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Sun Life Optimizes Business Applications Through EMC
MAKATI, Philippines - Monday, August 28, 2006
Sun Life acquired EMC's CLARiiON® networked storage system to support SLF Philippines' database applications and email server to ensure that critical customer information is highly available and managed efficiently. "The CLARiiON CX series is the most appropriate information management platform based on Sun Life's demands and business priorities," according to Ronnie Latinazo, EMC Philippines country manager. EMC implemented the CLARiiON CX500 system for Sun Life Financial Philippines because the platform met all of the company's needs—particularly increasing application availability, minimizing backup windows, and overall improved infrastructure performance.
SLF Philippines serves a policyholder base of over 400,000 nationwide, and is supported by its 647 employees and over 2,500 agents. Sun Life's regional IT organization, Central Systems Asia provides IT services in the region, with the Manila Data Center serving as its operational IT hub. Tasked to oversee and provide IT support for branch offices in the Philippines, Hong Kong, and Indonesia, as well as the company's joint ventures in India and China, SLF's Manila Data Center needed EMC solutions to fully deliver IT services across the organization in Asia Pacific.
To achieve this, Sun Life leveraged on EMC Navisphere® storage management software to analyze system capacity for configuration, management and monitoring all aspects of the CLARiiON system. EMC PowerPath® software enables the organization to dynamically load-balance information access and at the same time, enhancing application and information availability in the event of path failure. EMC SnapView®, on the other hand, helps Sun Life maintain data coherence for the company's business continuity and disaster recovery strategy.
Sun Life had to be prepared for exponential growth of the company's user base and data while being able to maintain the overall operating and maintenance cost at a minimum. "We wanted to maximize what available investments Sun Life already had while enabling management to make real-time decisions based on a single, unified view of the business whenever it was needed," according to Nilo Zantua, Head of the regional Shared Technology Services of Sun Life's Central Systems Asia. His team began evaluating the available storage and information management
technologies that would cost-effectively support and scale to accommodate the company's rapid growth, particularly in the company's email system, database servers, and content management and work flow system.
Zantua added that Sun Life is now able to map out plans to further improve the company's IT infrastructure with the support provided by the EMC CLARiiON CX500 system. "Based on initial data and feedback gathered, our employees continue to experience significant improvement in all of the company's applications whose system was migrated to EMC CLARiiON. The company is confident in EMC's industry expertise, especially the company's proactive commitment to learn more about their customers' needs," he concluded.
