St. Marien Amberg Hospital: Fast Storage for Reliable Healthcare

German hospital St. Marien Amberg has fundamentally renewed its IT infrastructure with solutions from Huawei. The new storage landscape not only accelerates workflows but also simplifies management and provides even better protection for sensitive patient data.

Bavarian Hospital with a Long History

Medical care at the highest level: Founded in 1850, Klinikum St. Marien Amberg is now a modern hospital in Bavaria, Germany. The clinic offers a wide range of specialized medical services that go far beyond basic care. Since 2004, the hospital has been operated as a municipal enterprise and public institution by the city of Amberg. With around 2,300 employees and 535 beds, the hospital treats about 27,000 inpatients and 45,000 outpatients each year across 18 departments. Additionally, its two medical care centers with 17 specialist practices serve approximately 41,000 patients annually.

Challenge: Strong IT is Essential for Digitalization

Digital applications for patient care—such as electronic records and diagnostic and documentation systems—are increasingly shaping everyday life at the clinic. To ensure smooth operations, the IT infrastructure must be reliable and high-performing. “Our storage systems are the backbone of hospital operations. They host all virtual machines (VMs) and data, ensuring the secure operation of digital applications and processes,” says Michael Schrüfer, Head of IT at the clinic.

The existing storage landscape could no longer meet rising demands. Primary storage, backup, and archive systems had become outdated, and the technology was no longer state-of-the-art. At the same time, the manufacturer’s expiring support forced the IT team to take action.

The clinic decided to bring in an external consultant to modernize its storage environment. Together, they defined the system requirements and launched a Europe-wide tender, as required for public institutions above a certain contract value. Several providers applied; ultimately, Sys-Tec GmbH won with a compelling package that included advanced Huawei components. “We presented the clinic not only with Huawei solutions for storage but also for backup processes. The combination of powerful technology and our overall concept was decisive,” adds Martin Graßmann, Managing Director of Sys-Tec.

OceanStor Dorado for Greater Performance and Flexibility

At the heart of the new infrastructure is the Huawei OceanStor series, featuring the all-flash OceanStor Dorado 5000 for fast data access and the OceanProtect X3000 backup system. The OceanStor Pacific 9546 is used for long-term backup. This scale-out storage solution is ideal for efficiently managing large volumes of data and stands out for its high capacity, flexible expandability, and integrated data protection technologies. For healthcare, this means medical data and image archives can be stored securely, economically, and for the long term.

The storage solution includes features such as deduplication, compression, and Huawei HyperMetro for synchronous data replication between two sites. HyperMetro is used in data centers to ensure high availability and failover protection. The technology enables an active-active configuration, with both sites serving as primary storage and data being synchronized in real time. This ensures the clinic remains operational even in the event of a failure.

More Flexibility, Higher Security

Initial tests showed a noticeable increase in performance. “Storage and access processes are significantly faster,” says Schrüfer. Administrators also benefit: “Thanks to intuitive Huawei solutions, administration is much easier. Previously, creating a new Logical Unit Number (LUN) to allocate storage could take up to 30 minutes—now it’s just a click,” reports Stefan Butschek from the clinic’s IT team.

Optimizing the backup strategy was especially important for the clinic. With Huawei OceanProtect X3000, efficient backup and recovery processes are available, reducing operating costs at the same time. Previously, the clinic relied solely on disk-to-disk backup; now, alongside all-flash storage, it also uses disk-to-tape backup. This additional media break offers better protection against ransomware, as attackers cannot access and encrypt backup data on both systems. Support for the S3 standard further increases flexibility. “Huawei OceanStor Dorado already supports the S3 protocol by default, which further secures the storage environment. This keeps the clinic future-proof,” says Graßmann.

The new infrastructure also scores points for sustainability. Consolidating storage systems has significantly reduced space and power requirements in the data center, as modern components are much more compact and energy-efficient—relieving the burden on air conditioning, lowering overall energy consumption, and providing enough flexibility for future growth. “With Huawei storage and backup solutions, we are now much more resilient,” summarizes Schrüfer. Moreover, the new IT infrastructure provides a solid foundation for further digital transformation and the adoption of current technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), which are becoming increasingly important in everyday hospital operations.