AIG Opens Texas Data Center

Seeking to expand its ability to provide data recovery and business continuity services both internally and externally, AIG (New York) has opened a 200,000-square-foot data center facility in Fort Worth. The facility will be run by AIG subsidiary American International Group Data Center.

Growing Revenue Stream

While AIG will continue to look to outside vendors Comdisco (Rosemont, Ill.) and SunGard (Wayne, Pa.) to handle some of its needs, the second facility will allow the carrier greater internal data recovery capabilities should it need it. "One thing we're good at is managing risk," remarks Mark Popolano, AIG's enterprise CIO. "While we've always [partially] managed this capability within the AIG family, what we've done is take a forward-looking approach by building a second facility" to complement the carrier's existing data center in Livingston, N.J. "This concentrated, large facility in Fort Worth will not only extend our capabilities, but will allow us to grow our revenue stream with external clients," of AIG Technologies (AIGT).

The carrier has largely leveraged existing vendor partnerships to deliver capabilities, Popolano says. "Regarding the connection of our telecom capabilities, we use [Bedminster, N.J.-based AT&T's] OC 48 capabilities between our Texas and New Jersey facilities, which basically uses a loop-so it's built with redundancy in its construct," he says. "On the DASD support side we heavily leveraged our relationship with EMC."

AIG is using the Hopkinton, Mass.-based vendor's Symettrix remote data facilities as well as data snaps, illustrating the importance of storage area network technology in the facility's design. "That allows both open systems and mainframe to be in lockstep in our facilities," Popolano says. "Not only are we able to protect data, but [also] our operating systems and our applications at the same time."

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio