NHS Test and Trace - Hybrid Cloud MegaLabs

The Rosalind Franklin Laboratory in Leamington Spa was officially opened in July 2021. It is one of the largest diagnostic testing facilities worldwide. The laboratory consists of 9 separate lab lines, office areas, welcome and catering areas. It is situated on a former industrial estate in a 225,000sq ft facility.

IdentityE2E was engaged by NHS Test and Trace to design and deliver all the hybrid cloud infrastructure to support the IT needs of the facility, the scientists, and staff, on and off-site, and all the communications infrastructure connecting the site to the cloud and outside world.

The design brief was for a 24/7 facility which could process large numbers of tests continuously without interruption. Reliability and availability were key to smooth operation of the time sensitive COVID 19 PCR testing process and the design of the IT infrastructure reflected this.

Working from an entirely greenfield site, IdentityE2E designed, procured, installed and tested all of the IT infrastructure working alongside both the construction and scientific communities that were delivering simultaneously to incredibly accelerated timelines. The first operational lab line was completed within six months, while work on the other labs lines continued at the same time.

Physical design and implementation

IdentityE2E was responsible for the design of all the onsite IT infrastructure, including server rooms, network cabling, power and onsite compute infrastructure. This included the physical layout of the server rooms as well as providing requirements for their operation, cooling, security, network connectivity and power. IdentityE2E provided the physical plan for all network cabling, power, and socket requirements for all IT devices (desktops, science devices etc) as well as testing that these were delivered to specification and working. Additionally, all components of the logical network, including topology and security, were designed, procured, tested and overseen by IdentityE2E.

Secure IT services

IdentityE2E designed, built and delivered, in partnership with other vendors, the cloud-based IT services for the entire mega-lab as well as remote workers. This included cutting edge cloud-based end point management, integration of SaaS edge services, networking services integrated with cloud IDP, SaaS cloud-based print management and security scanning and monitoring of all networks and services on AWS and Azure.

IdentityE2E provided expertise across all areas of cloud and on-prem infrastructure to deliver a world-class, modern, hybrid IT solution. The team worked in harmony with several suppliers across multiple disciplines in a responsive and adaptable way, working safely on site for much of the time during the pandemic, providing hand-on support to the end customer in challenging circumstances.

Ultimately the lab was delivered in record time and served as a key part in the government's strategy for COVID-19, processing over 8 million PCR tests. The labs are designed to be repurposed for multiple use and have been designed to be flexible and adaptable, in order to maintain pace with the changing needs of the lab teams and providing a modern, enduring hybrid cloud service for UKHSA.

About IdentityE2E

IdentityE2E is a specialist SME, recognised experts in the field of identity management, biometrics and the integration of enterprise scale cloud solutions. IdentityE2E are an AWS Partner who specialise in providing cloud engineering solutions to private and public sector customers.

Contact Mat Costick, Email: info@identityE2E.com