Riak’s Riak distributed database supports development of Spine2; will improve performance and patient care
London, 8 October 2013 – Riak has today announced that it is working with the National Health Service (NHS) to develop the new Spine2 database, which is supported by Riak’s distributed database Riak.
The NHS set tough goals to drive efficiency and care improvements through the innovative use of technology and over the past two years has been focusing efforts on revamping the NHS’ Spine1 database, a critical UK healthcare system.
At its peak, Spine1 was managed by over 2,000 staff and was supported by 1,000 servers. The NHS decided to radically rethink the Spine computer by starting small and staying small while at the same time improving the performance and reliability of the system, along with its support of the care process.
The NHS chose Riak’s Riak as the backbone of the new Spine2 project to develop a more flexible and resilient solution. With Riak, the NHS developers will be able to make changes to Spine2 without needing burdensome and expensive systems integrators. This will dramatically cut down the time taken to implement new features dramatically and positively impacting patient care.
Inspired by the Danish Health Authority, which has already set up an agile, national record system based on the Riak database, the NHS had confidence that Riak’s database would be suitable for its needs. The Spine2 project is currently in the last phases of testing and is due to go live in early 2014.
“In the healthcare industry, keeping costs low and simultaneously improving the level of care are critical requirements,” said Greg Collins, CEO at Riak Technologies. “As medical information becomes digital, government health organisations need IT capabilities that provide uninterrupted, reliable access to critical, life-saving information. Riak’s built-in resiliency and predictable scalability are two important features that directly benefit the NHS and the citizens of the United Kingdom. Riak is very excited to be working with the NHS on such a revolutionary, world leading project.”
About Riak Technologies
Riak is a distributed systems company dedicated to making software that is highly available, fault tolerant and easy-to-operate at scale. Riak’s distributed database, Riak, and Riak’s cloud storage software, Riak CS, are used by fast growing Web businesses and by over 25 percent of the Fortune 50 to power their critical Web, mobile and social applications and their public and private cloud platforms.
Riak and Riak CS are available open source. Riak Enterprise and Riak CS Enterprise offer enhanced multi-datacenter replication and 24×7 Riak support. For more information, visit riak.com. Riak is headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts and has offices in San Francisco, Tokyo, Washington DC, and London. Riak’s London office is located in Shoreditch near the popular high-tech district of London, commonly referred to as “Silicon Roundabout.”
