Customer case studies

VMware SD-WAN for Healthcare

Table of ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

George & Matilda . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Hall & Prior . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Low T Center . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Saber Healthcare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

VMware SD-WAN for Healthcare: Customer Case Studies

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VMware SD-WAN for Healthcare: Customer Case Studies

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Transform your healthcare experienceToday’s healthcare providers have a lot of concerns beyond just making a diagnosis or prescribing medication. To ensure a high-quality patient experience, they depend on a robust network. Equipment is becoming more sophisticated and Internet of Things (IoT)-driven and there is also an expectation to provide care to those in remote locations. In addition, cloud-based patient records are also having an impact on the network. Balancing all of this with federal regulations and patient expectations is taxing the network and the people who depend on it to run seamlessly.

VMware SD-WANTM by VeloCloud® helps healthcare organizations evolve their networks into scalable, secure, uninterrupted and bandwidth-flexible infrastructures to support existing and future requirements. This collection of case studies represents the perspectives of healthcare organizations who have experienced many network challenges and found a way forward through their adoption of VMware SD-WAN. Read about how healthcare organizations like yours have transformed their network and user experience.

Supporting a Full SaaS-Based Network Topology with VMware SD-WANUnifying independent branch outlets under one common software as a service (SaaS) model, introducing efficiency and cost-savings.

Problem situation George & Matilda Eyecare is an Australian based company, challenging the norm in the optometry retail industry by consolidating independent optometry offices under one brand name to deliver optimized service to optometrists, their staff, and patients. In under three years, George & Matilda has grown to nearly 70 practices, differentiating itself through a unique and streamlined cloud-based supply chain and patient communications platforms.

Traditionally, each individual optometrist office managed its entire IT infrastructure, order management, supply ordering, and other functions. Offices lacked IT standards, often used analog lines, and were handled either by a family friend or through a third party. Identifying issues on the network was extremely difficult and if a connection was lost, all business came to a halt.

George & Matilda sought to revolutionize these dynamics by acquiring independent optometry businesses and applying a consistent IT infrastructure to all branches, implementing a cloud-based supply chain that would streamline transactions, frames suppliers, lens suppliers, and delivery of patient jobs to the branches. To support this initiative, George & Matilda implemented its network infrastructure using Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) as the technology. The cost with this option was very high at $180 a month for 1MB/1MB and up to $1,000 a month for higher bandwidth options.

This option limited George & Matilda’s long-term networking goals and the business began a search for a different IT model that was completely cloud centric and SaaS-based to differentiate the business.

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C U S T O M E R S T O R Y

INDUSTRY

Retail / Healthcare

CHALLENGES

• Complex and high-cost MPLS network

• Data center centric model

• Long deployment times for newly acquired optometry practices

RESULTS

• Standardized and consistent network configurations enable doctors to focus on patient needs

• High return on investment

• Enables a full cloud-based SaaS network model removing the bottleneck of the data center and associated costs

• Eliminates dependency on hardware and its related costs and upgrade cycle

• Strong security posture

• Future-proofing the network for continued growth

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Supporting a Full SaaS-Based Network Topology with VMware SD-WAN

“We knew from the time of POC that the VMware SD-WAN solution was going to give us what we needed to drive George & Matilda’s current and future network growth strategy.”

TONY CRVELIN GENERAL MANAGER OF IT, GEORGE & MATILDA

“VMware SD-WAN has transformed our network and ability to support our optometrist community so that they can focus on taking care of patients rather than whether or not there is an outage that will stop them from doing their job. Coevolve as partners have been highly responsive, with pragmatic expert advice to help us drive the best return on our IT spend.”

GEOFF GREENBERG CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, GEORGE & MATILDA

Solution selection and implementation: Coevolve and VMware SD-WANGeorge & Matilda Eyecare knew it had to make a change to its existing infrastructure to meet both current business requirements and enable future growth. To transform its business and standardize the environment, a consistent IT network configuration throughout each independent optometry practice was needed. George & Matilda’s goals were to:

• Support a fully streamlined SaaS-based supply chain

• Eliminate its MPLS installation to realize cost savings

• Standardize network configurations

• Accelerate the integration of newly-acquired independent offices into the network

George & Matilda turned to Coevolve, a managed service provider helping enterprise clients adopt next-generation networks throughout Australia, New Zealand, South East Asia and North America. After much research and six-month proof of concept (POC) with both a competitive software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) vendor and VMware SD-WAN™ by VeloCloud®, George & Matilda moved forward with the VMware SD-WAN solution.

Coevolve, with VMware SD-WAN, and a cloud-delivered architecture transformed the network from one of variable optometry practice setups to a consistent infrastructure with full visibility, high levels of bandwidth, and streamlined supply chain management using standard Internet connections.

All 57 of the existing George & Matilda locations were transitioned to VMware SD-WAN and as the company looks to continue its growth with a target of 250 branches over the next five years, it is confident that it will be able to do so with its new networking infrastructure.

Standard VMware SD-WAN benefitsVMware SD-WAN offers immediate and significant benefits to its users. With Coevolve’s help in implementing VMware SD-WAN, George & Matilda now has a robust and secure network that has provided greater redundancy, increased levels of bandwidth, high scalability to support more and more optometry practices, efficiency of network processes and ordering processes, fast deployment for new locations, and all at a lower cost.

Focus on strengthsBefore VMware SD-WAN, each branch practice was responsible for each network activity, which took the focus off each team’s core strength of managing patient care. Optometrists and other staff had to sometimes play IT technician if no one else was designated or had to place orders for the eyeglass supplies they needed. However, with the implementation of a managed solution that centralized network control and monitoring, optometrists can now focus their attention on dealing with patients rather than troubleshooting outages.

Return on investmentPrior to installing VMware SD-WAN, George & Matilda were spending significant budget on deploying MPLS. Middle of the road average costs were about $220 per month for an MPLS line. However, with the move to VMware SD-WAN and utilizing simple broadband lines with 4G as backup, the savings for the practices within the group (57 sites) were in excess of 114 percent in some cases per year. As the company continues to add more and more optometry offices and make the conversion to VMware SD-WAN, the savings continue to increase, solidly justifying the investment in the technology.

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Merging Multiple Networks While Optimizing for Cloud Services and ApplicationsSupporting a Full SaaS-Based Network Topology with VMware SD-WAN

“Coevolve has been delighted in the results we’ve delivered with VMware SD-WAN for a dynamic, growth business like George & Matilda. Our work here demonstrates our role as a leading provider of fully integrated, non-telco SD-WAN solutions for enterprises.”

TIM SULLIVAN CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, COEVOLVE

Cloud-based SaaS supportGeorge & Matilde has a corporate initiative to move all of its network infrastructure to the cloud, to turn themselves into a SaaS-managed company. This required a move from a data center-focused model to one that uses the Internet without infrastructure on-site, except for a single hub at each location.

Vendor partners are sought that provide only SaaS services and assist in supporting this type of infrastructure. The vendor portfolio now includes Amazon Web Services (AWS), Office 365, and NetSuite. With this type of network model, George & Matilda limits its exposure to hardware costs as there is no need to repair devices that break down or to replace hardware every few years. It also allows George & Matilda to remain in compliance with multiple regulations including privacy acts related to health data, personally identifiable information (PII) data, and Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).

Network visibility and uptimeGeorge & Matilda had difficulties working with the local Telco organizations to monitor its network prior to its VMware SD-WAN implementation. Network performance was not able to be measured (for latency and jitter), response times to outages or issues were long and laborious, and activity was always reactive. Additionally, troubleshooting was difficult with logs getting lost or overwritten, and prolonged outages were impacting the business as optometrists couldn’t make appointments, make calls, or place supply orders.

With Coevolve managing the solution, George & Matilda could immediately see when the Internet was out, but because the managed service provider (MSP) had installed an SD-WAN managed 4G backup solution, the outages were transparent to the branch offices as it failed over automatically. With VMware SD-WAN, not only could issues on the network be identified quickly, rules could also be put in place that limited the use of the broadband, allowing for the scheduling of certain website or applications.

Ensuring securityWith the need to protect customer data and their privacy, George & Matilda needed a strong security posture to be part of the network. VMware SD-WAN ensures point-to-point encryption across the network for services that would otherwise traverse the open Internet. With this in mind George & Matilda Eyecare are continually looking to improve its security posture in an ever-changing IT landscape.

Future-proofing the network for continued growthGeorge & Matilda have an aggressive growth strategy, which requires that its network be built in a way to easily and quickly support the needs of the optometry practices it acquires. Its cloud-based network infrastructure is ready to support these requirements with VMware SD-WAN and because VMware SD-WAN is easy to deploy at new locations, George & Matilda is well-positioned for this growth.

For more information on VMware SD-WAN, please visit https://www.velocloud.com/ or contact your VMware representative.

PARTNER

Coevolve was founded in 2014 to help enterprises adopt next-generation networking technologies like SD-WAN. It provides an Integrated SD-WAN Solution with a modular managed service, along with industry-leading professional services capabilities.

Coevolve has clients in 55 countries on six continents and has helped clients in many industry verticals adopt SD-WAN to deliver significant business benefit.

Coevolve has a global team of experts, with offices in Sydney, Chicago, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore.

C U S T O M E R S T O R Y

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INDUSTRYHEATLHCARE

LOCATIONAUSTRALIA

RESULTS

• Huge increase in uptime: with downtime that’s close to zero, Hall & Prior can provide their business with consistent access

• Instant troubleshooting: fast diagnosis through the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator, backed up with local customer support

• Flexibility to grow: simple site rollouts, single point of control for network updates

• Fast network access: a high-performance data network for desktop virtualisation, voice calls, and video conferencing

Striving to keep its healthcare residents happy, Hall & Prior chose Macquarie Telecom to eliminate outages and improve network connectivity.

The situationHall & Prior know their care recipients need to be connected to the outside world. Over time, the legacy networks connecting their growing number of aged care facilities had made it harder for care recipients to communicate with their families, instead of easier. It was clear they needed a new approach that would make slow speeds, inconsistent connections and frequent outages a thing of the past.

For over 20 years, the Hall & Prior Health and Aged Care Group has been committed to quality and accessible aged care. In 1992, Graeme Prior and Michael Hall started with three nursing homes. Today, they operate 25 nursing homes and two home care services across Western Australia and New South Wales.

Hall & Prior believe there’s nothing more important than the safety, care and happiness of their care recipients. They offer accommodation and health services that make a real difference to the quality of life of their residents. Empathy, respect, dignity and dedication to privacy are core values of their business.

To translate these values into a measurably better environment for residents, Hall & Prior knew they’d need a telecommunications specialist who could provide agility, security, performance and great service.

In the past, Hall & Prior managed their services through multiple providers. This meant instability, communication problems, higher security risks and chaotic complexity. They needed a trustworthy backup and failover strategy that wouldn’t let them down.

On top of this, they needed greater bandwidth and fewer drop-outs so their care recipients could benefit from reliable Wi-Fi, for easy access to social media and teleconferencing to stave off social isolation. Running multiple remote connections across two states using traditional networking meant downtime was out of control.

The use of numerous independent service providers also meant that rolling out a new site or service was complex and time-consuming. Each site required the deployment of a technician who would install individual hardware pieces from a number of vendors, and then manually configure each device using programming code. When it came time to update the settings at a site, it was the same slow, expensive process.

SD-WAN: The Case for Caring Communication in Healthcare

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Merging Multiple Networks While Optimizing for Cloud Services and ApplicationsSD-WAN: The Case for Caring Communication in Healthcare

“ It’s the people and the team that set Macquarie Telecom apart. When we’ve requested modifications, they listened, adapted, and took the feedback on board.”

DAN BEESTON ICT MANAGER (INFRASTRUCTURE), HALL & PRIOR

The solutionMacquarie Telecom SD-WAN, powered by VMware SD-WAN™ by VeloCloud®, was rolled out over 22 of Hall & Prior’s sites across Western Australia and New South Wales. The new network took advantage of existing links into the premises, which were previously served by traditional Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network technology.

To provide the speed and redundancy benefits of VMware SD-WAN’s multipath architecture, every site used two independent data links, delivered either as dual NBN, EFM and NBN, or existing ethernet paired with NBN. Multipath sends data across the fastest link at any given moment, and directly combats the limitations of single-link traditional networks.

The resultCare recipients at Hall & Prior’s care facilities now benefit from a fast, consistent connection that keeps them in touch with their families. They will soon be able to use video calling, social media apps, and streaming services without worrying about the next dropout or delay. Macquarie Telecom SD-WAN allows Hall & Prior to provide a safe, supported environment for every one of its care providers and care recipients.

Customer satisfaction upDan Beeston, Hall & Prior ICT Manager (Infrastructure), believes customer satisfaction has improved immeasurably since the switch to VMware SD-WAN. Care recipients no longer fight against unreliable technology to keep connected and stay in touch.

“We’ve seen increased availability at our sites because unlike traditional networks which require manual intervention, everything’s now automated through Macquarie Telecom’s SD-WAN technology.” Mr. Beeston said the overall experience of switching to Macquarie Telecom was very positive and had even accommodated a 21 percent increase in their number of sites and services. Since the switch, multipath link merging technology has made slow and unreliable network access a thing of the past, leaving more room to focus on client care.

A faster futureNow that they’ve experienced the faster speeds and increased uptime that come with VMware SD-WAN, Hall & Prior is looking to standardise every site.

Increasing Wi-Fi coverage to support a truly converged network, they’re adopting digital voice services which they’ve trialed across five sites, with fantastic results. With exciting new builds and fresh ideas on the horizon, the team is prepared and supported for growth.

The strategic partnership with Macquarie Telecom means Hall & Prior is ready for any future challenge. It was crucial that their new telecommunications provider would maintain a high level of service by understanding their needs and delivering to strict SLA and SLG requirements. And that’s exactly what Macquarie Telecom has done.

For more information on VMware SD-WAN, please visit https://www.velocloud.com/ or contact your VMware representative.

PARTNER

Macquarie Telecom is an Australian service provider of data, voice, mobile and colocation services, founded in 1992. As telcos in the Australian market set out to conform and deliver the minimum service needed to keep competitive, Macquarie Telecom stands out by doing the opposite. Against this backdrop, Macquarie Telecom has become the top provider of SD-WAN services in Australia.

INDUSTRYHEALTHCARE

HEADQUARTERSSOUTHLAKE, TEXAS

CHALLENGES

• Network outages prevent healthcare providers from administering patient care

• Inability to measure application awareness or line quality

• Failover function unreliable and inflexible

RESULTS

• Ensures ability to treat patients at all times

• Fast and seamless solution deployment

• Continuous visibility and visualization of network performance

• Support for new voice platform with stellar QoS

• Future-proofing the network for long-term projects

Problem situationAs a healthcare provider, Low T Center is highly regulated and must adhere to federal guidelines. Violation of the guidelines and HIPAA requirements is expensive and could potentially cause the shutdown of Low T Center. Those guidelines stipulate that in order for Low T Center to be able to treat any given patient, it must have uninterrupted access to that patient’s records. If access to the records are not accessible, then the patient cannot be seen or assessed.

While these guidelines and compliance requirements have been in place for over 20 years, the changing network environment, especially as it pertains to healthcare, has increased the complexity of ensuring that access is never restricted to patient records. Just five years ago, patient records and billing systems were maintained as hard or soft copies and stored locally at the medical facility that was frequented by the patient. Any person in the facility with clearance could view the billing information or patient records and provide the care to the patient based on those records. With local storage, network outages did not impact the treatment of customers as records were always accessible.

Today, the story is different as many healthcare providers, Low T Center included, have shifted the storage of billing systems and patient records to the cloud to enable a patient to be treated in any location and to allow doctors to evaluate and diagnose patients regardless of where they are stationed. While this accessibility is an advantage to both the doctor and patient, it introduces new challenges to the network infrastructure as network downtime can inhibit the treatment of patients and impact their lives.

Low T Center was using broadband links to connect its 57 ranch locations and had installed small Sonic firewalls at each location as the devices were able to accept multiple broadband links. However, the devices lack the intelligence to measure application awareness or line quality, which was important to Low T Center in maintaining constant network uptime. In the event of a hard fail by the primary connection, the firewall was to failover to the second connection. However, what Low T Center discovered was that the network linkages were regularly causing brownout scenarios where the primary line was not working well (either due to latency or jitter) and it would impact all the applications accessed by users, diminishing the overall experience. The firewalls were not intelligent enough to assess the quality of primary link and failover to a secondary connection, even if that secondary connection was cleaner than the primary. A full blackout was the only trigger for the failover.

SD-WAN Eliminates Network Outages to Help Healthcare Providers Adhere to HIPAA Regulations

C U S T O M E R S T O R Y

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SD-WAN Eliminates Network Outages to Help Healthcare Providers Adhere to HIPAA Regulations

“With VMware SD-WAN, we have much better visibility than we ever had before, which allows us to pinpoint issues and address them before they become big issues for the business.”

FERNY ESPINOZA CIO, LOW T CENTER

With a complete shift of its patients records to a software as a service (SaaS) application, with applications such as voice running out of Amazon Web Services (AWS), the inability to ensure a non-disrupted connection to cloud services was putting Low T Center at risk of violating federal guidelines and impacting the assessment and treatment of its patients. To eliminate the risk, Low T Center researched alternatives to its existing network infrastructure and made the decision to move to software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN).

Solution selection and implementation: VMware SD-WANLow T Center evaluated several SD-WAN vendors and ultimately chose VMware SD-WAN™ by VeloCloud®. A proof of concept (POC) was initiated and Low T Center was quick to realize that VMware SD-WAN was able to independently manage the failover process if the primary link was compromised for any reason and that any connection issues were mitigated by the solution’s built-in intelligence.

The full deployment included spinning up a VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator, which centrally manages and monitors all network behavior as well as allows all configuration changes to be performed and executed from a single point. In addition, VMware SD-WAN Edges were installed at each location on the network, enabling the connection of that location to all nodes on the network, the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator and cloud applications. Two broadband links were installed at each site to support failover requirements.

Low T Center incorporates the use of video to educate and communicate with patients. However, the use of video is not mission critical to the treatment of patients. In the event that a failover to a secondary connection occurred and the primary was not available in any way, using pre-configured settings, the VMware SD-WAN Edges are able to segment the network traffic and minimize the ability for video to be transmitted. In addition, VMware SD-WAN Dynamic Multipath OptimizationTM (DMPO) is designed to instantaneously measure and assess the quality of available bandwidth links and manipulate the usage of these links by combining the various streams and improving the overall quality using error correction functionality.

Due to its high bandwidth requirements, video can easily monopolize available bandwidth, thereby restricting the ability for healthcare providers to access to patients records in real-time. The ability to prioritize the transmission of certain application specific data over other less-service impacting applications was transformative for Low T Center.

Fast and seamless solution roll-outWith most network equipment, the individuals configuring or installing devices must be rigorously trained and certified, dramatically increasing the cost of installation and maintenance. However, with VMware SD-WAN, the rollout was very simple. Using a very small IT team to manage the overall implementation, Low T Center was able to employ facility team members to plug in each VMware SD-WAN Edge rather than send out an expensive IT team member to each location. Anyone on the premises could connect the VMware SD-WAN Edge to a broadband connection and the device would automatically connect back to the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator for centralized management, monitoring, and control. Specific configurations can then be populated across the entire network, to every branch with a touch of a button.

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Merging Multiple Networks While Optimizing for Cloud Services and ApplicationsSD-WAN Eliminates Network Outages to Help Healthcare Providers Adhere to HIPAA Regulations

Visibility and visualization of network performanceLow T Center utilizes broadband links to connect each of its 57 branches to each other and to cloud applications. Prior to VMware SD-WAN, the IT team had no visibility into the performance of the links it was using nor the devices on the network such as firewalls and routers.

Following the implementation of VMware SD-WAN, the IT staff had complete visibility through the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator and could proactively monitor the network, identifying and remediating any issue before it impacted users, as well as capturing historical performance records of network behavior. With a clear ability to pinpoint where problems were originating and where, both the Low T Center IT team and its Internet service providers (ISPs) had full information on where the responsibility lay to fix those issues.

Support for new voice platform with stellar QoSDuring its network overhaul and migration to cloud applications, Low T Center also upgraded its phone service to a new provider. The new provider had very strict network protocol requirements, which caused significant challenges over the Sonic firewalls already in place, introducing voice quality issues. Following the implementation of VMware SD-WAN, voice quality issues were eliminated. Using the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator, the Low T Center IT team was able to blend the voice platform requirements into the VMware SD-WAN configuration template and deploy across the entire connected network. Excellent quality of service (QoS) was achieved.

Future-proofing the network for long-term projectsThe delivery of healthcare is constantly evolving and technology must evolve with it. Low T Center plans to implement and roll-out an Electronic Medical Record System (EMR) to help manage the care of its patients. The system is networked and requires point solutions in each location. Now, with VMware SD-WAN, Low T Center is able to leverage the VMware SD-WAN Edges to create a private network to further secure the EMR system, and enable the hosting capabilities in the cloud with connections to each individual site.

This becomes important as new medical devices are deployed at sites and test results that they generate will need to be automatically populated in the EMR system. With VMware SD-WAN, this is now possible with the continuous uptime functionality. For instance, Low T Center utilizes a piece of equipment that analyzes blood. To connect it to the network, it must be first be connected to a LANtronics device that enables network awareness, which then connects to a PC, that then connects to the external network to transmit results. But if the PC is turned off, all connection is lost. In leveraging VMware SD-WAN, Low T Center will be able to directly connect the blood analyzing equipment and the results it generates directly to the network and push the results to the EMR system in the cloud with no concern of network outage.

For more information on VMware SD-WAN, please visit https://www.velocloud.com/ or contact your VMware representative.

“Ensuring that our healthcare providers are able to treat patients at any time regardless of network issues, is critical to Low T Center and the happiness of our patients. VMware SD-WAN enables us to do that and adhere to strict HIPAA requirements on a continuous basis.”

ARTHUR YOUNT PRESIDENT, LOW T CENTER

COMPANY PROFILE

Low T Center was created with one goal in mind—create a friendly, efficient environment for the diagnosis and treatment of low testosterone in men. Low T Center believes every man deserves to feel virile, have abundant energy, and experience better moods. Its mantra sums up Low T Center’s goals: “Getting older does not have to feel like it!”

C U S T O M E R S T O R Y

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INDUSTRYHEALTHCARE

HEADQUARTERSCLEVELAND, OH

CHALLENGES

• Limited bandwidth reducing ability to support high-throughput applications

• Quickly onboarding new facilities into core network infrastructure

RESULTS

• Substantial increase in network visibility, management and QoS

• Reduction of required in-person doctor visits by residents

• Leveraging low-cost circuits and infrastructure to maximize return on investment

Bringing Back Doctor Home Visits with SD-WANTo manage the health and wellness of 10,000 residents, Saber Healthcare turned to WAN Dynamics and VMware SD-WAN™ by VeloCloud® to support health initiatives.

Problem situationManaging the health and wellness of over 10,000 residents requires a robust network that can scale to meet the demands of a care system with technology-focused delivery, including video, voice, and fast record transfer. Saber Healthcare Group serves residents in over 120 facilities with cutting edge applications and services that simplify their lives by delivering top of the line care directly to their fingertips.

With most of the residents in its facilities in compromised health or not ambulatory, Saber Healthcare adopted a Telehealth platform (HIPAA compliant telecommunications systems) to enable its healthcare workers and patients to quickly gain access to doctors in a virtual environment. In the case of non-emergencies, using the new platform, residents no longer have to incur stressful and long travel times to visit doctors at their offices to be evaluated and diagnosed. Skilled nurses at Saber Healthcares’ facilities can help remote doctors assess a resident’s prognosis from the comfort of the resident’s room. In addition, using the Telehealth platform, Saber Healthcare is able to reduce, and often eliminate, the need for residents to be re-admitted to hospitals, obtaining the care they require within the facility. To support the Telehealth platform, Saber Healthcare needed access to large amounts of bandwidth with non-disrupted service and optimized quality of service (QoS).

Additionally, Saber Healthcare continues to expand its footprint through a growth-by-acquisition strategy. Starting with two facilities and having grown to over 120, Saber Healthcare understands the complexities associated with assimilating networks with disparate infrastructure and systems into its core corporate network. To continue scaling with this strategy and do so quickly and efficiently, it required a platform that could be deployed in short order, interoperate with the existing infrastructure, increase bandwidth, limit downtime, and deliver an exceptional user experience.

Using its existing Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) network, Saber Healthcare was running into numerous obstacles as it strove to increase the level of care to its residents. In order to deliver Telehealth, the existing infrastructure would have to allow for a significant increase in the amount of bandwidth that was accessible, which required the implementation of a third-party circuit and additional router, all which needed to be managed and were extremely costly.

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Bringing Back Doctor Home Visits with SD-WAN

“Complaints about network speed were common with our legacy network. Now with VMware SD-WAN, we don’t encounter that issue anymore.”

CURTIS MCEWEN SENIOR NETWORK ENGINEER, SABER HEALTHCARE

Without a centralized management system, Saber Healthcare was unable to separate and implement business policies for wireless residence and business, view and troubleshoot the QoS for applications such as Telehealth, and had to manage additional circuits, virtual local area networks (VLANs), and third-party circuits all through separate interfaces. Finally, bringing new facilities into the existing infrastructure often took months because each required a different strategy and implementation plan.

Solution selection and implementation: WAN Dynamics and VMware SD-WANSaber Healthcare understood that in order to continue servicing its residents with the best healthcare options available and have a path forward that would enable continued growth and support for planned application deployment, it needed to move to a more dynamic and scalable technology platform.

After careful consideration, Saber Healthcare engaged WAN Dynamics, a leading provider of helping businesses effectively leverage new and next generation enterprise technologies such as software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), cloud applications, and software defined networking (SDN) solutions, and cloud-first voice and data communication integrations, to eliminate dependence on the existing MPLS and adopt an SD-WAN strategy. In turn, WAN Dynamics partnered with VeloCloud, now part of VMware, the leader in SD-WAN, to architect and deploy a corporate-wide network transition.

With VMware SD-WAN, Saber Healthcare was able to migrate its entire MPLS to SD-WAN. Now using the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator for centralized management, troubleshooting, and provisioning, VMware SD-WAN Gateways for secure, reliable, performance access to cloud applications to and from all remote sites, and VMware SD-WAN Edges deployed at each customer premises, Saber Healthcare had a true cloud implementation that supported its current and future initiatives to deliver exceptional care to its residents.

Hours to a new site deploymentPrior to VMware SD-WAN, the addition of a newly acquired site to the corporate network often took 30 to 60 days due to the need to initiate and install a new circuit and router. In addition, the new circuit was limited to 10MB of bandwidth or a T1 line. With VMware SD-WAN, a new site could be rolled out in as little as 3 to 5 days, with the bulk of that time spent on obtaining the line from a carrier. With a line established, the implementation itself would take only hours. With no circuit limitations, WAN Dynamics could roll out three new sites within a day.

Visibility: problem identification and resolutionUsing the VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator, both WAN Dynamics and Saber Healthcare were able to eliminate the need for multiple user interfaces to manage various components of the network and gained visibility across the entire network and into each customer site. The VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator would identify network issues, create alerts for those activities that required immediate action, and allowed for remote remediation. Prior to VMware SD-WAN, this was not possible, with problem identification and remediation occurring on a per site basis, requiring expensive truck rolls.

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Bringing Back Doctor Home Visits with SD-WAN

High cost vs. high-qualityWith the traditional wide area network (WAN), running a circuit to geographically dispersed sites was expensive to install and to manage. With per location costs reaching $10,000 to $12,000 for dedicated business Internet network connectivity construction or $38,000 for a dedicated fiber line, bringing each facility into the core network is cost prohibitive for most organizations. However, VMware SD-WAN can utilize inexpensive broadband links and its inherent capabilities optimizes the delivery of traffic across any available transport system. WAN Dynamics was able to purchase inexpensive circuits from carriers, integrate them into the VMware SD-WAN platform and with intelligence built into each touchpoint on the network, deliver the same or better high-quality video, voice, and data to each facility in the network.

For more information on VMware SD-WAN, please visit https://www.velocloud.com/ or contact your VMware representative.

“Visibility to individual locations wasn’t possible with our legacy network, but with VMware SD-WAN Orchestrator, we can quickly identify problems at each branch in the network.”

CURTIS MCEWEN SENIOR NETWORK ENGINEER, SABER HEALTHCARE

PARTNER

WAN Dynamics was established to help businesses effectively leverage now-generation and next-generation enterprise networking technologies, including SD-WAN, cloud applications and services, SaaS applications, SDN solutions, and cloud-first voice and data communication integrations.