I enclose the details of Syntegra's response to my complaint re NHSnet reliability
I was phoned by  Syntegra's costumer relations manager, Martin Wilson
He admitted the SMTP gateway had not been part of the original NHSnet 
spec when it was designed as a pure NHS service
It seems it was added on when people realised (!!) That we 
in the NHS wanted to communicate with outside world as well
---------------------- Forwarded by Amrit Takhar/Wansford/Cambs/GB on 25/11/98 12:51 ---------------------------


[log in to unmask] on 25/11/98 07:56:05
To: Amrit Takhar/wansford/cambs/gb@wansford
cc:  
Subject: Complaint - NHS Messaging


Dr Takhar

Further to our conversation here is a brief summary in response to the 
issues you raised.

(1) Internet Gateway unreliable

This has been a recognised problem for some time, the current gateway 
has 
reached its capability limits and requires extensive support in order 
for it 
to process the current volumes and types of messages.

A new Internet Gateway is being deployed this Thursday ( 26.11.98). 
This new 
IMG has many times the throughput capability of the current gateway and 
is 
also compliant with Bodypart 15. The new Gateway will significantly 
improve 
the delivery and receipt of Internet traffic.

(2) System crashes incurring prolonged system outages

On 06.12.98 the service will move from a 2 node build to a 4 node 
build. 
Obviously this will halve the load on the platfoms, giving greater 
resources 
to message processing. An added benefit of the 4 node build is that in 
times 
of failure the failover process onto the secondary node will be much 
quicker 
due to the load per node being less.

We have just received from Compaq some software called 'limit logger', 
this 
prevents large log files from flooding the system thereby preventing 
system 
disks filling up and crashing the service.

(3) Notification to users of unplanned service outages

In all instances of unplanned service outages the Helpdesk is 
immediately 
informed, this ensures users calling the helpdesk will be briefed with 
the 
latest status. If we predict the outage to be of a more serious nature 
i.e. 
in excess of 2 hours we will put the information on the NHS web site 
(nhsmessaging.co.uk), additionally this information will also be mailed 
(if 
possible) to an agreed contact list within the NHS. Ivor Baddick 
(Telecoms 
branch rep) has the responsibility of compiling this list.

(4) Better working between Syntegra and BT

This is also a problem area recognised by all parties (Syntegra, BT, 
NHS). 
To address this issue Syntegra now attends the monthly service review 
meeting with BT Health and NHS. Examples of progress to date are, - 
Syntegra 
taking ownership of network type problems, - Syntegra are developing a 
monitoring process to monitor the BT firewall pro-actively to give 
early 
warning of potential problems.


As agreed during our conversation I will keep the complaint open for a 
further month at which time I will check back with yourself that the 
initiatives have proved successful, and that the complaint can be 
closed.

Regards

Martin Wilson
Syntegra NHS Customer Services Manager
0113 2385307

    




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