Recently, my team had the pleasure of visiting the
offices of PensionsFirst
Analytics LLP, which has enjoyed great success with a web-based solution
called PFaroe.
It was interesting to learn the way this young company has already transformed
the approach of many firms to pensions risk. Listening to the interviews, you
really thought: "Wow, these guys are really committed to their goal." Their mission: to revolutionize the way risk
is measured and managed in the defined benefit ("DB") pensions
industry by providing advanced analytical and advisory services to DB managers.
Some
of the IT challenges they were facing included:
- Build a datacenter from scratch
-
Get the PFaroe production
environment up and running in 12 weeks -
Have a duplicate infrastructure for disaster
recovery
The
company worked closely with Dell
Consulting Services, which set up a proof of concept (POC) at its Solutions
Innovation Centre in Limerick to look at possible configurations. This was followed by workshops on
virtualization and a series of meetings to finalize the environments’ design.
Then, as per schedule, the company gained two identical, platforms based on virtualizedDell
PowerEdge servers and Dell
EqualLogic storage.
Hear
more from Pensions First and how they developed their enterprise-level platform
from the ground up.
It was great to hear the customer say that the
PFaroe infrastructure is delivering exactly what they need. The
company is keeping down costs – a must for all young businesses – thanks to its energy-efficient solutions, and the PFaroe databases are performing
well through an impressive 10 gigabyte connection to the storage. On top of
this, the customer has peace of mind because every element of the solution
comes with a high level of protection from Dell ProSupport for IT.
I
came away from the video shoot incredibly impressed with the commitment of
everyone involved. Read
more about Pensions
First here.