Pharmac improves server processing speed

Pharmac, the Pharmaceutical Management Agency of New Zealand, needed to increase query performance on its data warehouse. With the help of GSB Technology, Pharmac improved the efficiency of its systems, while saving money and time in the process.

As a government organisation, Pharmac is responsible for securing the best prices for medicines for New Zealanders. In an industry which plays a crucial role in the health and wellbeing of Kiwis, Pharmac needs to be able to analyse trends to plan for future requirements.

As part of its IT capacity planning, Pharmac identified a need to expand performance on its data warehouse to handle the increasing analytical demands placed on it. They needed a solution that would fit within their existing hardware and software infrastructure environment. They turned to GSB Technology to devise a solution.

GSB Technology is a specialist technology procurement team, providing reseller and consultancy assistance for businesses.

"Given that GSB is our preferred supplier and we have a long history together, we knew they'd understand our infrastructure and could come up with a solution that would meet our needs," says Geoff Lawn, IT Team Leader at Pharmac.

The initial step was to identify the unique needs the prescribing warehouse required for processing the many millions of prescription records.

After the initial review, the team at GSB decided to engage specialist vender support from HP.

"HP is a Contracted Supplier so we have a good relationship with them," says Simon Lillico, ICT Category Specialist for GSB.

"We were confident they could assist us with getting the right technology."

GSB then presented these findings to the client with investment options and expected outcomes and ROI.

Pharmac was impressed with the level of consultancy and analysis GSB undertook to understand their issue and devise the best solution.

"It was a great help to have GSB engage with us and the vendor for a solution that would really deliver," says Lawn.

As a result of the initial consultation, GSB made the recommendation for Pharmac to invest in an I/O Accelerator card.

According to Lillico, this was a unique suggestion because an I/O Accelerator card is a relatively "leading edge" technology for data processing.

"This is a great new technology and we knew it would make a significant impact on their server," he says.

Lawn says the GSB and HP Team also helped them understand how the new hardware worked because it is a technology they hadn't used before.

With the I/O Accelerator card installed, Pharmac saw significant SQL processing speed increases. Also, SQL database tuning increased processing speeds significantly. Complex query times were slashed, in some cases from two hours down to six minutes.

"We're thrilled with the solution. We now have the extra capacity to handle the ever increasing analytical demands being placed on our data warehouse. This solution has future-proofed our investment for the next few years at least," says Lawn.

Lillico says they were happy to help out Pharmac - the process was quick and simple.