Challenge
Marshall Medical Centers in Marshall County, Alabama had an unstable network core and an underperforming Wide Area Network (WAN) that is utilized for transmitting healthcare information between the many facilities that make up this health system. Some of the critical applications include: patient data, fetal monitoring, document images and diagnostic images. Marshall Medical Centers needed a network design that they could execute to restore reliability and performance immediately and position them to converge IP voice and video on their enterprise network in the not-to-distant future.
Action Taken
The design of the MMC Data Infrastructure was done using L7’s 3D Methodology and took into consideration data from the onsite visit and follow-on analysis and discussions. The proposed architecture for Marshall Medical Centers (MMC) consisted of several important Cisco networking components. L7 designed the infrastructure for MMC using a layered hierarchical approach. Any complex system must be built with a set of modularized components assembled in a structured and hierarchical manner. Using this distributed approach brings some significant benefits. Each component or layer can be designed with and function with some independence. When integrated into the system these individual components provide important performance and redundancy attributing to a system that is scalable, manageable and capable of meeting the needs of the current and expected growth requirements of MMC.
Results
L7 deployed the network core upgrades at both hospital campuses and the administrative facility immediately to restore stability and performance. To provide further isolation and performance a services/server layer was introduced to the design at the two (2) primary campuses. This layer was virtualized within the Nexus 7010 chassis. Each layer of the design has taken into consideration the following key criteria: Reliability, Redundancy, Scalability, Performance and Manageability. These overarching objectives drove the design of each layer with what L7 believes to be the most appropriate devices.