Zero Downtime DC Health Delivers HA Cloud Access

The DC Department of Health is tasked with protecting, promoting, and improving the health of residents across the District of Columbia. Supporting a wide range of public health initiatives, clinical systems, and sensitive data platforms, their IT infrastructure must deliver high performance, security, and constant availability—especially as critical workloads move to the cloud.

As part of a modernization initiative, the Department needed a highly redundant network architecture to ensure uninterrupted access to its cloud-based services. With multiple data flows, failover requirements, and security demands at play, they required a design that balanced performance, reliability, and resilience across multiple network layers.

The DC Department of Health faced the complex challenge of designing a resilient, cloud-connected network capable of automatic failover in the event of an outage. The architecture required redundant 10G Dedicated Internet Access circuits, private transport connectivity, and a high-availability firewall solution—all fully managed and monitored.

Given the mission-critical nature of their services and the sensitivity of their data, the Department could not risk service interruptions, latency issues, or weak security. In addition, the environment demanded carrier diversity, diverse building entry paths, and tight coordination between network and security layers—all of which needed to be implemented without disrupting day-to-day operations.

To meet the Department’s goals, Norfolk Fiber led the design and procurement of a fully redundant connectivity solution. The architecture included dual 10G Dedicated Internet Access circuits from separate providers, private transport paths to the cloud environment, and failover capabilities engineered to route traffic seamlessly during outages.

Norfolk Fiber also designed and deployed a high-availability managed firewall solution using Fortinet security appliances. These next-generation firewalls were configured to support redundancy, deep packet inspection, and real-time threat detection—ensuring both network uptime and security at every layer.

To support true physical diversity, Norfolk Fiber worked with building owners and providers to implement redundant building entry and diverse paths, reducing single points of failure in the physical infrastructure. From procurement to deployment, Norfolk Fiber provided end-to-end project oversight, ensuring every component—from transport to security—was optimized for availability and performance.

With Norfolk Fiber’s support, the DC Department of Health now operates with confidence in a fully redundant, cloud-optimized network. Their critical applications are protected by carrier-diverse paths and high-availability firewalls, all monitored and managed under Norfolk Fiber’s watch.

The network design ensures traffic is automatically rerouted in the event of a disruption, eliminating downtime and maintaining continuity for essential health services. By partnering with Norfolk Fiber, the Department gained a scalable, secure foundation for its digital operations—without overburdening internal teams or compromising resilience.