Medical Archive Solutions User Guide

HPMA User Guide
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HP Medical Archive
Architecture Overview
The HP Medical Archive architecture provides a secure, reliable, and
high performance solution for the storage and distribution of very
high volumes of fixed content health care data within a data center
and optionally a disaster recovery (DR) site.
The term “grid computing” is inspired by the success of the intercon-
nection of the electric power and communication network
infrastructure in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
The power grid manages the available power resources and balances
loads to ensure continuous operation. How and where the power orig-
inates is transparent to the consumer. During peak hours, available
resources are automatically balanced and power is rerouted to where
it is needed most. As demand increases, additional generating
resources come online, and they are transparently utilized. Similarly,
when stations go offline or get decommissioned, there are no
consumer service disruptions. The grid automatically balances the
available resources to changing demand; loss of a subset of resources
does not result in degraded service.
Grid computing is based on the principle that access to computational
resources (storage, processing power, and data) can be enhanced with
high levels of reliability and scalability, analogous to obtaining electric
power from the power grid. Grid storage is the application of grid
computing principles to storage architecture: directories, query,
resource management, and fault management.
The HP Medical Archive system is composed of multiple nodes, which
form a unified archive. Each node consists of software services operat-
ing on a server that manages a limited capacity storage resource.
Within a given facility, all nodes are interconnected using standard
TCP/IP networking, and communicate with local imaging modalities,
PACS, and workstations. Wide Area Network (WAN) links extend the
grid, enabling off-site replication of content for disaster recovery.
The HP Medical Archive deployment relies on open standards for
interoperability with external hospital systems. Exchange of clinical
data with external clinical systems, including PACS, viewing worksta-
tions, and modalities, takes place over standardized network file
system protocols (NFS/CIFS) or (optionally) via established imaging
protocols, including DICOM.