When you make a request to the insurance company, you expect an instant response and fast aid. In order to ensure that, a company needs professional team and reliable It infrastructure. Read below on how GigaCloud secures a fault-tolerant services operation of one of the largest insurance companies in Ukraine.
INGO insurance company is among the largest insurance organizations in Ukraine in terms of rewards, own assets and the insurance compensation payments. It provides insurance services to corporate and retail clients. Every year, more than 200,000 people choose IC «INGO» to conclude contracts for various types of insurance.
Task
The INGO insurance company has created a large ecosystem that grants effective work with numerous clients. It includes dozens of online services, self-service systems, contact centers, etc. For reliable operation, the company increased its server park — the entire IT infrastructure was located on servers in its own data center.
With the full-scale russian invasion, the risks of possible data loss and downtime due to prolonged power outages have increased. Hypothetical infrastructure downtime within one day would cost the company millions of UAH. Because when IT services do not work, the work of the entire company stops dead. Customers cannot make an appointment with a doctor or resolve an issue with their vehicle.
In October 2022, INGO decided to switch to a hybrid IT infrastructure — to divide work into two data centers. And thus to be insured in case of force majeure.
Solution
It was decided that all critical services will be moved to the cloud outside of Ukraine, and to leave less critical services on their own hardware. For this purpose, they chose a private cloud — a physically isolated virtual infrastructure, which in terms of its functionality is not inferior to having their own data center.
According to Oleksiy Ivanov, the INGO insurance company CIO, the choice of a cloud operator was for the project was grounded on five key requirements:
- reputation on the market;
- price-quality ratio;
- IT infrastructure construction terms;delay index in communication channels;
- compliance with the requirements of international standards such as ISO 27001, ISO 27701 and GDPR.
«We were choosing from several cloud operators and assessed the possibility of building a separate communication channel between the cloud and our services,» says Oleksiy Ivanov, CIO of INGO, «For us, the delay index when accessing infrastructure in the cloud is very important. If it’s more than 30 milliseconds, clients notice it. That is why we selected the GigaCloud cloud, which has a latency of 15 milliseconds».
GigaCloud built an isolated private cloud for INGO in a data center in Warsaw. In it, the insurance company has hosted websites, accounts, a contact center, an internal system of client support, keeps records of all insurance contracts, requests, etc.
The migration took place in various stages by IT specialists, both of the insurance company and GigaCloud. Firstly, less critical services were moved to the cloud. In order for the migration not to interfere with the company’s work, the most essential services were moved in the after hours, particularly in the evening. In total, about 50 servers were migrated to the cloud. The “move” lasted almost two months and remained imperceptible to users. Currently, personal and cloud data centers are constantly synchronized with each other.
Backups also help in achieving the IT infrastructure fault tolerance. INGO backs up data and stores copies in two clouds at once. For quick recovery, the company stores them directly in a private cloud. In addition, it uses the GigaCloud backup service, which allows for using the operator’s repository to store backup copies in a separate cloud.
Results
The hybrid infrastructure guarantees IC «INGO» maximum fault tolerance of IT systems and the ability to work without downtime. Also, thanks to the GigaCloud cloud, the company received a number of other opportunities:
- The private cloud runs rapidly, without failures, and GigaCloud specialists provide its maintenance and monitoring.
- The resources of the entire cloud are used only by the insurance company, which supports high performance and security.
- High-quality communication channels provide low latency, thanks to which the speed of services wasn’t decreased.
- The operator’s technical support works around the clock and responds to requests within 30 minutes.
«I am satisfied with the GigaCloud stable service and the prompt communication of the operator’s managers and technical specialists,» says Oleksiy Ivanov, CIO at INGO. ― «Our task as an insurance company is to provide our clients with all-round protection against troubles. But often we also need such protection. And together with GigaCloud, we provide 24/7 customer security».
