“With Infoblox’s DDI solution, we leverage the Infoblox Grid™ technology for central management where we link a collection of appliances around the world into a unified, centrally-managed platform; the central management capabilities give us tremendous control over these essential services and save significant manpower at all our regional sites.”
— Jeff Smith, Group Chief Information Officer at Torus Insurance
Torus is a global specialty insurer that provides property, casualty and specialty insurance, as well as reinsurance to a global client base through its European, US and Bermudian-based subsidiaries. Launched in 2008, Torus now has over 600 employees in 13 offices worldwide.
In every area of its business, Torus’ underwriting expertise is allied to strong analytics, allowing them to apply creative and innovative thinking to the underwriting of complex risks. Adding to this is Torus’ strong culture of service backed by the latest IT systems to provide the highest levels of service to their insured’s and their brokers, which in turn fosters the development of strong and lasting relationships.
Marc Bennett, Network & Security Architect at Torus, manages the firm’s network and security operations and direction. In the process of expanding operations, Bennett recommended early on migration from Microsoft general-purpose servers to Infoblox appliances for essential DNS and DHCP services. He knew that Microsoft servers would not be able to scale to meet the company’s growth projections. He knew multiple geographies would soon be added to the network and IT staff resources would not grow congruently. It is embedded in Torus’ culture that they are backed with the latest IT systems to provide the highest levels of services to their customers and Bennett had just the right best-of-bread technology in mind.
Laying the right foundation with Infoblox versus Microsoft was key to optimizing their resources.
In a highly competitive insurance industry, where network reliability and optimizing resources is essential, Torus looked to Infoblox for an integrated DNS, DHCP and IPAM solution with highly available and centralized management. Bennett had previous experience working with Infoblox appliances and recommended the solution to Torus. He was also a “one-man” department at Torus, so establishing a network that was as automated and efficient as possible was critical. Ultimately, deploying the Infoblox appliances will help Torus be able to scale to deliver services to the business versus building a bigger IT department.
Infoblox’s solutions have made it possible for Torus to scale and address all the issues with its previous DNS, DHCP and IPAM systems. Bennett and Torus Group CIO, Jeff Smith, were particularly impressed with the Infoblox solution’s high availability features, central management, easy updates/patching, “one-button” disaster recovery capability and Grid™ technology.
Jeff Smith, Group CIO at Torus Insurance, commented, “With Infoblox’s DDI solution we leverage the Infoblox Grid™ technology for central management where we link a collection of appliances around the world into a unified, centrally-managed platform; the central management capabilities give us tremendous control over these essential services and save significant manpower at all our regional sites.”Torus selected Infoblox-1050 appliances running NS1 and unique Infoblox Grid technology. The Infoblox Grid technology links a collection of appliances into a unified, centrally-managed platform. Benefits include resilient operations, unified management and real-time, secure, system-wide updates. They also selected Infoblox-550 and -250 appliances with the DNSone module to ensure nonstop delivery of DNS and DHCP.
Torus deployed three HA pairs in their regional Data Centers and one physical box in Amsterdam, Atlanta, Hamilton, Cologne, Chicago, Houston, London, Zurich, Schaan, New Delhi and New Jersey offices, managing all centrally via Grid connection and Infoblox’s intuitive GUI. The devices leverage the Infoblox DNS Anycast, which maintains that DNS service is highly available. The devices also leverage Infoblox’s built-in IP address management functionality, which allows them to track IP addresses that are given out throughout the entire network. Prior to Infoblox, it was difficult to have any reliable knowledge of the IP addresses.
“My team is as big as me, but because of the automation, templates and resilience that the Infoblox appliances provide, I can easily manage the workload despite the fact that we have tripled in size since we first deployed Infoblox. The Infoblox appliances definitely scale with Torus’ growth,” added Bennett. “I love the new GUI and dashboard – it’s so easy for us to see what is happening in the network and the one button upgrade saves loads of time – it really makes everything so efficient at the tip of my fingers.”
Torus also deployed Infoblox NetMRI in September 2010. The NetMRI solution provides Torus with a complete audit of the network on a daily basis. The automated reports provide great insight to the overall health of the network while giving a quick snap shot of Torus’ network strengths and the areas that need attention. The scorecard also includes a configuration report that allows the IT staff to compare current configurations with previous ones.
The Infoblox solution was easy to deploy and simple to upgrade because it eliminates the need to install and manage an operating system with its Grid™ technology and offers an intuitive graphical user interface (GUI) for easy DNS and DHCP changes and IP address visibility and management.
Further, the purpose-built appliance approach has inherent security benefits and increases reliability with high availability functionality built-in.
Both Bennett and Smith are convinced that Infoblox has given Torus clear control of its infrastructure. The firm can instantly and routinely obtain vital, real-time data about its network.
Today, with time saving features like the unique Grid™ technology, patch management and automatic updates for the operating system, the Infoblox appliances simplify IT operations significantly.
“The entire process of managing DNS and DHCP for Torus has become a much more efficient, accurate and reliable system,” concluded Smith. “Most importantly, Infoblox has helped immensely with the scalability of the network and the agility of our business.”
A global leader in property, casualty and specialty insurance
Internal DDI & NCCM
Establishing a highly reliable, manageable and scalable network infrastructure to accommodate the highest levels of services to their customers
2 20 Infoblox appliances with Infoblox NS1 and Infoblox Grid™ technology as well as Infoblox NetMRI for:
