Taekwang Group's Heungkuk Finance ensures outstanding customer experience with critical systems available 24/7
Heungkuk Finance Group makes use of ultra-scalable and reliable hyperconverged infrastructure from Nutanix and Lenovo to ensure customers can always engage on the digital channel.
INDUSTRY
Financial services
BENEFITS
- Cloud-like approach to infrastructure delivery enables scale up in just 10 minutes
- Reduced datacenter footprint by 70% and reduced operational costs
- High availability for key applications to ensure business continuity
SOLUTIONS
Nutanix Cloud Platform
- Nutanix AHV hypervisor
- Lenovo ThinkAgile HX
Applications
- Key business and middleware applications
- SAP HANA production systems
- Collaboration solutions
Unlike a traditional infrastructure, we can scale up our compute and server resources simply by connecting more nodes to the Nutanix and Lenovo solution helping us to ensure that we always have the performance and storage capacity to meet the requirements of the business. Thanks to our work with Nutanix and Lenovo, we can deliver round the clock IT services for companies across the Taekwang Group, including Heungkuk Fire & Marine empowering them to offer outstanding customer experiences.
BUSINESS BENEFIT
Founded in 1950, Taekwang Group operates in Republic of Korea across a wide range of verticals, including petrochemicals, finance, media, infrastructure, leisure, and more. Taekwang Group’s finance division, Heungkuk Finance Group, offers services to businesses and consumers across the country through several well-known companies, including Heungkuk Life Insurance, Heungkuk Fire & Marine Insurance, Heungkuk Securities, and Heungkuk Asset Management.
To ensure that every part of the group has the digital capabilities required to deliver outstanding services to customers, Taekwang Group operates a shared IT services organization. Named TSIS, this company specializes in delivering infrastructure, software, and services to companies within the Taekwang Group as well as to external clients.
CHALLENGES
Companies in Heungkuk Finance Group depend on data driven systems from TSIS to support their day-to-day operations such as the web based omnichannel platform used by Heungkuk Fire and Marine Insurance, key middleware systems at Huengkuk Life Insurance, and for most companies within the Taekwang Group, TSIS provides access to essential collaboration solutions for email and video conferencing.
Ji Hoon Kim, Director, IT Department at TSIS, explains: “If our IT systems went offline unexpectedly, it would have a major impact on the group. For example, Heungkuk Fire & Marine Insurance's integrated channel infrastructure is vital to engage with customers so if a failure occurred, it would lead to immediate financial losses.”
For many years, TSIS delivered IT services to Heungkuk Fire & Marine via on premises systems based on a traditional three tier architecture. With its existing x86 servers approaching end of life, the company looked for a way to maintain high levels of availability and reliability while allowing for future expansion of the company’s digital channel.
SOLUTION
Dependable, reliable, scalable performance
During evaluations, TSIS quickly realized the significant benefits of a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) platform over a traditional platform. HCI solution from Nutanix and Lenovo based on Lenovo’s ThinkAgile HX Series appliance and Nutanix AHV hypervisor was chosen.
“We see great value in a cloud like approach to infrastructure delivery, which makes heavy use of virtualization to efficiently build and operate complex infrastructure while maintaining connectivity, flexibility, and scalability,” says Ji Hoon Kim. “Although financial services regulations do not permit us to use cloud solutions for Heungkuk Fire & Marine, we can obtain all the advantages of cloud using a HCI platform.”
“The fact that Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series solutions have been certified by Nutanix for HCI workloads was very reassuring, but naturally we wanted to see the results for ourselves,” recalls Ji Hoon Kim. “Working with Lenovo, we ran a POC to verify the performance of the solution, and we were delighted with the results. We were able to see linear improvements in compute performance every time we connected a new node to the HCI platform. We even simulated disaster scenarios by disconnecting power and severing LAN connections, and the solution continued to work flawlessly and without interruption.”
CUSTOMER OUTCOMES
With the HCI platform from Nutanix and Lenovo supporting the digital systems at Heungkuk Fire & Marine, TSIS is achieving its goal of delivering 24/7, high-quality IT services. Ji Hoon Kim confirms: “In the past, finding a replacement for one of our server components was a time-consuming process. Today, we can connect new nodes to our Lenovo ThinkAgile HX Series appliances, and the extra storage and compute resources are available to us in just 10 minutes.”
Based on its positive experiences with using the HCI platform to support Heungkuk Fire & Marine, TSIS has extended the solutions to other companies in Taekwang Group. TSIS now uses Lenovo and Nutanix HCI solutions to support key business and middleware applications for Heungkuk Life Insurance, SAP HANA production systems for Taekwang Industrial, and collaboration solutions across Taekwang Group.
“HCI solutions from Nutanix and Lenovo provide greater performance and reliability in a compact datacenter footprint,” says Ji Hoon Kim. “As a result, we’ve reduced our datacenter floorspace requirements by 70%, and cut the operational costs of maintenance and management.”
PARTNER
Lenovo is a Fortune Global 500 company serving customers in 180 markets around the world. Focused on a bold vision to deliver smarter technology for all, Lenovo is proud to be the world’s largest PC vendor. Lenovo’s portfolio now includes workstations, servers, storage solutions, IT management software, smart TVs, tablets, smartphones, and even apps.
