Norwich Union Insurance turns to AppSight Black Box technology from Identify Software to transform application support processes
Accelerating application problem resolution is part of a paradigm shift to support growing online business and international operations
NEW YORK, May 31, 2005 – Identify® Software, the pioneer and leader in application problem resolution software, today announced that Norwich Union Insurance (Norwich, UK), the largest general insurer in the UK, is deploying Identify's AppSight Black Box application problem resolution software as part of its strategy to transform its application support processes.
A division of Aviva Worldwide, Norwich Union Insurance insures one in five households, one in seven motor vehicles and more than 800,000 businesses in the UK. In 2003, Norwich Union helped 1.6 million UK customers get their lives back to normal following an incident.
Underlying and supporting Norwich Union's significant transactional volumes is a complex network of business applications that must be operational, fault-free, and performing well to enable effective, profitable business performance. "We needed an efficient support infrastructure for our business-critical applications, which range from consumer-facing Web pages through to transactional and quoting engines," explains Janet Randell, manager of tools and technology at Norwich Union Insurance. "We have thousands of users internally and 30 million externally, so a rapid response in isolating and resolving software problems is imperative for us. AppSight gives us insight into application execution so that we can assign and solve problems significantly faster."
AppSight uses patented AppSight Black Box software technology to monitor application execution and capture a synchronized, real-time log of user actions, system events, performance metrics, configuration data, and code execution flow—much like the "black box" flight recorder on an aircraft captures a real-time record of a flight. The AppSight Black Box log can be replayed and analyzed to quickly pinpoint the root cause of all kinds of application problems, whether related to performance, configuration issues, user mistakes, or code errors. Because AppSight allows IT professionals to simply replay, rather than recreate the problem, it eliminates up to 70 percent of the cycle time traditionally consumed by root cause analysis.
A growing trend in Norwich Union's business is driving the company to transform its application support processes. The majority of Norwich Union sales are through broker channel accounts, but the growing preference of their personal lines customers is to deal with the company through Norwich Union Direct. This trend dramatically increases the application support challenge.
"The internet eliminates the buffers of brokers or customer support personnel, so business functionality, as well as potential application problems, could be exposed directly to our customers." said Jim Sadler, director of technology and innovation at Norwich Union Insurance. "Identify's AppSight Black Box technology is a core component of a new application monitoring initiative that shifts the fundamental focus from ‘fix it fast' to ‘anticipate and avoid' application problems."
Norwich Union's critical applications are a combination of packaged software and software developed in-house using mainly Microsoft technologies. The firm has now spent a full year training staff and testing and proving the software in development cycles, with a staggered rollout of the technology still underway. "From a development point of view, AppSight has proven itself a tremendously effective tool," says Randell. "We will soon be deploying AppSight in production, and expect to achieve significantly improved diagnosis times. Nothing else could give us this kind of insight, particularly in view of the production codes that are commonly in use today."
Norwich Union Insurance is due to incorporate AppSight into its standard support and development processes and Identify's patented Black Box technology will be embedded in the company's standard operating environment. "We are already finding that AppSight has provided significant business value," continued Randell. The total cost of ownership is low, with a quick time to market and the practical benefits being realized very rapidly. The scalability of the platform and the ease of integration were other plus points. As an enabler of increased productivity and lower costs, we have found Identify's AppSight Black Box to stand out as a pioneering technology."
About Identify Software
Identify® is the leader in application problem resolution software, helping hundreds of enterprises and software vendors speed application delivery, increase application quality, performance, and availability, and reduce application support costs. The company’s AppSight Application Problem Resolution System leverages patented Black Box technology to monitor application execution and to capture, communicate, and determine the root cause of application problems, thereby dramatically accelerating problem resolution processes across the application lifecycle.
Founded in 1996, Identify is a global organization, with operational headquarters in New York and offices in Israel and throughout the U.S., Europe, and Asia Pacific. For more information about Identify, please visit www.identify.com or call 800.364.5467.
Media Contacts
Betsy Graham
Identify Software
919 878 3717 x239
Karen Pantinas
PAN Communications
978.474.1900
Identify@pancomm.com
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