Roundup from HIMSS11

The annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference (HIMSS11) in Orlando was very interesting and there were a few notable trends and developments. Interestingly Circadence was the only WAN Optimization vendor exhibiting at the conference and after speaking with a number of CIOs, CTOs, and Network managers I could see why. There seem to be a very small number of proven solutions for the emerging markets in medical, including: teleradiology, telepathology, and EMR. Multiple factors seem to be in play explaining this including price, complexity, and technology limitations. Circadence has a terrific set of technologies available that meet the needs of the medical community and were very well received at the event. Major trends:

Cloud, Cloud, Cloud

Of the 600+ exhibitors I doubt there was more than a handful that didn't talk about "the cloud" or try to position themselves "in the cloud". What does this mean? Well, that's the question of the day. "Cloud" has become a catch all for folks trying to latch on to this latest trend. The reality is that Cloud computing is nothing new and has gone by many names over the last couple of decades...ASP, Server Based Computing, Thin Client Computing, Remote Resourced, etc. Perhaps where the current trend differentiates is in the breadth of offerings and the extremely low cost of entry. Relatively cheap bandwidth, truly cheap computing power, and the explosion of capability in hardware and software virtualization has created an environment where anyone can stand up a data serving capability quickly and economically...to a point. For all the terrific things that "cloud" services provide there are still some limitations worth exploring further:

1. Bandwidth: Bandwidth does have limitations and when thousands of users are aggregated in a data center that bandwidth must be shared across multiple users, technologies, and requirements. Many organizations move their data and computing into the cloud only to find that their transfer rates are lower, and sometimes much lower, than they were before clouding their data. This makes sense though as one of the trade offs of cloud computing is that you go from your own dedicated, defined path communications and connections to a shared environment. It is critical that any organization using the cloud for data and computing tasks understands clearly what SLA they are getting and how it will be monitored and enforced.
2. Accessibility: How will your users and/or customers be accessing the content and capability that is now hosted in a central store? The move to the cloud creates very large hub and spoke connections where the cloud is the hub and everything connected to it are spokes. As direct control of the connections between the end users and the content is lost, some mechanism must be put in place to assure the performance and reliability of the user connection.
3. Mobility: One of the best reasons to move to cloud computing and cloud based data repositories is their ability to facilitate mobile computing. Mobile can be anything from a remote office, a home office, a laptop, to a smart phone. By having near universal-access entry points, public clouds facilitate mobile usage. The question becomes how do you assure, control, monitor and secure these remote connections?
4. Control: How do organizations control and manage the connections of their users and customers to their data and computing assets? It will be important for any organization interested in cloud computing to understand the limitations inherent in hosted data and computing and have a solid plan for control.

Mobile

The second major trend from the conference concerned "Mobile": mobile computing, mobile access, mobile storage. Mobile can mean a lot of different things to an organization, these were the most important or most mentioned:
1. Anytime/Anywhere Access: Organizations are interested in making their content and capabilities available to their users and customers from wherever those users may be, whenever they need access. This includes being able to effectively, securely connect from an undefined location back to the enterprise (whether on-campus or in a cloud). How will connections be secured; how will performance and reliability be assured? What about compliance?
 2. Any Device Access: This was a very popular topic throughout the event...how to enable users and customers to access the data and applications they need form whatever device they happen to be using. The range of devices in question ranged from high-end workstations to smart phones. How to support multiple devices must incorporate both: supporting the required applications resident on the platform; and, supporting a controlled and assured connection from the device to the content (hub on-campus or in the cloud).

Circadence provides solutions that can help form a strong foundation for organizations looking at Cloud Computing or Mobile Access for their users and customers. Regardless of the direction organizations take however, it will be critical for them to understand the limitations and mitigation requirements, in addition to the many valuable capabilities that Cloud and Mobile bring.