Qnetex Data Integrator – Phoenix Healthcare Distribution

Project

With a shift in emphasis by customers from placing orders via telesales to placing them via the Web, Phoenix Healthcare Distribution needed to be able to improve the throughput and volume handling of their web services to meet increasing customer demand. There are three distinct functional areas to Phoenix electronic ordering:

  • XML Orders for hospitals and independents
  • Partner Web for manufacturers to query stock levels of their products
  • B2B site providing a range of services including web ordering to an interactive web site.

Our Solution

The Data Integrator, which is a means of presenting various backend services as convenient web services that are easily managed by way of a single point of administration. Services are accessible over a network or Internet by whatever protocols a client prefers, intelligently connecting with providers no matter what protocols they use.

The Data Integrator is a web application that runs in IIS. It provides:

  • The ability to run several instances for the purposes of load balancing and high availability.
  • The ability to save requests for later processing when providers are non-operational together with the ability to return a suitable message to clients providing them with the means to check progress at a later time
  • Greater throughput in handling requests due to the simplified management of orders.
  • The ability to monitor performance and manage the processing of requests, via the Data Integrator Administration Console.
  • Graphs and statistics to better plan resources
  • Data Integrator was set up to operate from a separate web server and have a new set of URLs for the services. This then allowed parallel running with the incumbent system, facilitating a gradual low-risk implementation, with an easy failback option.

The Result

Vastly improved visibility of web order processing activity and no more lost orders. Greater throughput leading to the speedier fulfilment of more on-line orders and the ability to significantly scale operations. The ability to seamlessly consolidate a number of separate systems.

“The full implementation and the launch of the services was assisted by CSD staff who have always been very helpful and responsive to our needs and this has led to a very easy and an almost transparent wide scale migration.” Tomas Palfi, Technical Project Manager, Phoenix IT.