Skandia (now Old Mutual Wealth Management) used phase approach to upgrade an aging IT infrastructure and updated their two key data centers for reduced complexity. Read its value story for insights.

1. SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION
Winner Best Data Center Transformation— Finalist
Old Mutual Wealth Management
(Continued from winner Avago Technologies)
Avago Technologies says HCL ISD played
a key role in developing the proof of concept
Old Mutual’s Data Center
for the new platform as well as integrating tech- Strategy is Paying Off
nologies from several vendors including F5,
Investment specialist firm
EMC DataDomain and Nexus. The firm “built
Skandia, part of the Old
the development and production environments
Mutual Group, needed
with zero impact to the business” other than
to upgrade an aging
the planned downtime,” says Shreyas Shah,
IT infrastructure, so in
senior director of IT at Avago Technologies.
2009 it began planning a
HCL ISD also built Avago’s disaster recovery site
transformation program
and managed the implementation of tapeless
(FROM LEFT) Brian Gillooly, InformationWeek; to update two key data
backup. Working with Wipro (the applications Ramesh Guruswamy and Emma Moore, HCL;
centers. The transforma-
service provider for Avago), HCL ISD helped Jeremy Gray and David Reynolds, Old Mutual
tion addressed several
define Avago’s application needs during the
problems, including limited space in the data centers; a legacy
design and implementation of the data center
environment that constrained the reliability and growth of one of
transformation. It also performed an impact
the facilities; multiple server and storage technologies, operating
analysis, risk assessment and risk mitigation for
system versions and standards that were complex and costly to
the transformation.
deliver and support; and limited lifecycle management, leading
to out-of-date technologies being maintained. The project was
conducted in three phases in partnership with HCL Technologies
Infrastructure Services Division (HCL ISD). In the first, completed
“ Avago Technologies is honored to in the first half of 2010, Old Mutual implemented structured
be recognized for its data center cabling and resilient UPS.
transformation; our strategy enabled The second phase, completed in March 2011, involved
dramatically improved capabilities core infrastructure components such as storage consolida-
tion, server virtualization, network consolidation, backup and
while substantially reducing costs.”
enhanced disaster recovery. The final phase, which is ongoing,
Bob Rudy, Avago Chief Information Officer
involves the implementation of standards and tools such as
monitoring, software and patch management, and database
consolidation. Skandia says the transformation has resulted in
80% of non-production environments being virtualized; 40% of
“ As a result of our partnership production environments virtualized; and high-density usage of
with HCL, we were able to server infrastructure, reducing power, cooling and use of space
achieve game-changing results in the data center.
quickly and effectively.” In addition, 20% of servers have been upgraded, and
Skandia now has the ability to provide seamless recovery of
Shreyas Shah, Avago Senior Director
Enterprise Infrastructure critical virtual hosts in its disaster recovery site. Another benefit
is reduced data center complexity, with the move from three
storage technologies to one.
4 ValueHonors Awards www.valuehonors.com