An Overnight Success: Data Center Managed Services for a Medical School

The Challenge:

Urgent Data Center Buildout for Medical School's Acquisition of Clinics 

A medical school was set to acquire more than twenty clinics from a competitive university. The school’s internal IT team would be taking over operational ownership of these clinics, but it would only gain access to the IT environment one business day before they needed to be operational. As the clinics served more than 1,500 patients daily, the university’s primary concern was to ensure that its community would not be affected by the transition. The university sought a partner that could build out a new data center so that the clinics’ existing services could be pointed at it without any interruptions.   

However, the competitive university was uncooperative about providing access to or information about the clinics prior to handing them over. While the IT staff could therefore only provide very limited data to its service provider, the university still needed everything prepared in advance within a very tight time frame of three weeks. Further, it had a firm deadline of becoming operational within one business day of assuming ownership.   

Financially, there were limited restrictions due to the tight timeline. The IT team did not wish to work with multiple partners because of the complexity of the environment; it needed a single point of contact that could bring the disparate components of the project together. 

The Solution:

Seamless Transition: C1's Expertise in Data Center Buildout  

C1 had an existing relationship with the team taking over responsibility for the IT environment, which led to the team initiating conversations with C1 about how to accomplish this daunting task. The IT team explained that C1 would have to move through the situation in the dark, without access to the clinics, and prepare everything in advance with the limited available information. C1 immediately jumped into action, activating a large number of internal resources.   

Twelve engineers met with the customer the very next business day to assess the situation and understand the business and technical requirements. Hassan Kassih, Vice President, C1 Capabilities, developed a quick understanding of the situation and the requirements for executing a successful transition. He worked closely with the internal IT team members, making them feel comfortable that their goals could be achieved.   

Within the next week, C1 engaged its strategic partners to procure, deliver, and build a full data center stack. On the day of the handover, C1 had more than 30 engineers on-site to manage the process. The C1 team worked round-the-clock on a holiday weekend to ensure the critical migration proceeded as planned.  

Ultimately, the breadth of C1’s services and the dedication of its team enabled the customer to accomplish a very complex cutover in a very short period of time—with no interruptions.   

Post-transition, C1 assumed responsibility for managing all aspects of the infrastructure: routing, switching, wireless, firewalls, and the entire data center stack, which consisted of Cisco Unified Computing System, Pure Storage, Dell EMC Data Domain Backup, Veeam Backup, and Sophos Antivirus. 

The Result:

Successful Cutover and Long-Term Partnership: C1's Impact on Medical School's Clinics    

C1 helped the customer achieve its cutover deadline, which was critically important. The clinics were operational the very next business day after the medical school assumed ownership of them. Since the clinics did not suffer any outages during business hours, the patients were not affected and the clinics were able to provide a seamless experience.   

Throughout the hectic transition, C1 inspired comfort and confidence within the customer while absorbing a large percentage of its workload. The relationship with the customer has strengthened immensely due to the C1 team’s willingness to go above and beyond to ensure the project was completed successfully and on-time.   

C1 continues to manage the customer’s data center and is in the process of completing six additional projects with the customer. The success of this engagement has set the stage for a long-term, multifaceted relationship.