CNS New Zealand partners with Paessler to help
Canopy Cancer Care deliver leading cancer treatment

About CNS

With a focus on IT security, cloud transformation, network and system integration, CNS provide high level solutions designed to suit your business requirements. Our highly qualified team of professionals combined with our passion for IT and industry experience is reflected in the level of service and solutions we provide. CNS offers complete IT solutions, covering everything from design and supply through to implementation and project management, with ongoing support to maximise your return on investment.

"For us, there has always been a clear link between the role of data and IT in protecting and saving lives. Our IT investments are critical to our success, so we demand excellence on behalf of our staff, and for our patients. With CNS, and the PRTG Network Monitor, I have less to worry about knowing that our critical infrastructure is always running effectively. "

Andrea Edwards, IT, Facilities and Projects Manager, Canopy Cancer Care

Technology has changed the healthcare sector. Whilst patient outcomes continue to be the primary focus for healthcare organisations, the foundations of the industry now centre around technology infrastructure and data.

The shift to digital technologies and the reliance on technology, has elevated healthcare IT administrators to the frontline of the patient experience.

As one of the leading cancer treatment centres in New Zealand, Canopy Cancer Care operates four clinical treatment centres across the country, dedicated exclusively to providing treatments including chemotherapy, immunotherapy and other more targeted therapies. The organisation’s world-class cancer care, delivered locally, is supported by its new state-of-the-art facilities.

Leading IT performance for the leader in cancer care

Delays receiving critical test results or downtime of a refrigerator can have a direct impact on both patient care and Canopy Cancer Care’s bottom line. These risks led to Canopy Cancer Care seeking a proactive approach to its IT infrastructure management.

To maintain optimum performance of its IT infrastructure across four locations, Canopy Cancer Care relies on both IT partner CNS and Paessler AG's PRTG Network Monitor. CNS has a talented team of 27 people on the ground in New Zealand and is Paessler’s only Gold certified partner in the country. Canopy Cancer Care is fully managed by CNS through its Accelerate Now IT program support which includes vulnerability management, network capacity management and forecasting, and full 24x7 end-user support. CNS exclusively uses Paessler AG's PRTG Network Monitor to monitor all network equipment, hardware and virtual machines for all of its clients and for its own cloud and inhouse monitoring.

Delivering network visibility for Canopy Cancer Care

With 800 remote sensors deployed across the Canopy Cancer Care network (such as WMI and network sensors), CNS requires a bird’s eye view to proactively monitor and manage it. For Canopy Cancer Care, CNS monitors everything including all manageable devices that support standard network protocols (WMI, RPC, SNMP, Netflow, SYSLOG, MODBUS over TCP and REST API), non-standard network protocols, and IoT devices. In addition, the team is using PRTG Network Monitor for monitoring server performance and resources, workstation status, and network traffic including:

2 x Lenovo x3500 M5 Servers for Prod and DR as virtual Host
1 x Management Server in the head office for sub functions (EDI to HL7 and others)
15 x Switches across 4 different locations
20 x Access Points across 4 different locations

"We have used PRTG Network Monitor for years – it’s easy to use and needs little configuration. It allows the team to monitor the uptime, quality, speed and reliability of Canopy Cancer Care’s IT infrastructure, enabling us to provide them with the security and stability they require to deliver the best possible patient care. "

Boris Wilkitzki, Managing Director, CNS

''What’s more, due to the unique visibility on
IT capacity, performance, and security, we can
better plan IT budgets and infrastructure enhancements with the right data
available at our fingertips.''

Andrea Edwards, IT, Facilities and Projects
Manager, Canopy Cancer Care

Boris Wilkitzki, Managing Director, CNS, said: “What’s more, PRTG gives us the capability to gather accurate data that can be used to implement solutions and budget for projects in a more cost-effective way. This is critical to any organisation but is especially important in healthcare.”

The custom sensors being used by CNS enable the team to create KPI dashboards in real time that offer IT assurance and meaningful data about the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of IT systems.

Wilkitzki added: “PRTG Network Monitor is ideal for monitoring all aspects of today’s drastically growing number of connected network devices including wearables, smart TV’s, and IoT systems. In addition to providing advanced troubleshooting for all of Canopy Cancer Care’s manageable devices, PRTG generates very detailed reports about availability and confidentiality which are used to develop targeted response plans based on capacity trending and analytics. In recent years we have also seen increased demand from customers to provide live visibility of their IT infrastructures in dashboards and customisable self-service portals. PRTG’s flexibility and customisation enables us to do just provide that level of customer assurance – for both the digital clinic and daily operations of Canopy Cancer Care.”

PRTG delivers 100% uptime

Since initial deployment, CNS has been able to transform Canopy’s traditional IT infrastructure into a hybrid cloud system, thanks to PRTG Network Monitor’s native capabilities of monitoring clinical IT workloads. Modernising clinical IT systems and projects, for example by moving to cloud, is often perceived as risky and has a high impact on clinical staff. However, thanks to the implementation of smarter threshold and state alerting alongside capacity trending for external and internal network devices (e.g. switches, firewalls, access points) and applications (e.g. SQL servers, terminal server farm) migrations have become more predictable and seamless.

As a result, CNS with the help of PRTG Network Monitor provide fast, proactive resolutions to CNS and can identify environmental issues within Canopy Cancer Care’s infrastructure before they become wider problems. As a result, the CNS team has been able to deliver 100% uptime to Canopy Cancer Care.

Whilst CNS has prevented outages for over 18 months, in the event of an issue, PRTG automatically alerts the team, via mobile app, so they can immediately diagnose problems. With multiple locations and limited resources, this reduces the burden on Canopy Cancer Care, and allows CNS to efficiently resolve issues, saving both time and money in troubleshooting, travel and even hardware/software upgrades.

Wilkitzki notes: “PRTG’s features, including maps, provide valuable insights into problems and root cause analysis. Object oriented dashboards in particular offer rich interfaces and easy to use maps to all levels of engineers and to Canopy Cancer Care’s IT management team. It allows us to work with total transparency, increasing the overall maturity of Canopy Cancer Care’s IT posture and ultimately working as an extension of their team.”