How Engineers Delivered Cloud Office Solutions to Wuhan Hospitals in Record Time

On January 25, after 11 years at Ruijie, engineer Yao Qing received an urgent mission to travel to Huanggang, Hubei and complete the cloud‑office project for the newly built "Little Tangshan" hospital.

Severe traffic controls forced a 400‑kilometre detour, with many highway entrances blocked and police checkpoints requiring repeated checks before finally reaching the site.

Upon arrival, the atmosphere was tense; the hospital needed the equipment ready before 11 p.m. for incoming COVID‑19 patients. The makeshift data centre lacked even chairs, so the engineers used cardboard boxes as desks and worked while crouching.

Although the site was filled with equipment from various vendors, Yao and colleague Chen Zhu had pre‑coordinated software and configuration with Ruijie's online service team, allowing rapid installation, eight‑point optimization, and seamless integration with the hospital information system (HIS) within ten hours.

Hospital staff tested registration, prescription, pharmacy, printing, and imaging functions, all of which passed, leading to formal acceptance.

After training local staff, the engineers created a WeChat group for immediate support, staying on call through the night.

Facing closed restaurants and limited supplies, the team endured full protective suits with fogged goggles, a first‑time experience for many.

Shortly after, they were dispatched to Ezhou's Leishan temporary hospital, where they again deployed cloud‑office solutions under even tighter conditions, wearing full protective gear.

From 9 a.m. to noon, they produced a complete system image in three hours; assembling a cloud desktop took one minute, updating terminal software and deploying the image took four minutes, and the entire setup was completed in five minutes, impressing the hospital director.

The hospital sent a thank‑you letter, and the engineers moved on to the next project at Huanggang Maternal and Child Health Hospital.

This case illustrates how network engineers across China leveraged cloud‑computing technologies and rapid‑deployment practices to support frontline medical teams during the pandemic.