HPHP Group: upgraded internet speed to cope with a crisis situation

The HPHP group owns two clinics in the Lille region: the Villeneuve d'Ascq clinic (230 beds) and the Mitterie clinic (215 beds). Both sites have a 100 Mbps fiber. These internet connections are provided by Sewan, in partnership with Eurafibre.

"As a telecom infrastructure operator, we are well aware of Eurafibre's role with regard to companies for whom a broadband connection is necessary - even indispensable - for the smooth running of their activities. Some organisations, such as those active in healthcare, absolutely need to be able to rely on a reliable optic fiber network to ensure the transmission of their digital flows: messaging, office automation, business applications (including those for emergencies), data backups, VoIPetc.", explains Eurafibre.

"Fiber now allows us to connect more than 200 stations per clinic. We have more than 60 servers, i.e. more than 30 servers per clinic. We benefit from a data rate of 100 Mbps for each site," explains Guillaume Rembry, the group's CISO. "We have a link Sewan on each clinic, linked inVPN".

Under normal circumstances, the 100 Mbps bandwidth is sufficient for both clinics. The needs in terms of interconnection for the two sites concern only messaging and, from time to time, the opening of a session to do remote control for example, as part of a troubleshooting. "In this context, we don't need a lot of bandwidth for backups or large file transfers. We have two infrastructures that are hosted on each site. There is no interconnection or exchange of databases, for example, between sites that would require more bandwidth."

The covid-19 crisis has forced the group's ISD to review its connection needs, particularly to cope with increasing demands for teleworking. "In the early stage, this mainly concerned administrative services. But now we have new needs that are being created with doctors who are requesting teleconsultation. With videoconferencing, we need more bandwidth," says Guillaume Rembry.

Facing new needs

In this emergency situation, the group's management wanted to know if it was possible to temporarily increase the bandwidth of the two sites in order to cope with the new demands and needs. Sewan therefore took the decision, in partnership with Eurafibre, to temporarily upgrade their fibers from 100 to 400 Mbps for several months, and this free of charge.

"When Sewan asked for a solution that would allow clinics connected to Eurafibre to work in optimal conditions, our teams immediately proposed a link upgrade to offer these institutes more bandwidth and therefore more comfort. We at Eurafibre are very proud to be part of the fight against the pandemic and to contribute to the inter-professional solidarity that has been evident since the beginning of this health crisis," said Eurafibre.

"The upgrade went very quickly. I was very surprised because at the supplier level the situation was a bit on standby as far as interventions, travel, parcel shipments, etc. were concerned. Sewan reacted very quickly. However, we needed to change equipment for the clinic in Villeneuve d'Ascq which was no longer compatible. I received the equipment very quickly and the installation could be done in a very short time".

Responding to patient demand

Patients were also asking for videoconferencing with their relatives since visits are no longer possible at the moment. The HPHP group's ISD has therefore installed a few peripherals and equipment to meet this need. This had to be taken into account in addition to the teleconsultation and access VPN internal teams. "So we really needed to increase our internet bandwidth to cope with the connection overload.

"Our users are very satisfied with their VPN. Everything was rolled out easily because we allow our teams to take control of their workstation remotely. Each employee opens a remote session and can return to his or her professional environment from home. The remote computer does all the work. The resources used are those of the group. Once everyone had found all their applications, daily tools, data and other files, everything went well.

Save time by anticipating installations

For Guillaume Rembry, the fact that he asked Sewan for a VPN connection very early on has helped a lot in this crisis context. "We bought time. Our infrastructure was already dimensioned to cope with the additional load. We had already done tests and we didn't need to install one VPN last-minute without knowing if our installation could support it. All we had to do, was manage the teams and train them on how to use the VPNwithout having to worry about the technical side. The most work was the creation of VPN accounts for all the teams and the configuration of the workstations.