Head Health Network (HHN) was having difficulty scaling their processing abilities for real-time reporting scenarios and sideline evaluations. HHN worked with Sparkhound to deploy a cloud platform, which helped HHN increase the value of their services, cost-effectively process more data and scale the network. Now HHN provides a simpler and more streamlined end-user experience, and they are able to instantly make modifications from any device.
The Tech Decision
Head Health Network (HHN) – a concussion care provider for customers such as LSU, Penn State, and Texas A&M – collects real-time helmet impact data from football players with sensors placed between the inside padding and outside shell of a helmet. These sensors wirelessly transmit data to a server on the sidelines, where it’s uploaded to the cloud for processing and presented via dashboard displays and daily reports for coaches and medical professionals to analyze. Since many of HHN’s customers utilize the HHN system simultaneously, the impact was overwhelming and began to bog down the real-time notification process so that data could be processed for real-time reporting scenarios and sideline evaluations.
The expertise of digital advisory firm Sparkhound was necessary to ensure proper system performance both now and into the future. To improve the collision data speed and network scalability, Sparkhound worked with HHN to establish and configure a Microsoft Azure cloud platform consisting of Queue Storage, Queue-Web-Worker, and Azure Virtual Servers. In addition, they used blob storage to contain the files, giving them more powerful workload capabilities as well as the option to instantly scale the processing abilities to meet game-day requirements.
The Solution
“When it comes to building the firmware and sensors, we are experts. But when it came time to scale our processing abilities through the cloud, we needed outside, expert advice,” says Curtis Cruz, president, Head Health Network. “Sparkhound showed us how to streamline and improve our ability to get raw data from helmet sensors into the cloud and quickly processed for real-time reporting scenarios and sideline evaluations.”
“Sparkhound’s cloud expertise runs deep and we knew this was the best option to effectively meet HHN’s requirements,” says Jonathan Meyers, Sparkhound’s Chief Technology Officer. “With the new cloud platform in place, HHN is able to increase the performance of their compute resources. Now they use blob storage to contain the files, experience more powerful cloud workload capabilities, and the option to instantly scale the processing abilities to meet game-day requirements.”
The Impact
Sparkhound helped HHN increase the value of their services by allowing them to cost-effectively process more data and scale the network through the cloud, to handle additional business. Now HHN provides a simpler and more streamlined end-user experience when processing comprehensive data sets, and they are able to instantly apply modifications on-the-fly—from any device.
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