The Asia Pacific data center of Kansas-based Lockton, one of the world’s largest privately owned insurance brokerage firm, providing insurance, risk management, employee benefits solutions and insurance brokerage services, has undergone a complete refresh with the help of Dimension Data.
Founded in 1966, Lockton operates in 75 locations in 22 countries and currently employs more than 6,500 staff worldwide.
With its original Asia Pacific (APAC) data centre based in Singapore in need of a refresh, Lockton decided to upgrade and migrate to a new facility in Hong Kong. The Singapore facility would later be used for Disaster Recovery. However, with limited internal resources and expertise in data centre migration, Lockton decided to engage an experienced IT partner to ensure a smooth transition and successful project delivery.
Lockton undertook a thorough review process in selecting Dimension Data as the IT partner for the project. During the selection process, all the potential systems integrators had to present their solutions to a selection panel consisting of Lockton US, UK, and APAC management and technical leads. The Lockton team was highly impressed with Dimension Data’s proven track record and was most confident with Dimension Data’s service delivery approach as compared to its competitors.
Dimension Data’s Data Centre Development Management (DCDM) model was used to better help Lockton understand its full portfolio of IT services in the data centre, identify the items that need to be migrated, and determine the best way to perform site recovery between the Singapore and Hong Kong centres. The team also included a final inspection to review all of Lockton’s application and system settings, as well as a best practice recommendation report to further fine-tune Lockton’s overall infrastructure.
“I had worked with Dimension Data on multiple projects in my other previous employments, and I have never been disappointed,” remarks Suk-Wah Kwok, Regional Chief Information Officer - Asia Pacific, Lockton.
On appointing Dimension Data as the project integrator, Kwok comments, “Dimension Data is no doubt a very strong player in the data centre service space. Apart from being assured by its industry reputation, I am impressed with their staff expertise and loyalty, and most importantly, their ability to deliver successful projects. These were the reasons that helped me select an integrator for Lockton’s crucial APAC data centre refresh project. Dimension Data had my vote of confidence right from the start.”
As the project came to a close, Kwok adds, “During the entire project, Dimension Data was always there for us, and worked closely with our APAC and global IT teams to make things happen, was quick to recommend solutions and respond to unexpected requests as they surfaced, from the beginning to completion.”
“Thanks to the assistance and support from Dimension Data, our new data centre is now up and running, with all our regional IT services successfully migrated from Singapore to Hong Kong. We have finally achieved our long-awaited goal of providing our APAC operations with a reliable and scalable data centre that is aligned with best practices and industry standards. It is now easy to manage and also more cost efficient.”