* IBM rolls out Grid and Grow for Actuarial Analysis
IBM last week launched a grid-computing package for actuaries in life insurance companies that lets them perform analysis faster and more cost-effectively.
The IBM Grid and Grow for Actuarial Analysis consists of software and hardware from IBM, IBM business partners and independent software vendors. The package uses the IBM BladeCenter HS20 (Intel Xeon) or LS20 (AMD Opteron) servers, IBM Director management software, Linux or Windows operating systems and insurance-oriented middleware software.
The package is intended to help actuaries perform actuarial analysis faster. Many of the software models run by actuaries to calculate risk and pension plan payouts take days to complete and cost their companies millions of dollars a year. IBM claims that customers using the package showed a 75% reduction in time scheduling jobs and a 97% reduction in processing time.
IBM would not identify any companies that are using the Grid and Grow for Actuarial Analysis package, saying that competitive advantage keeps those companies secret.
The package uses software such as Milliman’s MG•ALFA, SunGard’s iWorks Prophet, DFA Capital Management’s Advise and GGY’s Axis, plus middleware from DataSynapse and Platform Computing.
The company also has specialized grid offerings for financial services and medical archiving. It’s Grid and Grow program was introduced in August of last year.
The package is available immediately.
