Patton – Fuller Community Hospital

An analysis of Patton-Fuller Community Hospital Network systems James doglas CMGT/554 December 19, 2011 Carol Eichling An analysis of Patton-Fuller Community Hospital Network systems Patton – Fuller community hospital’s network system consist of two major parts, the first part is the executive part that connects the hospitals executive management, human resources department, operations, IT and data center, etc. , the first network is connected using a 1000base-T Gigabyte network connection that uses a typical Cat6 cabling (Apollo Group Inc. 2008), the second major part of the network connects the departments of radiology, operating room, wards, ICU’s, etc. using a 1000base F fiber optic based connection, this connection is a gigabyte connection too and the both parts of the connections are connected to the network bridge switch that is acting as a core switch. Observing the network structured layout (Apollo Group Inc. , 2008) reveals that the deployment decisions were made depending on the physical distances between the nods in each major network part.

In the first part, it was obvious that the nods where in one physical place and the distances between them is not more than three hundred meters, this assumption were made depending on the fact that the 1000Base T network cannot be efficient more than the distance mentioned above. Where the second major part is in physical locations that more in distance than the executive network, this was based on the assumption the multi-core fiber network can be distanced up to two to three kilometers.

The network logical operations are all based around the IT data center (Apollo Group Inc. , 2008) since it contains the major servers and the NAS (Network Attached Storage) (About. com, 2011), it’s also included the internet gateway router that allows access to the Internet. Furthermore any access to the network from the external resources will be routed through the RAS (Remote Access Server).

Depending on the current topologies readings, several recommendations are necessary to be done in order to keep the network efficiently operational, especially that some parts of the network are mission critical and it is very important to address the issues of availability and reliability. In nowadays network it is very efficient network structure practice to separate the network nods into groups, this will ensure efficiency in interconnection and data transmission, and furthermore it is also one of the famous security practices that will prevent networks in internal structure to access each other.

This can be achieved through using VLAN (virtual LAN) practice (Cisco, 2002), that separates the network nods into groups, each group will be related only to that group nods, this can be done on the switch level (layer 2), and all the VLANs can be interacted with each other through the core switch (layer 3) which provides routing along with switching. This practice can reduce the load on the internal networks through reducing the broadcast messages to that VLAN member’s level, though freeing some bandwidth capacity to more important transmissions.

Another important recommendation is necessary in data center, this will be the separation of the internet server from the internal network, and access it only using remote access methods in case access is needed, this will insure that there are no method of access the internal network only through the RAS server which forces authentication mechanisms to allow any external connection.

It is obvious too that the current server array and the both data centers in the hospital’s network are missing one very important component, and that is the backup system, it is very important to include a backup server to the network to insure data replication is available in case of accidental data corruption or deletion, furthermore take a data snapshots in logical periods of time keeping them physically in another geographical place will be a very likely practice in case of catastrophic data loss.

One of the very good utilities of the hospitals network is the availability of the wireless access on the ward level, this will insure instant connectivity to the hospitals network from the small mobile devices such as laptops or other Wi-Fi based medical devices such as the new cardiograph devices which shares data with the database servers through wireless connection. These wireless devices depending on the diagram specifications are in 5 gigahertz frequency which are not compatible with every laptop computer, a recommendation to replace them with 2. gigahertz frequency devices are more efficient in order to allow laptops to access the network. A special attention is needed in the security of these wireless access points by connecting them to a server like RAS server to authenticate the personnel accessing the network wirelessly before allowing the devices to use the network. This is very important practice to prevent a destructive intrusion into the network. The conclusion

Patton – Fuller hospital’s network has the potential of a successfully designed network with some adjustments to the network configuration is essentially needed to insure availability and reliability. Adding backup system is also an important necessity to prevent data loss, and applying security policies and authentication mechanizes are also essential to ensure continuous network security and performance. References About. com. (2011). Introduction to NAS. Retrieved from http://compnetworking. about. om/od/itinformationtechnology/l/aa070101a. htm Apollo Group Inc.. (2008). Patton – Fuller IT Data Center Diagram. Retrieved from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Healthcare/PFCH/IT/ITDC. htm Apollo Group Inc.. (2008). Patton – Fuller Logical Network Diagram. Retrieved from https://ecampus. phoenix. edu/secure/aapd/CIST/VOP/Healthcare/PFCH/IT/ITLogNet. htm Cisco. (2002). VLAN Security Practice. Retrieved from http://www. cisco. com/warp/public/cc/pd/si/casi/ca6000/prodlit/vlnwp_wp. pdf