Antonius Hospital is responsible for providing care for around 12,000 patients in the catchment area each year. In order to achieve this result, it is important that the hospital's support systems work without a glitch. Jack Tamminga, Head of the Automatisation Department, is responsible for the support systems.
“Around 1.5 years ago, we realised that we were starting to face a capacity problem because of the increasing amount of data we had to process. Since 2011, the Automatisation Department has also been responsible for Thuiszorg Zuidwest Friesland's systems. We realised that we weren't able to continue with the infrastructurein place at the time.”
The hospital had been working with NetApp for central storage purposes since 2003 and was happy with the product. However, due to the loss of knowledge and reduction in capacity of the previous provider, the hospital no longer felt it was getting the right service. Therefore, it decided to ask two new providers to come up with a proposal to help the hospital consider new solutions. One of the providers approached was the storage specialist Proact, a provider of central storage, backup, archiving and disaster recovery solutions and services. “Proact's proposal really stood out”, says Tamminga. “It fitted in with our ideas and vision of the services we required. They also helped us look into all the options.”
The hospital has been using Proact's third-generation NetApp Filer product since 2003. Tamminga: “Proact analysed our requirements and then advised us on the best solution to match them.” Proact is responsible for consulting on both the final configuration and the installation, configuration, data migration and support. To Tamminga's and his team's great satisfaction. “We are very pleased to be working with Proact. We receive good information and advice.” The NetApp FAS3140 Metrocluster ensures that all data is centrally stored on the hospital's premises. “I'm talking about both personal files from office applications and the hospital's information system, digital X-rays and the entire virtual server infrastructure”, says Jorrit Jorritsma, the hospital's Systems and Networks Manager. “We'll soon be adding the Patient's Electronic Dossier to that.”
Understandably, Antonius Hospital places demanding requirements on the availability of data, uptime and system performance. It made every sense to choose this product as the hospital had been a satisfied customer of Proact's services for many years “Obviously, we had discussed everything with Proact, if they had given us any other advice after the tender process, we would have looked at that as well. We were fortunate in that we were able to continue working with our trusted NetApp solution.” Jorritsma: “This solution offers high performance with relatively low maintenance costs.”
Proact focuses on specific industries in order to develop sector-specific storage solutions, so the company has thorough knowledge of the market. That, too, was another reason for Tamminga to go for Proact. “Although hospitals are increasingly operating in a more business-like fashion, there are very specific things that must be taken into account, such as the high demands placed on confidentiality, integrity and availability. Proact brought in a lot of industry expertise and was able to help us think through those issues.”
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