First Service Oriented Architecture (SOA),
Next Generation Financial System, realized on SPARC Enterprise.
Tong Yang Life Insurance and Tong Yang Systems (Korea)
- SPARC Enterprise Case Study -
Tong Yang Group’s competitiveness is enhanced
and system reliability improves customer services.
PDF Download for printing (306KB) / November, 2008
| System outline | |
|---|---|
| Industry: | Finance |
| Hardware: | SPARC Enterprise M9000, M8000 and M5000 |
| OS: | Solaris™ 10 |
| Software: | PRIMECLUSTER |
One of the most famous insurance companies in Korea, Tong Yang Insurance have chosen SPARC Enterprise as their core platform for “next generation financial systems” based on SOA. With a new financial era commencing in Korea, the Tong Yang Insurance next generation system will become the standard for the entire Tong Yang Group.
| Problems and impacts | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Unsatisfactory performance and batch processing taking too long |  |
High performance of SPARC Enterprise accelerated entire process. Downtime for batch processing decreased by 75%, from 2 hours to 30 minutes. Response in peak-times almost halved to within 2 seconds from 3.5 seconds. |
| 2 | Hardware resources should be efficiently allocated without loss of reliability | |
The systems maintain high reliability and can flexibly meet changes in the business environment. |
| 3 | Need to establish IT infrastructure able to welcome the new financial era | |
Standardized SOA base system provides synergy for entire Tong Yang Group. |
Customers' comments
Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise was very attractive for its ability to providing a one-stop solution including high performance, high reliability, and the scalability to meet the next five years’ requirements. It also established a TCO that included maintenance fees, and high quality technical support. Hardware partitioning, another hot button, was also something only SPARC Enterprise could provide. The system can meet the needs of server consolidation and changes in business environment with efficient and flexible division of hardware thanks to its unique functions.
In preparation for implementation of Korea’s financial Big Bang, momentum has been generated for next generation financial systems. To become more competitive and improve customer services, Tong Yang Insurance started to establish the first next-generation financial system in its industry based on SOA. Needless to say reliability and availability were essential, but Fujitsu’s total capability, including performance evaluation results with the customers’ benchmarks, technical support, hardware partitioning, and TCO, meant Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise was chosen as the platform.
Installation background
IT infrastructure for survival in the new financial era
Yeong Mo Kim, Chief of infrastructure, Tong Yang Insurance
A famous character, an angel with a star baton who guards customers, is the symbol of Tong Yang Insurance, while the motto
of this famous Korean insurance company is “customer first”.
They respond to customers’ needs as soon as possible and return profits gained from stable asset maintenance. They also embrace
new types of promotion, and were the first to provide TV based home shopping for insurance products. The promotion of insurance
products is changing from door-to-door and tele-marketing to cyber marketing, which is a combination of the existing door-to-door
approach and the Internet.
To complement such changes they are making an effort to build up their structures and systems. The combination of door-to-door
and tele-marketing is attractive to customers as is their new product line, retirement pension plans which provide customers
with ease of life planning after retirement.
Their revenue reached 100 billion Korean won in the last three years and this expansion of business reached a point where
this year the companies' shares began trading on the stock market, the first insurance company to be listed. In the new financial
era the Tong Yang Group will comprise one of the big three Korean financial groups.
The Capital Market and Financial Investment Service Act comes into effect from September 2009. In preparing for implementing
the resulting financial Big Bang, momentum has grown for “next generation financial systems”. Tong Yang Insurance has been
a leader in the Korean Insurance Industry introducing the first client server system. To maintain their IT leadership they
commenced the building of the first SOA based next-generation financial system.
Installation points
High records in benchmarking testing
Yeong Mo Kim, chief of infrastructure at Tong Yang Insurance introduced the purpose of the next-generation financial system. “The first purpose was to meet the dynamic changes in the financial business environment speedily and flexibly. Another was to build IT infrastructure that would allow us to keep coming up with new products to flexibly match changing customers’ needs.”
In terms of Tong Yang Group, the financial Big Bang is considered a big opportunity for new business under their total financial strategy. Yeong Mo Kim added the real meaning of “the next-generation financial system”. “There are customers who want to manage insurance and investments together. The next-generation system will help Tong Yang Group Financial companies such as Securities, and Investment Trusts cope with this and provide value-added products to customers. The next-generation financial system is an important factor in creating synergy within the Tong Yang Group.”
He also further explained the aim of the system. “The first thing to do is to solve existing system problems and build up an SOA base. This time it’s not just a system replacement but also business process improvement. Field staff will participate in the project to reflect their needs in the next-generation financial system. The system will also provide enhanced security of customer information to further raise customer satisfaction.”
To match critical requirements evaluation was done on each vendor's servers using an objective elements comparison. “Whenever Tong Yang Group buys a system performance benchmark tests are essential. We evaluated the performance for both online and batch processing. Fujitsu’s UNIX server SPARC Enterprise recorded the highest performance. We were very excited by the high performance processors and their multi-core multi-thread technology.”
But performance benchmarks were not the only criteria. They chose SPARC Enterprise after taking several operational aspects
into consideration.
“Fujitsu SPARC Enterprise was very attractive to us as it provided a one-stop solution including high performance, high reliability,
scalability to even meet five years requirements, a TCO including maintenance fees, and high quality technical support. Hardware
partitioning was also a hot button that only SPARC Enterprise could provide. The system meets the needs of server consolidation
or change in the business environment, with efficient and flexible division of hardware resources thanks to SPARC Enterprise’s
unique functions.”
Installation process and Systems features
IT Infrastructure activates Mission critical applications in Insurance
The most critical system element to underpin the insurance business of Tong Yang Insurance was a non-stop system. “The reliability and availability of SPARC Enterprise had already been proven by many references. But we were concerned about migration of data from the existing system to the new one. Thanks to Fujitsu’s support we were able to test this migration from the very first phases of the project. As the test proceeded successfully we became very comfortable about the move to the new system.”
Tong Yang Insurance adopted SPARC Enterprise M9000/M8000 and M5000 as their ERP and information system server of next-generation financial infrastructure for high reliability and built a clustered system for high availability. “The new system implements the three basic component flows of insurance; contracting, payment deposits, plus the data storage and information system. Although personal information and product information had been managed on separate servers on the previous system, hardware partitioning of the new system enabled them to be consolidated on one server while maintaining their reliability. Now as the overall system works together new types of marketing activity, such as product development based on client information can be brought to market.” Work on constructing the next-generation financial system is now under way with operational commencement in November 2008.
Expected effects and future
Less on-line application down time
In answer to the question, ‘how does the new system benefit the business?’ Yeong Mo Kim replied. “Based on an SOA system, field services can be types of modules. By combining those modules we will be able to bring new and optimized services quickly to customers.
For those in CxO positions there are numerous benefits; improved productivity with business process innovation, enterprise management innovation by KPI (Key Performance Indicators), competitiveness from more efficient use of information and customer satisfaction improvement. We are expecting that manageability will also improve from the optimized operating environment and efficient information administration.
SPARC Enterprise performance is also exciting. “We are forced to stop online transactions for two hours with the existing system. But the new system will never require more than 30 minutes down time. As operating times expand, customer convenience can be improved. At peak times when access concentrates, the response on our existing systems takes 3.5 seconds, but this will improve to under 2 seconds. Customers can also view their contracts anytime via the Internet. Service is also improved and will provide 365/24 services for customer convenience.
They are also looking for further ensure their future. “We are expecting the Tong Yang Insurance system approach to be applied to the entire Tong Yang Group. It will bring about great synergy. For this total course of action Fujitsu’s support is essential to us. We are looking forward to maintaining our good relationship with Fujitsu for business expansion in government, financial, and all other business areas.”
Fujitsu will continue to provide support for Tong Yang Insurance, Tong Yang Systems, and Tong Yang Group with business process support, technical support and SPARC Enterprise.
Tong Yang Life Insurance Co., Ltd. Profile
| Head office | 185, Euljiro 2-Ga Jung-Gu Seoul, 100-845 South Korea |
|---|---|
| Capital | $464.9 million (US$1=940KRW) |
| President | Park Joong Jin |
| Established | 20 April 1989 |
| Number of Employees |
Approximately 5,000 |
| Business Details |
Since its establishment in 1989, Tong Yang Insurance has held as its guiding principle, ensuring of the trust of its customers. Well known as a leader in the South Korean insurance industry they have remaining in surplus for the past 8 years. An achievement seldom reached in that financial sector. Their motto is " customer first" and this is represented by their unique guardian angel symbol. A symbol they use to represent the provision of their specific style of high quality total financial services. |
| URL |
 http://www.myangel.co.kr |
Tong Yang Systems Corporation Profile
| Head office | 24, Ogum-dong, Songpa-gu, Seoul, Korea 138 - 855 |
|---|---|
| Capital | $14.5 million (US$1=940KRW) |
| President | Yoo Jun Ryeol |
| Established | 30 March 1991 |
| Number of Employees |
584 (as of 2008) |
| URL |
 http://www.tysystems.co.kr/eng/default.htm |
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