Technology has enabled drastic changes in research over the last decade, including the use of “big data”, and rapid advances in genomic sequencing. With such rapid change, it can be difficult for the infrastructure supporting these technologies to keep pace. Such was the case with the network being used across Faculty of Medicine research facilities at clinical sites in Vancouver.
With demand on the network increasing over time, pieces had been added or changed by UBC IT, MedIT, Health Shared Services BC (HSSBC) and research groups in order to accommodate immediate needs. Recognizing that this “organic growth” model was unsustainable, these groups came together to work on a redesigned network that would better meet current needs and provide opportunities to scale for future demands.
Coordinated partnerships
One of the challenges of redesigning the network was coordinating the different groups involved. With each group governing different parts of the network, creating the new design and replacing equipment was a collaborative effort. Additionally, any network equipment replacements had to go through MedIT, UBC IT, and HSSBC approval processes in order to ensure the work was well-coordinated and that the impacts were considered from all three perspectives.
Understanding impacts
The team worked to ensure that technical changes didn’t impact the work of researchers.
Upgrading the network meant taking critical equipment offline so that it could be replaced. However, taking that equipment offline would make the network unavailable for that period of time. MedIT worked with HSSBC to identify who was using the UBC network at Vancouver General Hospital, St. Paul’s Hospital, and Children’s & Women’s Health Centre of BC. The project team then met with each impacted group fact-to-face to find times when these network outages would be least disruptive.
These meetings revealed that researchers could be using the network at unexpected times – running parallel computing processes, or transferring large sets of data over evenings and weekends. Taking the time to have these short discussions proved critical in ensuring the work of researchers remained uninterrupted.
As of this autumn, network upgrades have successfully been completed at the Vancouver General Hospital and Children’s & Women’s Health Centre sites, with work continuing at St. Paul’s Hospital. These initial upgrades will not have an immediate impact on the speed of the network, but lay down the essential groundwork for improvements to be realised in the future through continued collaborative work with research groups.
Related: