CASE STUDY 3

Auto Insurance Company

On September 16, 2004, Hurricane Ivan began pummeling a 300-mile swath of the Gulf Coast, bringing 140-mile-per-hour winds, torrential rains, flooding and downed power lines. The levees of low-lying New Orleans are designed to withstand Category 3 storms; Ivan was classified as a Category 4. Thousands of people were ordered evacuated from the area.

Ivan was the third major hurricane to hit the U.S. and Caribbean within a month, and the economic losses from this storm alone were estimated at $8-16 billion.

But for an auto insurance company based near New Orleans, Hurricane Ivan was close to a non-event. Foreseeing the potential hurricane danger some time ago, the company purchased a Managed Hosting solution from Cervalis to avoid the risk of business disruption and infrastructure damage in the event of a hurricane.

Using best of breed solutions from industry leaders, Cervalis'solutions architects helped the insurer select the configuration, services and bandwidth that best served their needs. Cervalis then assumed full responsibility for the administration, management, architecture, hardware and software that support the company's business. In essence, Cervalis serves as an extension of the organization's IT department, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The insurer felt that Cervalis' state-of-the-art operations center in the Northeastern U.S. created an important safety net, because of its location outside the hurricane belt. Approximately 60 miles outside Manhattan in Dutchess County, New York, the 70,000- square-foot facility offers premier data center space that provides a secure, scalable, high-availability infrastructure.

As Hurricane Ivan approached and authorities urged evacuation of the New Orleans area, the company quickly set up shop in an office in Dallas. Business continued without a hitch. "The Cervalis hosted operation made the experience of hurricane Ivan more or less invisible to our policy holders, claimants and agents," a company executive said. "Though we went to Dallas, we could have gone almost anywhere and continued to do business as if nothing had happened."

Managed Hosting: Not Just for Hurricanes
Managed Hosting isn't just about hurricanes. A successful IT infrastructure requires constant monitoring and evaluation, which can be a costly distraction from a company's core business-particularly firms with limited staffing and resources. The Louisiana-based insurance firm opted for Cervalis' Managed Hosting solution, which freed up the organization from day-to-day management of its IT environment and assured them of the highest operational availability and reliability.

According to research analysts,, Managed Hosting can save as much as 60 percent, compared with hosting in-house. It can also significantly reduce up-front expenditures.

"To remain competitive, our business requires a quick response time and the utmost professionalism," the executive said.. "We chose Cervalis based on its guarantee of 99.999% uptime, the skills and capabilities of its staff, the sturdiness of the technology-and, not least of all-its location 1,000 miles from the eye of the storm."