cloud computing: nfp peer panel discussion

Peer Panel:Not-for-profits using cloud computing

Julie Chapman

NPower Greater DC Region

Microsoft NGO Connection

DayWednesday, April 21, 2010

Today’s Speakers

Julie Chapman, President,NPower Greater DC Region

Shyam Desigan, CFO

Volunteers of America Chesapeake

Donna Ramos-Johnson, CTO

DC Primary Care Association

Chrystal Kern, CFO

Chaim Yudkowski, CIOAIPAC

About NPower

Who: NPower is the only nonprofit that provides technical support and advice exclusively to other nonprofits. We are mission driven to build capacity around the strategic use of technology.

What: We provide high quality and affordable to our region’s nonprofits:

• Technology Assessment and Planning• Network Solutions• Managed Services--NPower ON!

Why: Our work is more than just technology – it’s about building and strengthening our nonprofit community.

NPower ON! Clients

1. Advocates for Justice and Education2. Afterschool Alliance 3. America Speaks 4. Annenberg Media 5. Association of Children's Museums 6. Association of Partners for Public Lands 7. Capital Area Immigrants' Rights 8. CEDPA9. CLASP10. Coalition for Juvenile Justice 11. Community Council for the Homeless 12. Community Health Charities13. Community of Hope 14. Consumer Health Foundation 15. Danya Institute 16. DC Bar Foundation 17. DC Scores 18. DC Vote 19. Equal Justice Works

20. Five Talents International 21. Georgetown BID 22. Girls on the Run of Northern VA 23. GlobalGiving Foundation 24. Goodwill of Greater Washington 25. Healthy Teen Network 26. Housing Unlimited, Inc. 27. Jobs Have Priority 28. Justice at Stake Campaign 29. Latin American Working Group 30. Latino Economic Development Corporation 31. Legal Aid Society 32. LifeSTARTS Youth and Family Services 33. Lutheran Volunteer Corps 34. Mentors Inc 35. National Citizens Coalition for Nursing Home

Reform (NCCNHR)36. Neighborhood Legal Service Program 37. Our Place DC

38. Partners for Livable Communities 39. Peace X Peace 40. Physician Assistant Education Association 41. Polaris Project 42. Potomac Conservancy 43. Primary Care Coalition 44. Sexual Minority Youth Assistance League 45. Threshold Services 46. Urban Alliance 47. USO of Metropolitan Washington 48. Volunteers of America Chesapeake 49. Washington Area Women's Foundation 50. Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless 51. Women's Collective 52. Young Playwrights’ Theater, Inc. 53. YWCA National Capital Area54. YWCA – Washington Area Women in the Trades

http://www.theurbanalliance.org/

Spotlight on 3 Nonprofits Using Cloud Computing

• Volunteers of America Chesapeake

• DC Primary Care Association

• American Israel Public Affairs Committee

What we will cover today…

• About us

• Before Cloud Computing

• After Cloud Computing

• What we learned

Mission

• A faith-based, nonprofit corporation that provides high-quality human services that result in positive life changes for individuals and families throughout Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. As part of a national organization, we strive to fill the communities’ human service needs through a dedicated team of staff and volunteers to encourage self-reliance, dignity and hope. We coordinate our efforts with other agencies and local organizations to maximize the impact of our work.

Our Operations

• An Affiliate of Volunteers of America, a $1 Billion national Human Services Organization

• Key Facts – VOA Chesapeake:

‒ 3 Service Lines: Mental Health/Intellectual Disabilities, Homeless Services and Corrections

‒ 28 programs in MD, DC & VA with annual revenue of $22.5 Million

‒ 388 FT and 220 PT Employees

‒ Lean IT Dept with 1 ½ onsite IT staff

Before Cloud ComputingThere are no limits to caring.®

• Windows XP desktop platform with all business applications and e-mail hosted by a “managed services” company

• Only administration and 4 programs on Hosted infrastructure—140 of nearly 500 full time employees

• Files saved on hosted shared drive at admin and these 4 programs. Rest on local computer WITHOUT backup

• Paper, Paper, Paper…10% of paper documents in Administration scanned into shared drive. Rest in files!

• 2 of the 4 audit findings related to lack of backup documentation. Trouble!!!

After Cloud ComputingThere are no limits to caring.®

• Email moved to Microsoft BPOS platform

• Company-wide email—better communications between programs and Exec Team!

• Backup and HIPAA-compliant cloud-based shared storage on Rackspace/Jungledisk for the program

• Cloud-based document management and archival system, KnowledgeTree. Backend of the solution is Amazon S3

• Cloud-based PR and donor management applications are being reviewed for selection

What We Learned• Educate, Educate, Educate!

• Always emphasize the ROI so staff is willing to go through the transition pains

• Ensure that your mobile users are looped in and the exchange server on the cloud talks to smartphones/PDAs

• Check your firewalls and spamware. These need to be managed to the new architecture

• Cloud is not the magic pill. May not work for all applications—but can solve many concerns over time

• Understand who holds your data on the cloud and ensure that you have a way of getting it back

About DC Primary Care Association (DCPCA)

• Non-profit health action and advocacy organization that seeks to improve health care and health coverage for low-income, uninsured, and medically vulnerable populations in the District of Columbia

• Annual budget of $8.9 million

• 26 employees (23 FT and 3 PT)

• Membership includes 15 community health centers (with 48 sites in the District of Columbia), hospitals, individuals and others health interest groups

• Key technical assistance program areas:

– Medical Homes DC

– Health Information Technology

– Community Health Access

Before Cloud Computing & Electronic Health Record (EHR)

• Each clinic had a legacy system that was used for patient scheduling/check-in and billing

• Clinical operations were manual processes; medical records were still paper based

• Staff was drowning in paper and struggled to do their jobs; critical pieces of patient data were often lost

• Patient information was kept in “silos” based on service provided – difficult to have a comprehensive view of a patient’s health status

After Cloud Computing & EHR

• A single integrated practice management and electronic health record was adopted by each clinic – one vendor vs.. several vendors

• Streamlined staff interactions and patient flow – everyone could seen where the patient was in the system

• Electronic interfaces with claims clearinghouse, lab results, e-prescribing

• Remote access for providers to their patient information

• Foundation for the exchange of patient information among clinic facilities and with other health care providers

Current EHR ArchitectureDatabase Servers

DL360

Dual-Core Xeon 3 GHz

4GB RAM

(2) 72 gig internal disk

Application Servers

DL320


2GB RAM


Reports Server

DL360


8GB RAM


Interface Server

DL360


4GB RAM


Training/Test Server

DL360


4GB RAM


Cisco Catalyst 3750 EMI

Switch-24 ports

Cisco Catalyst 3750 EMI

Switch-24 ports

TMX1000 SSL Accelarator

TMX1000 SSL Accelarator

Cisco ASA 5520

Firewall Edition

DL360


4GB RAM


DL360


4GB RAM


DL380


8GB RAM


DL380


8GB RAM


DL320


2GB RAM


FTP Servers

DCPCA Architecture

CLARiiON EMC CX3-10

2.5TB usable

PowerEdge2950

VMWARE ESX Server

64GB RAM

Dual Quad Core 3.0GHz

6x300GB 15k Drives

• Individual servers performing core functions (application,

database, FTP, interface, etc)

• High risk if one component fails then loses a core

function

Future EHR Architecture - True Cloud Computing

eCW VM SEVER 1 (CISCO 1)

eCW VM SERVER 2 (CISCO 2)

VM EHX SERVER (HP)

DCPCA-APP01

DCPCA-APP02

DCPCA-APP03

DCPCA-APP04

DCPCA-DBCLUST01

DCPCA-PROD01

DCPCA-PROD02

DCPCA-RPT01

DCPCA-RPT02

DCPCA-SLAVE01

DCPCA-SLAVE02

EHX

FUTURE INTERFACE

FUTURE FTP

FUTURE TEST ENV.

MySQL 64

WWCI

MySQL 64

SOME

WWCI

BFTC

SOME

LCDP

MCMC

COH

FMCS

MySQL 64

BFTC

MySQL 64

FMCS

ALL CLINICS

ALL CLINICS

ALL CLINICS

ALL CLINICS

Proposed Virtual Server Layout 04/15/2010

TO BE COMPLETED

11/31/2010

Physical VM Machines will use VMSphere 4 Enterprise

version (4 licenses required)

All virtual Servers will operating on Windows 2008 R2.

Cisco Nexus 1000v will be used on each server to

optimize routing and network load (included in Vsphere

4 Enterprise)

All Servers will have 2 partitions (C:\ and D:\).

Application servers and database servers will have a

20G/80G split partition

Clusters will be allocated with 500GB for local DB

storage

All other specific (e.g. memory, CPU and network

speeds) allocations will be determined as necessary.

BRIDGEIT SERVER (REPORTING)

Currently Active

IP: 10.235.1.101

DCPCA-DBCLUST02

Management Server

(DC)

Currently Active

IP: 10.235.1.196

MySQL 64

LCDP

MySQL 64

MCMC

MySQL 64

COH

MySQL 64

WWCI

MySQL 64

BFTC

MySQL 64

MCMC

MySQL 64

SOME

MySQL 64

FMCS

MySQL 64

LCDP

MySQL 64

COHMySQL 64

SOME

MySQL 64

FMCS

MySQL 64

LCDP

MySQL 64

COH

MySQL 64

WWCI

MySQL 64

BFTC

MySQL 64

MCMC

WUG SERVER (DC)

Currently Active

IP: 10.235.1.215

Currently Active

IP: 10.235.1.204

TEMP. ON EHX

Currently Active

IP: 10.235.1.206

TEMP. ON EHX

Currently Active

IP: 10.235.1.208

TEMP. ON EHX

• Reduced cost through consolidation of hardware

• Streamlined server management and monitoring

What motivated shift to cloud computing?

• Improve quality of care

• Reduce the volume of paper – staff were drowning in paperwork

• Reduce the amount of time spent searching for needed information

• Move to a multi-disciplinary team approach to patient care –treat the whole person vs. focus on a single part

• Break down the silos of data

Lessons Learned/Words of Wisdom

• Training, training, training. Incorporate continuous, on-going training into your organization

• Identify one-person in the organization whose sole job is to support the system. It’s a full time job

• Educate staff on the big picture and not just on what they need to do. They need to know how they fit in and their impact/value to the entire system

• Get a good assessment of the technology infrastructure at every location; don’t make any assumptions

Cloud Computing at AIPAC

American Israel Public Affairs CommitteeAmerican Israel Educational Foundation

251 Mass Ave. LLC

Mission

We are a national grassroots advocacy organization whose mission is to promote strong US/Israel ties through educational

programs and advocacy support

Organizational Structure

• Legal Entities

– AIPAC – 501C4

– AIEF – 501C3

– 251 Mass Ave LLC – Building held by AIPAC

• Statistics

– 250 Employees

– 18 US offices, 1 International office

The Cloud and AIPAC

• Our definition of cloud:

– Scalable (storage)

– Resilient

– Secure

– Browser-based access

– Platform and browser agnostic

• Cloud computing can be internally or externally hosted

Then

Headquarters

Membership data

Web sites

Email

Cash Processing

Accounts Payable

Financial Systems

Business Intelligence

NO Virtual Servers

Broadcast Email

Now

Headquarters

Financial System: Dynamics NAV

Virtual Server

Web Presence

Donor Relationship

Management

Email

Exchange

Broadcast Email

Accounts Payable

Any Bill

Cash Processing

Business Intelligence

HRVarious Systems

Business Issues Driving Change

• Best of Breed for solutions

• Resilience

• Mobility and flexibility to access information

• Capital expenditure control

• Security

• Business continuity

• Operational efficiency and impact to head count for operational tasks

• Organizational scalability

Lessons

• Do it right – invest in training, explaining why, and integrate feedback to the final solution.

• These IT projects are recursive; they are being adopted for organizational agility. Incorporate those opportunities to further leverage the investment.

• It always takes longer than you planned.

• It always costs more.

• It impacts the culture in ways you can’t anticipate. If you are fortunate, they will be good impacts.

• Sometimes, Rule 1 needs to be do no harm.