St. Jude Medical | Data Center Technology Design
Meeting Future Demands Through Scalability
After experiencing growth of over 60% for three consecutive years, St. Jude Medical was hit with substantial demand on its IT infrastructure. In fact, they frequently required short-term, organic solutions to ensure the data center could handle daily demands. With annual sales of $2 billion, St. Jude recognized its need for a new infrastructure - and a data center that was reliable, scalable and flexible.
"N'compass provided valuable advice on both layout and administration of the data center. Their previous experience and recommendations of proven results helped us get a great result."
BILL GILMAN SYSTEMS NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR, ST. JUDE MEDICAL
Founded in 1976, St. Jude Medical develops and produces devices to treat cardiovascular disease and is one of the world's leading manufacturers of mechanical heart valves. The company sells to more than 130 countries.
PLANNING FOR FUTURE GROWTH
Realizing significant change was required, St. Jude conducted an extensive evaluation of technology consulting firms. "Not only did we need a vendor that could help us create a strategy," explains Jim Smith, vice president of information technology, "we needed them to build a plan for both our building infrastructure and our data center."
Determining specific business goals and requirements proved to be challenging. While St. Jude Medical planned to grow over the next 10 years, potential acquisitions made an accurate prediction difficult. St. Jude chose N'compass to lead an extensive evaluation. The Minneapolis-based consulting firm ultimately developed a flexible growth plan that could be rolled out in phases - meeting St. Jude's immediate needs while providing flexibility for the future.
N'compass devised a global philosophy, whereby three main data centers serve other mission critical facilities throughout the company. This philosophy now drives the strategy for all of St. Jude's mission critical facilities, ensuring that each facility receives appropriate reliability. As St. Jude Medical grows, this model becomes increasingly important to the strategic integration of new companies and systems.
To ensure the data center could facilitate future requirements, N'compass developed a three-phase plan. This involved an initial build-out of the main data center plus Phase 2 and Phase 3 expansions, which can be implemented at any time. Current building support systems are scalable to support both additional phases.
Throughout implementation, N'compass brought expertise and best practices to the project, allowing St. Jude to focus on their development and manufacturing goals. And, once construction was complete, N'compass facilitated a commissioning phase to ensure the systems were operating correctly. This six-week process included a full load test and simulated outages - and it uncovered more than 30 issues that were resolved prior to move in.
According to Bill Gilman, Systems Network Administrator at St. Jude, "N'compass provided valuable advice on both layout and administration of the data center. Their previous experience and recommendations of proven results helped us get a great result." Armed with those results, St. Jude Medical is poised to meet its future technology demands.
