Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust has opted to use desktop management software provided by RES to reduce log-on times for users and to aid its upcoming Windows 7 migration in the summer.

Aintree is critically dependent on its IT systems, as the Trust has almost completed scanning 50 million pages to ensure that it can get rid of all of its paper records and have a fully operational electronic patient record system.

The Trust has two large datacentres on site, made up of HP and Dell servers, both highly virtualised using VMware hypervisors. It also has over 3,500 devices, which includes desktops, laptops, iPads, wall mounted computers and Windows slates.

Director of IT services, Ward Priestman, needed to drastically improve the log on times for users from minutes to seconds due to the critical nature of the Trust’s technology infrastructure.

“If we were without our IT systems we would have to declare a major incident and pretty much stop seeing patients. We are that dependent on IT,” Priestman told Computerworld UK.

“We currently have 3,500 devices and 4,000 staff. The clinicians move around the organisation treating patients, and the big issue we were facing is that it took so long to log onto a device. It could be anything from a minute to over five minutes if they had large profiles,” he added.

“I wanted to ensure that any clinician could log onto any device and there be a maximum log on time of seconds”.

Priestman described how Microsoft’s roaming profiles software stores all of a user’s personalisation settings on the system being used, so when a user logs onto a device it reads all that data down from a central database. This causes longer log in times, due to the large amount of data moving around, and is a process Priestman described as “torturous and unreliable”.

“Microsoft’s roaming profiles were also a risk for us because if you got any documents on your profile it then copies them down onto the computer. This was a problem because if there was patient data in there, a copy would be left on that device,” he explained.

Source:http://www.computerworlduk.com/news/public-sector/3342793/nhs-trust-uses-zero-profile-tech-aid-windows-7-migration/

Crucial Adrenaline enhances Windows 7-based PC performance

Memory and storage upgrades firm Crucial has released Crucial Adrenaline Solid State Cache Solution for enhancing Windows 7-based PC performance.

The new application enables PCs to boot up to twice as fast and increases data access speeds by up to eight times and provides users with SSD-like performance with the capacity of a traditional hard drive.

Crucial Adrenaline incorporates a 50GB Crucial m4 SSD, 3.5″ adapter bracket, SATA cable, and NVELO Dataplex caching software.

The new release is said to improve performance by placing, or ‘caching,’ the frequently needed files on the SSD and leaves less frequently used files on the hard drive.
The software, which is fully automated, runs in the background.

The caching software also enables customers to connect the SSD to the motherboard with the included SATA cable, start the computer and install the Dataplex caching software.

Crucial worldwide senior product manager Robert Wheadon said while consumers understand that SSDs provide enhanced PC performance, many still want to maintain their existing high-capacity hard drives.

“We designed Crucial Adrenaline to be affordable and straightforward, so customers can easily upgrade their PCs to gain the increased speed of an SSD, yet still utilize the higher capacities they’ve come to expect from traditional hard drives,” said Wheadon.

Source:http://storage.cbronline.com/news/crucial-releases-new-caching-software-090312

Windows on an iPad? That’s what OnLive is promising with its free OnLive Desktop service, available from Thursday in the iTunes App Store in the US, with a UK version to follow.

The company, which has attracted plenty of attention for its cloud-based gaming technology, plans to deliver full Windows 7 applications – including Microsoft Office – to Apple’s tablet.

So how does it work? Well, Microsoft software such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint is hosted remotely on powerful PC servers in the cloud, rather than the iPad, and accessed over the internet.

A full on-screen Windows keyboard and handwriting recognition make it easy to view and edit complex documents. OnLive says rich media, such as video, animation, slide transitions – even PC games – will run fluidly on the iPad, too.

“OnLive Desktop is the first app to deliver a no-compromise, media-rich Windows desktop experience to iPad, opening up powerful new possibilities for consumers and businesses,” said Steve Perlman, OnLive founder and CEO.

“iPad users will now be able to simply and securely view and edit cloud-hosted documents with full-featured Windows desktop applications like Microsoft Office, just as if they were using a local high-performance PC.”

The OnLive Desktop app comes with 2GB of secure cloud storage and access to a cloud-based Windows 7 desktop pre-populated with Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, plus several utilities and touch games.

Using instant-response touch gestures such as pinch and zoom, flick to scroll, drag, drop and Aero snap, users can navigate files, open, edit and save the ones they need, and store them securely in the cloud for access from any device through a simple web interface.

PC apps have full desktop functionality: Word documents can be created and edited with full redline and commenting capability, using a full Windows touch-screen keyboard, handwriting recognition or Bluetooth keyboard.

PowerPoint presentations can be created with rich graphics, videos and animated slide transitions, and even presented directly from the iPad, either onscreen or via an external monitor.

Data can be updated and analyzed instantly in Excel, translated into graphs and transferred into presentation documents.

If you don’t have an iPad, don’t worry: Android, smartphone, PC, Mac and monitor/TV support (via the OnLive MicroConsole thin client with Bluetooth keyboard/mouse) is coming soon, with the same OnLive Desktop available by login from any device.

An OnLive Desktop Pro version is also planned, with 50GB of cloud storage, priority access, full-featured cloud-accelerated browsing, additional PC apps, and other OnLive-unique features for $9.99/month (UK pricing TBA).

Source:http://tech.uk.msn.com/features/onlive-brings-full-windows-7-software-to-the-ipad