News

2006 Archive

Halcyon aids Budget Insurance Services expansion

Date Posted: 24/05/06

Online business expansion at Budget Insurance Services drives improved systems management

Halcyon Operations Center software removes weekend and night shift for IT team supporting seven IBM System i™ (iSeries™, AS/400™) servers

Insurance intermediary, Budget Insurance Services, has purchased new systems management software from Halcyon to support the recent rapid expansion of its IT systems as a result of strong growth in online business. Employing over 2000 people, Budget has developed its own software and systems to manage its online operations and all of its back office processing using the IBM System i™ (iSeries™, AS/400™) hardware platform.

The Halcyon Operations Center provides Budget Insurance Services with a cost-effective solution to managing the new IBM System i™ (iSeries™, AS/400™) systems, and ensures IT support is fully equipped to deal with the sophisticated scheduling, management and out-of-hours monitoring that a growing business environment demands.

Budget Insurance Services has enjoyed rapid business growth since the Group was established in 1992, and more recently that growth has stemmed from its online operations. The new software, Halcyon Operations Center, is designed to automate the management of the company’s seven IBM System i™ (iSeries™, AS/400™) servers, including two recently added top-of-the-range IBM Power 5 servers. The solution provided by Halcyon is a significant investment for the company, and is part of an ongoing strategic initiative by Budget Insurance Services to continually improve its IT systems support, and provide a more productive environment for its System i™ (iSeries™, AS/400™) team.

Anthony Gould, Operations Manager for Budget Insurance Services, comments, “To keep up to date with business growth and IT demand we needed a solution that could be deployed simply and provide teams with 24-hour remote-access support. We also needed a solution that incorporated comprehensive and intelligent job scheduling in addition to automated reliable reporting at the end of each day.”

Gould continued, “The Halcyon solution provided all this and more, with an easy to use interface that utilises electronic communication processes, such as e-mail and text, ensuring prompt notification and response to any eventuality. It became apparent at the outset that Halcyon could meet our brief for today and was future-proof for our growing business needs of tomorrow.”