Practice of VMware vSphere Upgrade & Replacement Across Multi-Campus Hospitals

Jishuitan hospital previously utilized a "physical machine + centralized storage" architecture to support the HIS database, alongside a "VMware virtualization + centralized storage" architecture for other business systems. To ensure business continuity, active-active configurations were implemented for all centralized storage. With the successive development of "Internet + Healthcare" services and the continuous expansion of business systems, the complexity of VMware operations and the difficulty of troubleshooting became increasingly prominent, making it challenging to meet Information Technology Application Innovation (ITAI) requirements. Consequently, the hospital plans to advance the replacement of VMware, enhance data security and compliance capabilities, and achieve unified management of multi-campus resources.

After evaluating and verifying hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI) products across multiple dimensions—including performance, stability, operations and maintenance (O&M) support, Information Technology Application Innovation (ITAI) compatibility, and data security— Jishuitan hospital selected SMTX OS as its IT infrastructure. To verify the production-grade replacement capability of the native ELF hypervisor for VMware virtualization, the hospital first introduced a 3-node HCI appliance to carry Internet healthcare services within the DMZ. This deployment primarily supports official account mini-program services (including the three sectors of internet diagnosis and treatment, registration, and video consultation) and sustains over 10 business virtual machines.

Based on the verification in Phase I, Jishuitan hospital selected SmartX ECP as its primary technical route, deploying a cluster of nearly 30 nodes at the Huilongguan Campus to support hospital-wide business systems, including HIS and EMR. Initial Information Technology Application Innovation (ITAI) construction was also conducted, involving the building of an HCI ITAI cluster based on C86 architecture CPUs to host business front-end processors, with both host machines and management platforms utilizing domestic operating systems. To enhance data security, the hospital constructed a distributed firewall and introduced a traffic monitoring mechanism native to the virtualization platform, achieving full traffic collection, protocol parsing, and real-time analysis. At the Xinjiekou Campus, the hospital utilized an HCI cluster to support PACS and other business systems that require high storage performance and access efficiency.

At the Xinjiekou Campus, the Jishuitan hospital further advanced its Information Technology Application Innovation (ITAI) transformation by constructing a SmartX ECP ITAI cluster based on C86 architecture CPUs. Utilizing migration tools, the hospital achieved a seamless transition from the VMware virtualization platform to the ITAI hyper-converged cluster. SmartX ECP demonstrates full compatibility with current healthcare business systems; following migration, these systems operate stably with superior performance. This process successfully realized the ITAI transition for both CPUs and operating systems, establishing a "One Cloud, Multiple Stacks" resource pool that provides unified operations and maintenance management for traditional X86 and C86 architectures.

During the actual implementation process, the hospital summarized a set of mature migration management experiences:

• Perform comprehensive backups of virtual machines before migration to mitigate the risk of data loss.
• Scientifically evaluate network bandwidth and transmission stability to rationally formulate the migration sequence and schedule.
• Strengthen communication and collaboration with clinical and business departments.

Jishuitan hospital has steadily expanded the depth and breadth of its autonomous IT infrastructure, while simultaneously achieving a modernized upgrade of its underlying systems. A centralized operations and monitoring framework has been established across all campuses, enabling unified management and real-time visualization of IT resources. Furthermore, by leveraging virtual network micro-segmentation and traffic visibility technologies, the hospital has enhanced internal security defenses to ensure patient data and medical information remain secure and controllable throughout their lifecycle, effectively fulfilling the requirements of the national Multi-Level Protection Scheme (MLPS) 2.0.