 | Customer: | oneworld |
| Solution: | VMware virtualised hosting solution |
| Benefits: | Greater availability, great cost savings |
"Blue Sky provides full 24/7 system support with notification of system problems and resolution. Having said that, in all our time with them, there hasn’t been a single serious failure – which speaks volumes about their ability to manage their technology. They are flexible and we get great value for money."
- Bob McNair, Vice President Information Technology, oneworld
Situation
oneworld is a global airline alliance that offers a range of air travel options, rewards and benefits across 10 of the world's biggest and best airlines, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Finnair, Iberia, Japan Airlines, LAN, Malév Hungarian Airlines, Qantas and Royal Jordanian, plus around 20 affiliate carriers.
Blue Sky had provided Lotus Domino hosting services for oneworld since 2004. In 2008, oneworld asked Blue Sky to provide secure, reliable hosting for two distinct sites that make up an essential part of how the alliance oneworld operates.
The first was eRooms, an internal document management and project room service that allows for internal communications between the various participants in the alliance. The second was businessflyer, a corporate travel programme and online booking tool for small and medium enterprises.
The success of both sites would rely on 24/7 availability, transactional reliability and speed and, of course, complete security.
Solution
To meet this new brief and the changing needs and infrastructure of the oneworld business, Blue Sky refreshed their hosting solution onto two servers, with the production server running VMware ESX, a virtualised hosting solution.
Virtualised hosting allows oneworld to run two distinct applications – eRooms, the internal service and businessflyer, which is customer-facing – from one server, by splitting their server in two. So the company enjoys greater availability and higher performance, while enjoying cost savings at the same time.
Results
Virtualisation is already proving reliable and cost-efficient for oneworld. For a start, because Blue Sky hosts the solution in ‘cyberspace’, there is no need for a fixed server location somewhere in the world. This is ideal for a global operation like oneworld, and allows for centralised control and maintenance.
Also, if any component of the system fails, VMware simply moves the system to another Blue Sky webspace, so the service remains constantly available to the many oneworld members around the globe, ensuring a reliable, enjoyable customer experience.
Of course, the cost efficiencies are enormous. No physical real estate is required to host the system and resources like support and security are shared with other virtualised hosting clients.
As a result, oneworld is able to offer a better service to both customers and staff – and maintain cost efficiencies in the highly competitive air travel arena.
Blue Sky Hosting provides world-class QuickPlace, Lotus Domino hosting, BlackBerry hosting, Websphere hosting, Windows hosting and Google hosting.