European Healthcare Provider.
Transforming to modern cloud setup, achieving higher levels of automation and improved digital services.
The Challenge.
This healthcare provider operates a number of private clinics and medical centers, providing a range of medical and health services to patients, from general practices and emergencies, to more specialised medical services such as medicine, cardiology and surgical procedures.
Technology-wise, the healthcare provider had already invested heavily in a Microsoft ecosystem of products and services.
The organisation already carried out significant application development work in the cloud. But from a central perspective, they were locked in a contract with a data center provider. Some of the key challenges with this setup included high cost levels, low levels of automation and slow response times. Furthermore, some of their key services and applications suffered from performance problems and scalability issues, causing unnecessary amounts of management focus.
The organisation wanted to change to a more modern cloud setup to achieve higher levels of automation and introduce self-service portals and services.
The Solution: Migrating and Replatforming to Azure.
Nordcloud started engaging with the client through our partnership with Microsoft and offered a fully-funded migrate to manage approach.
We performed a discovery and assessment to develop the migration roadmap and identify key transformation and optimization opportunities. In parallel, we implemented a Managed Cloud Foundation, allowing the client to manage and govern their IT infrastructure through IaC, fit-for-purpose policies and blueprints.
Part of the scope was the rehost and migration of 15 mission-critical applications to the new set-up, including their databases. Furthermore, we transformed their existing critical Citrix services to Citrix Cloud (the main channel for doctors and nurses to access the key applications).
Overall, the project included:
- Migration and rehosting of business critical applications (Windows Servers, including SQL servers, Maria DBs, Postgres DBs)
- Replatforming (Windows and Linux servers)
- Replatforming SQL to SQL Managed Instances
- Implementing Citrix Cloud for all users
- Migration to Nordcloud’s Managed Cloud Environment, Managed Cloud Databases, Managed Landing Zone services
The Results.
The project and services delivered resulted in a number of benefits compared to the previous situation.
- Migration to the cloud in a timely fashion, self-funded as part of Nordcloud’s migration to manage services concept.
- Improved security and operations, through establishing Azure Policies, centralised logging, and by establishing the foundation for network micro segmentation set-up (to be implemented at a later stage).
- Transformed to Citrix Cloud, improving both performance and scalability.
Improving security by increasing automation was critical from an operational perspective. By implementing Role Based Access Right services, the healthcare provider achieved a more granular view of access to the infrastructure services, as well as substantially better controls compared to the as-is situation.
