Case Study: Diakonie Kork Creates Reliable IT Structures That Build Trust UNetVault: Backup sing And NetVault: Report Manager

By Markus Haberstroh, IT manager of Diakonie Kork

Meeting the needs of walk-in and stationary diagnostics and therapy, rehab, and R&D—the range of services provided by the Epilepsy Centre, Kork, is as wide as it is sophisticated. For over one hundred years the Epilepsy Centre, Kork, Germany (Diakonie Kork Epilepsiezentrum) has been an organization that serves people suffering from epilepsy. The Epilepsy Centre, Kork, is one of five medical centers in Germany specializing in this illness. These medical centers are nationwide institutions meeting the needs of walk-in and stationary diagnostics and therapy, rehab, and R&D. Operating their own clinics both for in-patient stay and outpatients, these facilities network with rehab facilities to provide living facilities for people suffering from epilepsy and other disabilities.

Historical growth of the facility's IT infrastructure had led to a heterogeneous environment no longer able to meet the needs of the users and almost impossible to maintain. This is when the facility's decision makers called for a complete restructuring of the IT architecture and IT department. Their goal was to consolidate IT across the board and tangibly improve functionality and cost efficiency of IT, plus to substantially improve the support offering for the roughly 300 IT users. In light of the complex structure of the various business departments at the medical facility, this was a task requiring a high degree of business competence as well as real-world experience. These requirements dovetailed with the expertise of ePace, an IT consultancy and systems house headquartered in Aichtal, Germany. ePace presented a rough concept, subdivided into clear project phases, which prompted decision makers to give a thumbs-up for implementation as of August, 2005.

The data center was designed and equipped by Leitwerk, with ePace doing project management. One of the tasks of the IT full-service provider with hardware and software solution expertise was to select and implement a powerful back-up and recovery solution.