German Healthcare Group Selects Extreme Networks Reliable ...

Extreme Networks Case Study: Klinikverbund Südwest GmbH
German Healthcare Group
Selects Extreme Networks
Reliable Network solution
for Patient Critical Care
Extreme Networks Working with Partner
Alcera to Deliver the Performance,
Availability and Smooth Migration
Required by Hospitals
With four hospitals at six different locations, the Klinikverbund Südwest
GmbH is one of the largest municipal healthcare groups in Southern
Germany. It was formed in 2006 by the merger of hospitals in
Sindelfingen, Böblingen, Calw, Nagold, Leonberg, and Herrenberg and
is led by a state-of-the-art management philosophy. In just a few years,
it has become a highly efficient and competitive health network of
clinics in which over 4,200 members of staff provide care for about
70,000 inpatients and 170,000 outpatients each year.
One Network, Multiple Services
After the group was established, one of the first activities performed by
its IT team was to consolidate the applications of all the hospitals into
one data-processing center in Calw. The backbone of the Klinikverbund
Südwest group’s technology systems took the form of a newly
created data network linking together 2,600 end users and thin clients
at the clinics with central servers for terminal services, the hospital
information-exchange system Agfa Orbis, and the Picture archiving and
communication (PACS) system for digital x-ray imaging.
Initially the core of the Calw-based network comprised two
BlackDiamond® 8810 switches supplied by Extreme Networks®,
while components from Cisco and HP were deployed in the rest of
the network.
The successful development of the clinic group over the following years
went hand in hand with a growth in the demands made of the group’s
data-processing center, and the IT team swiftly realized that the
computing power of the Calw data-processing hub would soon come
up against its limits.
“In addition to the very simple problem of space, it rapidly became clear
to us that the aspects of air-conditioning, the fire-fighting system, and
the backup power supply in the case of an emergency at the Calw
data-processing center would not be able to meet up to our demands
regarding the security and availability of our patient data in the medium
run,” Hans-Ulrich Graf, Director of IT Operations at Klinikverbund
Südwest, explains. “For this reason, early in 2010 we began to draw up
plans for the construction of a new central data-processing center at
our Sindelfingen location.”
Make Your Network Mobile
The Challenge
The Klinikverbund Südwest group of clinics planned to
migrate its data-processing operations from its too-small
Calw location to a new data center in Sindelfingen with a
minimum of downtime.
The Solution
Together with the IT service provider alcera, the
Klinikverbund Südwest group built a new data center in
Sindelfingen, built with Summit® X450 and X650 switches
from Extreme Networks. By using multiplexers, the
healthcare group was able to run both data centers in
parallel throughout the entire migration procedure and still
keep downtime to a minimum for essential applications.
The Benefits
• Klinikverbund Südwest gets a consistent operating
system in all switches, from edge to core.
• The organization simplifies management
with Ridgeline.
• EAPS provides rapid switching times in the event of
system failures.
• Organization has robust and stable IP-multicasting
for IPTV.

Extreme Networks Case Study: Klinikverbund Südwest GmbH
Migrating with Ease
The requirements made of the network were clearly defined from
the outset: the Sindelfingen site was to house a total of ten server
racks, each one connected via redundant top-of-rack (ToR)
switches to two central core switches.
Because it was also intended to introduce IPTV into the patients’
rooms in the near future, a robust and proven multicast system
integrated with the network was a further decisive criterion. The
planning of the network itself, however, was an easy task compared
to that of designing a migration scenario to interfere at the lowest
levels possible with the hospitals’ operations. Furthermore, the IT
unit of the clinic group also wanted to continue using the already
installed network components to the extent that this was still
technically and economically feasible.
“In view of these special requirements, we ultimately realized that
only a network supplier whose solution was already in place could
be considered suitable for the installation of the data-processing
center,” Hans-Ulrich Graf continued. “And that’s why we then
sought out a service provider who could come up with a concise
concept for the installation and migration of our data center that
would take all of our requirements into account, and who would
also be capable of implementing the solution within six months.”
A Clear Winner
Ultimately, the Klinikverbund Südwest group found all its requirements
best met by the offer tendered by the alcera
Kommunikationstechnik company, a supplier-neutral IT provider
based in Hanover. This offer foresaw the installation of a second
data center in Sindelfingen that then, by using multiplexers, would
operate parallel to the one in Calw for a transitional period; this
would enable all critical servers and storage systems to be
successively relocated to the new location some 40 kilometers
away, reducing the downtimes of the systems to the minimum
possible time of just a few hours in one single night.
The core of the data-processing center in Sindelfingen was formed
by two switches from Extreme Networks, which, as top-of-rack
switches, were designed to connect the servers in the new data
center as well as the new core in Sindelfingen. “We opted for
Extreme Networks as our vendor in this project because its
products were the best suited to cover the entire spectrum of
components, from the network edge all the way to the data center
core, and also because all the switches feature a robust operating
system and sophisticated IP-multicasting support,” explains Jörg
de Haan, project manager at alcera.
“We chose Extreme Networks as our supplier
in this project because its products cover the
entire spectrum of components, from the
edge all the way to the data center core, and
also because all the switches feature a robust
operating system and sophisticated
IP-multicasting support.”
– Jörg de Haan,
Project Manager,
alcera
Since the cost aspect also plays a major role in a project of
multiple dimensions, the clinic group additionally ran a priceperformance
analysis of the solution that was offered: “First we
conducted a large-scale market analysis to define a price bracket,”
Hans-Ulrich Graf says. “Extreme Networks products promised
considerably greater performance than a less expensive solution,
and at the same time were substantially less costly than the
products of another supplier that offered features that we
didn’t need.”
The Design
After the decision was made in favor of alcera’s concept using
Extreme Networks, the IT provider then set about building the
new data-processing center. As per plan, alcera first installed ten
server cabinets each comprising two Summit X450 top-of-rack
switches in a stack at the Sindelfingen site. The ToR switches in
turn are connected via two 10-gigabit Ethernet links with the two
redundant Summit X650 core switches. These form the backbone
of the data-processing system, constituting the central routing
instance. The blade center of the clinic group for terminal
servers and also the VMware environment for the hospital
data-exchange system are connected directly to the Summit X650
switches via a 10-GbE line. The entire solution is managed with
Extreme Networks Ridgeline, a scalable, full-featured network and
service management tool that simplifies network configuration,
provisioning, troubleshooting and status monitoring, and streamlines
common tasks.
Seeing that numerous network components in the edge spectrum
would also have to be replaced over the short to medium term,
alcera procured switches from Extreme Networks for this purpose,
too. In the meantime, there are now nearly 80 switches of the
Summit X150 and Summit X350 ranges in use at Klinikverbund
Südwest. To ensure the continued use of existing components, it
was also planned to relocate the BlackDiamond 8810 switches
from the Calw data-processing center to the Sindelfingen site
after the migration of the servers and to operate them there as
core switches for the hospital, while the concept foresaw the
installation of new Summit X460 switches as the cores for the
other five hospitals.
A Smooth Transition
After the successful installation of the new data-processing system,
the clinic group, in close cooperation with alcera, started the
step-by-step migration of the servers from Calw to Sindelfingen.
Each night the team dismantled two to three servers at the old site
and reinstalled them in Sindelfingen. Thanks to the parallel operation
of two data-processing centers with two separate IP address
sectors, this strategy of gentle migration went off very smoothly.
Since all locations of the clinic group are connected with each other
via two independent dark-fibre rings, it was possible to mirror not
only the network traffic, but also the storage data between the two
data centers via fibre channel. “We had originally also considered
using a so-called ‘Big Bang’ scenario with everything at once, but
that would have involved far longer downtimes,” Hans-Ulrich Graf
explains. “While alcera’s concept involving the temporary mirroring
via multiplexers was considerably more complicated, it worked
excellently, and we were able to finish the migration at the end of
2010 as we’d planned.”
2

Extreme Networks Case Study: Klinikverbund Südwest GmbH
Decision Validated
Today, the Klinikverbund Südwest group is happy with its choice
of Extreme Networks. Thanks to the consistent implementation of
its single-vendor strategy for central network components, the
healthcare group now has a high-performance network at its
disposal that can be centrally administrated, one that’s not only
extremely robust, but that also offers a great deal of potential for
the future.
The launch of Ethernet Automatic Protection Switching (EAPS) as
a resiliency protocol in the backbone, for instance, is due to take
place shortly. This will give the clinic group switching times of less
than 50 milliseconds in the event that a fibre-optic line is damaged.
What’s more, the agenda for the rest of 2011 also foresees the
introduction of IPTV: a central satellite-reception system will feed
all the major public-service and private stations into the backbone.
These data streams will then be directed into the patients’ rooms
via IP-multicast.
Besides the central hospital applications, the connection of hybrid
telephone systems at the various locations via IP, and the transmission
of IPTV, Klinikverbund Südwest will also be controlling
parts of its central building-management systems via its data
network. All locations are connected with each other by independent
fibre-optic systems, and so it’s a logical step to consolidate all
services on one central network instead of constructing and
operating several parallel networks separately. A further goal is to
achieve IEC 80001 certification of the network, and the corresponding
preparations are already in progress.
“The decisive aspect in undertaking a project of this scope was
that a definite route is taken. Since we attach particular importance
to the aspects of robustness and clarity of functionality, we’ve
made the right decision in opting for Extreme Networks,” said
Hans-Ulrich Graf in conclusion. “We don’t want thousands of
special functions that we never use anyway, but stable core
functions over all network levels instead.”
Make Your Network Mobile
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and North America
Extreme Networks, Inc.
3585 Monroe Street
Santa Clara, CA 95051 USA
Phone +1 408 579 2800
“Since we attach particular importance to
the aspects of robustness and clarity of
functionality, we’ve made the right decision
in opting for Extreme Networks.”
Europe, Middle East, Africa
and South America
Phone +31 30 800 5100
– Hans-Ulrich Graf,
Director of IT Operations,
Klinikverbund Südwest
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Phone +65 6836 5437
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Phone +81 3 5842 4011
extremenetworks.com
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