Customer success stories: Enterprise open source platforms help address challenges in public health and safety

Data accessibility, management and sharing may be a priority for many organizations right now but were especially critical agenda items for the two customers we’re highlighting in this month’s customer success stories post. 

For Toronto’s University Health Network, securing patient information and other sensitive data prompted its search for a highly available, scalable integration solution. And the Slovenian National Police Force had goals of improving staff communication and system integration as it set out to modernize its IT environment. 

See how Red Hat technologies have not only helped address these challenges for our public health and safety customers but also helped them explore more benefits of open source innovation and equipped them with tools to quickly respond to COVID-19 needs.

A new integration platform to deliver time-sensitive patient care in Canada

Toronto’s University Health Network (UHN) operates the largest hospital-based research program in Canada. When its legacy IT systems neared end-of-life, UHN saw an opportunity to improve integration and data accessibility across its five major facilities.

UHN sought an integration platform that could help it benefit from the latest in open source innovation. The organization also wanted a solution that offered high availability and automation capabilities to avoid manual redeployment in the case of server outages. Additionally, as its back-end systems use Java, UHN preferred a Java-compatible solution.

After evaluating several options, UHN decided to adopt Red Hat Fuse, a distributed integration platform that connects everything from legacy systems and application programming interfaces (APIs) to Internet of Things (IoT) devices and more.

Responding quickly to changing demand is critical to healthcare operations. With Red Hat Fuse, UHN can customize its platform to match the scope of work—an especially important capability during the COVID-19 pandemic, where the team had to quickly increase capacity and make adjustments for department clients that were creating lower amounts of data than normal. 

UHN has also used Red Hat Fuse’s self-management capabilities to reduce downtime compared to its previous integration approach, helping ensure that critical data can be delivered to support time-sensitive patient care and health research. Read more about the success UHN has found with Red Hat Fuse in the full case study.

Slovenia’s main law enforcement agency finds success with enterprise open source middleware

The Slovenian National Police Force operates at state, regional and local levels. As the force’s work became increasingly digital, its mainframe infrastructure became harder to manage. To improve staff communication and system integration, the police force sought to move from its legacy environment to a microservices-based infrastructure with middleware and integration technology.

“We wanted to explore open source software because of the freedom it provides,” said Jernej Razboršek, Senior Police Inspector at the Republic of Slovenia Ministry of the Interior, Police, General Police Directorate, IT and Telecommunications Office, ICT Infrastructure Division, Server Systems Section. “It was clear from the beginning that Red Hat was a leading candidate for our migration from our mainframe environment to enterprise open source middleware. 

The Slovenian National Police Force has now simplified deployment, scaling, and management of its application environments—including testing, staging, and production—by standardizing on Red Hat technology. JBoss EAP provides a consistent foundation across the force’s server environment, and creating a flexible messaging platform with Red Hat AMQ has helped the police force establish reliable communications between systems. 

Razboršek said, “With Red Hat AMQ, data that is supposed to be delivered is delivered. Being able to quickly set up reliable messaging means our development team can be more responsive to potential safety threats and meet citizen needs for timely services.”

Agenda Open Systems, the first Red Hat partner in Slovenia, helped the police force set up and expand its Red Hat infrastructure, including ongoing maintenance. Currently, more than ten applications have been launched in the new environment, including solutions for cataloging firearm inventory in police stations, quarantine decision making and documentation, and fingerprint recognition.

The Slovenian National Police Force can now develop and launch new applications in weeks. For example, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the police force’s developers needed to quickly develop an application for border police that could issue quarantine documentation and integrate with Slovenia’s National Institutes for Disease Control.

“We built that application from start to finish in less than three weeks. We expect that the number of apps we have in development will triple in the next year,” said Razboršek.

Read more about how Red Hat technologies are helping Slovenia’s main law enforcement agency improve application delivery, infrastructure complexity, and team communication in the full case study.

But wait, there's more!

We regularly publish case studies to help illustrate how our products and services can help organizations solve their problems and improve their environments. Visit our Red Hat Success Stories page and find out how Red Hat technologies can help you find success.