The P&C carrier was planning to roll out new IBM WebSphere and J2EE applications to face both internal and distribution partners during a time of significant growth in the business. The carrier's existing infrastructure underneath the applications was insufficient to support a large group of users, which necessitated a decision. "We had two choices. One was to grow the current (IBM) pSeries-based infrastructure, requiring installing more and more boxes-and facing greater management challenges related to configuring them," Valois recalls.
If ING Canada stuck with the pSeries solution, it projected it would need 32 servers to handle anticipated growth by the end of 2003. By the end of 2004, that number would have jumped to 48. "That meant looking at the costs of the servers themselves, as well as the cost of other components, such as hubs, switches and routers," Valois explains. Given those costs, the carrier went with the second choice: to invest in an IBM zSeries mainframe. That option was made possible because "Linux enables us to put the Web applications on the mainframe," according to Valois.
The appeal of the mainframe solution-which Valois refers to as "forward consolidation" as opposed to "consolidation after the fact"-was that "with this type of infrastructure, we're greatly reducing the number of components-physical servers-because we can create virtual servers internally in the z900 machine. It's less basic infrastructure to manage, and also fewer hubs, switches and routers."
IBM led the 12-month initial phase of the implementation, beginning in January 2003 with delivery of the machine and installation in ING Canada's environment. By the end of February, the carrier had installed Linux and began deploying applications. The first was ING Funds, which Valois describes as "a very small finance distribution application." Next in line was an e-commerce application used for direct quoting and sales of policies. "It's a very large and complex application; it's got a back office internally residing on this platform and it interfaces with our legacy systems and some external systems, also." ING Canada will round off the year's work with its home-grown CRM application, used by about 600 internal customer service representatives, which is due to go live in December.
During 2004 ING Canada plans to roll out two more applications onto the mainframe platform: its commercial lines policy, sales and service (CLPSS), and its personal lines policy, sales and service (PLPSS), both currently under development.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
