[November 23, 2009] RelayHealth Deploys F5 Solutions for Healthcare Services SaaS Platform Tweet Nov 24, 2009 (Close-Up Media via COMTEX) -- F5 Networks announced that RelayHealth has chosen F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) and Global Traffic Manager (GTM) to optimize the performance and availability of its web-based retail pharmacy applications. RelayHealth provides a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform designed to facilitate the exchange of information between pharmacies, hospitals and health systems, payors, physicians, and patients. At RelayHealth, F5 solutions help support an infrastructure that securely processes approximately 11 billion retail pharmacy financial and clinical transactions each year. "BIG-IP LTM and GTM have helped us develop a more agile, dynamic data center infrastructure that provides improved reliability and faster response times in an easy-to-manage environment," said Scott Lokey, Manager of Network Engineering at RelayHealth. "And now, for the first time, we can deploy applications on both sides of the country, significantly reducing user wait times and boosting application performance." F5 explained that the BIG-IP devices route Internet traffic to RelayHealth's pharmacy data centers in Atlanta and Sacramento, and optimize application delivery across hundreds of physical and virtual servers. These servers run Linux, UNIX, Windows, and other operating systems, with connectivity protocols ranging from legacy serial connectivity to modern TCP/IP. The BIG-IP devices also store all SSL certificates and handle encryption and decryption for application traffic--functions that previously had to be managed separately on each server. Using advanced features in BIG-IP LTM, such as TCP optimization and intelligent compression, users experience response times that are two to three times faster, according to the company. F5 added that because each BIG-IP LTM can manage multiple applications, the solution reduces hardware requirements. This simplifies network management as well as reducing power, cooling, and related costs, F5 noted. "In the U.S., the Obama administration is calling for healthcare programs that focus on lowering healthcare costs through continued investment in the technologies supporting the industry," said Lokey. "F5's solutions help us improve the quality and continuity of patient care through enhanced collaboration. At the same time, they provide a scalable application delivery infrastructure that we can build on and continually improve." "F5's BIG-IP solutions have the flexibility to support a broad range of computing environments, making them a perfect fit for companies like RelayHealth that use many different operating systems and connectivity protocols," said Jason Needham, Senior Director of Product Management at F5. "With BIG-IP devices, organizations are able to tailor application delivery and performance to best address their IT initiatives. With the scalability and agility our solutions provide, F5 is now a strategic component of RelayHealth's IT pharmacy infrastructure." ((Comments on this story may be sent to [email protected])) [ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]