HPC, the NHS collaborative procurement hub for the West Midlands, Luton and selected trusts in London chose to have a hosted NetWorker service with their own IT administrators controlling user’s accounts on their private network and the ability to add and remove people both inside and outside the organisation as needed.

HPC’s Systems Manager, John Lynch answers questions about their experience of using NetWorker hosted SaaS...

"We were looking for a collaborative capability that would combine voice and data into a single secure and easy-to-use application. With inevitable current pressure on budgets it was critical that all costs be transparent and that we could see the ROI from the outset, NetWorker appeared to meet all these criteria. We simply cannot commit to CapEx at this time."

Q: Why did you choose NetWorker?

JL: Software as a Service or SaaS as it is known, suited our need for speed and fixed costs and NetWorker because the way it is structured seemed ideal for securely extending networks beyond our firewall without any technology or user issues. In the future Zantra-Presence is prepared to deploy an instance of NetWorker that would enable us to run multiple organisations ourselves within the N3 Network.

Q: What was your adoption experience?

JL: Smooth and very easy. The NetWorker HPC branded accounts were set-up for us in advance by Zantra-Presence Networks and literally within a few minutes of receiving their passwords people were connected and using. Everyone reported back that it was simple and intuitive to use and no training was needed – complexity can be a big barrier to adopting new technologies.

Q: Surely maintaining control must be a big issue for HPC-NHS?

JL: NetWorker scores heavily because although hosted SaaS because it is designed to enable IT administrators to have control over their users and maintain security. The fact that the system records all content and this cannot be switched off is a big plus for us and having roles-based structure, means NetWorker enables us to appoint one or more auditors separately from the Administration function.

Q: What other benefits can you see?

JL: Well there is clearly a carbon footprint saving capability if you stop people from travelling and particularly enabling more effective home and mobile working with less reason to have to travel between our central and regional offices. A potentially less obvious win comes from extending the life or legacy equipment because NetWorker will run on all our existing hardware.

Q: Has Zantra-Presence status working made an impact on the way your business functions?

JL: It is still early days but we can clearly see the improvements in collaboration and I expect the benefits to become more visible as the usage grows and people realise how much can be done this way. The fact that I'm under pressure to roll this out faster because the first deployment has clearly demonstrated its effectiveness of the NetWorker solution is a good indicator.

Q: Did you consider Microsoft Office Comms Server as an alternative solution?

JL: Yes of course, we use a lot of MS software and as we are part of the NHS we have access to the MS CAL free but the total cost of ownership is not just about the CAL and OCS server, we have to consider the user software and hardware upgrades required to run it and then the big issue – enabling collaboration outside HPC. NetWorker enables us to create real-time relationships both inside the NHS and outside on demand, that would be very difficult with OCS. For example we are now looking at enabling some of our Key Suppliers to become collaborative Networkers with us.

Q: As an IT Professional, are you aware of anything else on the market that could have provided the same capability?

JL: No, we have looked at other solutions like Webex, but crucial to us is the in-country data hosting and the option to take ownership of our own system in the future and connect it to our choice of Telecoms Provider if we wish. I am not aware of anything other than NetWorker that combines this level of flexibility.

Q: Do you have any observations about Zantra-Presence-based working?

JL: I can see solutions like NetWorker replacing email, once you start working live going back to email seems very slow is certainly not a collaborative solution in fact the opposite is true in many cases it enables people to hide in virtual silos. Collaboration drives efficiencies, it improves productivity and it means that people can easily share ideas and experiences. For an organisations like HPC this is very valuable but I would have thought maybe even more so in the Commercial Sector.

Q: Are you happy to recommend the NetWorker service to other organisations?

JL: Certainly, we have already made introductions to other potential customers within the NHS and we are starting to think creatively about NetWorker can improve working practices both within the Organisation and potentially external patient services.

About HPC-NHS - The organisation provides purchasing, supply chain, healthcare contracting and commercial services to over 40 NHS trusts, who together spend £2.4 billion a year on goods and services