Express Scripts provides pharmacy and medical benefits management, specialty pharmacy care, and everything in between. The company seeks to uncover opportunities to make healthcare better and they rely on the uptime and availability of data to be a market leader.
Kyle Mertz, principal engineer, Express Scripts had been managing database health and performance in a reactive mode, responding to "the server is slow" issues as they occurred and were striving to implement a more proactive and efficient method of resolution. On top of this, he was tasked with implementing his company's strategy for adopting and embracing new database technologies to address productivity, cost control, and broad data management initiatives. He needed to ensure the health of Express Scripts existing infrastructure while preparing for the future.
This is where Quest comes in. In a recent DBTA webinar, Mertz and Jason Hall, Jason Hall senior technical sales engineer, Quest Software, explained how Quest helped Express Scripts manage its database and prepare for the future.
Database monitoring at Express Scripts is a combination of native and platform specific tools, Mertz said. Where native tooling is not available, the company does custom scripts. However, there are significant limitations, especially around historical diagnostics and Silo’ed processes, workflows, and skillsets are difficult to cross train with current resources.
Changes at Express Scripts are being driven by:
- Controlling cost with the use of open source databases
- Delivering quicker value to customers through DevOps
- Enabling developers to build/provision/administer systems
- Enabling new application types through non-relational applications
Express Scripts choose Quest Foglight to cover its entire legacy, current, and future database platforms, Mertz explained.
Foglight was able to enable:
- Depth of information provided on each platform
- Ability to enable staff to manage platforms with consistency
- Top use case – Ability to historically diagnose performance issues
An archived on-demand replay of this webinar is available here.