Jan Yperman Hospital transitions to HPE Synergy Composable Infrastructure Platform

Jan Yperman awarded the contract for the renewal of its central server infrastructure to AXI. To accelerate the tender process and save costs, Jan Yperman collaborated on the specifications for the Roeselare hospital group AZ Delta.

The scope of the tender included the renewal of servers, blades and blade enclosures, backup hardware and software, the associated maintenance contracts, and support.

Jan Yperman Hospital is a merger of three regional hospitals located in the Ypres-Poperinge region. After the merger of the three campuses, all activities were centralized in 2007 at a single campus in Ypres, while retaining a branch in Poperinge. The hospital has 530 beds and serves patients from a region of approximately 150,000 inhabitants.

Strong responses to a well-developed specification

For Jan Yperman Hospital, a solid framework for the renewal project and the quality of the service offering were decisive factors in the award. Ludovic Vandaele, IT Infrastructure Team Leader at Jan Yperman, explains: "Because the new server infrastructure is the foundation of our data center, we wanted to ensure we received the necessary support. The specifications include requirements for on-demand services such as architectural design, implementation services, and technical advice. After weighing the award criteria, AXI was selected as the supplier for a period of four to a maximum of six years."

From analysis to solution

After awarding the contract to AXI, an in-depth analysis of the existing HPE c7000 blade infrastructure was initiated. Using the necessary software tools, the server infrastructure's load and utilization were mapped. All blade servers were analyzed per cluster for CPU and RAM usage.
Ludovic Vandaele explains: "After discussing the analysis results, AXI designed the new server infrastructure in detail. This took into account the expected growth in data center traffic. To save costs, we considered the VMware and Microsoft software licenses in use. We examined the various licensing models so we could optimize licensing costs with the new servers."
"In the wake of these analyses, AXI developed a well-substantiated optimization proposal: in terms of the number of servers, server load, SAN, and LAN connectivity," Vandaele continues. Based on this proposal, Jan Yperman decided to renew the entire server infrastructure using the latest HPE Synergy frames and compute nodes. This involved a fully redundant setup across two data centers.

Left nothing to chance

To optimally utilize the new HPE Synergy technologies, the uplink to the network and the SAN connection were implemented with HPE Virtual Connect modules. These choices allow for maximum consolidation within the frames and maximum bandwidth utilization externally.

"Nothing was left to chance," explains Vandaele. "Preliminary tests were conducted to test the uplink between the existing switches and the HPE VC modules. These tests showed that using HPE DAC cables guaranteed optimal results."
To ensure the migration went smoothly and to properly plan the expansion of old frames and the installation of new frames, a workshop was organized with all involved parties: Jan Yperman, AXI, HPE, and the network partner. This approach allowed us to make clear agreements and develop the project plan.

The most modern server infrastructure in place

Vandaele: "The active role AXI played in designing the server architecture and implementing the migration was crucial to the success of the renewal operation. With the deployment of the HPE Synergy frames and compute nodes, our server environment has been standardized on the most modern infrastructure, with the necessary performance to accommodate future growth."