Successful implementation of Exadata Cloud@Customer X10M drives operational performance and elevates cost optimisation in a public organisation.
Overview
The Bulgarian National Health Insurance Fund (NHIF) oversees all national payments for healthcare services. It is a public organisation that plays a crucial role in the state’s infrastructure and operates under a compulsory health insurance model. The NHIF manages the information systems for nearly all healthcare services provided by physicians, general practitioners, hospitals, pharmacies, and more.
Due to the growing limitations of the Oracle Database (deployed on-premise), NHIF faced several strategic challenges that prompted a decision to upgrade to Oracle Cloud to support its computing needs better. Sirma, having successfully consolidated all of NHIF’s critical systems databases and serving as a trusted Oracle partner, was the preferred choice to continue the next phase of NHIF’s IT infrastructure modernisation and cloud migration.
Main Challenges
As one of the significant public fund spenders, NHIF must prioritise cost-effectiveness and transparency, subject to strict government oversight.
The platform of choice was Oracle Exadata, specifically designed and optimised for Oracle tasks. The usage model ensured significant savings on licensing and maintenance. The customer had high-security requirements and operated under strict regulations, so the solution had to combine the benefits of private and public cloud. It had to take advantage of the technology, save on substantial upfront investments, and secure its data and operations with an on-premises cloud solution.
NHIF needed to demonstrate tangible benefits across technical, business, financial, and compliance dimensions to enhance its services and justify its investments.
Project Scope
As Sirma is a strategic partner of cloud solutions from the Oracle portfolio for Bulgaria, our team, together with the local Oracle team, provided the Oracle Exadata Cloud at Customer X10M Quarter Rack database consolidation platform. Sirma team secured seamless implementation and running of Oracle Exadata Cloud@ Customer X10M, which is engineered to be the highest-performing and most available platform for running Oracle Database. Exadata X10M is the most versatile database platform with extreme scalability inherent at every layer in its architecture. Our team carried out the activities on delivery and implementation of next-generation Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer, including:
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) through the Exadata Cloud@Customer Infrastructure component, including the Exadata Cloud@Customer Quarter Rack X10M product, provided as an additional infrastructure service for a period of 4 years.
Platform as a Service (PaaS) through the Oracle Database on Exadata Cloud@Customer component, providing the Gen 2 Exadata Cloud at Customer Database OCPU product as an additional service under a subscription model for licensed software, including all features of Oracle Database Enterprise Edition, plus all Oracle Database Enterprise Manager Packages and all Oracle Database Enterprise Edition options, used on a physical core unit of measure Oracle Compute Unit (OCPU).
Platform Integration & Delivery
The Exadata Cloud@Customer solution is an Oracle-managed cloud service that offers the performance, automation, and cost-efficiency of the Exadata Database Service and an autonomous database in NHIF’s data centre. The solution includes unique optimisations that enable Oracle Database workloads to run faster with less management and lower costs, allowing NHIF to derive more value from its data.
It features a cloud-enabled architecture with scalable, high-performance database servers and intelligent storage servers equipped with advanced PCIe flash technology and RDMA-accessible memory. Exadata uses unique algorithms to provide database intelligence across storage, computing, and networking, resulting in superior performance and capacity at lower costs. It supports various modern workloads, including Online Transaction Processing (OLTP), Analytics, Data Warehousing, In-Memory Analytics, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT).
The successful completion of the project to consolidate all databases for the critical systems on Exadata Cloud@Customer demonstrated that this platform was the most suitable choice for the NHIF. Additionally, it laid the foundation for building NHIF’s Disaster Recovery on a second Exadata Cloud@Customer unit. In collaboration with the local Oracle team, Sirma completed the project for the next-generation Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer consolidation platform. To better manage and optimise its financial flows, NHIF’s platform operation is based on a subscription service – Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Results
NHIF continues to use the already proven and established system and has the flexibility to utilise its resources better by using Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer. With this project, we have upgraded the already established working model with the Oracle Exadata Cloud@Customer solution with the next-generation Gen 2 solution. As a result, NHIF will continue to maintain and improve the achieved efficiency level with a higher level of security and manageability, with much better TCO and the flexibility of the OPEX model.
The subscription for purchasing and operating the Gen 2 Exadata Cloud at Customer Database OCPU service is provided through the Oracle Universal Credits subscription model, which offers a predictable, consistent way of paying for any Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) service, including Gen 2 Exadata Cloud at Customer Database OCPU, in any region, including future versions of cloud services.
System modernisation was delivered without compromising business continuity and secured the high availability of the services provided to many stakeholders in the healthcare sector. The added benefits of reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and the flexibility of the OPEX model further strengthen this initiative. By optimising IT infrastructure, we have improved healthcare services for Bulgarian citizens.
The partnership between Sirma and the National Health Insurance Fund has demonstrated that with the right technology providers, large-scale IT infrastructure modernisation projects and the right cloud strategy are possible and fit for the future needs of public and private enterprises. NHIF continues to rely on Sirma as a leading technology provider and trusted advisor, capable of delivering innovative solutions that drive operational excellence.
