healthAlliance Selects Oracle’s Exadata to Deliver a Shared Services Platform to Five New Zealand District Health Boards

REDWOOD SHORES, CA--(Marketwire - April 28, 2011) -

News Facts

• healthAlliance New Zealand Ltd (HANZL) has selected Oracle hardware and software to accommodate its rapid growth as New Zealand's largest and fastest growing heath sector shared services organization.
• The organization's recently upgraded Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.2 applications will be deployed across an Oracle® Exadata Database Machine X2-2 to deliver a highly robust, scalable and pre-integrated platform to an expanding number of District Health Boards (DHBs).
• A second Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 will be deployed at a separate physical site to provide a shared services platform for other business applications and serve as a disaster recovery site for Oracle E-Business Suite.
• HANZL offers non-clinical support services to five DHBs which provide health services to almost 40% of New Zealand's population. The DHBs are: Counties Manukau, Waitemata, Auckland, Northland, and Taranaki. The first four DHBs jointly own HANZL with Health Benefits Ltd, a government-owned national shared services organization formed in July 2010.
• The increasing number of DHBs expressing an interest in moving their back office applications to HANZL's shared services platform drove the organization to look for a new core infrastructure that could accommodate massive growth and minimize the integration and operational costs normally associated with using multiple vendors. The current system had been accommodating two DHBs successfully for 16 months with Oracle Database 11g using Oracle Real Application Clusters.
• All DHBs joining HANZL's shared services platform will be using Oracle E-Business Suite 12.1.2, including Oracle E-Business Suite Financial Management, Oracle E-Business Suite Advanced Procurement and Oracle E-Business Suite Supply Chain Management.
• A series of lab performance tests using an Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 on HANZL data resulted in a significant increase in application performance. The tests also transformed reporting capabilities from batch job to real-time and on-demand. These test results, coupled with the reduced deployment and integration costs associated with Oracle Exadata's pre-integrated package of servers, storage, networking, and software, were the main reasons supporting HANZL's April 2011 decision to adopt Oracle Exadata Database Machines for its core infrastructure.
• The Oracle Exadata Database Machine deployment is anticipated to occur in June 2011. HANZL will be the first New Zealand organization to use an Oracle Exadata Database Machine. It was also one of the first in New Zealand to use Oracle Database 11g Release 2 in November 2009.

Supporting Quotes

• "healthAlliance's business is expanding with twice as many DHBs on board and several more expressing a genuine interest in our shared services platform," said Kathy Frame, Head of Business Solutions, healthAlliance NZ Ltd. "Oracle's robust, complete, pre-integrated hardware and software solution is setting us up for a long-term future in delivering a wide range of high performing business applications to the health sector. This means healthcare providers can spend less time and money on administrative tasks and invest more in frontline services."
• "When testing Oracle Exadata Database Machine with our data in the lab, we were very impressed with the results," said Raymond Lodge-Osborn, Applications Planning Manager, healthAlliance NZ Ltd. "We issued queries that traditionally took several hours or even days to produce -- for example massive joins across different, large tables -- and we got results back in incredible response times. We saw first-hand how we will be able to do more with less; for example, we will be minimizing future licensing costs by running more applications on the same hardware while improving our customer service levels."
• "By selecting Oracle Exadata, healthAlliance will be able to decrease its total operational costs, while at the same time being able to manage more data and improve the performance of all applications. This is provided by Oracle's unique ability to engineer hardware and software together to deliver outstanding performance results," said John Eastman, Technology Sales Director, Oracle New Zealand.

Supporting Resources

• healthAlliance New Zealand Limited
• Oracle Exadata Database Machine
• Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition
• Oracle Real Application Clusters
• Oracle E-Business Suite Applications
• Oracle E-Business Suite Financial Management
• Oracle E-Business Suite Advanced Procurement
• Oracle E-Business Suite Supply Chain Management
• Learn more about Oracle Exadata Customers

About healthAlliance
healthAlliance offers non-frontline transactional support services to Counties Manukau, Waitemata, Northland and Auckland District Health Boards (DHBs). The organisation employs 500 staff across eight locations and is jointly owned by the four DHBs and Health Benefits Ltd, a government-owned national shared services organisation, formed in July 2010, delivering administrative, support and procurement services for DHBs more cost-effectively and efficiently.

About Oracle Exadata
The Oracle Exadata Database Machine is the only database machine that provides extreme performance for both data warehousing and online transaction processing (OLTP) applications, making it the ideal platform for consolidating onto grids or private clouds. It is a complete package of servers, storage, networking, and software that is massively scalable, secure, and redundant. With Oracle Exadata Database Machine, customers can reduce IT costs through consolidation, manage more data on multiple compression tiers, improve performance of all applications, and make better business decisions in real time.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's most complete, open and integrated business software and hardware systems company. For more information about Oracle, please visit www.oracle.com.

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