Royal & SunAlliance Invests in Sequent's NUMA-Q Servers

Strategic Insights -

Royal & SunAlliance, the UK's largest composite insurer, has invested nearly $5 million in four NUMA-Q 2000 servers from Sequent to migrate over one and a half million life assurance policies from IBM mainframes and existing Sequent Symmetry servers by mid-1999. This move is part of a major project to rationalize administrative systems, cut costs, and increase efficiency after the merger between Royal Insurance and Sun Alliance last year. Over 200 people are working to move portfolios from four different operating environments onto Sequent's data center servers at Royal & SunAlliance's Liverpool data center.

Key Takeaways:

  • Royal & SunAlliance has invested nearly $5 million in four NUMA-Q 2000 servers from Sequent as part of a major project to migrate over one and a half million life assurance policies from IBM mainframes and existing Sequent Symmetry servers by mid-1999.
  • The migration aims to rationalize administrative systems, cut costs, and increase efficiency after the merger between Royal Insurance and Sun Alliance last year.
  • Over 200 people are working to move portfolios from four different operating environments onto Sequent's data center servers at Royal & SunAlliance's Liverpool data center.
  • The NUMA-based systems running a Unix version of Unisure life assurance and pensions administration software are readily scalable and could eventually hold over four million policies.
  • Royal & SunAlliance estimates the cost of administering a portfolio on NUMA-Q to be approximately half that for a mainframe-based system.
  • Sequent's NUMA-Q servers provide mainframe levels of performance at a fraction of the price.
  • The migration also helps solve some of Royal & SunAlliance's year 2000 problems, as the NUMA-Q systems are year 2000 compliant.
  • Sequent's Symmetry and NUMA-Q servers offer a risk-free migration path from mainframe to open-systems computing thanks to their relationship with Unisys.
  • Around 600 administrators, accountants, and actuaries will use the NUMA-based systems for a variety of tasks, from administering pensions to developing complex business applications.
  • Four NUMA quads are being implemented in three separate system cabinets, one for development, one for infrastructure testing and disaster recovery, and the largest for the production system.

Statistics:

  • Royal & SunAlliance has invested $5 million in four NUMA-Q 2000 servers from Sequent.
  • The migration aims to move over 1.5 million life assurance policies from IBM mainframes and existing Sequent Symmetry servers by mid-1999.
  • The NUMA-based systems are readily scalable and could eventually hold over 4 million policies.
  • Royal & SunAlliance estimates the cost of administering a portfolio on NUMA-Q to be approximately half that for a mainframe-based system.
  • Sequent supports over 10,000 installations worldwide, including many of the world's largest and most sophisticated OLTP, DSS, and RDBMS applications.

Sources:

  • Business Wire, "Royal & SunAlliance Invests in Sequent's NUMA-Q Servers", August 12, 1998
  • About Royal & SunAlliance Life & Pensions Marketing Group
  • About Sequent Computer Systems, Inc.