Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/1192126
January/February/March 2020 I 55 CASE STUDY: GUTHRIE CORNING HOSPITAL—PASSIVE OPTICAL LAN AT WORK To put POL's offerings into perspective, consider Guthrie Corning Hospital in Corning, New York. A newer facil- ity situated on 67 acres, the hospital opened in July 2014 and features numerous advanced healthcare technologies, including electronic protected health information (ePHI). In addition to dozens of patient rooms, Guthrie Corning Hospital includes a 24/7 emergency department with an on-site helipad, five state-of-the-art operating suites and an on-site cancer center. It also offers exten- sive outpatient care, including laboratory and medical imaging services. To support the numerous technologies and functions throughout this 232,000 square foot facility, hospital managers decided to install POL. The hospital originally sought proposals for a tradi- tional network but were open to any alternative network- ing options that could be more cost-effective and more efficient when it comes to requirements and physical space. After designing a POL infrastructure for the hospi- tal, engineers laid out a comparison of the two architec- tures and showed how POL potentially could save the hospital budget dollars while reducing network space and power requirements. As part of the process, it was demonstrated that the POL solution could be a simpler, easier-to-provision net- work than an active Ethernet LAN. Because POL collapses the traditional LAN architecture, it requires less equip- ment and cabling while also converging voice, data and video services onto a single optical fiber. Furthermore, POL's central management allows the hospital's IT team to make MACs more quickly and easily than would be possible with a traditional LAN. Consider the follow- ing additional benefits for Guthrie Corning Hospital: Sustainability and Cost Savings: For the hospital, POL produced fewer thermals than a copper-based active Ethernet LAN. As a result, it could reduce the hospi- tal's energy cost by as much as 30 to 65 percent. In addition, its passive architecture required no power within the optical distribution network. Because POL needed less equipment than a copper-based LAN, it reduced the amount of equipment required in other power-related areas, including distribution and switch- ing, conversion, backup, fire suppression and cooling. The Cost Savings Benefit of a Small Footprint: Guthrie Corning Hospital managers also realized that POL could conserve precious physical space, notably by reducing cabling, floor, rack and telecom closet requirements. For example, a typical copper-based LAN serving up to 2,000 users requires 90 rack units of space. Active Ethernet LAN switches require one full rack for the switches and two additional racks for terminating the large bundles of copper cables associated with the switches for a total of 18 seven-foot-tall equipment racks. By contrast, POL can serve up to 8,000 users. Because the OLT features 90 percent greater density than active Ethernet switches, POL required only one equipment rack and a total of 11 rack units within the equipment rack. Furthermore, by reducing the amount of physical space required, POL needed fewer UPS, fire suppression and HVAC requirements, which in turn reduced overhead costs. The PON splitters, typically located in the telecom closet, were in a fiber distribution hub (FDH) mounted on the wall, thereby reducing the required floor space even more. By delivering all the above-mentioned cost savings, POL allowed the hospital to achieve a significantly lower total cost of ownership than with a traditional cop- per-based LAN. Building the Right Healthcare Network: The primary compo- nents of the network included the OLT and ONTs. The team installed 4-port ONTs, which provided high power over ethernet plus (PoE+) connectivity in 128 fiber-fed ceiling boxes. The rack-mounted 24-port ONTs were placed in communications closets. The 4-port ONTs in the ceiling boxes feed copper to all the Ethernet devices in the building, such as tele- With POL, all networks can be converged, including voice, video, data, wireless, building automation, building security and building environmental controls.