China's Ping An Insurance Deploys IBM Storage Virtualization to Speed Data Insights

BEIJING, Sept. 4, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) announced today that Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (Ping An), the largest private insurer in the country, has implemented an IBM Software Defined Storage solution to help it speed data collection from one month to one hour, dramatically improving its ability to meet new regulatory requirements such as the annual audit and industrial data analysis.

With IBM SAN Volume Controller (SVC) storage virtualization software, a key component of IBM's Software Defined Storage portfolio, Ping An was able to virtually integrate more than 1 petabyte of data from a variety of storage systems including the IBM XIV Gen3, as well as systems from EMC and Hitachi.

As a key partner of China Insurance Regulatory Commission, Ping An is required to provide a wide variety of analytics data to the organization in support of its development of the country's insurance industry. With the new virtualized storage environment, Ping An was able to aggregate its growing data volumes in one hour instead of one month and accomplish data migrations easily with just a few instructions. In addition, the solution has delivered fast service times for Ping An's critical projects.

"In recent years, due to the wide range and variety of the insurance business, Ping An's IT infrastructure has faced huge challenges, particularly concerning the testing system that is required to retrieve dynamic data at any time," said Wang Qingping, assistant chief engineer at Ping An. "Using IBM technology, we have improved operational efficiency, optimized our storage and achieved dramatic cost efficiencies."

In addition to using SVC for its testing system and internal application development, Ping An leveraged SVC for a cloud computing project, as well.

"Companies around the globe are dealing with a data deluge and looking for ways to strategically manage and exploit the insights of that Big Data for competitive advantage," said Jamie Thomas, General Manager Storage and Software Defined Systems, IBM. "Our Software Defined Storage approach provides clients quick access to global data to enable business critical decision-making."

Software Defined Storage Redefines Data Management

IBM SVC provides virtualization for fast reliable data movement across heterogeneous storage systems. A key feature of SVC is Real-time Compression, which automatically compresses data on the fly for up to five-times more active storage capacity. SVC is part of IBM's Software Defined Storage solution, which also includes code name Elastic Storage, software that automatically manages data locally and globally, providing breakthrough speed in data access, easy administration and the ability to scale technology infrastructures quickly and more cost-effectively.

About Ping An Insurance
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. ("Ping An" or the "Company" or the "Group") was established in 1988 in Shekou, Shenzhen. The Group is the first insurance company in China to adopt a shareholding structure. Today, it has developed into a personal integrated financial services group with three core businesses of insurance, banking and investment, enjoying parallel growth of its traditional and non-traditional financial businesses. The Group's shares are listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (stock code: 2318) and on the Shanghai Stock Exchange (stock code: 601318).

Ping An was ranked No. 83 in Forbes' Global 2000 league table in 2013, No. 181 in U.S. Fortune Magazine's Global 500 Leading Companies ranking, and No. 1 among China's non-State owned enterprises. On top of these accolades, Ping An was ranked No. 84 in WPP Millward Brown's Brand Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands, and 6th on the "2013 Best Chinese Brand" ranking by Interbrand, the largest brand consultancy in the world, making it the top insurance brand in China.

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Contact:
Mike Zimmerman
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SOURCE IBM