The care service
A home care service with around 80 care staff. Administration works from the head office, and there are ten permanently established home office workplaces.
The starting position
A small firewall was installed at the head office. The ten home office workplaces were connected using VPN client software. Each workplace therefore established the connection itself, over the private internet line of the member of staff concerned, using software that has to run on the end device and be maintained there.
The security boundary of the organisation was thus located on ten private end devices, rather than at a single point under central control.
The trigger
Connections dropped repeatedly. Transfers broke off mid-process, and inconsistencies appeared in the data. That is a serious matter when care documentation and billing depend on it and several people access the same data set.
For those affected, it meant duplicated work and uncertainty about which version was current. For the management, it was a situation that would have become worse with every additional home office workplace.
The solution
Today, AIMdefense provides central protection at the head office. The firewall is the point at which all ten home office sites come together. Each site establishes an encrypted connection to the AIMdefense at the head office.
The decisive difference lies in where the connection is established. No longer on the end device through client software, but permanently in the device at the site. The home office workplace therefore behaves like a branch of the company network. The connection stays up regardless of what is happening on the PC at the time, or of whether someone has logged in correctly.
This also shifts responsibility. There is no longer any VPN client software to install on private end devices, keep up to date and explain remotely when something goes wrong. The transition between home office and company network is defined in one place and remains traceable there.
AIMdefense runs on AIMSTRONG hardware. The systems are supplied Assembled in Germany.
Implementation
The changeover was completed within six weeks. For the care service it was cost-neutral.
The result
The dropped connections are a thing of the past. Transfers run through to completion, the data set stays consistent, and performance at the home office workplaces has noticeably improved.
The connectivity is also redundant at line level. Every site is connected via DSL and via LTE. If one path fails, the other takes over, with no need for anyone to intervene. In day-to-day care work this matters, because documentation cannot wait for an engineer.
The care service administers its environment itself. A support contract for AIMdefense stands behind it should it be needed.
"A cost-neutral changeover with real added value. We are very satisfied with the migration and with how straightforward the process was."
— Managing director and owner
Key facts
| Sector | Home care |
|---|---|
| Size | around 80 care staff, 10 home office workplaces |
| AIM products | AIMdefense on AIMSTRONG, one AIMroute per home office |
| Previous system | small firewall at the head office, VPN client software in the home offices |
| Trigger | repeated connection drops, data inconsistencies |
| Architecture | encrypted site-to-site links, redundant via DSL and LTE |
| Support | self-managed with a support contract |
| Project duration | 6 weeks |
More about AIMdefense
For the functions behind site-to-site links, rule sets and central control, please see the Features page.