- May 24, 2022
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NTT: AXA Luxembourg builds their software-defined future on hyperconverged infrastructure to help meet heightened customer expectations
NTT Ltd Luxembourg worked together with AXA in Luxembourg to modernize their core infrastructure to overcome performance constraints and position AXA as a more customer-focused organization. The teams deployed a hyperconverged infrastructure solution based on Dell and VMware technologies. This ensures that they can continue to support their legacy applications while setting the stage for a hybrid future. They have already seen the performance benefits of the move with lower operating costs, and significantly improved system performance across their application environment.
Creating
a customer-centric technology roadmap
As a leader
in financial services, a key priority for AXA Luxembourg is ensuring that that
they can keep pace with evolving customer expectations. Today’s customers
expect the same level of service from all the companies they interact with,
looking for innovative use of technology and instant access to information.
To ensure
that they could continue to meet these expectations, AXA Luxembourg decided to
update critical components of their IT infrastructure, addressing key
performance concerns, and ensuring that they put an architecture in place that
would meet key future demands.
Olivier
Vansteelandt, CIO, AXA Luxembourg, explains that there were four key priorities
for the company from the outset. ‘We had clear expectations from a new
architecture. We needed to meet the performance demands of our users and
customers, meet cost reduction targets while ensuring it was both highly available
and secure.’
‘With our
former infrastructure, we didn’t have the levels of high availability that we
expected. When people are used to getting everything they want delivered to
their door the next day with three clicks, they expect the same from their
insurance company.’
The new
solution needed to accelerate the deployment of new services, position them to
integrate cloud-based applications while still meeting technology guidelines
set by the larger AXA Group.
AXA
Luxembourg had been an NTT client for a number of years and when the time came
to update their infrastructure, we were able to continue this relationship,
proposing a new, hyperconverged architecture to meet their needs.
‘We’re
seeing a 100% improvement in the time it takes to run some of our key processes
and backups are now completed three times faster.’ Olivier Vansteelandt ,
CIO, AXA Luxembourg
A
flexible and agile infrastructure architecture
The
hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI), built on technology from Dell and VMware,
enables AXA Luxembourg to embrace a fully managed service. This managed service
allowed us to create a hyperconverged environment tailored to their needs
rather than relying on a standardized HCI architecture.
With the
infrastructure hosted in our Luxembourg data center, we’re able to manage the
day-to-day operations of the platform, enabling them to focus on advancing
their application strategy and delivering the greatest value to the business.
Critical to
AXA Luxembourg was transitioning to a future-proof architecture without having
to migrate their key legacy applications from their current operating
environment. The software-defined nature of the hyperconverged environment
enabled these applications to access all the performance and security benefits
of the new infrastructure without AXA Luxembourg needing to move them to a new
operating environment.
This
flexibility provides them with the freedom to decide how best to evolve these
applications and what operating environment will best suit them in the future,
embracing a fully hybrid model.
Working with
Dell and VMware, AXA Luxembourg can combine the hyperconverged infrastructure
with our managed services, enabling them to deploy an environment that exactly
meets their needs.
A
solution to meet the needs of the hybrid future
Leveraging
their new hyperconverged infrastructure AXA Luxembourg is ideally positioned to
take the lead in the digital transformations of the insurance industry, meeting
the evolving needs of their customers. The new platform delivers high
availability, for both new and legacy applications, setting the stage for the
hybrid future
Performance
revolution
AXA
Luxembourg is already seeing the performance benefits from the move to the
hyperconverged solution. ‘We’re seeing a 100% improvement in the time it takes
to run some of our key processes and backups are now completed three times
faster,’ says Vansteelandt. ‘This was a key priority for us and it’s already
delivering.’
The power
of partnership
The
long-standing relationship between AXA Luxembourg and NTT means that there is a
strong cultural alignment between the two organizations. ‘The way people work,
collaborate and innovate in both companies is very similar,’ he says. ‘We trust
the team at NTT, they understand our vision and are focused on helping us
achieve it.’
A focus
on sustainability
Aside from
meeting AXA Luxembourg's operation needs, the hyperconverged infrastructure
allows them to contribute to their sustainability goals, ensuring they can
reduce the impact of their operations, through reduced power consumption and
accelerated rollout of digital services.
A hybrid
approach for the future
AXA
Luxembourg can set the course for a future where their applications are sourced
through an ecosystem of providers, including partners, the AXA Group and their
internal applications. ‘We need to be flexible and agile while still ensuring
that we meet security and compliance requirements. Our new infrastructure
enables us to do this, and so much more,’ he says.
Press
release by NTT Ltd Luxembourg