Increasing amounts of the world’s personal information will be stored on Centera systems. I can prove it.
The month of March saw a number of announcements about Centera. The one that particularly caught my eye was the announcement about Finland’s new health care system. The Social Insurance Institute of Finland (KELA) will use Centera as part of a solution to provide a centralized patient archive for all of Finland’s 5.3 million citizens.
It wasn’t just a Centera announcement. Other EMC products (such as Symmetrix and Documentum) were announced as part of a total solution.
This story provides more evidence of the “perfect storm” that continues to drive Centera adoption. Centera is getting better and better at managing billions of objects.
And there are billions of people out there.
The solution in Finland is described as an “eHealth” system. The information being stored will represent patient and prescription data. There will be approximately 300,000 health care providers accessing the system. All 5.3 million citizens will have the ability to manage their information with special emphasis on who gets to see what. Why is Centera such a great choice for this use case?
People == Objects
Centera stores objects. Each object is tracked using a content address. Let’s guess at the type of information which could end up being stored on Centera. In theory, 5.3 million objects might initially get stored onto the system. These objects could represent personal information: where people live, age, primary doctor, etc. How many objects can Centera hold?
Twenty-five million. Per disk.
So clearly there’s plenty of room to grow. And grow it will.
This solution is going to contain a lot of disks (total storage, including Centera, is projected to grow to 500 petabytes in the next decade).
The ability to manage object count is a huge part of the solution. Documentum also plays a key role here. Object count on its own, however, is only part of the story. What else is there about Centera which makes it ideal for storing and managing personal information?
Security and Retention
In any configuration where hundreds of thousands of medical professionals are accessing a data store representing 5.3 million citizens, the system better be secure. By “secure” I mean a number of things. Citizens must be able to view their information AND limit the data displayed on their profiles. Citizens don’t want their data accidentally (or intentionally) deleted. Citizens want to make sure that their information has not been tampered with. These are all Centera strengths…..
Centera content is immutable. Anyone attempting to “open” a piece of Centera content (such as a prescription) and overwrite it will not be able to.
Centera content is tamperproof. Each object is represented by a content address that contains a hash value. This hash value is created based on the content being stored. When the object is subsequently read it is automatically confirmed to be the exact same piece of content that was originally written.
Centera content is protected by retention periods. When content is stored to Centera, a retention period (e.g. 3 years, 5 years) can be associated with the content. There is no way for the content to be deleted until the retention period expires.
Centera security and authentication protocols have continually improved, as evidenced by the announcement of the latest release of CentraStar.
The immutability, retention, and tamper-proof capabilities of Centera, when combined with object count and secure management of content, provide a unique product offering found nowhere else in the industry. It’s all part of the perfect storm.
The Clincher
Let’s not forget that somebody has to manage this system. And managing an eventual 500 petabytes of information sounds daunting. Centera’s “hands-off configuration” and capacity expansion methods are also quite unique. Here’s why.
When content gets sent to a Centera (e.g. a patient X-RAY), there’s no “location” that comes along with it. Centera is a location-independent technology. This means that all the content being generated and stored on the system is essentially being catalogued and organized into internal file systems by CentraStar. There’s no need for an administrator to initially create (or extend) these file systems. When talking about billions of objects this becomes a very big deal.
And when the Centera becomes full? Add additional disks on the fly (the system auto-provisions the new storage). Want to increase bandwidth? Add additional ports on the fly.
One last point about managing this system: the solution as designed eliminates the need for backup to tape.
The Integration Advantage
EMC continues to combine “best of breed” acquisitions with its foundational bread and butter. Symmetrix speed and reliability is a given. Documentum content management is best of breed. Centera has created a new market for fixed content. The products have been combined and qualified to become a fast, scalable, secure solution.
Personal information, digital shadows, and Centera are a match made in heaven.
Finland’s centralized national healthcare system will be the first of its kind in the entire world.
But it won’t be the last.
Steve
