Belgian Guarantee Fund (FCGB-BGWF) opts for proactive SLA with AXI
The Belgian Joint Guarantee Fund (FCGB-BGWF) has relied on AXI as its strategic IT partner for more than ten years. What began with support for business-critical database and application platforms has evolved into a broad collaboration covering infrastructure, network, security, and digital workplace. With the switch to a fully proactive SLA, BGWF is now opting for maximum availability, continuous monitoring, and more future-oriented IT.
The Belgian Joint Guarantee Fund (FCGB-BGWF) is an organization with a legal mandate. It acts as a safety net within the Belgian insurance system in situations where ordinary car insurance cannot or will not intervene. This includes, for example, uninsured vehicles, bankruptcies, accidents where the other party cannot be identified, or exceptional technological disasters.
BGWF handles thousands of cases every year, supports victims, and provides compensation for damages in complex incidents. Continuously available IT systems are crucial in this regard.
The challenge: continuity and specialized support
BGWF has been working with business-critical database and application platforms for many years. Over time, the IT environment grew and the need arose for a reliable partner who could combine infrastructure, application expertise, and workplace management.
Mr. Goossens, IT coordinator: “AXI's in-depth expertise in enterprise database and application environments is a valuable backup for us. If something needs to be done to an application, we know that consultancy is available.”
BGWF now has a compact IT team. This makes it important that operational tasks, monitoring, and follow-up are organized efficiently and structurally. In addition, historical growth had fragmented the infrastructure. For example, more than a hundred virtual servers were running for an organization with barely 90 employees. Rationalization was becoming increasingly urgent.
The solution: a proactive SLA
AXI currently supports BGWF with a proactive, 24/7 SLA covering three areas:
- Servers, storage & backup
- Firewalls & switching
- Proactive workplace management
In concrete terms, this means that AXI detects problems before BGWF notices them itself.
The SLA includes:
- Full monitoring of the environment
- Monthly security updates for most of the VMs
- Operational follow-up and audit moments
- Health checks of the entire environment
- Incident follow-up and consultancy for infrastructure changes
This relieves BGWF of the daily follow-up of incidents and updates, while maintaining transparency and control through structural reporting and consultation.
In-depth application and database expertise
AXI was initially chosen for its in-depth expertise in business-critical database and application environments, from underlying databases to custom applications.
IT coordinator: “I have seen many organizations that are strong in application development but lack insight into database performance. That is precisely where AXI has a major advantage.”
This makes AXI both an implementation partner and a substantive sparring partner for future modifications.
“I have seen many organizations that are strong in application development but lack insight into database performance. That is precisely one of AXI's major advantages.”
More proactivity, less risk
The switch to a proactive SLA ensured that the entire infrastructure is systematically monitored and documented. Historically built configurations, local scripts, or specific settings are now centrally managed and recorded.
The transition took time, but BGWF sees clear advantages: more control, clear procedures, and less dependence on individual employees. IT coordinator: “We can monitor everything through regular audit reports, and we have two meetings a year with AXI to discuss incidents and developments.”
Whereas in the past, interventions were mainly reactive, today the organization is building a forward-looking IT environment: from patch management to security advice and hardware life cycle planning.
Results that count
1. Continuous monitoring and higher availability
Faults are detected early and automatically followed up. Incidents are resolved more quickly and are discussed systematically with AXI during operational meetings.
2. Greater peace of mind
The risk of downtime is greatly reduced, while the internal workload remains limited.
3. Better documentation, greater transparency
Knowledge that used to be held by a single person is now shared, documented, and integrated into monitoring and reporting. AXI provides insight into what is happening, what interventions have been carried out, and what improvements are planned.
4. Preparation for hybrid cloud and rationalization
Thanks to the SLA and operational support, BGWF can experiment in a controlled manner with placing specific services in the cloud, without impacting the performance of critical on-premises environments. This allows BGWF to build experience with hybrid cloud, tailored to their operational needs.
Strategic collaboration
Over the years, the relationship between BGWF and AXI has grown from the purchase of software licenses to a fully-fledged strategic partnership. Trust is essential in this regard.
AXI contributes technical expertise, provides the right specialists, and goes beyond the role of supplier. BGWF sees AXI as its most important partner for IT infrastructure and development. In the coming years, the organization will focus on rationalization, modernization, and cloud computing. Thanks to AXI's proactive approach, it can continue to focus on its core task with a compact IT team: providing victims with accurate and rapid support.
