Cisco Cisco Nexus 5010 Switch Dépliant
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Customer Case Study
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
HANNOVER LIFE RE AMERICA
● Financial Services
● Orlando, Florida, United States
● 340 Employees
● Orlando, Florida, United States
● 340 Employees
CHALLENGE
● Aging server infrastructure resulted in
increasing support costs
● Lack of flexibility led to over-provisioning
server infrastructure to help ensure
sufficient capacity
sufficient capacity
● Provisioning servers was time consuming
SOLUTION
● Cisco Unified Computing System B-440 M2
Blade Servers with Intel
®
Xeon
®
E7 processor
5600 series; B-230 with Intel Xeon processor
6500 series; B-200 with Intel Xeon 5600
processors; C-series with Intel Xeon 5600
processors
6500 series; B-200 with Intel Xeon 5600
processors; C-series with Intel Xeon 5600
processors
● Cisco Nexus 7000 and 5000 Series Switches
● Cisco Data Center Network Manager
● Cisco Data Center Network Manager
RESULTS
● Reduced equipment footprint from three racks
to one-third of one rack, gaining power and
cooling savings and eliminating cables
● Reduced server provisioning time to minutes,
instead of days, and eliminated significant
capital cost
capital cost
● Accelerated database run times to increase
actuaries’ responsiveness to customers
Insurance Company Deploys UCS and Gains
Speed, Flexibility, and Savings
Hannover Transforms Data Center Management
Challenge
For more than 30 years, Hannover Life Re America has been
designing custom solutions for clients in the life and health
reinsurance market. A subsidiary of Hannover Re, the third largest
reinsurer in the world, Hannover Life Re America is headquartered in
Orlando, Florida with its data center in another state. The data center
housed 500 servers, which were approximately 20 percent virtualized
and 80 percent physical servers.
designing custom solutions for clients in the life and health
reinsurance market. A subsidiary of Hannover Re, the third largest
reinsurer in the world, Hannover Life Re America is headquartered in
Orlando, Florida with its data center in another state. The data center
housed 500 servers, which were approximately 20 percent virtualized
and 80 percent physical servers.
Many of the servers were approaching the end of their lifecycles, and
maintenance costs had been steadily increasing. According to Rajan
Patel, senior network engineer for Hannover Life Re, annual support
costs ranged from $350 to $400 per server.
maintenance costs had been steadily increasing. According to Rajan
Patel, senior network engineer for Hannover Life Re, annual support
costs ranged from $350 to $400 per server.
In addition to running the usual enterprise applications, Hannover’s
actuaries run a high volume of Structured Query Language (SQL)-
based risk models and complex calculations for identifying attractive
policies from direct insurance companies. A model can run from 48
to 96 hours; if an actuary makes an error or wants to change a
variable, the model can be rerun for another 36 to 48
hours. Server workloads vary widely, from running a
model for multiple days to sitting idle. However,
server capacity must always be available, which
required over-provisioning, and this approach was
time consuming and costly.
actuaries run a high volume of Structured Query Language (SQL)-
based risk models and complex calculations for identifying attractive
policies from direct insurance companies. A model can run from 48
to 96 hours; if an actuary makes an error or wants to change a
variable, the model can be rerun for another 36 to 48
hours. Server workloads vary widely, from running a
model for multiple days to sitting idle. However,
server capacity must always be available, which
required over-provisioning, and this approach was
time consuming and costly.