Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust is deploying Microsoft’s Hyper- V private cloud platform, to help deliver improved services for desktop PCs and unified communication and collaboration across its entire IT estate.
The move will allow the Trust to depart from its existing shared service model and benefit from the advantages of a private cloud-based approach. This will enable it to deliver applications as services, increase application uptime and better resolve problems. The Trust is using a range of Microsoft technologies including Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 and System Center.
It will also extend its use of the Windows 7 operating system and roll out Lync, Microsoft’s next generation communication server to its PCs and tablets to improve collaboration and communication. The project is delivered by OCSL, a Microsoft Virtualisation & Management Partner.
Brighton and Sussex NHS Trust is one of the largest teaching Trusts in the country, providing general and specialist services for more than a million people. It comprises the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and the Princess Royal Hospital in Haywards Heath.
The Trust needed a stable IT infrastructure, based on a cloud platform that would offer application-level management and platform interoperability as well as facilitating effective clinical productivity and collaboration across all staff.
Ian Arbuthnot, CIO of Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust says, “We needed to update our physical infrastructure, improve connectivity uptime as well as run and deploy apps more effectively. All in all, it was time to move away from the inefficiencies we were seeing in the shared service model to an innovative and forward looking service, that would ensure a stable and efficient IT platform.”
“With Hyper-V, we’ll be able to implement our server virtualisation with ease and are confident that we will benefit from economies of scale with regards to the number of machines we virtualise. Hyper-V just works as our people understand Windows and it doesn’t require a separate set of skills. We are now able to deploy a comprehensive private cloud that will deliver the control and agility essential to the Trust. Microsoft Lync is also a real game changer as we have about 6,500 people across a number of sites and with Microsoft Lync are now able to work more closely across our teams to deliver the best service to the hospitals.” added Arbuthnot.
With Microsoft’s Windows Server Hyper-V and System Center private cloud solution, the Trust should enjoy improved choice and flexibility with its IT resources as a result of the benefits of cloud computing. These benefits include greater agility for faster response times and application deployment, less focus on infrastructure and more on business needs as well as reduced infrastructure costs.
Arbuthnot continues, “Cloud is a core IT infrastructure consideration today and is critical to consider it as part of an overall business strategy. Microsoft and OCSL were instrumental in helping us move to a hybrid IT environment, where we can not only optimise our existing infrastructure but also benefit from the very latest Microsoft private cloud innovation. As a result, we feel good about our future proofed IT environment, which will pay dividends as we look to further develop our IT strategy.”