NEMUG Newsletter
February, 2002, Articles
January Meeting: Spotlight on Partners HealthCare
Two separate architectures, two ways of viewing infrastructure, two presenters elucidated the large, complex, state-of-the-art IT environment at Partners Healthcare Information Systems. On January 8, 2002 Steve Flammini, Director of Applications Development and Ethan Fener, Associate Director for Infrastructure Development and Support, gave us insights in how Partners Healthcare manage their 35,000 i.p. addresses, multiple databases, software packages, and localities.
Ethan Fener took the podium first. His slides diagrammed the massive scope of the responsibility at Partners. Partners Healthcare manages over 15,000 WIN32 desktops on their network of which 15% will be active at any given moment. Another 20,000 PC's connected to the network are managed by others. Partners purchases 5000 PCs every year. They use Windows NT to manage the desktops, logging out a user and bringing up a screensaver after 15 minutes. The applications on the Partners' managed computers are maintained by the network, which, at log on, recovers the last state of the software and automatically installs any updates needed.
Desktops are maintained at several levels of connection to the system. Some are private desktops for individual users, others are set up for use by groups in clinical environments and finally there are some in kiosk type setups, which are available for public use. Patients and the public can access the system and explore the public areas of the information software. Besides the desktops, there are the remote and mobile connections people make from outside the LAN, or local area network. There are 4800 users with secure ID cards for dial in access and about 1200 users with remote access via VPN, or virtual private network, using cable modems.
The architecture of this complex system is a high-speed core in the data center. The Caché OCX is always connected through thirteen M servers. The three to four terabytes of data are housed on six primary machines and two hot spare servers for upgrades and failures. The rest are development or test machines. An EMC storage sub-system has been able to cut server speed in half by eliminating shadowing. The way this is accomplished is by maintaining a hardware mirror and third mirror copy simultaneously. For approximately one second there is a stop of writes, and the third copy is broken off. Backup is then made of the separated copy with virtually no impact on the users.
Fener maintains a usage analysis of the Partners' system. On an average day, the Caché database experiences about 3.5 billion global accesses. Spikes as high as 24 billion global accesses per day have occurred without any problems. The cause of these spikes is not precisely known, but programmers are the chief suspects. Currently, the network availability is 99.5% to 99.75%, or 3.6 to 1.8 hours per month downtime. Partner's goal is to reach 99% uptime or 45 minutes per month downtime. In the past the applications have been located on each machine. Now the M server, Weblink, telnet, Caché Studio, background jobs are grouped for stability.
Steve Flammini presented the software environment. The information system is a three tier design with database servers at the bottom, application servers in the middle and client applications at the top. It includes the GUI, or graphical user interface as the first tier, the middleware as the second tier and finally the various databases in the third tier. In house development takes place mostly in the clinical applications and in a few financial applications.
Flammini has to consider the physical as well as the logical environment. He has to take into account the various hardware switches that manage application server connections to the various database servers.
Intersystems was able to get DOS based Data Tree Mumps (DTM) code and the Windows based Caché code to work together allowing the continued use of over 50,000 DTM routines. The DTM routines were originally written in Miis code and later machine translated to standard M code. All globals were moved to Caché resulting in a dramatic increase in performance. Over the next two years all of these routines will be moved to the Caché environment. An estimated 67% of them are expected to be machine translated to Caché. Programmers will be rewriting the remaining 33% to move them to Caché.
Most applications have VB or Web browser front end user interfaces. Currently about 60% of the applications use VB and 40% use web browsers. This is expected to change to 100% using web browsers. Browsers use Intersystems' Caché WebLink to access the Caché database. Caché Server Pages require the database to be converted to Caché Object format. Partners have no plans to convert the Caché database to Caché Objects format. The traditional M code format meets their needs.
Flammini was able to show us how this complex system can interact with state of the art software and hardware. One application can have two different GUIs for a tailored presentation. Voice and handwriting recognition software are used now in simple applications on UPS. Radiology images are housed separately, but they can be connected to various applications by XML queries across TCP/IP. XML can connect to mapped globals and vice versa. Pictures are stored in Caché Weblink. In response to a question Flammini said wireless connections are not in development because of security problems.
Partners Healthcare Information Systems combines massive scale with innovation to incorporate state of the art software.
~ submitted by Heidi Pape-Laird
NEMUG Awarded Grant!
We are pleased to announce that NEMUG was the successful recipient of a grant application to the MTA.
With the MTS dissolving, NEMUG proposed to take over several of the important activities that serve the M community. Specifically, NEMUG proposed to further the M language through continued Web-based information initiatives, as well as through book and literature sales, job referral services, and general M- based education programs on a regional or electronic basis.
The award for our successful grant application came to $16,900. $2,000 of that grant is earmarked for MTA dissolution costs that may arise, bringing the actual grant total to $14,900. NEMUG is committed to furthering these activities minimally through 2005. Below are portions of the Grant application NEMUG members may find interesting.
Grant Proposal
Proposed by: The Executive Board of the New England M Users Group. Date: September 6, 2001
Project Overview
The New England M Users Group (NEMUG) proposes to take over and continue certain services currently performed by, or on behalf of, the M Technology Association (MTA) at their dissolution.
Specifically, NEMUG proposes to further the M language through continued Web-based information initiatives, as well as through book and literature sales, job referral services, and general M-based education programs on a regional or electronic basis.
Background Information/Statement of the Problem
The M Technology Association Executive Board has voted to dissolve the association. However, the board desires to continue on as many functions to benefit the M language and it's users as possible. As such it has solicited bids for continuing specific services for the M community.
The New England M Users Group has been supporting the M language through user group and educational efforts for over 13 years. We currently have membership of 280 people and distribute newsletters to over 300 people. We coordinate and promote guest speakers at meetings every other month. Out newsletter is published on alternating months. We also sponsor workshops and hands-on education classes on a periodic basis. NEMUG is saddened by the dissolution of the national organization, and would like to continue the growth of the M language by assuming those services it can.
Goals and Objectives
There are four major services that NEMUG proposes to continue on behalf of the MTA:
- Continued Web Presence.
NEMUG proposes to resurrect and enhance the information previously presented through the web pages of www.mtechnology.org. We will provide accurate and timely updates to serve the M community and provide web-rings for M-related companies and services, offer links to literature and job referral services, as well as foster the growth and information sharing of the M community. Technical issues or cost may prevent an exact replica of the previous web pages, and as such the structure and content of the "new" web site may differ from the old and will be at the discretion of the NEMUG executive board.
- Literature Sales Management
NEMUG will work to provide M-related literature to the user community, either in print or electronic form. Existing publications will be offered at a fair and reasonable price, and NEMUG will continue the existing relationships and processes with publishers of current M-related books.
- Job Referral Program
NEMUG will continue and enhance the job referral service currently provided by the MTA. This will be shifted to an electronic forum and sourced through our web presence.
- Continued M-based Education programs.
NEMUG will continue to offer venues for M-related education, be they regional classes, workshops, user-group meetings, or through electronic venues. We will aid n the coordination, promotion, and support of regional classes.
Costs and Requirements
NEMUG is committed to providing the services mentioned above for a minimum of four years. As such we are requesting the sum of $17,000 to defray costs and expenses. All monies will be spent in the promotion of the M language and M-related education.
NEMUG will also require the transfer of registration for the www.mtechnology.org domain name, supporting files and data, current membership databases, current literature assets, and any remaining physical or electronic assets necessary to continue with these services that may be currently owned by the MTA.
It is NEMUG's strong desire to perpetuate the services and educational programs started by the MTA. The grant outlines general plans and activities, the details of which will be enhanced at the sole direction of the duly elected Executive Board of NEMUG, per our bylaws.
We are sincere in our efforts to promote the M language and related technologies and hope this grant proposal meets with the MTA's approval.
Signed Kenneth Wagner Gardner S. Trask III NEMUG Chair 2000-2002 Treasurer