Despite the numerous interconnected elements now involved in effective digital transformation, the network remains the foundation of everything, ensuring any investment in new technologies delivers the best possible ROI, and that teams at all levels are empowered to deliver their very best, 24 / 7. As such, the digital transformation journey must always begin with a full network transformation.
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A full-stack deployment for a leading South-east London healthcare provider delivers the digital foundation for exceptional patient care
About Bromley Healthcare
Bromley Healthcare is a community healthcare provider in South-east London, offering communities across Bromley, Bexley, Greenwich, and Lewisham with a range of world-class services, clinics, and health programmes, while empowering clinicians to deliver the very highest standard of care.
The Challenge
To optimise the availability of its services, enabling clinicians to engage with their patients through an evolving range of channels, Bromley Healthcare has continued to invest in its own network, spanning all its sites across South-east London. However, with its existing infrastructure beginning to show its age and a significant proportion of reported IT issues directly related to network performance, it became clear a new digital foundation was required.
The decision was therefore made to seek out a new strategic partner who would be able to support a full-scale modernisation project, redesigning the entire network from the ground up. Key priorities including the deployment of pervasive wireless connectivity at all sites, for both corporate and guest devices, and optimal resilience, with minimal points of failure.
Far more than just deploying the required connections, this new partnership would involve working closely with Bromley Healthcare's own network team to take full advantage of the latest advances in networking technology, both now and in the long term - to ensure these solutions could be intelligently deployed to support the highest standards of patient care. This would include providing hands-on support to staff and clinicians, ensuring they would be able to make full use of the new infrastructure's capabilities.
Having already engaged with their teams for a number of tactical services over the years, Bromley Healthcare invited Exponential-e to take part in a highly competitive tender process, where candidates were asked to showcase how they would approach solving Bromley Healthcare's unique goals for its network. Keeping an open mind about the proposed solutions, Bromley Healthcare eventually selected Exponential-e as their new strategic partner, based on the overall strength of their offering and willingness to deliver a truly bespoke, full integrated solution.
The Solution
Working closely with Bromley Healthcare's own IT team, Exponential-e designed and deployed a full-stack Cisco Meraki ecosystem, incorporating SD-WAN, LAN, and Meraki wireless, combined with scalable firewalls, HSCN connectivity, and hosting in world-class data centres - all managed through a single pane of glass.
A key development for Bromley Healthcare's own networking team has been the implementation of application-level monitoring, allowing for full control and visibility of the entire network. This has enabled faster, more effective troubleshooting, ensuring key applications are always available to clinicians, whenever and wherever they are required. At the same time, a dedicated team at Exponential-e continues to maintain the underlying digital foundation, ensuring the network will always deliver the highest standards of performance and guarantee the integrity of critical data.
This blend of centralised control and visibility, expert support, and a fully integrated solution wrap meant that time spent on routine network management was reduced by around 75%, saving an average of 35 internal man hours per week. As a result, Bromley Healthcare's own teams have been able to refocus their attention and prioritise resources to broaden the quality, range, and availability of healthcare services across South-east London.
With the new infrastructure firmly established, Bromley Healthcare are now planning the deployment of a next-gen VPN solution, providing staff and clinicians with additional layers of flexibility in the way they work. Plans are also in place to utilise the system's inherent flexibility to make interpreting services available to clinicians via a range of channels, reducing the need for an interpreter to be physically present when required.
Solution benefits
- A full Meraki technology stack, with centralised control and visibility and the ability to connect to the HSCN
- Resilient, highly secure connectivity for multiple sites across South-east London, enhancing the performance and availability of the platforms clinicians depend on
- A fully managed service, delivering a robust foundation that frees internal teams to focus on clinician and patients' requirements An average of 35 hours per week saved on routine network management, allowing this time to be reinvested in patient care
You have to have a good network; everything else is built on it. So, it was really important to us to develop a real strategic partnership - not just supplying the lines, but providing suggestions, solutions, and best practice to drive something new and open up opportunities to make our clinicians more efficient and effective.
Patrick Montgomery
Chief Technology Officer, Bromley Healthcare
What I liked, and still like - most about working with the team at Exponential-e was that it was a genuinely two-way conversation. At the outset of this project, we were open to anything, and, put simply, their proposal was the best fit for our networking goals.
Patrick Montgomery
Chief Technology Officer, Bromley Healthcare
The public sector's digital journey is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, with leading-edge technology transforming the way critical services are delivered across the country. This exclusive report from Exponential-e explores the challenges and opportunities involved, and explains how public sector organisations can be part of this digital revolution.
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With fundamental shifts in consumer behaviour, changing economic conditions, and a rapidly evolving regulatory environment, it's a challenging but exciting time for the UK's retail sector, and technology has a key role to play. In particular, advances in IT and networking solutions are empowering retailers to enhance their operational efficiency, improve the customer experience, and retain their competitive edge in an increasingly online and interconnected world.
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The Finance sector has always been one of the most dynamic, rapidly evolving industries, and this shows no signs of changing any time soon. But while shifts in the landscape may well open new opportunities, they will also come with new challenges, and it is the organisations who are ready and able to face these head-on who will continue to thrive in the years ahead.
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Manufacturing workflows are evolving at an unprecedented rate, and the trend shows no signs of slowing down. The increasing effectiveness and affordability of 'smart' technologies and the Internet of Things means IT and OT are increasingly interconnected, with increasing volumes of data flowing between sites and devices on an ongoing basis.
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The past few years have been challenging for the global Manufacturing sector, with both Brexit and COVID-19 creating a wide range of operational disruptions whose impact is still being felt. Indeed, as recently as January 2023, we saw UK manufacturing shrinking for the sixth consecutive month1.
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Bespoke technology solutions for the UK healthcare sector's digital pioneer
About NHS Digital
NHS Digital is the entire UK health and social care system's trusted information and technology partner, utilising innovative solutions to enhance patient care, open new channels of communication, and optimise operational efficiency.
The Challenge
Before partnering with Exponential-e, NHS Digital utilised a number of suppliers for Cloud and WAN services, interconnecting twelve sites and multiple data centres across the UK. In line with the healthcare sector's stringent data protection regulations, all data transmitted between these sites must be encrypted, for which multiple point-to-point networks were utilised - an arrangement that proved incredibly time-consuming and expensive to maintain.
Things were further complicated by NHS Digital's ongoing requirement for bespoke solutions, which suppliers were frequently unable to deliver. Based on the singular nature of the healthcare sector's challenges, off-the-shelf solutions rarely proved suitable, which inevitably had a negative effect on the long-term technology roadmap.
In light of these concerns, NHS Digital made the decision to select a new technology partner who could not only meet their requirements in terms of performance, compliance, and flexibility, but also be an active partner in their long-term digital transformation journey.
Solution
After being introduced to Exponential-e via referral, NHS Digital engaged with them to support their Cloud Connect requirements, providing diverse and resilient connectivity to AWS and Azure public clouds. To manage this initial deployment, a dedicated account team was assigned at Exponential-e, working closely with NHS Digital's own IT teams to ensure the success of the project, provide hands-on support and guidance whenever needed, and enable the design and delivery of bespoke solutions, as required.
Since then, the partnership has continued to evolve, with 2018 seeing NHS Digital begin the deployment of Exponential-e's SD-WAN solution, in order to overcome their connectivity challenges in a changing digital landscape. Following its successful launch, this solution provided NHS Digital's IT teams with maximum control and visibility of their cross-site connectivity, while automating all data encryption and protection processes, removing the resulting drain on internal IT teams' time. The combination of intelligent automation with a 'single pane of glass' view of the entire network and security ecosystem allows NHS Digital Teams to manage traffic by application and by user, ensuring all staff have access to the tools and information they need, wherever they are working from, with consistent performance across all regions and encryption of sensitive data available with a single click via the portal.
The strong rapport that has developed between NHS Digital and their Exponential-e account team since the initial Cloud Connect deployment - along with the inherent flexibility and scalability of the IT infrastructure - helped ensure a smooth transition to remote working for staff in response to COVID-19. Operational efficiency and patient care could be maintained across all regions, with proactive monitoring from Exponential-e's 24 / 7 support team, ensuring any potential issues or security risks could be swiftly detected and resolved.
Entering 2021, the Leeds Government Hub was successfully launched, in line with Government-led initiatives, with high-capacity connectivity delivered by Exponential-e. This provided more than 3,000 staff with the means to maintain operational efficiency and cost control, while NHS Digital and Exponential-e teams continue working closely together to identify any additional opportunities to achieve new cost savings and performance improvements, including the delivery of bespoke solutions, tailored to NHS Digital's unique requirements.
The ongoing success of this partnership paints a clear picture of what can be achieved within the healthcare sector when internal IT teams combine their expertise with that of trusted partners, who are deeply invested in the success of the sector and the different ways in which technological innovations can enhance both operational efficiencies and patient care, across the entire UK.
Solution benefits
- Hands-on support from a dedicated account team, with a deep understanding of the healthcare sector
- Optimal flexibility in terms of design and delivery, allowing solutions to be tailored to highly specific requirements
- Streamlined management of the entire network, with full visibility of all traffic and compliance with applicable regulations
What we like most about Exponential-e is the willingness to do things differently. Our requirements are extremely challenging in that a significant element of customisation is required for virtually every project, but the team always goes the extra mile to deliver the right combination of solutions.
Stuart Meaking
NHS Digital.
It's time for the public sector to have its own digital revolution
Technological innovation is transforming the way public sector organisations across the UK engage with citizens and deliver critical services whenever and wherever they are needed. In this exclusive report, we consider the impact of these developments, and explore how organisations can accelerate their own digital journeys, ensuring exceptional citizen outcomes are the norm.
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MSP leverages Citrix SD-WAN™ to help clients deliver consistent, secure, reliable work experience wherever work needs to get done
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Although 'agile' has become a hype word, it is an important concept that organisations should strive to achieve in a world of continuous change and uncertainty. Being agile enables organisations to be more adaptive and reactive to the changing market, allowing them to respond quickly to customers' demands to keep a competitive edge.
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Saving money with SD-WAN (part one)
Software Defined WAN, or SD-WAN for short, is the new big thing in business networking. Everybody's talking about SD-WAN, and about what it can do for businesses. Well, there's no doubt that SD-WAN can do a lot for your business; in fact, we'll be talking about exactly that in part 2 of this 3 part blog series. But before we do that, we need to talk about what SD-WAN can't do. Right now there's a popular misconception among businesses concerning SD-WAN - a misconception fed and sustained by headlines and marketing hype - that could lead them to take damaging shortcuts in incorporating SD-WAN into their business.
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Saving money with SD-WAN (part three)
Having debunked some of the myths surrounding SD-WAN’s money-saving properties in part one, and having provided some hypothetical examples of how it can actually save you money in part two, in the final part of this series I want to really ‘get real’ about SD-WAN.
Because once the hype has died down, and the ‘magical box’ myths are a distant memory, SD-WAN will still be there, generating tangible benefits for businesses across all industries and making them real money. A Google search will show you that SD-WAN is already a trend – there’s no getting ahead of that. But even though everybody’s talking about it, relatively few businesses are actually making the most of it. But some are – and here are three ways in which they’re doing it.
1. Economise while you globalise
For businesses, globalisation is a wellspring of opportunity, but it also creates new challenges. Many businesses have international offices that they need to connect-up - securely, reliably and cost effectively. And of course, it’s the cost effectiveness that often presents the biggest problem.
Why? Because security and reliability costs. Historically, those wishing to connect an international site or sites with full resilience have had to shell out for not one, but two international MPLS circuits (the second acting as a backup). Given the cost of international MPLS circuits, doing this isn’t exactly cheap.
Thanks to SD-WAN, though, businesses can now take a hybrid WAN approach to connecting international sites. This means using an international MPLS circuit backed up by an Internet circuit – and saving a pile of money in the process.
Before SD-WAN, running an MPLS circuit backed by an Internet circuit would have meant compromising your service. By cleverly using SD-WAN, however, we can now guarantee as good a service as an all-MPLS set-up, with as much resiliency, across a lower cost-based setup.
We do this by taking advantage of the application steering SD-WAN enables. This functionality allows us to put priority applications on the main MPLS circuit – thereby retaining the SLA and quality of service required – while mapping non-critical stuff onto an Internet line – thereby saving money.
2. Maximum security, minimum cost
With threat vectors multiplying as the Internet of Things emerges and businesses move more and more of their operations into the Cloud, cyber security has arguably never been so important to get right - or so challenging. And for businesses in possession of more than one office or site, there are obviously additional challenges; security can be extremely complex and expensive to set-up and maintain across multiple sites.
If you’ve got twenty offices, for example – that’s twenty physical firewalls that need to be installed and supported, with twenty different support contracts. And even once those firewalls are set up, if you want to roll out a new policy or software upgrade, that’s twenty separate upgrades you need to devote money and man-hours to. It’s making me tired just thinking about it! By the way, twenty offices might sound like a lot to some businesses, but could actually be quite a modest number by the standards of (for example) some retailers, some of whom have hundreds of sites to oversee and secure.
Transferring to a cloud-based security service will eliminate many of these headaches, and SD-WAN is arguably the best way to go about it. With SD-WAN, you get single-pane-of-glass visibility and control over your entire network, including all devices and endpoints (which SD-WAN networks authenticate with scalable key-exchange functionality and software-defined security). You’ll be able to roll out updates, configurations, patches and policies at the touch of a button, and - what’s more - you won’t even have to set-up physical firewalls in the first place!
3. An access all areas pass for businesses
For many businesses, there are times when sites need to be set up so quickly that connecting them up to the business’s main network isn’t an option. For construction and retail businesses, this is an increasingly familiar challenge: both routinely have to set up a porta-cabin site or pop-up store without access to fixed-line connectivity. In these situations, there’s unlikely to be space for hardware. Very likely there’s no IT staff on-site. It could also be a short-term implementation, making it difficult to install hardware in time to make it cost effective.
Once again, SD-WAN comes to the rescue! Because SD-WAN can be accessed through just about any access mechanism – from Ethernet to 4G data – you can use it to get up and running in no time at all. A retailer armed with SD-WAN can set up a pop-up shop and connect via 4G, and can switch to a more robust access point – at which time 4G becomes the backup as and when it becomes available.
Supplementing the savings in hardware costs will be the increased revenue businesses can expect to generate by eliminating delays in setting up. The agility SD-WAN’s flexibility gives to businesses also means they can set-up in a wider range of locations – and that equates to even more potential revenue.
The bottom line: the sky’s the limit
So there you have it – three examples of how businesses are proving that SD-WAN is more than just hype, and that the savings you can make using it are real and tangible. And these are only three examples, and this is only really the beginning. Ultimately, the control SD-WAN gives businesses over their network management means that the only limit to the ways in which it can save them money is the limit of network experts’ ingenuity.
Thanks for reading this blog series. We would love to hear your feedback on the blogs, any questions you might have, and any thoughts you yourself have on SD-WAN and its capacity to positively impact a business’s bottom line. Please leave comments below this blog or on social media, and let’s get the conversation started!
In the meantime, you can learn more about SD-WAN on our website
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Saving money with SD-WAN (part two)
"SD-WAN is an exciting, transformative technology that can do a lot of amazing things for your business – but it needs to be used correctly."
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