For the management and security of their network, the Emmaüs group relies on a managed service from Belgacom. This gives the group all the advantages of the most up-to-date solution, while the IT-department is able to continue to concentrate on their core tasks.
Emmaüs is a Christian-inspired organization for healthcare and well-being. The group comprises the AZ Sint-Jozef in Malle and the AZ Sint-Maarten, with three campuses in Mechelen and Duffel. The Emmaüs group also includes facilities such as psychiatric hospitals and residential facilities, rest homes and nursing homes for the elderly, and care centers for people with disabilities, among others. All told, Emmaüs has over and 20 sites, chiefly located in the province of Antwerp. There are 5,500 employees associated with the organization. The IT-support is centrally organized by a team of 30 staff members. “With that team we focus on the core tasks of IT: providing support to the business-side,” explains IT-manager Joris Everaert. “Monitoring and control of the network is absolutely crucial, but actually, it is not part of these core tasks.”
As the existing infrastructure regulating access to the network was gradually growing obsolete, Emmaüs was looking for a new solution. “In the first place, we needed to validate the existing environment,” continues Joris Everaert, “in order to find out the extent to which the protection of the network was still up to date. In the process, we considered whether we should invest in our own management of the firewall. But without internal experts who could follow up the monitoring and control, that didn’t look like it would make much sense.” For Emmaüs it was also important to review the network access because the organization is increasingly working with external partners. This external connectivity is becoming business-critical for Emmaüs, for aspects such as exchanging information with the government.
Security via managed service
“Among the proposals we received from suppliers, Belgacom was the only one who effectively offered a complete alternative,” according to Joris Everaert. It is a redundantly constructed managed service through which Belgacom monitors and controls the network access for Emmaüs at the sites in Duffel and Zoersel. The solution - one firewall that is virtualized for the two locations - protects the network from external attack. At the same time, it also regulates the Internet access for the Emmaüs-employees. In addition, the patients in certain departments are provided with Internet access from their rooms. Via VPN and Citrix the doctors working for Emmaüs are also able to access the hospital network remotely. Emmaüs receives a monthly overview from Belgacom of all of the security risks that occurred, as well as the measures taken to further increase the solution’s performance.
The monitoring and control is done at the Belgacom Security Operations Center. “Speed is a crucial factor in this,” observes Joris Everaert. “When a supplier logged in to access the network from an infected laptop, we instantly received a message from Belgacom about the risk. It was literally a matter of minutes. So the security is also effective from the inside out.” With the managed service for the monitoring and the control of the network access, all of the objectives of Emmaüs were met. “There’s no question the solution is effective. However, we view it above all as a good insurance policy. We buy the security for our infrastructure as a service - with a SLA that guarantees the level of service provided. At the same time, we are free to concentrate on our core activities, without having to invest in developing that specialized expertise ourselves.”
Company profile
The Emmaüs group offers high-quality healthcare that is affordable and tailored to the patient’s needs. Emmaüs works through a network of facilities overseen by a single central administration.
Business benefits
- Up-to-date security for the network access, including monitoring and follow-up
- Managed service at a fixed, predictable price, with no own investment in additional expertise
- Improved performance of the IT-environment for employees thanks to secure Internet access on-site and secure VPN-access remotely
- Secure Internet access for patients, separated from the network traffic for the internal staff
More info?
For more information on 360° Security Services, visit Belgacom 360° Security Services or contact your account manager.
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