July 2008: QUINN-direct Insurance chooses Novell & Securelinx to support increasing internet business
Novell’s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server seamlessly facilitates almost 85,000 daily insurance quotes
Dublin – 03rd July 2008 - QUINN-direct Insurance, the second-largest insurer in Ireland, has deployed Novell® SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) in order to support its rapidly growing internet sales channel. Running on more than 20 servers, the SLES environment handles over 85,000 insurance quotes daily, combining high availability and performance to deliver optimal service to existing and potential customers.
With more than 1 million customers and an expanding presence into European markets, the insurance company needed to upgrade its core Web-serving platform to ensure it could handle a rapidly increasing number of customers to its website. Quinn-direct Insurance chose Novell’s SLES over competitive Linux distributions due to the solution’s resilience, security and performance.
The company also cites a lower support burden for its IT personnel as a key driver for the deployment. Since the implementation, all of the company’s internet-based activity is supported by one operating system – freeing up highly skilled employees to work on other projects.
The company undertook intensive testing to find the right platform to support its web-based business, looking in particular at integration with IBM WebSphere and the ability to handle very heavy loads. Local Irish Novell business partner, SecureLinx, provided consultancy during the implementation, which took three-months from start to finish, helping to ensure the company made educated decisions.
Commenting on the Novell deployment, CJ Johnston, IT Server & Desktop Manager,
Quinn-direct Insurance said: “We’ve already started to see a healthy return on investment from our standardisation on Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server,” said Johnston. “The website is considerably more responsive for end users, and we now typically handle four times as many quotes as before. Automated XML requests from partner websites are completed and returned within seconds.”
Jacqueline de Rojas, Managing Director, Novell UK & Ireland adds: “SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is one of the leading Linux server distributions on the market today. Novell’s Linux server solutions give businesses greater flexibility, are scalable, inexpensive, and easy to maintain. Quinn-direct Insurance’s decision to deploy a Novell Linux server environment is a testament to Novell SLES’ capabilities of handling increased workloads and minimising IT support requirements”.
About Novell
Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) delivers infrastructure software for the Open Enterprise. Novell is a leader in desktop to data centre operating systems based on Linux and the software required to secure and manage mixed IT environments. Novell helps customers around the world minimise cost, complexity and risk, allowing them to focus on innovation and growth. For more information, visit www.novell.com.
About Quinn-direct Insurance
QUINN-direct Insurance has transformed the Irish insurance market over the last 11 years. Since established in 1996, QUINN-direct has driven down the cost of insurance in Ireland and has gained a reputation for value, customer service and innovation. QUINN-direct has been the fastest growing insurance company in Ireland over the past 11 years, due to the excellent value products we have provided to our customers. QUINN-direct is now the second largest insurer in Ireland. In more recent years QUINN-direct has expanded its business outside of Ireland and now provides insurance cover in the UK, Netherlands and Belgium.