The First Business Use of Advanced Telnet
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Provider brings ASP model to healthcare
3000 NewsWire - July 2001
New application installations make up the core of growth for a computer
platform, the gateway for rookie users of veteran systems like the HP
e3000. But prejudices about that 28-year-old system can bar the door to
such installations, as IT managers struggle to justify adding a
platform that can look unfamiliar. A long-time solution provider for
the platform is breaking down the barriers with a successful Application
Services Provider (ASP) model, implemented in a sector where the e3000
system already has high marks: healthcare.
Neil Harvey & Associates (NHA) is keeping a staff of more than 40
busy in South Africa, where the company has been in business for more
than 15 years. All of the firm's clients do their healthcare
administration using HP 3000s. But in recent years the business has
become one of e-services, supplied from servers located at the firm's
headquarters in Cape Town.
"It was in self-defense that we took to the ASP model," Harvey
explained. "In the dark years when HP seemed to have abandoned the HP
3000 platform, we found it very difficult to convince existing HP 3000
clients the platform had a life.
All of the firm's clients do their healthcare
administration using HP 3000s. But in recent years
the business has become one of e-services, with the
ultimate goal of housing the servers - and letting
the healthcare companies run the e3000s' programs
through networks
We also found it especially difficult to sell to new clients. Our
ultimate goal is to house the servers ourselves, and let the clients run
them through networks."
The company offers a full spectrum of services, from maintaining the
master files, collecting and reconciling premiums, assessing the claims
against "fairly complex rules" in South Africa, and paying service
providers.
The company uses imaging techniques to manage the paper, and the
Internet to manage inquiries. "We have empowered the end users of the
healthcare systems - the doctors and the members - to answer their own
enquiries," Harvey said. "It's enquiries that cripple administrators."
The task of shifting from hardware-software sales to delivering over the
Internet is greater in South Africa, because of the country's lesser
bandwidth. The largest corporations in the country operate with
communication pipes no larger than 128Kb/second, a small fraction of the
bandwidth available in places like Europe or the United States. NHA
has had to be clever about how it uses the Internet because of these
telecom limitations, even as the firm employs the limit-busting Internet
services now available for the e3000.
As the company has pushed the enquiries away from call centers for its
healthcare clients, it's been testing a faster Telnet connection
technology for its HP 3000s called Advanced Telnet. HP has been
preparing the technology for general release, but NHA has been putting
Advanced Telnet through its paces for more than two years in beta test.
"It's exciting for me to work on the Advanced Telnet protocol, which
shows enormous promise for us in our environment," Harvey said. "Our
network pipes are very thin and very expensive." Rich Web sites simply
can't serve in South Africa, so NHA has altered the Internet equation to
let customers receive Web page information through e-mail
transmissions.
At the same time, Advanced Telnet could make better use of the thin
pipes to maximize communication directly with the HP 3000s at NHA
headquarters. Harvey said this would make it possible for companies to
manage their data on remote servers, and keep the ASP model cost
effective for all.
"It's not in general release yet, but it will be pretty soon," Harvey
said, "and it's an open technology, so all terminal emulator makers will
have access to it. It is a quantum leap better than straight Telnet,
because it's a combination of what was good about NS/VT and what's good
about Telnet."
NHA relies on the latest ports of Samba, Send mail and Gnu C++ for the
e3000, to "emulate the Web in e-mail," Harvey explains. "Our clients
are able to send an inquiry by e-mail and receive back what is
ostensibly a Web page. We've overcome the corporate fear of choking
their very thin Internet connections." It's an all-HP 3000 solution,
with Send mail running a script which picks up and renders a Web page
and returning it to answer the inquiry.
Balancing the use of such nouveau technology is a backbone of thin
client architecture. The NHA applications have relied on Cognos
PowerHouse for many years, a choice Harvey considers lucky - because it
kept the programs slim in an era when many were growing fat.
"Using PowerHouse in character mode is very much a thin client
application," Harvey said. "We were lucky to escape the stampede
towards client server. We came out of that era with a fat host, thin
client application. PowerHouse sends only the data it needs to display
on the screen."
Things like Send mail and Gnu C++ aren't on HP's supported product list
yet, but NHA doesn't let that deter them. "No software is unsupported,
so long as we're supporting it. We won't deploy anything that's
inherently unstable. We thoroughly test the software, and we have
sufficient faith that the very strong and close-knit 3000 community will
ensure these contributed tools continue to advance. That's one of the
great things about MPE - its user community. That's what gives me the
confidence to use these tools."
NHA spent "many hours convincing clients to stay on the platform" in the
past, but the new model - to forget the specifics of IT, and just do
business with NHA handling the details - is working. "The ASP model
works for us simply because we remove from the client all the nightmare
of managing an IT shop," Harvey said. "There's no more meeting about
budgets, agonizing about the cost of desktops. We own it, deploy it,
and we decide when to upgrade."
The expanding capabilities of the HP 3000, buoyed by contributed
solutions adding Internet capabilities, make that easier. "Wherever
possible, I try to stick to the HP 3000 as my platform of choice,"
Harvey said. "It's a brilliant operating system, but it's been taken to
new heights by this very strong community."
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