Mass migration to AWS enables Guardian to reduce its data center footprint as it drives business transformation, operational efficiency, and innovation in the cloud
SEATTLE--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Nov. 28, 2018-- Today, Amazon Web Services, Inc. (AWS), an Amazon.com company (NASDAQ: AMZN), announced that The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian) has selected AWS as its preferred cloud provider, and is moving the majority of its workloads to AWS for greater agility, reliability, and functionality. The 158-year-old mutual insurance company continues to migrate production workloads to AWS, including mission-critical functions such as data analytics platforms, customer portals, and direct-to-consumer services, and is closing its Guardian owned and operated data centers. By moving to AWS, Guardian has reduced its IT operating costs and is using AWS for its acquisition strategy, migrating newly acquired businesses to the cloud to shed legacy infrastructure and technical debt.
Guardian took a deliberate approach to its cloud migration, moving targeted production workloads to AWS first. The organization then worked with AWS to create an enterprise readiness program that would allow for a smooth transition from on-premises to the cloud, and provide a training facility for employees to develop advanced digital capabilities faster than ever before. AWS delivered hands-on support and dedicated resources who were deeply steeped in industry-specific challenges, and helped to establish Guardian’s best practices for security in the cloud. The success of these initial migrations to AWS and the ability to train its workforce using this program gave Guardian the confidence necessary to accelerate its move to the world’s leading cloud. Guardian now relies on AWS’s fault-tolerant, secure infrastructure, and is prototyping and developing new applications using AWS’s breadth of functionality, including compute, database, analytics, and machine learning services. Guardian built a data lake on AWS and Amazon EMR to support its anticipated data growth and analytics strategy. Additionally, Guardian is actively evaluating Amazon SageMaker—a fully-managed machine learning service—to gain insights into critical business functions such as customer analytics, and fraud detection.
“AWS has helped Guardian get ahead of insurance industry disruption driven by new technology and changing customer expectations, and enabled us to innovate and provide services how, when and where our customers prefer,” said Dean Del Vecchio, Executive Vice President, Chief Information Officer, and Head of Enterprise Shared Services at Guardian. “AWS’s reliable, secure and proven infrastructure lets us scale quickly and access industry-leading services to test and deploy new technologies that delight our customers while protecting our assets in the cloud.”
“Companies across the financial services industry, like Guardian, are turning to AWS for the reliability, functionality, scalability, and security that often exceed the capabilities of on-premises data centers,” said Mike Clayville, Vice President, Worldwide Commercial Sales at AWS. “Guardian has been a trusted insurance company for more than 150 years, withstanding the test of time and embracing new technological advances to provide services that deliver financial confidence to customers. We look forward to continuing our work with Guardian as they move to AWS, closing the last of their data centers by the end of this year and looking ahead at ways they can leverage our services, including machine learning and analytics, to continue to evolve their business.”
About Amazon Web Services
For over 12 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 125 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 57 Availability Zones (AZs) within 19 geographic regions around the world, spanning the US, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Singapore, and the UK. AWS services are trusted by millions of active customers around the world—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—to power their infrastructure, make them more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com.
About Amazon
Amazon is guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. Customer reviews, 1-Click shopping, personalized recommendations, Prime, Fulfillment by Amazon, AWS, Kindle Direct Publishing, Kindle, Fire tablets, Fire TV, Amazon Echo, and Alexa are some of the products and services pioneered by Amazon. For more information, visit amazon.com/about and follow @AmazonNews.
About The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America
Every day, Guardian provides Americans the security they deserve through our insurance and wealth management products and services. Since our founding in 1860, our long-term view has helped our customers prepare for whatever life brings whether starting a family, planning for the future or taking care of employees. Today, we're a Fortune 250 mutual company and a leading provider of life, disability and other benefits for individuals, at the workplace and through government sponsored programs. The Guardian community of 9000 employees and our network of over 2750 financial representatives is committed to serving with expertise when, where and how our clients need us. Our commitments rest on a strong financial foundation, which at year-end 2017 included $8.0 billion in capital and $1.6 billion in operating income. For more information, please visit guardianlife.com or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.
The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, New York, NY. Guardian® is a registered trademark of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America.
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Source: Amazon Web Services, Inc.
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