An Open Cloud Model for Expanding Healthcare Infrastructure

with the rapid improvement of computation facilities, healthcare still suffers limited storage space and lacks full utilization of computer infrastructure. That not only adds to the cost burden but also limits the possibility for expansion and integration with other healthcare services. Cloud computing which is based on virtualization, elastic allocation of resources, and pay as you go for used services, opened the way for the possibility to offer fully integrated and distributed healthcare systems that can expand globally. However, cloud computing with its ability to virtualize resources doesn't come cheap or safe from the healthcare perspective. The main objective of this paper is to introduce a new strategy of healthcare infrastructure implementation using private cloud based on OpenStack with the ability to expand over public cloud with hybrid cloud architecture. This research proposes the migration of legacy software and medical data to a secured private cloud with the possibility to integrate with arbitrary public clouds for services that might be needed in the future. The tools used are mainly OpenStack, DeltaCloud, and OpenShift which are open source adopted by major cloud computing companies. Their optimized integration can give an increased performance with a considerable reduction in cost without sacrificing the security aspect. Simulation was then performed using CloudSim to measure the design performance.

@article{Hussein2013,
  title     = {An Open Cloud Model for Expanding Healthcare Infrastructure},
  journal   = {International Journal of Advanced Computer Science and Applications},
  volume    = {4},
  number    = {9},
  year      = {2013},
  publisher = {The Science and Information Organization},
  author    = {Sherif E. Hussein and Hesham Arafat},
  doi       = {10.14569/IJACSA.2013.040914},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.14569/IJACSA.2013.040914}
}