WellStar Health System, a large healthcare provider in Atlanta, needed to update its aging 4,800 square foot data center. It decided to colocate its new server and storage infrastructure with a third-party provider to reduce costs and improve availability. WellStar selected QTS due to its state-of-the-art facilities with redundant power and cooling and security measures required for healthcare data. WellStar now colocates its primary and disaster recovery systems across QTS' Atlanta data centers, improving performance while lowering costs. QTS also provided a business associate agreement ensuring compliance with healthcare data privacy regulations.

1. CASE STUDY
power feeds and cooling chillers,
massive backup power plants, and
multiple connectivity options. Both
locations provided easy access for
WellStar staff who would continue
to manage the new data center—plus,
advanced security measures for
storing and hosting healthcare data.
“Atlanta-Metro and Suwanee, like
other QTS facilities, offer stable,
flexible, and secure environments for
collocation,” said QTS sales engineer
Darryl Cox. “It’s easy for us to
demonstrate these capabilities when
our potential customers visit. We
simply walk the facilities and share
our compliance reports, service level
agreements, and five-nines availability
guarantee.”
WELLSTAR HEALTH SYSTEM,
is a not-for-profit system recognized
as a national leader in comprehensive
care. Staying ahead of the curve in
technology has enabled WellStar to
be leaders in both the diagnosis and
treatment of an extensive array of
health conditions.
Wellstar Uses QTS Colocation to
Cure Data Center Woes
WellStar Health System is a not-for-profit organization located in metropolitan
Atlanta, Georgia. Its 500 medical specialist and primary care providers and
12,000 employees rely on state-of-the-art technology to diagnose and treat more
than 600,000 patients annually.
In 2012, WellStar needed to update an aging 4,800-square-foot data center that
was becoming increasingly obsolete. After considering several build or buy
options, its IT team recommended buying new server and storage infrastructure
and colocating these resources with a third-party provider. The team was
confident this approach would accelerate the data center timeline, reduce long-
term maintenance costs, improve processing availability, and support planned
initiatives involving server virtualization and disaster recovery.
“We ultimately decided that building and managing a data center was not part
of our core business,” said WellStar manager of technical operations Andrew
McNicol.
Identify a Colocation Facility That
Measures Up
After receiving approval from senior
management for the colocation
strategy, the IT team began searching
for a facility with the infrastructure
and services to support a healthcare
organization’s complex and highly
regulated computing requirements.
“We needed a facility that would
provide access, security, expansion
space, and support when needed,” said
McNicol. “When we started touring
data centers, we were surprised by the
age of the chillers, generators, and other
equipment at some of the facilities. QTS,
on the other hand, really impressed us.”
QTS Atlanta-Metro and Suwanee
data centers offered state-of-the-art
colocation facilities with redundant
QTS has been outstanding to
work with. Its team has truly
been our partner. We receive
dailiy emails on maintenance
and status. QTS is very
proactive.
‘‘
”

2. 1.877.787.3282 OR VISIT QTSDATACENTERS.COM
SANTA CLARA SACRAMENTO MIAMI ATLANTA-METRO ATLANTA-SUWANEE CHICAGO OVERLAND PARK
WICHITA JERSEY CITY PRINCETON DALLAS RICHMOND
BUSINESS NEED
WellStar Health Systems, a large
healthcare company located in
metropolitan Atlanta, needed a new
data center. It decided to collocate
these resources in two state-of-the-art
multi-tenant facilities operated by QTS.
SPECIAL REQUIREMENTS
The facility had to be HIPAA and
HITECH compliant and covered by a
business associate agreement (BAA).
OUTCOME
WellStar now has a QTS state-of-
the art data center for supporting
electronic medical records and
other technology needs. Critical
infrastructure enjoys five nines
availability and basic infrastructure
is covered by five nines or better
availability. The organization is
benefited from higher availability,
lower operating costs, and increased
flexibility. Its next project will use QTS
interconnect services to enhance
disaster recovery and business
continuity.
QTS is a leading national provider of
data center solutions and fully managed
services and a leader in security and
compliance. With 12 data centers in eight
states, QTS owns, operates and manages
approximately 4.7 million square feet
of secure, state-of-the-art data center
infrastructure and supports more than 850
customers.
QTS Colocation
Cabinets. Cages. Suites
Ensure HIPAA and HITECH
Compliance With a BAA
Cox was also able to provide WellStar
with a business associate agreement
(BAA) tailored to the specific
requirements of collocating healthcare
assets. All healthcare organizations
are subject to provisions of the U.S.
Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 and
HITECH Act of 2009. HIPAA requires
healthcare providers to protect personal
health information (PHI), and HITECH
extends these privacy mandates to other
companies that handle PHI.
“QTS supports several large healthcare
companies,” said QTS account executive
Gina Haylett. “Having our own BAA
means we can show healthcare
companies we understand PHI, EHR
(electronic healthcare records), and
medical information systems, and
how dedicated we are to adequately
safeguarding this data.”
After completing its evaluation process,
WellStar decided to collocate its new
data center with QTS. It currently uses
2,100 square feet in the Atlanta-Metro
data center and 1,400 square feet in
the Suwanee data center. Atlanta-
Metro serves as its primary location
with Suwanee on standby as disaster
recovery location.
“We are using modern equipment and
a lot of virtualization in both spaces,”
said McNicol. “Better technology has
allowed us to improve performance
while shrinking our footprint and costs.”
Flexible Capacity to Meet Real-
World Business Needs
By colocating resources in two data
centers, WellStar is able to match
capacity to growth. The scale of the QTS
operations – each location qualifies as a
mega data center – also helps to
make space, cooling, and power more
affordable.
Like other tenants, WellStar can rely
on QTS “smart hands” and specialists
for assistance with optimizing power
designs, bringing servers online,
deploying applications and processes,
and managing resources. On a day-
to-day basis, QTS is responsible for
monitoring carrier connectivity and all
other functions up to the point where
power enters WellStar’s racks.
WellStar is considering a project that
will allow its two locations to failover
in the event of an outage. This upgrade
would provide full business continuity
and disaster recovery capabilities in the
event of an emergency.
“We offer a data centerConnect service
that makes it very simple to establish
connectivity between two or more QTS
facilities,” said Cox. “The connections
are extraordinarily secure, easily scaled,
and fully managed. And our service is
a lot more affordable than a traditional
private line service.”
Haylett and Cox agree that multi-
tenant customers like WellStar want
more than a typical service-provider
relationship. Executives and technical
staff want collaborators who will work
with their teams to lower transaction
costs, improve capacity forecasting,
and ensure the availability of critical
systems and services.
“I know QTS will step up when I need
them,” said McNicol. “They are my
‘Johnny-on-the-spot’.”