Buying Network Hardware

Selecting a vendor to supply your IT network often feels like trying to buy a used automobile in another country. The most difficult part may be choosing a brand from an unrecognizable set of manufacturers. There are many choices to make, and although the common reaction is to look for the cheapest price, we all know that there are many other factors which play important roles in good decision-making.

Selecting a Vendor of Hardware

The majority of large-sized hardware vendors base their prices on not just the first purchase, but on probable future purchases as well. It’s often possible to get better deals on today’s sale if the vendor can anticipate future sales and growth from your account. For this reason, it’s a good idea to express your long-term goals to the vendor.

Your opt-in repair and service warranties are also important when selecting network hardware. Do you have a clear understanding of the services your vendor is offering at your location? For service at your practice, what is the maximum distance technical support will travel? Are there extra costs associated, and do they outsource these services to another company? Phone-in technical support and warranty assurances are important, too. When making the initial purchase, determine what you can count on in terms of firmware, upgrades, and support. Find out in advance, and get it on paper.

Our practice has selected Dell. With good pricing and a product life cycle which lasts longer than we like to keep our hardware, it’s a good match. Additionally, Dell offers on-site service within four hours for server and switch issues. There are volume discounts offered, so the more we purchase from them, the better our discount becomes.

After selecting a particular hardware vendor, your top decisions will form several primary categories:

Switches

- As the spinal cord of the network, this is where you’ll be plugging all the cables in. Selecting the right switch for your practice is dependent on the amount of traffic you anticipate and the media used, be it fiber optic or cable. Often a network will have both copper cable and fiber optic; in this case the switch will need to be set up to accommodate both.

Servers

- Look for redundancy when selecting servers. Does the machine have a hot-swap power supply if the other one fails? Are there RAID drive arrays so the system won’t fail if a hard-drive does? How much RAM, and how many processors does the server system have? More is better. Choose a backup tape drive device which is big enough to store your information and quick enough to back it all up at night. Try not to look past the physical setup of your hardware on the network. Perhaps a special housing unit or secure rack should contain the machines; this is particularly the case if you have a series of servers, as many EMR system solutions do.

Devices for End-Users

- Will you be using thin client terminals or real computers? Is the firmware able to be upgraded? If selecting thin clients, will they need a legacy port? For the exam rooms, will you be using an articulated arm? Our practice uses all of the above, and as a result we’ve come to an agreement about the minimum hardware configuration per device - be it desktop, laptop, server, printer or thin client.

These choices have been based upon our expectations of performance. A physician must check in with the IT department before going out to buy a slick laptop computer, to be sure it will work well on the network. We examine the network every few months or so, to keep in sync with the changes to our system, and technology in general. This continual system of maintenance and improvement helps ensure optimal performance, streamlining the need for technical support.