Data center consolidation results in 10 million savings for Aviva Europe
Aviva Europe, a leading insurance company, has undergone a significant transformation in its data centre operations. The company has chosen to implement an 'active-active' infrastructure design, with two live production sites running simultaneously, to improve the availability of its services due to increased demand.
The primary data centre for this new platform was co-located with Interxion, near Paris. The choice of France was strategic, as it offered a high-quality electricity supply, a favourable position for the data centre, and a robust network capacity at the Interxion facility.
Aviva Europe's secondary live site was chosen to be hosted by SunGard, a company with which they had previously used disaster recovery services and had good links with the Interxion data centre. The two living production sites of Aviva Europe's 'active-active' data centres are hosted in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The new data centre architecture was virtualized using VMware software, reducing the amount of hardware and data centre floor space. As a result, the new data centre now occupies a significant 150 square meters, a reduction from the previous 3,000 square meters.
Philippe Gilbert, the Europe integration director at Aviva's technology shared services unit, led the project. He emphasised the importance of training, as the project involved a significant investment in high-end hardware and the need to increase staff expertise. All regional IT teams have been trained to manage the new infrastructure, enabling expertise to be sourced from wherever it is available.
The project has yielded substantial savings. The running cost of Aviva Europe's data centre platform this year is €9 million, resulting in a saving of €10 million compared to the previous year. These savings have come from reduced costs of operating and maintaining the previous data centre facilities and from reduced staffing costs.
In case of a data centre failure, each site has the capacity to run all of its business systems. To ensure smooth operations, a new configuration management database (CMDB) from HP was implemented to automatically detect changes to the hardware configuration.
The success of Aviva Europe's data centre transformation has not gone unnoticed. Other divisions of the Aviva group are planning to copy this model. The company's commitment to technological innovation and efficiency is clear, as they continue to adapt and grow in the ever-evolving digital landscape.
Read also:
- Strengthening Defense against Multi-faceted menaces in the Age of Authority-driven Technology
- AI-Enhanced Battery-Swapping Station in Southeast Asia Officially Opens Its Doors
- Industries Under Jeopardy Due to Multi-Accounting: Prevention Strategies Revealed in 2024
- Web3 Esports undergoes transformation as Aylab and CreataChain collaborate for a radical change
