Case Study: Scalable Monitoring

The recently established SevenHills Hospital in Mumbai has opted for CommScope Systimax's cabling solutions. A combination of copper and fiber cabling with the iPatch Intelligent Infrastructure solution to deliver seamless paperless administration and networked medical systems has been installed on the 20 mn sqft hospital with an investment of `2 crore. The passive cabling infrastructure is a combination of category 6 and 6a. For a higher bandwidth-hungry applications such as MRI scanners, CT scanners, and digital X-ray equipments, and systems accessed frequently by multiple doctors are connected on category 6a copper cabling standard while the other spots of network is connected on cat 6.

The whole cabling infrastructure was installed by CommScope's partner, Datasoft Comnet, based in Visakhapatnam. The project was undertaken in 3 phases by a team of up to 70 technicians, engineers, and planners from Datasoft. “Technology is at the heart of our patient care and business administration, so we have to manage and control it as efficiently as possible,” stated Suresh Kumar, general manager of IT of SevenHills Hospital. “Our new facility in Mumbai is not just a hospital, it is more of a 'health city' dedicated to delivering affordable healthcare with state-of-the-art technology-so we cannot allow any slippage in system performance,” he added.

iPatch Intelligent Infrastructure

The 20 mn sqft hospital has more than 15,000 network outlets supporting its advanced medical and management systems. The 9-floor building with 2 basements and 16 blocks at the new Mumbai hospital is now equipped with iPatch Intelligent Infrastructure solution. This solution minimizes the risk of technical issues and rectifies human error. This solution offers real-time monitoring. With real-time monitoring, network managers can determine what is happening on system in response to performance issues or problem reports. It also tackles network performance, degradation, and managing congestion in operational networks in real-time. It saves time, avoid costly patching errors, and improves technicians' productivity.

iPatch Intelligent Infrastructure enables managers to have a constant, real-time view of what is happening in the network physical layer. The intelligent network infrastructure alerts them when there is an unauthorized change to the network physical layer. “Choosing cabling of very high quality and performance, installed to the highest standards, minimizes the risk of technical issues-but it cannot eliminate human error. That is where the iPatch solution comes into play,” pointed out Suresh Kumar.

iPatch panels are equipped with LEDs that can indicate where patch cords should be plugged-in. The Intelligent Panel's 1-button tracing feature allows technicians to trace patch connections instantly. By pressing the button above one of the ports, LEDs light up at both ends of the connection, making moves, adds and changes faster and more reliable. These are complemented by rack-mounted displays that give technicians in the communications rooms sequential instructions on which ports need to be connected.

As well as guiding technicians, the iPatch solution automatically updates the database in real-time and tells managers when changes have been completed correctly. Using a desktop PC, maintenance and modification of the network can be managed remotely with confidence that errors would be minimized. The iPatch System is able to detect any copper or fiber single plug insertion and also detects any partially completed connection/disconnections. It can alert the administrator to the pressing of a trace button, easing both security and management concerns.

All intelligent panels in a rack or cabinet are connected to the iPatch Rack Manager Plus via a panel bus, providing information on the status of every connector. This information is then available for real-time management of the cabling infrastructure to safeguard the corporate information flow.

The key benefits of the iPatch Intelligent Panel includes:

• Faster moves, adds and changes
• Real-time monitoring of duplex and simplex fiber connections and copper connections
• Detection of any standard patch cord or plug insertion
• Detection of single-ended connections
• Ease of integration with network infrastructure because transmission characteristics are not affected by the intelligent hardware
• Flexibility to suit most installations-it offers a choice of 24- and 48-port rack-mounted copper panels, and 1RMU size fiber shelves

Networking Components

The network is divided into 4 zones, each with 3 communications rooms and giving a total of 13 communications rooms and 1 core switch room. LazrSPEED 300 multimode fiber cabling solution is deployed to connect all 13 communication rooms. This exceeds specifications of the OM3 fiber standard and delivers 10G performance over distances up to 300 m. Gigaspeed XL copper cabling is installed from the communications rooms to the 15,000 network outlets throughout the hospital. This exceeds the performance of category 6/ class E cabling standards and can support Gigabit Ethernet over distances up to 100 m. Gigaspeed X10D solution supports high-speed connections in the data center. There are 550 iPatch panels installed across the network. In order to have a real-time access and assist in making moves, adds and changes, iPatch panels are equipped with LEDs that can indicate where patch cords should be plugged-in. These are complemented by rack-mounted displays that give technicians in the communications rooms sequential instructions on which ports need to be connected.

The systems installed at the hospital include state-of-the-art MRI scanners, CT scanners, and digital X-ray equipment. In addition, the network supports other key facilities, including enterprise healthcare suite, CCTV, access control, VoIP, nurse calling system, and building control system.

Suresh Kumar mentions, “Choosing a network infrastructure supplier was a key part in planning the advanced information technology that is essential to deliver high quality, affordable healthcare.” He added, “SevenHills wanted the best possible combination of reliability and performance together with capacity to handle growing network traffic.” Many of the systems supported by its network are mission critical and some are life critical.

Malini N
malinin@cybermedia.co.in