Allot (News - Alert) Communications is a provider of intelligent broadband solutions which are used to improve visibility and control in networks. Among its diverse clients are those from the healthcare sector. The following case study illustrates how its solutions can solve many issues.
It relates to one Western European nation, where a regional health department operated 28 hospitals. They served the healthcare needs of more than 11 million people in eight provinces. The hospitals included major medical centers and hospitals for children. (The health department requested anonymity.)
Given the massive number of hospitals, staff and patients, they put diverse demands on the wide area network (WAN) which connected them to a centralized data center. The WAN was used for Citrix, customer relationship management (CRM), and enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications. It was also used for patient records, medical imaging and video files.
But given the volume of data, the WAN got congested. Performance levels dropped and there were many complaints from users. IT tried to increase bandwidth at the data center – but it only gave temporary relief.
According to an Allot Communications (News - Alert) report, “Their challenge was twofold: find out which links were congested and which applications were consuming the bandwidth; and restore reliable delivery of applications and quality of experience on the WAN.”
After some consideration, the Health Department selected Allot solutions from Allot Communications. IT at the health department selected Redundant Allot NetEnforcer AC-3000 bandwidth management devices for use at the data center access link, and Allot NetEnforcer AC-1440 units were used at each of the 28 hospitals. Allot NetXplorer was selected to manage the entire installation.
Based on Allot DPI-based monitoring, it was shown that problems were caused by “severe congestion” on the data center access link. That was being caused by a lot of P2P (peer-to-peer) traffic (such as BitTorrent (News - Alert)) and streaming video traffic from sites such as YouTube. Recreational uses were clogging the WAN links to the hospitals. That left business and medical applications struggling for bandwidth and the performance levels dropped.
The IT staff improved and optimized data center and WAN services by:
- Prioritizing medical and business applications;
- Limiting the bandwidth for recreational applications;
- Deploying Allot NetPolicy Provisioner (NPP), which lets each of the hospitals monitor its own WAN link. It also lets each hospital regulate bandwidth use and application performance.
As a result of these steps, the Regional Ministry of Health saw lower costs. They saved on existing WAN capacity and delayed bandwidth upgrades. There were also improvements in health care services by giving priority to hospital and medical applications. There was also more self-monitoring and self-management at each of the hospitals.
Looking ahead, the Regional Health Department also will install Allot NetEnforcer on an Internet link to lower more costs and improve additional performance.
The success at this national hospital system brings to mind Allot’s Digital Workstyle Services’ efforts. Allot's DPI-based solutions identify and use business intelligence in data networks, letting operators “shape digital workstyle experiences and … capitalize on the network traffic they generate,” the company said. That means operators can monetize the data and traffic, which are found across networks.
Edited by Rory J. Thompson