NKY Health Migrates to Google Cloud & Achieves Operational Savings with Promevo

Northern Kentucky Health Department (NKY Health), a regional public health department serving over 400,000 residents across four counties, provides vital services to the Northern Kentucky region, including clinical services, environmental health, and health education.

NKY Health’s legacy on-prem servers, storage systems, and network setup limited reliability across their clinic locations. Licensing costs climbed each year, maintenance demands kept increasing, and the existing technology offered little protection against disruptions. They needed a practical and cost-smart path forward after years of relying on an outdated VMware environment. 

Promevo stepped in to help them validate a new path, test it safely, and build a long-term, HIPAA-aligned foundation in Google Cloud.

Our engagement moved through two phases. We started with a full Proof of Concept (POC) that showed how Google Cloud could replace the VMware storage system used in their Horizon clients. Once their team confirmed the performance and security of that environment, we helped them migrate key servers, storage, and directory services to Google Cloud. 

Together, we created a more flexible system with better protection, lower long-term costs, and clearer room to grow.

The Challenge

NKY Health ran all clinics through a single, precarious point of dependency. Every clinic location connected back to the district office for internet, phones, file storage, and server access. This meant one outage could take down the entire agency — a high-risk scenario for a public health provider.

Their VMware environment also dated back many years and offered no failover protection. “If the main data store went down, you'd have to rebuild everything from scratch,” explained Aaron DeMoss, Information Systems Analyst at NKY Health.  

Aaron uncovered several critical pain points impacting the organization’s current system:

• Soaring Licensing Costs: VMware licensing costs climbed by nearly 500% after they were acquired by Broadcom, making the solution financially unsustainable — especially with NKY Health’s reliance on public funding. “Our licenses were nearing $5,600 per year,” Aaron said. 
• Expensive Hardware Maintenance: Hardware support for aging on-prem equipment cost more than $11,000 per year. 
• Lack of Reliable Backups: The environment lacked reliable backups until they improvised a temporary solution with a Synology device.
• HIPAA Compliance Risk: The Windows file server created HIPAA compliance concerns during a recent audit, requiring immediate attention.
• Application Incompatibility: The Epic system client used by clinic staff couldn’t use Google Drive or OneDrive for file access, necessitating a specific storage solution.
• Single Point of Failure: The network structure forced every request through the district office, creating a single point of failure and impacting performance.

Aaron and the NKY Health team wanted a modern approach that reduced hardware maintenance, lowered overall operating costs, strengthened compliance, and supported a more resilient network. They also wanted a storage option that worked smoothly inside their VMware Horizon clients and supported HIPAA requirements.

The Solution

Promevo started with a full Proof of Concept to validate Google Cloud as a robust, compliant, and cost-effective replacement for their on-prem storage system. Our team worked through a structured, hands-on process with their analyst to confirm performance, security, and reliability.

Phase 1: Proof of Concept

• Environment Assessment: We completed a full environment assessment with an in-depth review of their VMware setup, storage configuration, permissions, authentication, scheduled tasks, and security posture.
• Strategic Documentation: We documented every finding and created a clear strategy to help NKY Health shift to a HIPAA-aligned Google Cloud environment.
• POC Build-Out: We built a dedicated POC space in Google Cloud that matched their current production environment.
• Validation: We validated performance through load testing and functional checks.
• User Acceptance: Their team completed user testing in the POC and confirmed that Google Cloud met all requirements.

This phase included early work on a NetApp storage volume to support the Epic client. Since Epic doesn’t recognize Google Drive or OneDrive for file access, we tested a NetApp volume inside their Google Cloud environment. 

The results confirmed that NetApp Volumes could give clinic staff the stable, compliant file access they needed without standing up a new Windows server in the cloud, streamlining the architecture.

Phase 2: Production Migration

Once the POC succeeded, we moved into the production build.

• Server & Directory Migration: We rebuilt several on-prem servers inside Google Cloud.
• Managed Active Directory: We created a new Managed Active Directory environment in Google Cloud so the department could start fresh and eliminate years of outdated objects, enhancing security and reducing maintenance debt.
• Seamless Transition: We set up the forest trust between existing and new domains to support a clean migration of users, groups, and devices.
• NetApp Deployment: We established new file shares with NetApp Volumes using the validated configuration from the POC.
• Security Integration: We created new Compute Engine instances for their FortiAnalyzer environment.
• Network Resiliency: We set up Cloud VPN connections so clinics could access the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) environment directly.

NKY Health also moved to a new Fortinet-based network design. Each clinic now uses its own internet connection with a separate failover path, eliminating the single point of failure and giving every location a more reliable experience.

The Outcome

The project wrapped recently, and NKY Health is beginning to see early gains with even bigger improvements expected over time.

Short-Term Wins

• Reduced VPN Reliance: Clinics rely less on VPN connections because more staff now work directly from Google Drive for common files, improving the user experience and speed.
• Simplified Audits: The team uses HIPAA-aligned Google Cloud environments that simplify compliance and make audits less stressful.
• Decentralized Reliability: The new network setup gives each clinic its own reliable connection path, significantly improving agency-wide resilience.
• Epic Access Confirmed: The NetApp Volume moved from testing to production, giving Epic users the stable, compliant file access path they needed.

Expected Long-Term Impact

• Cost Reduction: The department is able to eliminate ongoing VMware licensing increases and server maintenance costs, resulting in significant long-term savings of at least $16,600 per year.  
• Zero-Upgrade Storage: The team gains a storage layer (NetApp Volumes in GCP) that never requires upgrades or maintenance.
• Simplified Directory Management: Managed Active Directory in Google Cloud drastically reduces directory maintenance and operational burden.
• Future-Proof Flexibility: The environment supports long-term flexibility with room to expand into more cloud-based systems and applications.
• Minimal On-Prem Footprint: NKY Health keeps one on-site server only for redundancy, instead of relying on a full on-prem stack, which will save space, power, and cooling costs.

Get Started With Promevo

At Promevo, we regularly work with incredible organizations like the Northern Kentucky Health Department to develop transformative solutions designed to scale with your business as it grows. As your trusted service partner, we support your organization with a full suite of services, including:

• Consulting, implementation, and training across the entire Google ecosystem
• Google Workspace administration through gPanel
• Chrome device deployment and management
• Google Cloud solutions tailored to your environment
• Expert guidance on the latest Google technologies
• Access to additional Google partners like CloudM, JumpCloud, and others

With our consultation, hands-on support, and service from end to end, your team moves forward with clear momentum and a cloud environment that supports your most ambitious goals.