Seven Corners Achieves Zero Downtime to Support Travelers Around the Clock With Cisco and NetApp FlexPod

SUNNYVALE, CA--(Marketwire - Jun 14, 2012) - Travelers today move around the world quicker than ever before. To keep up, travel insurance companies need a reliable IT infrastructure with zero downtime to provide customers with travel support and insurance 24/7/365. Seven Corners, Inc., one of the most experienced international travel insurance and specialty benefit companies in the industry, turned to the FlexPod^® data center platform, a pretested data center solution built on a flexible, scalable shared infrastructure designed collaboratively by Cisco and NetApp (NASDAQ: NTAP) to efficiently scale to meet a world of travelers' needs.

Seven Corners has over 170 permanent employees located in the midwest, and roughly 10,000 agents and 900 brokers worldwide. Until recently, the IT department was limited in its capabilities by an aging infrastructure that caused outages and by recovery costs approaching $3,000 daily just to maintain 24/7 operations. The company needed a cost-effective solution, and fast.

Chief Information Officer George L. Reed II turned to Netech, a leading provider of IP-based integration services, for a solution that would make IT a strategic part of Seven Corners' aggressive growth plan. Netech suggested a FlexPod solution that combines the best of NetApp^®, Cisco^®, and VMware^® solutions to deliver immediate engineering value with scalability and configuration flexibility to enable all phases of Seven Corners' strategic plan.

Seven Corners Goes further, faster with FlexPod

• Zero downtime delivers 8-month ROI: By successfully reducing an average of 12 daily outages across Seven Corners' core physical servers to 0, the company realized roughly $750,000 annual savings in the first eight months of deployment.
• More effective claims: Employees in the Claims Department can now work remotely, resulting in no lost time during severe weather. In addition, the faster systems cut the time it takes to process a claim from 15-20 minutes to roughly 15-20 seconds.
• Capacity savings: Seven Corners was able to reduce usage to 60% less storage, the equivalent of a year's worth of new capacity for the organization. The extra space allowed the company to expedite the next two phases of the project, including deploying a virtual desktop environment approximately two years earlier than planned.
• Staff and IT resource savings: In the first three months of deploying the new solution, the percentage of IT dollars spent on break-fix dropped from 80% to 16% and the staff required to support the IT infrastructure was reduced by 40%. The saved resources enable staff to do more with less across the company.

Supporting Quotes

• Peter Howard, Senior Director, Data Center Alliances, NetApp
  "Providing high-quality travel insurance and benefits services is Seven Corners' mission, and key to making this happen is their ability to meet growing traveler requirements for the latest in technology tools. With an IT foundation built on FlexPod, they are now able to achieve greater IT and cost efficiencies that allow them to scale quickly and easily so they can focus on IT being an integral part of helping to grow the business."

• George L. Reed II, Chief Information Officer, Seven Corners, Inc.
  "In our business, where customers are clamoring for new services, time to market determines which company gets the business -- typically the first to deliver wins 60% of the revenue. The agility and flexibility we've gained from FlexPod helps us deliver products faster, quickly identify and reduce losses on unproductive programs, and rapidly capitalize on successes."

Additional Resources

• Learn more about how Seven Corners is driving business forward with FlexPod: http://media.netapp.com/documents/seven-corners.pdf
• Watch the NetApp Today interview with Seven Corners: http://www.netapp.com/us/library/videos.html?videoId=1099721444001
• Learn more about NetApp and Cisco's FlexPod Expanded Architecture: http://www.netapp.com/us/company/news/news-rel-20120410-11537.html
• Read more about how Seven Corners' George L. Reed II, PMP, Chief Information Officer, was awarded NetApp's Visionary Leadership Award in the 2011 NetApp Innovation Awards: http://www.netapp.com/us/company/our-story/innovation-awards/2011winners.html
• Connect with NetApp experts and storage enthusiasts on the NetApp Community: http://communities.netapp.com/community/products_and_solutions/efficient_it
• Follow George Reed on Twitter: www.twitter.com/glreedii
• Follow NetApp on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NetApp
• Join NetApp on Facebook: www.facebook.com/NetApp
• View NetApp videos on YouTube: www.youtube.com/NetAppTV
• Connect with NetApp on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/groups?about=&gid=111681

About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions that deliver outstanding cost efficiency and accelerate business breakthroughs. Our commitment to living our core values and consistently being recognized as a great place to work around the world are fundamental to our long-term growth and success, as well as the success of our pathway partners and customers. Discover our passion for helping companies around the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com.

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