Where is my Elixir?

In many cultures, there’s a fascination with the idea of elixir—a potion, developed in secrecy, that’s believed to bestow eternal life and everlasting youth. In ancient literature, this miracle medicine has several names: Amrita, Aab-i-Hayat, Maha Ras, Aab-Haiwan, Dancing Water. Is elixir a myth, or a prospect for eternal life in the near future?

Modern medicine is continually looking to develop extraordinary treatments in capsules, vaccines, pills, and many other forms. These medicines work wonders by curing complex diseases, repairing damaged tissues, and strengthening existing cells. In a way, these medicines are like elixirs that we seek in various forms and shapes.

In addition to developing new medicines, the healthcare industry aims to improve patient care by developing applications in arenas such as radiology, cardiology, electronic medical records (EMR/EHR), and genomics; deploying electronic wearable devices to monitor patient care; and analyzing data generated from these apps and devices with artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and analytics.

Developing new medicines coupled with applications to improve patient care has resulted in significant benefits to human life: cures for enigmatic diseases, longer life expectancy, and more effective treatments, for example.

However, because of the exponential growth in healthcare applications and research groups to develop new medicines, organizations have ended up using different kinds of hardware, software, resources, and processes. Consequently, the cost of managing these applications has risen, and the lack of consistent security controls has resulted in security breaches. Further, information flow between the applications has slowed down as different data sources have ceased to communicate with each other. Finally, storage infrastructure has been challenged by this explosion of data from various sources.

To assist healthcare initiatives in rolling out new applications and managing existing ones, NetApp has partnered with Equinix to provide a hybrid cloud architecture. This architecture allows healthcare companies to migrate their applications, take advantage of computing provided by Equinix or by public cloud providers, and use storage provided by NetApp.

This architecture—called NetApp^® Keystone^™ Flex Subscription, powered by Equinix—is deployed and monitored by NetApp. It provides various benefits to healthcare customers, enabling them to:

• Deploy their applications with common architecture, tools, and processes that reduce costs, provide data security, and improve performance
• Use compute resources with Equinix high-speed connectivity either in Equinix or in the cloud
• Monitor their resource consumption

With the COVID-19 pandemic, public opinion of healthcare has changed significantly^{https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/how-covid-19-has-changed-the-way-us-consumers-think-about-healthcare#}. During the pandemic, people have explored different medications, undergone treatments at home and at healthcare facilities, listened actively to information regarding health, and participated in many activities to improve overall health. The situation has driven healthcare companies to address current consumer needs and invest in technologies to engage customers in improving their overall health.

The applications that the healthcare industry has developed generate intensive workloads, and the Keystone Flex Subscription architecture provides the infrastructure required to support such workloads. And because the solution is subscription-based, customers are charged based on their usage.

To learn more about Flex Subscription, visit the Keystone Flex Subscription page. For more information about NetApp Keystone Flex Subscription with Equinix, read these articles and blog posts:

• NetApp delivers storage as a service, powered by Equinix
• NetApp Keystone at Equinix Delivers Storage-as-a-Service
• Car without steering wheels