Moving Health to the Private Cloud
HEALTH
BACKGROUND
An Australian health department was eager to move to the cloud to take advantage of the scalability and elasticity provided by the public cloud infrastructure and services. Understandably, securing the privacy of patient medical data given the context and sensitivities around it was paramount. Chamonix was engaged to provide a solution that satisfied both the flexibility of the cloud with the security of a restricted data centre. Microsoft’s Azure Private Cloud was selected on the basis that it provides the department and its employees with access to the full suite of Azure cloud services without allowing access by the public.
KEY CHALLENGES
The project faced two primary challenges:
- Cloud Transition: Moving to a cloud-based infrastructure required balancing the advantages of public cloud services with stringent data privacy requirements.
- Data Security: The sensitive nature of patient medical data necessitated a solution with the highest level of security and privacy protections.
OUR SOLUTION
Chamonix utilised Azure Private Cloud to extend the department’s secure internal network into Microsoft’s data centers, ensuring that only authorised department members could access the Azure tenant systems or data. This setup also demonstrated the cloud compatibility of a new viewer tool designed to aggregate patient data from various health department systems and the national My Health Record, facilitating a more integrated healthcare ecosystem. In collaboration with the department’s internal team, Chamonix managed the setup of the viewer tool’s environments (development, testing, pre-production, and production), overcoming typical migration challenges through containerisation for consistency across environments. Infrastructure as Code (IaC) was used to streamline deployment processes, enabling scalable components within containers and efficient environment setup. Technologies implemented included:
- Azure ExpressRoute and Azure Private Link for secure, private Azure service connections from on-premises systems.
- Docker containers for consistent operation of solution components across environments.
- Azure Kubernetes Service for scalable containerized components.
- Azure SQL Database and Azure Database for PostgreSQL for scalable database services.
- Azure Key Vault for secure storage of secrets and keys.
- Azure Application Gateway and Azure Load Balancer for web traffic and load management.
- Azure DevOps for continuous integration and deployment.
- Azure Monitor for health and performance monitoring and logging.
BENEFITS
The solution delivered significant benefits:
- Improved scalability and elasticity of the department’s infrastructure, allowing for rapid adaptation to demand changes.
- Ensured high levels of data privacy and security for sensitive patient medical information.
- Established an Azure Express Route and private cloud components that enable secure communication with existing on-premises systems, leveraging a secure hybrid model.
This case study highlights Chamonix’s expertise in delivering secure, scalable cloud solutions in the healthcare sector, ensuring data privacy while harnessing cloud technology.
