full XDS-I Source and XDS Consumer functionality. When integrated with a commercially available XDS Repository/Registry, the Acuo repository offers a complete end-to-end XDS infrastructure
Acuo is also highlighting its API integration into the Cisco Medical Grade Network, which will provide DICOM support to increase performance and reliability into Cisco’s DICOM data network.
Bycast (Booth 3918) is showcasing enhancements to its StorageGRID 7, designed for high data availability and data protection. The new features of StorageGRID 7 include: High Availability Gateway Cluster, which delivers automated failover for file-system environments in the presence of failures; greater scalability, which lowers the total cost of ownership of storage management by increasing the number of objects/files that can be managed on a given hardware configuration; and simplified management with new reporting functionality, such as forecasting storage capacity (per site and across the entire grid).
Carestream Health (Booth 2513) is showing its Carestream PACS platform supports workflow grid computing, which facilitates storage and retrieval of information throughout an enterprise. The workflow GRID technology can provide synchronized global worklist and reporting to all sites, while allowing each site to operate independently of the network or centralized server when necessary, according to Carestream.
EMC (Booth 2738) is displaying its information infrastructure portfolio that includes the EMC Symmetrix, Clariion, Celera product lines and the EMC Disk Library.
The Symmetrix DMX series of networked storage systems deliver the capabilities of in-the-box tiered storage. EMC says it secures people, infrastructure and data with built-in information-centric security.
The Clariion CX3-10 networked storage system offers a new entry point for community hospitals and dedicated departments, and can consolidate multiple applications with one array—with the combined FC/iSCSI option.
The Celerra NS20 network attached storage system is an IP storage platform with Microsoft compatibility. EMC NAS allows for access and management of a healthcare IP storage infrastructure from a single console.
The Centera content addressed storage system provides access with petabyte scalability for active archiving of healthcare images and information—x-rays, patient emails, voice dictation and related patient electronic documents.
The EMC Disk Library, an open-systems virtual tape library for backup, restores and integrates into a healthcare environment. It emulates leading tape solutions and supports more than 3 million backup configurations, according to EMC.
EMC is highlighting a secure web-access for physician and patient portals service, based on security software products from RSA, the security division of EMC. The service creates a framework for web access of protected health information and secures the exchange of enterprise data via web applications across heterogeneous environments and domains.
InSite One (Booth 8308) is launching a new generation of its services roadmap, InDex 5.
InDex 5, scheduled for availability in February 2008, is being expanded to include tools to manage information for the life of clinical data, and will incorporate a revised set of web-enabled administration functions for reporting and configuration management across virtual storage assets.
NetApp (Network Appliance) (Booth 5375) is showcasing its newest disked-based solution, FAS6000. The FAS6000 series (FAS6030 or FAS6070) supports medical images in FC SAN, IP SAN, and multiple network configurations, while offering systems with upgrades without requiring the forklift data migration. The FAS6000 systems extend the FlexVolT capabilities built into Data ONTAPT 7G by increasing disk performance even for small data volumes, according to the company.
Neurostar Solutions (Booth 3582) is introducing its Cross-Enterprise Data Access (CEDA) architecture, which allows individual sites ultra-fast access to recent studies and enables users with appropriate permissions to access prior exams and other patient data from any site in their business network. This includes third-party PACS applications. CEDA expands the VRN’s storage beyond its central offsite archive to include satellite cache systems and third-party archives at all sites in a service provider’s network. The VRN intelligently locates the desired study, wherever stored, and delivers it to the user. At the same time, the VRN can store recent images onsite to streamline retrieval and manage storage to maximize IT resources.
Plasmon (Booth 7508) is introducing the Archive Appliance Express developed to address the needs of small- to medium-sized medical businesses. Plasmon is collaborating with value-added healthcare integrators to bring the Archive Appliance Express to PACS offerings.
The Archive Appliance Express is shipped pre-configured for the PACS software, according to Plasmon. It ships with new 60GB UDO2 technology, and SATA RAID protection providing 170 GB of usable cache.
RADinfo Systems (Booth 4171) is debuting DICOMmail, a new software program allowing physicians to seek consultative opinions regarding medical images to access and share critical and protected images through common email systems. It contains two parts: one, the DICOMmail Viewer, based on RADinfo’s FDA-approved RSVS visualization technology; and two, DICOMmail Send, which allows the user to drag and drop an image into the software for delivery to email, according to RADinfo.
ScImage (Booth 2551) is displaying PicomOnline, an online archiving and telemedicine service. PicomOnline is a hosted, datacenter service providing off-site PACS, disaster recovery, long-term archiving and telemedicine services for diagnostic imaging services. It can be used as a standalone virtual PACS solution or in conjunction with on-site PACS solutions, such as ScImage’s PicomEnterprise.