Hospital Q&A: eGate Replacement at Boca Raton Regional Hospital Provides Improved, Stable Performance
Boca Raton Regional Hospital is a not-for-profit, advanced tertiary medical center with 400 beds, over 2,100 employees and more than 800 primary and specialty physicians on staff. In April 2012 they migrated from eGate to Corepoint Integration Engine. The migration was significant, not only because of the stark differences between the two interface engines, but because of the change in server environment from AIX to Windows.
We’ve written before about the improved performance and security of Windows servers. The following Q&A with Boca Raton Regional Hospital Interface Analyst, Bobbie Mock, illustrates the improved performance of Windows and covers their experience migrating from eGate to Corepoint Integration Engine.
Key Takeaways: Despite initial reservations regarding Windows server environments, the Boca Raton team selected Corepoint Health to replace their eGate interface engine. They found the modern features of Corepoint Integration Engine and customer support provided by the Corepoint team to be superior to their previous experience. Further, they discovered that the Windows server would meet all their needs with no unexpected down time or performance issues.
Q: Could you describe your experience replacing your eGate interface engine, which ran on an AIX server, with Corepoint Integration Engine, which runs on a Windows server?
I did have reservations about the Windows server. It was partly related my experiences with individual workstations and partly rooted in things I’d read on the eGate listserv. So many people would write that they could keep their AIX server running 340 consecutive days and that we’d never be able to do that with Windows. Well, we had issues with our AIX server and had to reboot it every 2 months due to different issues. There was a lot of nay-saying on the listserv with regards to Windows servers, so that is where a lot of my concerns were coming from.
Q: How has the Windows server experience been since going live with Corepoint Integration Engine?
Performance has been fantastic. We have had no Windows-related issues at all. The only time we bring the server down is to apply Microsoft updates and that takes less than 15 minutes. Windows simply isn’t an issue. It’s just about getting comfortable. In fact, now it’s easier to access application databases than it was in AIX. We’re able to use the database capabilities of Corepoint Integration Engine to get data we need that’s not already being sent to the engine, and opens a whole world of access to data for our end users.
Q: Do you recall the features that helped you select Corepoint Integration Engine?
Corepoint was simple and straight forward. I love that you can test so easily. The ease of use and ability to do testing with anything—log files or any files sent from a vendor— was really impressive. I was pretty much blown away by the look and feel, especially coming off eGate.
Q: Describe your experience converting your interfaces and learning to use Corepoint Integration Engine?
I can’t say enough about Corepoint support and professional services. We had about 70 interfaces to migrate within five months. We had two Corepoint support team members on site for 4 days and they jumped right in, tackling the most complex interfaces first. More importantly, they included us on everything they were doing and provided us with a great transfer of knowledge experience along the way.
Q: What features in Corepoint Integration Engine have the greatest impact on your day?
We’re adding new applications and connections to our environment all the time. We’re working on 4 new connections right now and will soon reach 160 overall. The flexibility of the log files is great. We keep 30 days of logs, and being able to find older messages to identify exactly what was sent, find any issue, and resend a message all from within the engine easily is remarkable. I like having the alerts for times when anything is backed up. Some of our analysts also really appreciate being able to use the engine to access their own messages and research their own issues, so that’s been a big benefit to us too.
Q: Thanks so much for your time. Did I miss anything?
I do have to say having just come back from Corepoint Connect (annual customer conference) that I was so impressed with how everyone at Corepoint Health treated us. The content, breakout sessions, information, and the connections I was able to make were great. We’re already working on approval to attend again next year.
