Updating Backup and Storage Systems to Prepare for Healthcare’s Future

St. Joseph’s Health Finds Space to Grow with Modernized Storage

In northern New Jersey, St. Joseph’s Health forecasted its impending needs and replaced its aging storage infrastructure five years ago with a Pure Storage solution to improve the performance of clinical and business applications, says Jesse Fasolo, the organization’s technology infrastructure and cybersecurity director and information security officer.

“We did a proof of concept and then expanded the platform’s use across multiple data centers,” he says. “Since then, we’ve upgraded our storage capacity twice through Pure Storage’s Evergreen program, which allows you to invest in the technology as your needs grow. You can do an in-place upgrade with no downtime or impact to the organization.”

Regular system software upgrades through the Evergreen program have also significantly improved application performance, including its Citrix Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, Fasolo says: “We feel as though we can always be at the leading edge of technology, even though our initial investment was five years ago.”

FIND OUT: Why is a good cyber resilience strategy essential to business success?

A Veeam backup platform provides fortified defenses against ransomware attacks, Fasolo adds. The integration enables lightning-fast recovery times from Veeam’s secured snapshots. “If we were attacked, we could very quickly restore a snapshot from minutes before,” he says.

The Pure Storage platform includes self-monitoring and correcting features, along with a management portal that provides detailed visibility into the performance of the storage system and connected applications, Fasolo says.

“It makes the storage system nearly self-sustaining as it identifies issues and helps you solve them,” he says. “This almost eliminates the need to have a storage specialist on the IT team, which can save money or free up a position for other tasks.”

Because of its central function on the back end, integrating the Rubrik platform with all existing systems was a crucial consideration in purchase and deployment, Fasolo says. “All systems function from the storage array, and with a storage solution that meshes with them, we’ve seen efficiency and performance gains on all sides.”

With a future proofed storage system in place, St. Joseph’s Health is looking ahead to upgrades of the compute infrastructure, he says.