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Asurion Achieves Cloud Modernization with Proper Data Security and Governance in Place
Technology Category
- Analytics & Modeling - Predictive Analytics
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) - Cloud Computing
Applicable Functions
- Business Operation
Use Cases
- Cybersecurity
- Predictive Maintenance
Services
- Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services
- Data Science Services
The Challenge
Asurion's new digital home premium support service required strong predictive analytics, IoT capabilities, and big data architecture support, to be able to provide customers with the right experience. But Asurion's on-premises legacy data architecture could not support its global expansion or premium support service. To exceed customer expectations, Asurion needed a next-generation data architecture that could enable the company to spin up additional infrastructure, services, and products in weeks instead of months. Asurion also faced strict restrictions on migrating data, and had to remain compliant with stringent governmental regulations. As a part of this effort, Asurion needed to centralize companywide security management around a single point of control.
About The Customer
Asurion is a privately held company based in Nashville, Tennessee that provides device protection and support services for smartphones, tablets, consumer electronics, appliances, and satellite receivers. The company operates in 18 countries with 49 offices worldwide, serves 290 million consumers with 17,000 employees, and recorded more than $5.8B revenue in 2016. Asurion partners with the world’s leading telecommunications and cable service providers. Asurion’s biggest value proposition is its ability to deliver a high-quality customer experience. As Asurion expanded its operations globally, the company partnered with many telecommunications service providers of various sizes and scales of operation, and Asurion’s global client base expected an even higher quality customer experience. At the same time, Asurion started to provide premium support service, which extended beyond offering insurance and warranties to help customers manage their digital home experiences with premium support.
The Solution
Two central technologies that Asurion embraced towards their gen 2.0 data architecture were cloud and data virtualization. Asurion moved to the cloud to be more agile, flexible, cost efficient and to support their international expansion. At the same time Asurion needed to secure their cloud, conform to contractual client specific, regional and departmental data rules and needed proper access control to ensure data integrity and data protection. Asurion created a three-tier architecture with the Denodo Platform providing data virtualization both on-premises and in the cloud, as well as a consuming layer that contained Layer7, a security and management solution, and TIBCO Spotfire BI. The Denodo Platform established a hybrid data layer that abstracted data consumers from the complexities of access across on-premises and cloud sources while also providing better data integration for improved analytics. Because of Asurion's stringent security requirements, Asurion needed to keep the two types of sources physically separate, but logically connected, indefinitely. The Denodo Platform can run either on-premises or in the cloud, so Asurion deployed a Denodo instance in both infrastructures, with a bridge between the two, which formed a hybrid data layer that establishes a single access point to the on-premises sources, in keeping with the company's security requirements.
Operational Impact
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