Background
Founded in 2015, Spearhead develops technology for the digitalisation of vehicle claims and lifecycle management. Its solutions bring together large volumes of claims, vehicle and telematics data to support insurers throughout the claims process.
Spearhead’s technology covers intelligent loss predictions, smart analytics, vehicle telematics and digital customer experiences. By aggregating and analysing claims data, digitised damage descriptions and vehicle information, its platform can predict repair costs and financial total loss risks, as well as provide settlement recommendations.
The platform also incorporates statistical models, machine learning and artificial intelligence, alongside vehicle telematics data, to support processes ranging from first notification of loss through to claims handling and settlement.
As a result, the infrastructure underpinning Spearhead’s technology needs to support a complex, data-intensive application while meeting the requirements associated with operating within the insurance industry.
The challenges
Spearhead originally approached Hyve while looking for a private, enterprise-grade virtualised environment for its platform.
Certification was an important consideration due to the company’s work within the insurance industry. Spearhead also wanted its own isolated hardware rather than relying on shared underlying infrastructure, alongside an ISO-certified hosting provider and a certified Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment.
We initially provided Spearhead with a VMware-based private cloud environment in Zurich. As its platform evolved, Spearhead made the decision to migrate from VMware to Red Hat OpenShift and expand its infrastructure across multiple locations.
This was a significant migration involving a high number of virtual machines and a large volume of data. The move also involved transitioning the existing Veeam backup environment to Veeam Kasten K10 for the new OpenShift platform.
With Spearhead’s technology supporting insurance claims processes, the migration needed to minimise disruption to the production environment while maintaining the availability and resilience its customers rely on.
At the same time, Spearhead wanted to develop its infrastructure across multiple locations to provide greater availability for its customers.
The solution
Our engineers worked closely with Spearhead to plan and deliver the migration from its existing VMware private cloud in Zurich to a new OpenShift environment spanning Zurich and Frankfurt.
Rather than attempting to move the entire platform at once, the migration was divided into two phases. The development platform and archival data were migrated over a weekend, allowing the process to be validated before the production environment followed. The production migration was then completed in a single evening, helping to minimise disruption to Spearhead’s live services.
Alongside the migration, a new OpenShift cluster was built from scratch in Frankfurt to support future projects and provide Spearhead with infrastructure across a second location.
Spearhead now operates on a private cloud OpenShift platform across Zurich and Frankfurt, providing a more highly available infrastructure foundation for its applications and future development.
The project builds on a long-term relationship between the two teams. Hyve engineers have now supported Spearhead through three migrations, adapting the underlying infrastructure as the platform and its requirements have evolved.
Hear from Hyve
“This was a complex migration, so careful planning was essential. By splitting the project into phases, our engineers were able to move the development environment first before completing the production migration in a single evening. It’s a great example of the close relationship we’ve built with Spearhead and how our team can adapt their infrastructure as their requirements evolve.”
Katharine Newman, Head of Account Management, Hyve Managed Hosting
Hear from Spearhead
“Hyve personnel have been great, very experienced. We have had three migrations so far and all went very well considering the complexity of our infrastructure.
“After moving to OpenShift and starting a new location, with our primary environment in Zurich and secondary environment in Frankfurt, we can provide our customers with a better highly available platform.”
Antoine Altabar, Spearhead AG
