This document discusses how AIA New Zealand, an insurance company, virtualized its firewalls using VMware's virtual firewall solution to simplify compliance and reduce costs and downtime. Working with VMware professional services, AIA New Zealand converted from physical to virtual firewalls, allowing servers and firewalls to be moved without disruption. This improved flexibility, reduced maintenance needs, and cut capital expenditures in half compared to physical firewall solutions. It also discusses trends in the insurance industry around increasing IT spending in Asia-Pacific and automating processes.

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Insuring New Zealand
“In a physical environment, it’s
difficult to perform
maintenance or relocate
servers without causing
disruptions, which means
inconveniencing customers
with scheduled maintenance
breaks. We sought help from
VMware Professional Services
to help make more use of our
existing virtual infrastructure.”
Kevin Harvey, Infrastructure Services
Manager, AIA New Zealand
Assets
AU $ 147 billion+
Policy holders
27 millon+
Virtualized firewalls to maximize
compliance with minimal management
AIA New Zealand offers a
comprehensive suite of insurance and
retirement planning products to
financially protect New Zealand
families and businesses
Market Trends
Only 36%
of insurers feel their organization has an
agile business structure that is adaptable
to changing customer and market needs
Compliance simplified, downtime and costs reduced, flexibility increased
The outcome:
Significant CAPEX savings: vCNS is
approximately half the cost of a physical
firewall solution
Reduced downtime: virtual servers and
their firewalls can be moved without
disruption
Agile disaster recovery: recover not just
VMs, but firewalls as well
Simplified maintenance: changes can be
made on the fly
Working with VMware professional
services, the company maximized its
existing vSphere environment by
converting from physical firewalls, which
were difficult to manage and maintain,
to VMware’s vCNS virtual firewalls.
AIA New Zealand needed to update its
IT infrastructure to meet corporate
requirements and more efficiently
maintain PCI DSS security compliance,
which demands that computers
processing financial data are firewalled
from non-payment systems.
Top three objectives of
process standardization and
automation initiatives in the
insurance industry
Asia-Pacific insurers
are expected to
increase their IT spend
by
28%
54%
The Asia-Pacific region’s
share of the global middle
class is expected to nearly
double by 2020
2009
2020
50%
Enhancing data integrity
48%
Cutting back on manual processes,
decreasing risk of error
43%
Freeing staff from routine
number-crunching, redeploying into
higher-value activities
1
2
3
“VMware has enabled us to
undertake a fundamental
transformation in how we
operate. At this stage we have
really only started the journey
and there is a lot more to come.
It’s very exciting.”
Brannan Hunter, CTO of AIA New Zealand
11.5%
from 2013 to 2015