Bruges Care Association Mintus: modernized data center supports innovation in care

Bruges Care Association Mintus: modernized data center supports innovation in care

Mintus is committed to bringing about innovation in care. To achieve this, the Bruges healthcare association has invested in a full upgrade of its data center. To this end, Mintus combined HPE's server and storage systems with VMware virtualization technology. Inetum-Realdolmen managed the project and will guarantee the necessary technical support afterwards.

Mintus (West Flanders dialect that translates as 'My Home') was founded in 2018 by the social welfare center of Bruges and the City of Bruges. It handles all the care tasks and services for which the center of social welfare was previously responsible. Today, Mintus looks after all the care homes and daycare centers, service flats and senior homes, social service centers, meeting places and a wide range of home care services. The Senior Care department of the social welfare center – along with a number of support services – are also part of the new care association.

Boosting the server and storage capacity

“Today, our IT department supports around forty locations with roughly 2,400 employees,” states Mintus ICT Department Manager Ollivier Francq. This is quite a sizeable task that requires an adapted, powerful IT infrastructure – and one that remains sufficiently up to date. This is exactly where the problem started a while ago. "Our infrastructure had come to the end of its life span. We had started to reach the limit in terms of storage level. Everything had also started to slow down in terms of speed," the ICT manager recalls. “That’s why we started to look for ways to innovate.”

The primary aim of the new solution for Mintus’ outdated data center infrastructure was to boost server and storage capacity, thus guaranteeing the best possible service in the coming years. At the same time, it had to be easy to manage and integrate. This called for a solution based on current standards. As suggested by ICT partner Inetum-Realdolmen, Mintus chose a combination of HPE server and storage systems and VMware virtualization technology.

Inetum-Realdolmen was an obvious choice as ICT partner. The City of Bruges already has a framework contract with Inetum-Realdolmen that can be used by other organizations such as Mintus.

Ollivier Francq

“We chose HPE, but we specifically wanted Inetum-Realdolmen, as it can support this infrastructure. The combination of Inetum-Realdolmen and HPE gave us a future-proof infrastructure, enabling us to use applications that support healthcare innovation to the full.”

Ollivier Francq | Head of ICT @ Mintus

Working more quickly and securely

"We opted for HPE ProLiant servers", explains Mintus System Administrator Kevin Devos. “We use them as VMware ESX hosts.” Running VMware virtualized servers on HPE’s physical ProLiant servers has already improved the data center's performance. The users at Mintus have themselves noted that they can now work more quickly. 

“We have also used HPE ProLiant servers in combination with VMware and Veeam backup software for disaster recovery,” explains the system administrator. The Veeam platform ensures faster backup and immediate recovery of critical workloads, but also protects against ransomware. Inetum-Realdolmen also suggested HPE StoreOnce as additional protection against ransomware. “This is an extra backup layer that ensures backups cannot be encrypted during ransomware attacks,” states Kevin Devos.

Smoother central management

The new storage environment relies on HPE Nimble. This gave Mintus an easily scalable in-house storage solution that is ready for future challenges, such as more data processing or a switch to the cloud. "HPE Nimble provides smart storage with impressive results in terms of data deduplication, for example. HPE Nimble can integrate perfectly with VMware’s vCenter," adds Kevin Devos. "We can control everything centrally from there. In the past we always had to look at different locations. The new system saves our system administrators so much time. We can now focus on other pressing issues, such as cybersecurity."

“Mintus is a pioneer in innovation for the care sector in our region,” says Ollivier Francq to sum up. "It requires a very flexible network and server infrastructure. The investment we have made enables us to respond to new user needs very quickly, so we can support innovations in care in the best possible way."

Want to know more about HPE's innovative solutions?

Download the recording of our lightboarding session where HPE takes a look at the business of the future: edge-centric, cloud-enabled and driven by data.

Related downloads

More case studies

Have a look at all our customer cases, sorted according to sector.

Other cases and testimonials