SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA -August 3,
2011- Information is the backbone of business success.
Without information, organizations stall and innovative ideas don't
see the light of day. Thomson Reuters, the world's leading source
of intelligent information, is focused on one goal - to put the
right information into the right hands to help clients produce
amazing results. Delivering on this promise requires an IT
infrastructure that can support game-changing products and
services.
Thomson Reuters' Westlaw legal research
service stores more than 5 billion documents and is used by
approximately 98% of the largest law firms in the United States.
Even though Westlaw was considered the preferred legal research
service, Thomson Reuters recently embarked on a journey to take
WestlawNext, which they launched in 2010, to even greater heights.
The goal was to create an innovative, intuitive research and
workflow tool that would make legal research as easy as Internet
search. To realize this goal, Thomson Reuters needed to enhance its
existing private and public cloud infrastructure to support
WestlawNext. With a storage infrastructure built on NetApp (NASDAQ:
NTAP), WestlawNext not only became a reality but set a new standard
for online professional search. To date, more than 20,000 law
firms, corporate law departments, and government customers have
adopted WestlawNext, and it was named the New Product of the Year
for 2011 by the American Association of Law Libraries.
"We consider NetApp to be a key strategic IT
partner, and the choice to build on the NetApp storage foundation
was clear," said Rick King, chief technology officer, Thomson
Reuters Professional Division. "WestlawNext is a revolutionary
product that required a storage foundation that would deliver the
dynamic search capabilities and unique customer experience we were
looking for. Working with NetApp enabled us to fundamentally
transform how legal research is conducted and provide the legal
industry with the most powerful and innovative product of its kind
in the market."
News Highlights
- Building on a NetApp® shared storage infrastructure gave
Thomson Reuters the flexibility they needed to create a WestlawNext
product that delivers a new level of search performance. NetApp's
network file system (NFS) performance and ability to scale allow
the service to search up to 50 times more data and return results
64% faster than other online search platforms.
- Lawyers work around the clock, and WestlawNext needs to work
around the clock with them. NetApp partnered with Thomson Reuters
developers to create a replication process that enables WestlawNext
to meet or exceed a 99.9% uptime target, giving lawyers around the
world the confidence of knowing that critical information is
available to them whenever they need it.
- The shared storage infrastructure supports the intelligent
search capability of WestlawNext. NetApp enables the service to
deliver 50 related pieces of information for a single search
request, helping clients do their jobs more effectively and
efficiently.
- Leveraging a virtualized, shared infrastructure built on
NetApp, Cisco, and VMware technologies has led to savings and
efficiencies for Thomson Reuters that include a 25% reduction in
power consumption.
- Improved storage performance helped save nearly $65 million by
eliminating the need to build a second data center orignally
thought necessary to house the WestlawNext platform.
Supporting Quotes
- Rick King, chief technology officer, Thomson Reuters
Professional Division
"WestlawNext truly pushes the boundaries of what is possible with
search. We set out to deliver a first-of-its-kind product to the
legal industry, and it's unreal to think that a legal search
product could elicit such an emotional and overwhelming response
from clients. Our partnership with NetApp helped make this
possible. The technological demands placed on our IT infrastructure
from the development process through production are amazing, and
the NetApp shared infrastructure never blinked once."
- Manish Goel, executive vice president of Product
Operations, NetApp
"Information is the backbone of Thomson Reuters. How they leverage
and deliver that information is what sets them apart from the rest
of the industry. When Thomson Reuters approached NetApp with their
vision for WestlawNext, we were excited to roll up our sleeves and
partner with them to make it happen. The broad acceptance from the
legal industry is proof that the storage infrastructure a company
builds on can make the difference between success and
failure."
Additional Resources
About NetApp
NetApp creates innovative storage and data management solutions
that accelerate business breakthroughs and deliver outstanding cost
efficiency. Discover NetApp's passion for helping companies around
the world go further, faster at www.netapp.com/au.
Press Contact:
Rachel York
Max Australia
(02) 9954-3492
rachel.york@maxaustralia.com.au
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