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Industry
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Healthcare
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Customer
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Clinique Pasteur
(Tolouse, France)
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Host Connectivity Solution
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PowerTerm® InterConnect
(Linux Edition)
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Host Server
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AS/400 on TCP/IP
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Users
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100 users at a single site using PowerTerm InterConnect for Linux. 10 Users use PowerTerm InterConnect for Windows.
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| The Challenge |
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Replace dumb 5250 terminals by integrating powerful Linux workstations in an affordable manner that is cost effective for administration and upgrades.
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The Solution
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The Pasteur Clinic chose PowerTerm InterConnect for Linux to enable standardized access to their AS/400 based applications.
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Benefits
- Implementation proved easy on the customized Linux platform (Debian with kernel 2.4.22) preferred by the IT manager.
- IT support is minimal and centralized due to the rsync protocol implemented at the workstation which, at each reboot, verifies whether a newer version of the Linux and application package is available on the "master" workstation.
"We chose PowerTerm InterConnect for Linux because of its intrinsic qualities such as seamless host access, and particularly for the fast response of Ericom's support team to adapt it to our specific needs."
Denis Di-Santo, IT Project Manager, Clinique Pasteur
The Clinique Pasteur is a private medical clinic in Toulouse, France, providing healthcare to over 29,000 patients a year. With about 350 beds, the clinic has 130 doctors, and an additional 1000 employees.
With an IT staff of three dealing with the computer needs of the entire hospital, the Clinic came to a decision in 2002, that moving to a thin-client architecture would reduce the IT burden. According to Denis Di-Santo, IT Project Manager, the Clinic wanted a solution that would provide the ease and flexibility of maintaining one emulation product on their server rather than having to perform upgrades on each individual computer for multiple terminal emulators. Besides being versatile and robust, the solution must be economical to deploy, and easy to support.
After an extensive evaluation of solutions ranging from thick-clients to web-to-host products, including IBM HostOnDemand, Di-Santo said they decided to go with a terminal emulation solution for the Linux platform that would enable access to AS/400 host applications. According to Di-Santo, "We chose PowerTerm InterConnect for Linux because of such features as 80/132 column display, and particularly for the fast response of Ericom's support team to adapt it to our specific needs."
Since implementing PowerTerm, the Pasteur Clinic has enhanced its workstations with additional software applications, including Mozilla for browsing and emailing, Wine, a software layer enabling a windows application like a medical image viewer to run under Linux, Open Office, and RDP for connecting to a Windows server.
PowerTerm's ability to run a broad range of applications on a single platform was a big plus when it came to choosing the right solution. "We thought it would be more sensible to go with a company that specializes in terminal emulation and who have a vision of the future when it comes to application access, explains Di-Santo. "It's been 18 months since we started using Powerterm InterConnect for Linux, and we are now considering a web-to-host solution that would enable us to webify our green-screens with a user-friendly GUI. We're certain that with Ericom, the migration path will be painless."
