Network failure closed hospitals to ambulance admissions

IF?

"A full investigation into the network design and components is being undertaken to verify if there are any design issues to be addressed."

There is clearly a nasty single point of failure here. I am going to stick my neck out and suggest that it isn't the only switch which could have gone pop (as they had to systematically close off the network).

Is this stuff not monitored?

Strange use of English..

Call me a fool but I wouldn't classify having to cancel all operations and divert ambulances to other (possibly farther away) hospitals as 'business as usual'. Their 'business continuity plan' patently wasn't anything of the sort. Perish the possibility someone in management will take responsibility though, some lowly network techy will walk the plank but nothing else will change.

As for the NHS and consultancy, just wait till Dishy David and Curious George get through privatising it...

Jon

Excellence in NHS IT Delivery and Operation

This is obviously why all NHS IT jobs state that you must have previous NHS experience.

Lord forbid that they risk actually getting somebody on staff with a track record of successful delivery and operation of mission critical system in geographically dispersed locations, vendor management, testing, etc.

How many NHS medical facilities do you think we have that have two seperate landlines at oposite ends of the building from dfferent suppliers? (*)

(*) as in something better than having all the staff at a hosiptal locked out because THE (as in single) authentication server was offline, and wouldn't be fixed until monday morning (this hospital has a minor injuries unit, plus a neurological ward)

24 hours to fix a network.

What would it take to make the repair process *that* slow?

1) No up to date network (logical) map linked to a physical location map. So not sure how the data gets from A to B.

2) No remote monitoring of critical network devices, so someone has to go out there and *look* at a front panel (possibly reporting back what they see to someone in a network admin office). Not a good idea when hospitals tend to be big and hardware tends to be stuffed in locked cupboards blocked by heavy equipment or the odd dying patient on a trolley.

3) No on site spares to do the replacement.

4) A network vulnerable to *multiple* single point failures (which *might* have been picked up if 1 had existed and a competent person had looked at it) so you know the *whole* networks down but you don't know how.

5) Written authority required from some senior management type who *absolutely* must sign off any drastic action (although they won't understand what it does even if *explained* to them) who is naturally out of contact, probably at a conference on improving network reliability.

I'm not a network admin so I'm sure you guys who do this for your day job (one or two of whom I'll bet work in the NHS) can find plenty more ways to turn what I would think should be no more than a 1 hour task (That includes getting the replacement box to where it has to be and swapping the plugs) into a *minimum* of a 10 hour job (when they say normal ambulance service resumed)