InTelemed helps Lamesa TX with new hospital network

InTelemed recently helped the IT staff at Medical Arts Hospital in Lamesa, TX move to their newly constructed facility. As part of the project, InTelemed designed their campus-wide wired and wireless network, and assisted with the complex implementation task when the entire hospital moved to a new facility.



The first step was to install dual Sonicwall NSA-4500 firewalls. "We wanted redundancy, ease of use and high performace" said Brad Snell, IT director. "The Sonicwalls had a much easier to use interface than other products, yet gave us the power we need for our growing facility. InTelemed helped us set up our security so I feel confident in the new system." The dual Sonicwalls replaced an older Juniper firewall that was managed by an off-site provider. Currently the Sonicwalls communicate using a Cisco firewall and a single T1 line, but Medical Arts has already ordered a 4 T1 bonded network pipe that will give them 6 megabits of total bandwidth. "I like the fact that one Sonicwall can fail and we just keep on running" says Snell.

The backbone infrastructure was handled by Netgear layer 3 gigabit switches. Two telcom closets were connected by dual fiber pairs, providing redundancy in case of a fiber or module failure. While Medical Arts did not yet need the sophistication of Layer 3 switches, the Netgear units give them room for growth as their network matures. Category 6 cabling was used throughout the facility in addition to the fiber runs between closets.

Finally, the Medical Arts wanted to implement a campus-wide wireless network not only for employees, but also for patients. They chose Sonicwall access points that tightly integrated with the Sonicwall firewalls. "With the Sonicwall solution we can manage our entire wired and wireless network from one user interface" says Snell. "InTelemed again helped us set up the wireless system so that our patients had access to the public Internet, yet were isolated from our hospital network." Wireless was also used to connect two remote clinics to the main hospital network.

"We couldn't have done this without help from InTelemed" said Snell. "We had plenty of work on our plate with the move, and we do not deal with complex network issues every day. InTelemed was able to take care of the core of our network so that we could concentrate on our servers and end users."