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The Malta Independent | Thursday 22 October 2015
Hard work pays off – the behind the scenes of the new Oncology Centre Data Network Ing. Efrem Borg and Vincent Micallef - Project Managers within the Infrastructure Services Department at MITA, responsible for the SAM OC Network Project. The formation of the new Oncology Centre Data Network In 2013, the Malta Information and Technology Agency (MITA) was engaged to design, facilitate the procurement process, implement and commission a comprehensive wireless and wired data network within Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre (SAM OC) located adjacent to Mater Dei Hospital (MDH). The data network deployed at the Oncology Centre, commissioned during the third quarter of 2015, allows workstations, laptops and tablets, together with medical equipment to access ICT health systems hosted in MITA’s Data Centres, together with other corporate services such as mail and internet. Clients making use of the wired and wireless network include medical personnel, administrative personnel, in and out patients and guests visiting the Oncology Centre. Apart from legacy data services and medical services, the data network also caters for the connectivity of ancillary services such as closed circuit camera systems (CCTV), building management services (BMS), and telephony (VoIP). The Oncology Centre network is composed of approximately 2,500 data points spread across the four floors and three defined segments, serviced through approximately 200km of copper network cable and 8km of fibre backbone network cable. Twenty full size network cabinets located in nine distinct geographically dispersed Distribution Facilities (DF) host all the network communication equipment. The active network components consist of a
number of enterprise-grade firewalls, routers, core, distribution and access layer switches, wireless controllers and wireless access points. The data network deployed at the Oncology Centre has been designed using a similar network architecture deployed within Mater Dei Hospital. This enables the seamless interfacing and communication between the two networks, sharing common core network services and Wide Area Network (WAN) connections. The selected network design enables devices connected to the network at SAM OC to access medical services in the same manner as other devices accessing information from Mater Dei Hospital. The network design is intended to offer a high degree of resilience, adequate for the highavailability requirements of medical environments. The project was split into a number of phases, each having a num-
ber of pre-defined deliverables: Requirement Gathering and Design Phase – Collating requirements from various project stakeholders and defining a network design capable of fulfilling the immediate and medium-term forthcoming networking requirements of the hospital. Procurement Phase – Defining a detailed list of material, consisting primarily of active network equipment and assisting the client in the technical aspects of the tendering process. Executing acceptance testing tasks of delivered equipment to ensure equipment can provide the technical functionality as requested in the design phase. Implementation Phase – Physical installation, connection, and configuration of all network active components.
Testing and Commissioning Phase – Performing quality assurance of all passive infrastructures to ensure works were executed in line with industry standards. Moreover, as part of the commissioning of the network, a number of performance and failover tests were defined and executed. Adjustments were carried out to further optimise network performance. Documentation and Handover – In order to provide a seamless handover to the client and MITA’s operational arm, the project team has documented all network related information collated throughout the project and organised a number of information and familiarisation sessions. MITA approaches its projects using a project oriented approach, intended to ensure that the agreed tasks are delivered to the expected level of quality, within the agreed timelines and within the agreed budgets. The assigned Project Manager has managed the Oncology Centre project using a matrix-management approach, formulating a project team, consisting primarily of MITA’s networks team members and other service teams within the Agency. One of the major challenges encountered throughout this project was the provisioning of network access in defined areas of the Oncology Centre in the early phases of the project, to enable the installation, testing and commissioning of critical medical components. The delivery of the project has proved to be challenging and demanding, requiring a substantial effort, teamwork, perseverance, dedication and commitment. It has, however, proved to be a source of personal satisfaction to
all MITA employees who have actively contributed to the success of this project. An ICT steering committee was established early in the second quarter of 2014, to which MITA’s presence was requested and thus be in a position to provide the necessary assistance in this migration. Following numerous discussions with the client, the respective software/hardware suppliers, it was mutually agreed that all IT services implemented at Sir Paul Boffa Hospital (SPBH) were to be moved to MITA Data Centre (DC). The rationale behind this decision was that this was the only manner in which the Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre (SAM OC) could integrate, share and utilise IT services and other medical resources at Mater Dei Hospital (MDH). Moreover, and most important of all, patient treatment could continue without any interruptions, as all services would be available both from SPBH and Oncology at MDH concurrently. The migration would thus be transparent to the patients. In this respect MITA was responsible to provide the necessary bandwidth connectivity between SPBH, MITA DC and SAM OC, together with an adequate testing environment. The two main servers from SPBH were transferred to MITA DC in August of 2014. The remaining thirteen servers were migrated in October 2014. These enabled various modalities to be made accessible from both locations. The new digital accelerators were installed in November 2014 which was then followed by the necessary calibration and testing by the Leeds University team. December 2014 saw the first department migration to SAMOC and during the first quarter of 2015 various new modalities and hardware were incorporated, which were then handed over to the client. Physical move of all SPBH personnel was carried out by the first week of September. The successful completion of the SPBH to SAMOC migration in conjunction with the very complex network infrastructure project and related requirements has been very rewarding to all who worked on this project. The invaluable contribution of MITA Networks team, Systems and Databases team, key personnel from the Ministry for Energy and Health and the Health CIO offices, Foundation for Medical Services (FMS), together with the suppliers pulled this through, to the satisfaction of the client and the patients, who now have a state of the art Oncology hospital.
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The Malta Independent | Thursday 22 October 2015
MITA Communications and PR Team
The Malta Independent ICT Feature
I
nformation Security is a high priority sector in today’s day and age. The MITA feature team interviewed one of the top people worlwide within the sector David Kennedy where he explained what a company and
individual should take care of in order to protect themselves. The Sir Anthony Mamo Oncology Centre (SAM OC) is a new added bonus on MITA’s curriculum. The Infrastructure Services Department at MITA responsible for the SAM OC
Network project, will be giving an overview of the hard work behind the whole IT infrastructure within the Oncology Centre. All ICT Features are available on www.mita.gov.mt/ictfeature
Are you being Spied? If yes..what can you do? learned? It must be explained that in order to do our job well, we do physical attacks. This means that we act like burglars. We enter buildings as if we were burglars to see how we can counter do it. I’ll give you an example. We once entered a bank in the middle of the night by lighting an electronic cigarette. It was as easy as that. Prior to doing this, we would train this technique elsewhere.
David Kennedy, considered as a forward thinker in the information security field, is the founder and CEO of TrustedSec and CoFounder and CTO of Binary Defense Systems (BDS). Last week he was in Malta where he participated in a hackaton exercise targeting University students. The idea of this was to teach them about the importance of security. Prior to TrustedSec, David was a Chief Security Officer (CSO) for Diebold Incorporated, a Fortune 1000 company located in over 80 countries with over 20,000 employees. How was TrustedSec formed and what is your area of expertise? Prior to TrustedSec, I worked in the military intelligence cryptography and hacking. That’s where I started my foundations in the security subject. It was a good learning curve. After that I started working with as company as a Chief Security Officer where I ran their security programme. There, I realised that many people are struggling with security. In 2011, when I was 29, I decided to start off my own company. It was just myself, in my basement. Today, we have three companies with just over 65 employees, many of them being security specialists. As companies, our job is to do our utmost to help companies and individuals to solve their security issues. We work with several countries starting from the U.S, Russia, China, various countries from Europe, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, just to mention a few. Our clients are various, starting from banks, manufacturers, hospitals and military installations. Everybody needs security. The trick was to get into the industry early. I am the face to the security industry. What made you look into Security in IT? In an era where we are heavily relying on technology, what is your role in all this? We are advancing in technology extremely fast. We live in an era where we have wearable devices, smart toilets, and smart refrigerators. Today, you can actually control the temperature of your toilet, or the seat, to make it warm. Refrigerators tell you what type of food you took out and they are voice activated. What does this tell us? We are advancing so much in technology that it is very difficult
What can one do to protect oneself? The most logical advice is not to for security to keep the pace. All this is making us put date online. Bottom line, we are risking our security. Why hack them? We mentioned that fridges can be voice activated. In simple terms that means that a hacker can use that as a listening device and spy to whatever is happening in the home. It is one of the keys to know information about that particular family, their whereabouts and eventually their passwords and so forth. We’ve had cases were even baby monitors were hacked, where hackers said explicit sex content on it to the baby. What are the most trending security issues citizens and organisations face today? A common case is that of ransomware. In this case, they take all your files on your pc, encrypt them and then you literally have to pay a ransom to get what’s yours back! The common payment for such hacking is roughly around 200Euros. After hacking your files, they usually send you an email and give you all the information needed to get your information back, including payment. Another common practice which mainly targets businesses is when hackers steel information from a business from one country, and then, sell it to another. This has become a common practice. Russia and China are two countries which have the luxury to shut down a lot of facilities in other countries due to their hacking skills. ISIS is another case. Their top person was to one who hacked Tony Blair’s email. Their campaign was the most successful terrorist campaigns ever. Another common practice is car hacking. We recently had a case
where a car was hacked and made it go off the road and shut it down completely. This makes us work with car manufacturers so that we see that their cars are not hacked. What advice would you give to Students who are studying ICT and are in the process of choosing their area of expertise? Security is a very booming industry. It is dynamic and changing at a very fast pace. Security must be a passion. You cannot just read a book. You have to put puzzles together. If you have that desire, you are to be successful. The industry is growing fast and we don’t have much ethical hackers around. Programme skills are definitely helpful too. What makes you successful in this industry is practice and always learning different techniques. In a Government Context how is security pivotal in safeguarding data and availability of solutions? It is probably the most important. Government hold secrets, people’s data, operations of the country and much more. It is a paramount that in order for government and people to succeed, data needs to be secure. Government needs to be secure. If government systems are hacked, there’s in stake that government’s reputation. No government can risk that this happens as they would lose credibility. Usually, government data is hacked so that information of citizens is stolen, such as, their ID card numbers, tax information and so forth. This data is then used to make money out of it. Any unusual experiences which you can share with us and what the lessons
use the same password across multiple systems as for example webmail, banking and so forth. Even if you are a citizen, make sure to keep your devices up to date with anti-viruses. If possible, try to monitor your credit on a quarterly basis. Be suspicious of emails that you do not know where they are coming from, as most of the time they could be coming from hackers. As for businesses, it is a priority that they invest in security people, meaning, ethical hackers. Most importantly, educate your users on threats of security.