A large Canadian medical facility relies on the Stratus everRun
downtime prevention solution for always-on video security
management
Humber River Hospital is one of Canada’s largest
acute care hospitals, serving a catchment area
of more than 850,000 people in the northwest
Greater Toronto Area. North America’s first fully digital
medical facility, Humber River Hospital leverages the
latest technology to deliver a seamless, paperless,
and connected experience for patients, staff, and
clinicians. With a capacity of 656 acute inpatient
beds, including 48 critical care beds, the hospital
has 3,400 staff, approximately 600 physicians with
privileges, and over 1,000 volunteers who are focused
on patient satisfaction. The hospital has formal
affiliations with the University of Toronto and Queen’s
University Medical Schools. A number of Humber
River’s programs and services have been, and
remain, recognized provincially, nationally,
and internationally.
The challenge
Seeking to move beyond the limitations of aging technology
and building infrastructure, Humber River Hospital opened a
new state-of-the-art facility at Keele Street and Wilson Avenue
in October 2015. The culmination of 15 years of planning, the
facility showcases the hospital’s commitment to cutting-edge
technology and innovation as well as its dedication to providing
high-quality care and an exceptional patient experience. In order
to protect the hospital’s patients, staff, and property, facility plans
included installation of a best-in-class video security system
across the healthcare complex.
Round-the-clock video monitoring is essential in a hospital
setting to ensure safety, deter and investigate criminal
activities, and expedite responses in code yellow and code
amber situations. Recognizing this need for constant vigilance,
the consultant who prepared the hospital’s security system
specifications included a requirement for no more than
one minute of downtime per year.
Johnson Controls won the contract to commission and install
the security systems according to the hospital’s predefined
specifications. The contract stipulated that Johnson Controls
would face significant penalties in the event that the security
systems were down for more than 60 seconds per year.
Therefore, the pressure was one to select the right video
surveillance management solution and find a way to keep
it up and running continuously.
The solution
Johnson Controls selected Milestone’s XProtect Professional
Series video surveillance management system to provide
a complete visual overview of the entire hospital complex,
enabling security staff to monitor the facilities and respond to
any incidents with optimal speed and efficiency. But even the
best security system can do its job only if it is continuously
available. Milestone Systems certified Stratus everRun as
the only supported redundant system solution with zero
application downtime. This certification, combined with
successful implementations at other customer sites, led
Johnson Controls to choose everRun Enterprise to meet
Humber River Hospital’s requirement for five nines of availability.
While the new hospital was still under construction, Johnson
Controls installed and tested the everRun systems running
the XProtect applications. everRun’s software-based solution
pairs the physical resources in two servers to create a single
virtual machine that keeps running in cases where a failure
does occur in either server. The entire XProtect application
environment, including data in memory, is replicated by
everRun, ensuring that the video security system continues
to run without interruption or data loss. If a hardware
component fails, everRun substitutes the healthy component
from the second system until the failed component is repaired
or replaced.
Following successful testing, Johnson Controls implemented
three identical everRun systems running the Milestone XProtect
video management software as part of a complete, integrated
security solution at Humber River Hospital’s new leading-edge
healthcare complex.
The results
Since the new Humber River Hospital site became fully
operational in 2015, the three everRun redundant server
systems running three instances of the XProtect video
surveillance management applications have been
continuously available.
“The systems have been running with zero downtime since
their deployment,” said Mike Orrico, Security/Emergency
Preparedness/Traffic Demand Management at Humber
River Hospital. “They have been performing perfectly.”
The everRun solution also enables the hospital to realize the
value of continuously available applications without requiring
changes to its current and planned infrastructure or
modifications to existing configurations and policies.
”We wanted a solution that would not add complexity or require
extensive training for our system administrators,” added Orrico.
“Stratus everRun allowed us to quickly implement continuously
available platforms on standard Windows servers with built-in
virtualization and no application modifications.”
“Humber River Hospital is very pleased with our Stratus everRun servers.
They provide the level of redundancy and reliability we require in a
simple-to-use Windows-based solution
”
Mike Orrico
Security/Emergency Preparedness/Traffic Demand Management
Humber River Hospital