Data Storage Solutions Offer Online, Off-site Flexibility

Traditional storage methods have evolved. Data and image storage technology for the healthcare industry continues to improve, and the vendors at this year’s RSNA are releasing and showcasing the new capabilities of the field. Protecting data in the face of a disaster remains a top concern while easing access to data through online services provides flexibility.

Bycast (Booth 3918) is showcasing enhancements to its StorageGRID 7, designed for high data availability and protection. New features include: High Availability Gateway Cluster, which delivers automated failover for file-system environments; greater scalability; and simplified management with new reporting functionality.

Carestream Health (Booth 2513) is showing its Carestream PACS platform that supports workflow grid computing. The workflow GRID technology can provide synchronized global worklist and reporting to all sites, while allowing each site to operate independently.

EMC Corporation (Booth 2738) is displaying its information infrastructure portfolio. The Clariion CX3-10 network attached storage (NAS) system offers a new entry point for community hospitals and dedicated departments, and can consolidate multiple applications with one array—with the combined FC/iSCSI option.

Clariion allows for access and management of a Healthcare IP storage infrastructure from a single console.

The Centera content addressed storage (CAS) system provides access with petabyte scalability for active archiving of healthcare images and information.

The EMC Disk Library, an open-systems virtual tape library for backup, file restore and integration into a healthcare environment. EMC is highlighting a secure web-access for physician and p‑atient portals service, based on security software products from RSA, the security division of EMC.

InSiteOne (Booth 8308) is launching a new generation of its services roadmap, InDex 5. InDex 5, scheduled for availability in February 2008, will include tools to manage information for the life of clinical data, and incorporate a revised set of web-enabled administration functions for reporting and configuration management across virtual storage assets.

NetApp (Network Appliance; Booth 5375) is showcasing its newest disked-based solution, FAS6000. The FAS6000 series supports medical images in FC SAN, IP SAN, and multiple network configurations, while offering systems with upgrades without requiring forklift data migration. The FAS6000 systems extend the FlexVolT capabilities built into Data ONTAPT 7G by increasing disk performance even for small data volumes.

Neurostar Solutions (Booth 3582) is introducing its Cross-Enterprise Data Access (CEDA) architecture, which allows individual sites ultra-fast access to recent studies and enables users with appropriate permissions to access prior exams and other patient data from any site in their business network. This includes third-party PACS applications. CEDA expands the VRN’s storage beyond its central offsite archive to include satellite cache systems and third-party archives at all sites in a service provider’s network.

Plasmon (Booth 7508) is introducing the Archive Appliance Express developed to address the needs of small- to medium-sized medical businesses. The Archive Appliance Express is shipped pre-configured for the PACS software, and with new 60GB UDO2 technology and SATA RAID protection.

RADinfo Systems (Booth 4171) is debuting DICOMmail, that lets physicians seek consultative opinions regarding medical images. The DICOMmail Viewer is based on RADinfo’s FDA-approved RSVS visualization technology and DICOMmail Send allows the user to drag and drop an image into the software for delivery to email.

	ScImage: PicomOnline online archiving and telemedicine service

ScImage (Booth 2551) is displaying PicomOnline, an online archiving and telemedicine service. PicomOnline is a hosted, datacenter service providing off-site PACS, disaster recovery, long-term archiving and telemedicine services for diagnostic imaging services. It can be used as a standalone virtual PACS solution or in conjunction with on-site PACS solutions, such as ScImage’s PicomEnterprise.