HP ProLiant DL360 G5 Intel® Xeon® E5310 Quad Core Processor 1.60 GHz 8MB 2GB 1P SAE200i DVD-RW Rack Server 470064-462 Prospecto

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Belgium’s National Institute for Health and Disability Insurance (NIHDI) organizes,  
manages, and supervises Belgium’s compulsory health insurance and disability 
program. The insurance program covers 99% of the Belgian population, and 
guarantees care for anyone who is ill or requires medical care. In addition, it 
ensures that citizens get the proper disability benefits when they are unable to 
work due to disease, accident, or when on maternity leave.

The NIHDI was using an IBM Enterprise Storage Server Model E20 (also known as  
the Shark E20) to handle storage for its mainframe and its Open Systems (Unix, 
Novell, and Windows). The mainframe runs the VM/VSE operating system. The 
mainframe and Open Systems servers shared the storage capacity of Shark E20.

The Shark E20 was at the end of its planned life cycle, and NIHDI was looking to 
replace it with a storage solution that would accomplish the following:

• Work with the mainframe. NIHDI was in the process of phasing out its main-

frame, but that phase-out would not be completed for two or three years. 
NIHDI needed a solution that would work with the mainframe.

• Work more effectively with industry-standard systems. The Shark E20  

actually did not work optimally with NIHDI’s Open Systems servers. The  
storage was inflexible and difficult to manage. NIHDI used both NetWare 
and Windows servers, and was in the process of phasing out NetWare. The 
new storage solution would have to work well with NetWare in the short run, 
and with Windows in the long run.

• Offer high reliability. Because the NIHDI administers Belgium’s health  

insurance and disability program, its data must be safe, secure, and always 
available. NIHDI needed a highly reliable storage solution.

• Be cost-effective. As a government agency, NIHDI needed to buy the most 

cost-effective solution as possible, to ensure that taxpayers’ money was 
spent as efficiently as possible.

• Provide greater flexibility. NIHDI was looking for a solution that could be 

easily reconfigured and scaled, without significant additional costs and  
without adding to staff.

NIHDI offered a public tender for a comprehensive storage solution and received 
bids from multiple vendors, including HP, Sun, comparex, and Xiotech. After 
analyzing and debating, NIHDI ultimately chose an HP StorageWorks Enterprise 
Virtual Array for its Open Systems. The HP solution received the highest scores 
from NIHDI based on a variety of criteria, including the systems’ technical 
features, service-level agreements promised by HP, the total cost of ownership, 
initial price, and how well it integrated into the existing infrastructure. For the 
mainframe storage, NIHDI chose an HP StorageWorks XP Disk Array.

The XP Disk Array combines a completely redundant hardware platform with 
unique data replication capabilities that are integrated with clustering solutions 

 The HP StorageWorks solution 

was superior to the competition. 
We looked at technical features, 
operational value, total cost of 
ownership, and the support we 
would get, and HP came out the 
winner.

 

Bob collumbien
Infrastructure & Operations Manager 
NIHDI