INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Cloud
Australian cancer care provider Icon Group signs deal with Macquarie Cloud Services
Macquarie Cloud Services ( MCS ), part of Macquarie Telecom Group , has signed a new deal with one of Australia ’ s largest comprehensive cancer care providers , Icon Group ( Icon ), to manage its platforms through a Microsoft Azure environment .
Since engaging MCS , Icon has navigated a global expansion with secure and scalable services and met new regulations in the pharmacy industry against a tight deadline . Icon provides all aspects of cancer care , including medical oncology , radiation oncology , haematology , research , pharmacy and chemotherapy compounding to deliver end-to-end service for patients . The group has long relied on flexible and innovative technology to deliver patient care , however , Icon ’ s Head of IT Infrastructure , Mark Holmes , said a recent expansion into Singapore , Mainland China , Hong Kong and New Zealand necessitated the move to a secure and scalable environment .
“ We knew we wanted to be on Azure , not only to ensure Disaster Recovery and service availability across multiple geographical locations but to navigate the heavily regulated pharmaceutical industry . We needed a partner with expertise , one who had strong experience in delivering a largescale project ,” he said .
Icon selected Macquarie , its long-term provider of telecommunications and networking , to facilitate migration to an Azure environment and provide ongoing architecture , network , security and consumption reviews .
Holmes said the team ’ s expertise played a crucial part in ensuring the migration went smoothly , despite on-going COVID lockdown periods resulting in the design , delivery and management occurring remotely .
He said : “ The experts at Macquarie advised rolling the migration out across two timelines . The first included services we ’ d been hosting on our Launch cloud platform to the more scalable Azure , which comes under the purview of the TGA and requires specific access for auditing purposes . The second track needed to operate on a tight , twomonth deadline , as it contained workloads supporting pharmacy dispensing which were subject to external regulatory changes .”
Holmes continued that Icon ’ s experience with Macquarie has also helped to develop internal technical talent and leverage reliable expertise in the cloud space and beyond , both of which are crucial considerations in Australia ’ s current climate of technical skills shortages .
“ We see the need for our cloud skills to continue growing internally and as such we ’ ve brought onboard a principal cloud engineer who ’ s working with the Macquarie team to progress and fine-tune designs . This is providing natural skills progression for the rest of the team ,” Holmes added .
“ It really makes a difference that Macquarie goes the extra step . We use the group ’ s data center campus as our co-location facility in Sydney and find the team is better skilled and better informed than remote-hand services from other providers .” p
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