It was obvious as 2002 drew to a close that Cigna Corp. would have to cut costs. Sales at the Philadel-I phia-based health insurance benefits company had risen for the year, to $19 billion, but earnings had plunged from $1 billion a year earlier to a loss of almost $400 million. For Cigna's IT organization, one area for savings stood out. The company had more than 3,000 servers and was bringing in new ones by the dozen, but server utilization was inefficient. "If you had a new application project, you got your own boxes, bought your own servers and put in your own software," says Cigna Chief Technology Officer Marcus Shipley. "Everything, all the way up the applications stack, was a one-off just for you, and boxes would run at 10% to 15% utilization."
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