“Our previous in-house developed systems were complex to maintain and develop and,therefore, relatively expensive to administer. Working with KHIPU Networks, moving to Infoblox appliances has provided visibility, resiliency and control while reducing error related risk andtime-consuming manual tasks.”
—Steve Lazer, Manager of Technology Services at North Memorial Health Care
North Memorial Health Care, a two hospital 12 clinic health care system, with more than 700 health care providers in its system, is headquartered in the northwestern Twin Cities suburb of Robbinsdale, MN. North Memorial's history of responding to the health care needs of its communities has lasted more than five decades and continues to be the main ingredient to its success.
In its 50 years, North Memorial has grown from a 30-bed facility to a 518-bed medical center in Robbinsdale and a brand new 90 bed hospital in Maple Grove, MN. In addition, North Memorial's early leadership in emergency care has catapulted into a successful Level one emergency and trauma services center. The first totally integrated hospital-based medical transportation system in the state of Minnesota began at North Memorial, and now includes eight helicopters, 120 ambulances, and 725 employees.
North Memorial also includes 12 primary care clinics located in the Northwest suburbs, as well as a state-of-art outpatient center that includes cancer, imaging, radiology and educational services.
The network infrastructure at a hospital is as important for patient diagnosis, treatment and recovery as the ability and expertise of the medical staff. When a hospital suffers poor IT performance, downtime or network failure, the consequences are extreme. Such is the case of North Memorial Health Care.
Nearly four years ago, North Memorial Hospital decided to migrate off of their existing network infrastructure product to BlueCat Networks. BlueCat appliances were used to manage internal and external DNS as well as DHCP. Within weeks of installation, the staff experienced spotty performance with their DNS. Due to these issues, the Hospital was forced to remove the devices out of redundant cluster mode and operate them as standalone devices, leaving the Hospital highly vulnerable to downtime and both internal and external threats with multiple access points. It also meant the Hospital had disparate, inconsistent network services with no centralized visibility and management.
After the first incident with performance problems, the IT staff believed they had solved the issues with DNS. Indeed, for a few weeks after the initial problem, it seemed the network was running seemingly smoothly and without incident. However, like an undetected terminal cancer, the Hospital did not know the worse was yet to come. In April, 2007, for the second time in two weeks, the Hospital experienced issues with their DNS. This time it was worse.
“Luckily it happened over a weekend when surgeries and patient load were at a minimum,” said Lazer. “There was less danger to patient safety but it was clear that we had total DNS failure due to a failure of the system. We struggled to resolve the issue and eventually found it. It was a dismal collapse and we made the decision to remove the appliances immediately.”
“We were under tremendous stress to get something in place that has 100-percent uptime and reliability,” said Steve Lazer, manager of technology services at North Memorial Health Care. “Our DNS always has to work. We have patients on the surgical table and medical staff are trying to make decisions about the welfare of a patient. Our staff is truly dependant on DNS and it is intrusive to workflows if DNS fails.”
North Memorial brought in a consultant who recommended Infoblox. The IT staff at the Hospital were familiar with Infoblox, their stellar reputation and track record of success. Within three days the BlueCat appliances had been removed and replaced by nine Infoblox appliances: six Infoblox-550’s, two Infoblox-1550’s and one Infoblox-1050 with the Infoblox network services suite and unique Infoblox Grid™ technology, which links together all the appliances into a unified system for simplified management and resiliency. Infoblox solutions immediately addressed the challenges of network uptime.
The appliances also addressed other network problems including eliminating manual tasks and automating the management of the devices and associated data.
Since that fateful weekend in 2007, the Hospital has experienced no problems with their DNS. With highly available and resilient appliances, Infoblox has helped North Memorial meet network service requirements for their ever-changing needs. The single, integrated interface and hardened appliances with patented high-availability Grid™ technology reduce the risk for outages. The tracking and auditing of DNS, DHCP and IP addresses also helps the hospital meet compliance requirements and identify potential issues faster and easier than the traditional, reactive troubleshooting approach.
“Our current DNS story is not a glamorous one to tell,” concluded Lazer. “The glamour is that the appliances work as they are supposed to. Our patients, doctors and administrative staff rely 100 percent on the availability of our DNS. Doctors review medical records and make life and death decisions based upon information they receive within the network. Due to the extreme nature and importance we place on availability, security and network uptime we found in Infoblox a solution that would provide continuous and uninterrupted network connectivity.”
Only major independent health care provider and hospital in the Twin Cities
Internal and external DNS and DHCP
Patients at the hospital can literally live or die by the availability of DNS. After a disastrous DNS experience with their previous solution, within 48 hours North Memorial became a happy Infoblox customer.
9 Infoblox appliances with NS1 and Infoblox Grid™ technology for:
