Erasmus MC

Erasmus MC is undergoing a multi-year and large-scale renovation and expansion. Originally, a new, private data center was planned. The hospital decided against this last year. Chief Information Officer Simon Vermeer explains why: “It turned out not to be wise to invest in this yourself for two reasons. The first is quality; As a hospital, you are insufficiently able to set up a data center yourself in accordance with the desired standards and maintain it at that level. You should also contact a specialist such as Bytesnet for the highest availability and security. Secondly, outsourcing costs less money for Erasmus MC. Calculated over ten years, you are talking about a saving of approximately 20 percent.”

Erasmus MC now realizes more functionality, higher availability and better security at lower costs. This is guaranteed by extensive certification: ISO 9001, ISO 14000, ISO 27001 and NEN 7510. The latter is specific to information security in the healthcare sector; including with a view to electronic patient files.

Renovation of housing and EPD
The business relationship between Erasmus MC and Bytesnet has existed since 2009. At the time, the hospital decided to close one of its two data centers and move the servers to the data center in the Spaans Kubus (then still under the Rotterdam Internet Exchange Foundation).

At the beginning of this year, Bytesnet was commissioned to house the second data center. The condition was that delivery would be May 1. That date was related to the introduction of HiX, the new Electronic Patient File (EPD), the planned demolition of Erasmus MC’s last own data center and an internal move early next year. Despite the complexity, amount of work and short time, the planned date was met.

This was partly possible because Bytesnet and the partners involved started immediately, even before the final contracts were signed. That signing took place on May 2, one day after delivery. “That shows how great the mutual trust was,” says David Voetelink. As a member of the board of directors of Erasmus MC, he is responsible for finance and ICT, among other things. “We knew what we had in each other.”

Peter de Jong, CEO of Bytesnet, emphasized the unique collaboration within this project. “In addition, our partners have done everything they can to make this possible. The good cooperation between the involved ICT employees of Erasmus MC and our colleagues should not go unmentioned.”

Not fourteen months, but fourteen weeks
“Usually a major project like this takes fourteen months; Now we achieved it in fourteen weeks,” says Michael Arbman, Business Development Manager at Bytesnet, with satisfaction. “First and foremost, this required tight planning, trust, clear agreements and good communication. Everyone had the mentality: ‘It’s not actually possible, but we’re going to do it!’”

Twin Datacenter concept
Bytesnet’s successful and secure Twin Datacenter concept was chosen. Erasmus MC’s data and software systems are housed in two data centers: Bytesnet’s own data center in Rotterdam (the Spanish Cube) and the Delft branch of partner The Data Center Group. With this valued partner, with whom we already offer several twin data center solutions but also compete, we worked shoulder to shoulder during the sales process and The Data Center Group immediately invested in the necessary facilities in the field of power, cooling and security before completing the sales process. . Our Twin Datacenter concept guarantees that Erasmus MC always has access to the data and software systems. Tallgrass from Amsterdam installed the equipment (from Huawei) for the dark fiber connections, making the ‘optical transport’ of the data possible at speeds of up to 100 Gb per second.

Another important partner was Relined Fiber Network. That company realized the necessary additional fiber optic connections. “They managed to do that within an unprecedentedly short period of time,” says Peter de Jong. “Including the permits and the excavation work that was required. For a new connection between the two data centers, a cable had to be laid under the Rotterdam-Delft railway line. Train traffic was even stopped for a while.”

About Erasmus MC
Erasmus MC in Rotterdam is the largest University Medical Center in the Netherlands. Nearly 13,000 employees strive every day to provide excellent care through internationally groundbreaking research and education. They increase knowledge about disease and health and connect the latest scientific insights with practical and preventive action, so that patients benefit optimally and healthy people can stay healthy. Being visibly better and remaining at the forefront in the field of complex, innovative and acute care through collaboration with others are important ambitions of Erasmus MC.

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