eDerm

Background

Integrated Dermatology is the largest independent dermatology practice in the country with over 1,800 facilities in 25 states.

All of Integrated Dermatology’s practices are tied into a single centralized server.

When Integrated Dermatology began experiencing stability and performance issues, the impact was felt across all of its locations. None of the internal fixes they deployed addressed the issues.

Integrated Dermatology engaged Red9 and we were able to successfully stabilize the environment and maximize performance.

When Integrated Dermatology decided they needed to upgrade and migrate to a new server and data center, they knew that Red9 had the Sr. DBAs on staff and expertise to handle a project with this level of complexity. There was a lot of internal concern about how potential downtime might impact office locations and patients given their size and scope.

Red9 had a thorough, well-thought-out plan for each and every step of the migration.

As a result, the process was seamless. Integrated Dermatology avoided downtime during critical business hours and the project was completed without any major interruptions or rollbacks.

Problem

There were many.

Client wanted to address as many SQL Server problems as possible while also migrating from on-premises to Microsoft Azure. Key objectives included:

• Implementing AlwaysOn and disaster recovery.
• Migrating hundreds of SSRS reports and SSIS packages.
• Applying best practices for Windows OS and SQL Server to ensure speed and reliability.
• Setting up SQL monitoring and alerting.
• Resolving many slow SQL queries.

Solution

At Red9 we often start with our proprietary 145-Point Comprehensive SQL Server Health Check which we used to uncover a variety of technical issues.

1. Set up SQL Server with best practices for stability and performance.
2. Tuned the worst-performing, slowest queries for performance.
3. Deployed custom SQL monitoring and alerting.
4. Performed SQL Server migration to Azure with just a few minutes of downtime.

In preparation for SQL migration, Red9 created an in-depth SQL migration project plan:

• Each plan step was tested, its duration measured, and an owner assigned for execution.
• Each step contained pre-written TSQL scripts to be run.
• Red9 also led coordination with multiple technical client teams to ensure everyone was in synch, and knew when to execute assigned sections.

Red9 also did comprehensive testing. This was done by capturing 8 hours' worth of SQL Server workload from the client’s production SQL Server and then rerunning that workload on the new SQL Server. This allowed us to clearly see how SQL Server performance compares between old and new SQL Servers.

Results

All client’s goals were achieved successfully with only a few minutes of downtime.