Gathering Network Requirements

Initial Requirements

Use the following template, adding rows as necessary, to document network requirements.

Requirement
Network Applications
Application Type / Applications / Importance / Comments
E-Mail, contacts, calendars / Outlook, OWA / Important
Mobile Device Voice Dictation and Medical Transcription / Critical / Dragon Systems/Nuance medical solutions.
Language Translator / Critical / Cisco Collaborative Care – Language Interpretation Services
Business applications / MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint / Important
Medical Imaging (PACS) – storage and retrieval / Horizon Medical Imaging and Cisco Collaborative Imaging / Critical
Groupware / Cisco Unified Meeting Place and Collaborative Imaging solutions / Important
Web browsing / Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera / Important
Video teleconferencing and telemedicine / Cisco TelePresence and Care-at-a-Distance / Important / Requires QoS
Database / Oracle PeopleSoft / Critical / Patient records, employee records, billing records, financial and other business records.
Support applications / Custom Apps / TBD / TBD
Network Services / Comments
Horizon and Cisco Collaborative Imaging
Higher campus speeds, with 1GB to the desktop / Medical image files are very large, and the 10Mb network is very limiting.
DHCP / Convert from static IPv4 to dynamic IPv6 addressing where possible.
Security / Multi-dimensional security throughout using Firewalls, ACL's, anti-virus/anti-malware, data encryption, and redundant operations and backup.
QoS / Replace the variety of hubs and unmanaged switches with layer-3 and layer-4 intelligent switches from Cisco for QoS delay-sensitive applications.
Network management / Monitor and manage network performance
VLAN’s / Move from a physical network to a logical network to better manage growth and network traffic, as well as provide additional security.
IP multicast / Required to support teleconferencing and e-training and learning solutions.
Voice / Migration to IP-based telephony system.
Mobility / Extend network access beyond PC's and laptops to include mobile devices, supporting thin-clients, PDA's, cell phones, and other wireless mobile devices
Secure, campus-wide wireless access
Organizational Goals / Current Situation / Comments
Exclusive Cisco IOS / Hybrid, divergent networks, i.e.; Novell, MS, Apple, ArcNet, etc. / Replace with an integrated, sole-provider network infrastructure that maximizes robustness and scalable expandability – incorporating 3-layer Cisco topology
Unified communications network / Separate voice and data networks, cabling, and equipment / Provide unification of voice, video, and data employing Quality of Service metrics to support increasing importance of teleconferencing and telemedicine.
Regulatory, legislative, and professional compliance / JCAHO, HIPPA (Cisco self-defending network architecture?)
Network Policies / n/a / Access control, acceptable use, security management, incident handling.
Organizational Constraints / Current Situation / Comments
Budget
Personnel / CIO, Network Admin, Tech Support Staff of about 22 people among the 3 locations. / Stage 4 EMR adoption level organizations have rate of .210 IT Full-time employees (FTE) per hospital bed. Licensed for 200 beds. With the combined square footage of 108,000 sq. ft., the ratio of FTE creates about 42 Full-Time IT personnel, including management – across the Enterprise.
Policy / Prefers to move away from the hybrid, divergent networks, i.e.; Novell, MS, Apple, ArcNet, etc. to a single vendor and standardized protocols / Exclusive implementation of the Cisco IOS for an integrated, sole-provider network infrastructure that maximizes robustness and scalable expandability – incorporating 3-layer Cisco topology.
Schedule / TBD / TBD
Technical Goals / Importance
Performance / 20 / An ultra-fast core with 10GbE over new Multimode Fiber (850nm OM4) all the way to the access switches, multiple WAN and Internet connections from different vendors for optimal performance and redundant backup connections.
Security / 20 / As much as it is desired to have great performance and availability, laws and regulations compel security, therefore it is equally important.
Availability / 20 / 99.9%
Adaptability / 5 / The modular nature of the Cisco SONA architecture makes it very adaptable by nature.
Scalability / 10 / Future bandwidth needs are considered in this design, including the use of OM4 to not only provide 10GbE on the network backbone today, but potentially 40GbE and 100GbE when needed.
Manageability / 15 / One of the main advantages touted from the modular Cisco SONA hierarchical model is ease the relative ease in managing the network in comparison to the 3-tier hierarchical model, or no model at all.
Mobility / 10 / Teleworker support is very important, as there are many clinicians working in the field on patient home visits, and nurses working from home offices.
Technical Constraints / Current Situation / Comments
Existing cable infrastructure / Outdated CAT3 and CAT5 for 10MbE and Token-Ring. / Core, distribution, and distribution to access switches will be at 10GbE using nMMF and perhaps EtherChannel in the server farm and between switches in a VSS. CAT6 or better will be installed at the access layers to provide 1GbE to the desktop.
Existing network devices / Unmanaged hubs and switches / Replace all with Cisco multi-layer switches with a modular, 3-tier hierarchical network design.
Bandwidth availability / 64kb/s WAN link / Move up to at least T-1 at each branch office, and T-3 at the main campus, with redundancy from other vendors not sharing the same trunk lines or network.
Divergent LAN topologies / Multiple network operating systems, including Apple, Novell, Token-Ring, ArcNet. / New equipment must support IPv6 and the stated performance, management, and security objectives within the modular Cisco SONA framework.

Missing Information

Use the following template, adding rows as necessary, to document areas in which additional data is required and necessary assumptions you are making to address this information gap.

Missing Information / Comments and Assumptions
Network Applications and Network Services
What Directory services are currently in place? Is it an LDAP server? / Assume Active Directory, but which version is unclear. May require upgrade to a Cisco MGN-compatible LDAP directory server.
Organizational Goals
Internet Access / Internet access requirements for the Main campus and branches are not clear.
Video Surveillance / It was not stated whether the hospital has a video surveillance system in place.
Organizational Constraints
What is the budget for this major network overhaul?
Gross square footage of the other 7 buildings on the Main Campus and their distance among each other / The total number of staff at each branch location and the Main Campus is grossly out of line (too dense) with Department of Energy statistics (EIA, 2001), which show an average of about 500 sq. ft. of space per employee. For example:
Harlingen:
The 10,000 sq. ft. space is enough to accommodate 20 staff members per 8-hour shift, or 60 per day. Are all of the other 240 staff teleworkers (1:4 ratio)?
McAllen:
The 18,000 sq. ft. space is enough to accommodate 36 staff members per 8-hour shift, or 108 per day. Are all of the other 327 staff teleworkers (1:3 ratio)?
Main Campus:
8 buildings, with the main one being an 8-storey, 80,000 sq. ft. building. This space is large enough to accommodate 160 staff members per 8-hour shift, or about 500 per day.
To accommodate the remaining 850 staff members, we’d need another 142,000 sq. ft. of space among the other 7 buildings (20,000 sq. ft./each) with dividing the 850 by 3 8-hour shifts (283 staff/shift) and multiplying that by 500 sq. ft. for each of the 283 staff members working during any shift.
Technical Goals
IP Multicast requirements? / IP Multicast may reduce bandwidth requirements used for telephony, video, and other QoS services, and increase efficiency of servers.
How many teleworkers need to be supported, and with what kind of devices? / See Organizational constraints mentioned above.
Technical Constraints
Business constraints, such as policies and goals. / TBD
What is the criticality of applications? / Electronic Health Records (EHR) and medical imaging are equally the most critical applications.

Energy Information Administration. (2001, January 3). A Look at health care buildings:
How many employees are there? Retrieved September 19, 2010 from

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