SUCCESS STORY: Population Health Research Institute
Company Size
1,000+
Region
- America
Country
- Canada
Product
- Brocade VDX 8770 Switches
- Brocade VDX 6740 Switches
- Brocade ICX 6450 Switches
- Brocade Network Advisor
Tech Stack
- Software-Defined Networking (SDN)
- Big Data Analysis
Implementation Scale
- Enterprise-wide Deployment
Impact Metrics
- Cost Savings
- Productivity Improvements
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Big Data Analytics
- Networks & Connectivity - Software-Defined Networking
Applicable Industries
- Healthcare & Hospitals
Applicable Functions
- Product Research & Development
Services
- System Integration
About The Customer
Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) is Canada’s premiere global health research institute. Originally focused on cardiovascular disease and diabetes studies, its research has broadened to include population health, genomics, perioperative medicine, dysglycemia, stroke, thrombosis, cardiovascular surgery, renal, obesity, childhood obesity, bone and trauma, knowledge translation, and implementation science. The institute’s capacity and reach is extensive. It is linked to more than 1,500 hospitals or clinical locations in 86 countries on every inhabited continent in the world. It conducts multiple, concurrent international studies, with tens of thousands of participants in each. PHRI studies have enrolled more than 1,000,000 participants worldwide, and its Biobank currently stores more than 2.5 million biological samples.
The Challenge
Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) is a global health research institute that conducts large clinical trials and population studies. The institute is linked to more than 1,500 hospitals or clinical locations in 86 countries. PHRI studies have enrolled more than 1,000,000 participants worldwide, and its Biobank currently stores more than 2.5 million biological samples. The network supports the activities of 10,000 on-campus users and more than 400,000 users around the world. Big Data, such as data associated with population genomics, was pushing the existing network to its limits, and PHRI wants to connect its Big Data analysis capabilities to centralized systems that are run by Compute Canada and funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation. The network supports all of PHRI’s global sites, so it must provide high availability. In the past, PHRI had outsourced its network and its management. The network was based on Cisco equipment that provided 1GbE connections from closet switches to desktops, redundant 1GbE connections to servers, and 4x10GbE uplinks in the core. PHRI needed to increase the performance and load-balancing capabilities of the network while simplifying management so that it could be performed solely by the inhouse ICT team.
The Solution
PHRI selected Brocade VDX® Switches for its core and top-of-rack deployments in the main data center and at its disaster recovery site. Redundant Brocade VDX 8770 Switches at the core provide low-latency connectivity with 1/10/40 GbE capabilities. Brocade VDX 6740 Switches are deployed at the top of the rack, providing copper-based 10 GbE connections to servers. The Brocade VDX 6740 Switches also provide 40 Gbps uplinks that can be separated into multiple 4x10 Gbps access points. Both Brocade VDX 8770 and Brocade VDX 6740 Switches include Brocade VCS® Fabric technology for unmatched simplicity and automation. Brocade VCS Logical Chassis enables a self-forming and self-healing fabric with a single point of management, which eliminates the need to manually configure and manage each switch. Brocade ICX 6450 Switches are deployed in campus closets where they are stacked and managed as a single switch. The Brocade ICX Switches are uplinked into the Brocade VCS Fabric, giving PHRI control of them from a single management point with Brocade Network Advisor. The Brocade ICX Switches also support Power over Ethernet Plus (PoE+) to desktops, VoIP phones, wireless access points, and physical security systems.
Operational Impact
Quantitative Benefit
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