The virtualization project is still underway; so far Huntsville has rolled out a virtualized Web-based SSL VPN to provide virtual desktops to the doctors in the form of thin clients that physicians can access from anywhere. The thin-client approach is particularly attractive from the perspectives of security and HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) compliance, given that patient data doesn't wind up on client PCs and thus doesn't leave the hospital's four walls.

Charles King, an analyst with Pund-IT, saysmany companies are buying blade servers to help consolidate existing servers and to squeeze additional computing power into a concentrated and minimalist footprint in the data center.

"For organizations that have space constraints but need additional computing power, it's an ideal solution," he said.

Huntsville has found one minor sticking point with virtualization: Some of its ISVs have been slow to support the technology.

"The biggest drawback we have is finding software vendors willing to support the virtual environment," Corn says. "They're coming around, pretty quickly at this point, but there are still those who say 'We don't support it. You're on your own if you go down this path.'"

Besides realizing significant savings on utility bills, Corn's team has achieved new agility: the time to deploy a server has shrunk to 10 minutes, he says. Depending on load per blade, the hospital can install from 15 to 25 virtual servers per blade. The desktop piece of the puzzle is handling 63 to 68 desktops per blade. Both desktops and servers are now kept on the SAN (Storage Area Network), so no single hard drive failure or blade failure will threaten to take the system or an application down.

The hospital's data store is up to some 120 Terabytes on raw SAN storage. Old PCs (in the 6- to 7-year-old range)have been repurposed as thin clients, further stretching capital dollars, as Pentium III-class machines prove capable of running memory-intensive applications via virtualization, Corn says.

Meanwhile, Huntsville not only has spared itself the need to add IT staffers, but also has actually been able to shift one or two full-time employees from desktop support to network administration, a "huge bonus" for operations, Carlisle says. A single seat of administration from the PC side of the house means that support staff is spared the campus walk-around of several blocks.

Granted, less exercise isn't what the doctor tends to order, but Huntsville clearly sees plenty of other benefits from virtualization.

© 2009 CXO Media Inc.