Labuan Re boosts performance & cuts costs with green data centre

Labuan Reinsurance has modernised its core IT infrastructure by migrating its production workloads from Intel-based servers to AMD EPYC CPUs as part of a move to a green data centre in Cyberjaya. The project resulted in a 70 percent increase in workload performance and contributed to significant reductions in processing time and operational costs.

Performance gains

The transition addressed previous performance bottlenecks that impacted various business-critical tasks. Labuan Reinsurance reported a drop in batch job processing times from up to eight hours to under two, and reductions across other key processes. For example, profitability calculations, previously requiring seven hours, now complete in one hour. The company's core systems, which rely on Microsoft Hyper-V virtualisation and Microsoft SQL databases, have benefited from the new hardware setup.

The upgrade was spurred by long-term plans to ensure robust disaster recovery and to accommodate future digital capability requirements, including artificial intelligence for underwriting support.

Cost reduction

Alongside higher throughput, Labuan Reinsurance realised a substantial reduction in data centre costs. By consolidating servers, the company cut its rack usage by a third, decreasing space requirements and reducing rack costs by 30 percent. The company leases its data centre footprint and can now operate its full workload across two racks rather than three. These savings also enabled investments in upgrading disaster recovery facilities.

In addition to processor modernisation, Labuan Reinsurance moved to all-flash storage, replacing older multi-tiered storage technologies. This further contributed to lower power consumption in line with the company's sustainability commitments.

ESG commitments

Sustainability was a core consideration in Labuan Reinsurance's decision to relocate its infrastructure to Cyberjaya. The new data centre's green certification supports the company's environmental, social, and governance goals, which are increasingly important for its international client base. Currently, 71 percent of the company's business comes from overseas clients, including a significant portion from Lloyd's syndicates, with only 14 percent local business in Malaysia.

"The reason we moved over to the new data centre was to comply with our ESG roadmap. Prior to that we hosted internally, which was not tier three energy compliant, so we subscribed to a green data centre in Cyberjaya. With 71 percent of our business from international customers, 15 percent from Llyod's, and only 14 percent local, one of the criteria we used for selecting the data centre was that it must have green certification and ESG compliance to satisfy our global clients," said Patrick Wong, Chief Information Officer, Labuan Reinsurance.

Migration strategy

The company opted for AMD EPYC 9124 processors, choosing 16-core models for alignment with Microsoft licensing. Migration to the new platform relied on live migrations to avoid business disruption, with transitions carried out during non-peak hours. The process was described as smooth and did not require changes to the existing Microsoft software environment.

Most of Labuan Reinsurance's infrastructure, including user acceptance testing environments, now relies entirely on AMD architecture. The company selected HPE as its primary integrator for the project following a competitive bid process.

Future capacity

The modernised infrastructure provides capacity for up to five years, with future projects including the rollout of artificial intelligence features for underwriters. Early pilots have shown potential to reduce underwriting turnaround from weeks to less than a day for the company's forty underwriters.

"By partnering with AMD, we have significantly improved our system responsiveness and efficiency, which allows our teams to focus more on strategic initiatives rather than infrastructure limitations," said Patrick Wong, Chief Information Officer, Labuan Reinsurance. "The AMD EPYC processor platform provided us with the performance, reliability, and scalability we needed to modernize with confidence."