Almería Pharmacist’s Association gains visibility, control, and security
Thanks to be.Safe XDR, the Association achieves full visibility and control over its pharmacy network. Building on this, Teldat adds secure SD-WAN and several layers of backup connectivity to ensure service availability throughout the province.
Client Summary
The Almería Pharmacist’s Association, founded in 1898, is a public-law professional body representing more than 1,000 pharmacists in the province. Its role is to regulate, represent, and defend the profession while safeguarding the quality of pharmacy services.
It maintains close ties with the pharmacies, coordinating, training, and supporting them in their patient care work. The Association promotes professional services and continuing education. It also manages a data network that supports, among other things, prescription billing. This helps ensure that everyone has access to the medicines prescribed by their doctors and specialists.
Summary Table
Challenge
- Restore the Association’s full visibility and control over its network, without relying on service providers.
- Make the pharmacie’s Wi-Fi secure against malware and unwanted content.
- Prioritize and safeguard critical traffic, such as the reading of prescriptions using patients’ health cards.
- Modernize pharmacy connectivity with backup links and, if needed, an alternative operator in the event of an outage.
Solution
- be.Safe XDR provides the Association’s IT team with network monitoring, alerts, and full control.
- be.Safe Essential cybersecurity protects the pharmacie’s Wi-Fi against malware and unwanted content.
- A secure SD-WAN solution uses two Teldat Atlas-840 devices to prioritize critical traffic over MPLS, with automatic failover.
- Multilayered backup connectivity: an Internet tunnel and 4G connections from Telefónica and a second operator.
Results
- The Association’s IT team has direct visibility and control over the entire network at all times.
- Greater independence from service providers: staff can diagnose issues and review historical data using be.Safe XDR.
- A more secure network, with critical traffic prioritized over MPLS to help ensure medicines arrive on time.
- Comprehensive backup setup: Telefónica fiber and 4G, plus 4G from a second operator.
Why Teldat?
The Almería Pharmacist’s Association chose Teldat for several reasons. Teldat devices were already installed in pharmacies, making its proposal both top-tier and cost-effective.
Thanks to zero-touch provisioning (ZTP), the new network and SD-WAN system were deployed remotely, quickly, and with minimal intervention, without disrupting pharmacy operations.
Teldat’s long history of working with the Association and its close, personal approach to customer service also played a part. Telefónica, the primary carrier, specifically wanted Teldat to provide be.Safe XDR and the SD-WAN services, as well as upgrade equipment at the pharmacies that needed it.
Challenge
The main challenge facing the Almería Pharmacist’s Association was to regain control of its own network. Its IT team lacked visibility into the infrastructure serving pharmacies across the province and had to rely on telecom operators to provide it. The Association needed a partner that could restore full visibility and control, without intermediaries.
At the same time, the Association wanted to secure the Wi-Fi networks in its pharmacies. The upgrade needed to include cybersecurity measures to protect the network and the pharmacie’s Wi-Fi against malware and unwanted content. The network also carries particularly critical traffic, such as prescription lookups using patients’ health cards.
Until then, the service had suffered outages, with no availability guarantees. A serious problem for a network on which pharmaceutical care and prescription billing across the province depend. Prioritizing and securing this traffic was essential.
All of this had to be achieved while maintaining robust connectivity. The aim was to retain Telefónica’s MACROLAN service, bringing fiber to as many pharmacies as possible, with 4G backup and, if necessary, an alternative carrier in case the primary connection failed. This added challenge was compounded by the province’s large and rugged terrain.
Solution
At the heart of the solution is be.Safe XDR, the platform that restores the Association’s control over its network. It allows the IT team to monitor the entire infrastructure, set alerts and review network history, giving them full visibility and control without relying on third parties.
Teldat’s be.Safe Essential cybersecurity solution was also deployed to protect the pharmacie’s Wi-Fi, which is available to customers and staff. It guards against malware and unwanted content, strengthening security across the whole network.
Connectivity is managed through SD-WAN, deployed in partnership with Telefónica. It prioritizes critical traffic, such as prescription data accessed via patients’ health cards, and routes it over MPLS to data centers and pharmaceutical distributors to help ensure medicines arrive on time.
The network also supports failover, QoS, and the segregation of less critical traffic. In the data center, two Teldat Atlas-840 devices underpin the architecture: one handles critical traffic over MPLS, while the other provides Internet access.
The network has several layers of backup. If the primary MPLS network fails, traffic switches to an Internet tunnel, with Telefónica 4G also available. The network also has a 4G connection from a second carrier.
Results
Teldat’s solution addressed the network challenges facing the Almería Pharmacist’s Association:
- The Association’s IT team has direct visibility and control over the entire network at all times.
- Greater independence from service providers: staff can diagnose issues and review network history using be.Safe XDR.
- A more secure SD-WAN network, with critical traffic prioritized to help ensure medicines arrive on time.
- Multilayered backup: Telefónica fiber and 4G, plus 4G from a second carrier.
