Storage Solutions: Healthcare Services Provider ZirMed Turns To Caringo For Fixed Content Storage

Caringo, Inc. announced recently that ZirMed, one of the leading provider of revenue cycle management solutions to healthcare providers, has selected Caringo CAStor to accommodate its dramatically growing data load and create a fully compliant and massively scalable archive of highly sensitive records.

ZirMed's web-based suite of solutions assists healthcare providers, insurance companies and patients through the reimbursement cycle with services such as insurance benefits verification, merchant processing, claims management, electronic remittance advice, and check processing. ZirMed's processing systems must support nearly a quarter of a million transactions per day via electronic data interchange (EDI) transactions, a number which is growing almost exponentially. Named by Inc. Magazine as one of the fastest growing private companies in the US, ZirMed required a scalable solution to accommodate its rapid growth. Because the data ZirMed processes includes personal health and financial information, ZirMed maintains compliancy with federal regulations related to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Check 21 and other laws and regulations governing the security and privacy of personal information.

ZirMed is obligated to maintain approximately 3 TB of content consisting of files as small as 1 K that remain unchanged throughout their lifespan; however, the files require accessibility and security. ZirMed's CTO, Chris Schremser, was challenged to seek out the best possible solution to back up the data, fixing the continual degradation of their file system caused by the massive amount of small files, and accommodating the company's recent growth. Initially seeking a product that could integrate well, or at least not interfere, with its existing storage platform, ZirMed evaluated Caringo's CAStor software. Comparing CAStor's functionality and features to alternatives in the market, Schremser appreciated CAStor's ability to run on any commodity hardware, allow online access to archived content with primary storage speed, and its self healing, self managing, and self configuring architecture. ZirMed expects to create a system scalable to 6 TB, yet spend approximately $10,000 on hardware -a fraction of the price tag for most competitors.

"The appeal of CAStor was that it is a very open, simple implementation, extremely scalable, and flexible in terms of our ability to build a data management framework around it," said Schremser. "We've taken an aggressive approach to phased migration and working with CAStor according to our compliance regulations, to the point where as these requirements evolve, we're confident that we can continue to meet them."

"Because ZirMed houses a great deal of content that does not change, ZirMed was an ideal candidate to deploy CAStor, yet their approach to integrating it was methodical and surefooted," said Mark Goros, Caringo CEO. "They did an excellent job saving their SAN from a horrific and superfluous backup load, allowing it to do what nature intended. Selecting CAStor to protect and store these massive numbers of small EDI transactions with content availability model was key."

By storing their fixed content in CAStor, ZirMed can grow the system exponentially. As the file load increases, ZirMed can simply include additional nodes in real time without the need to configure, provision or take the system down. With backup, replication and migration built into the advanced CAStor architecture, these processes are things of the past. Data is always available - even if a disk or node goes down, there is a replica to take its place for recovery without user intervention.

Schremser has a long history at ZirMed, and feels "blessed" that he and other team members have been encouraged to stay nimble and innovative in planning and development.

"We're always looking for alternatives that are cost-effective, and encouraged to seek new ways, new solutions, and new technologies," he said. "You'd be crazy not to consider creative approaches like Caringo's CAStor when the cost of going the old way is so enormous."

About ZirMed
Founded in 1999, ZirMed has grown to become one of the largest, most well respected revenue cycle management companies focused on the healthcare industry. Over its eight year journey, ZirMed's customer base has grown to over 150,000 healthcare providers and 20,000 facilities nationwide, processing millions of electronic transactions each month. ZirMed's non-invasive, web-based technology solutions enable healthcare providers to reduce administrative costs and increase cash flow. ZirMed is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky.

About Caringo
Caringo, Inc. has re-imagined content addressed storage from the ground up. CAStor is third-generation technology that leverages the customer's choice of commodity hardware to dramatically improve the scope and economics of corporate fixed content storage. Caringo founders operate according to Einstein's belief that "Things should be made as simple as possible." Rather than make CAS complex and expensive, Caringo makes it affordable, scalable, fast and easy. More information can be found at www.caringo.com.

SOURCE: Caringo, Inc.