Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 28 | Page 61

CASE STUDY has grown very organically over 80 years and the technology has expanded with it. Over time, the airport systems have become more and more dependent on technology to underpin it all. As things have started to become more integrated, with data flowing in all directions; it’s become more important to have modern application architectures and modern infrastructure and systems to be able to underpin that and to deliver the performance and resilience we need. demands on the network and compute estate, so it doesn’t make sense to offload this type of service into the cloud when we can keep it on-prem. The new infrastructure allows us to much better support the 24x7x365 airport operations, we’re now better able to move running applications and workloads across the estate – we can keep the systems up and running better and can therefore reduce downtime and impact on passengers for queues etc. It’s a very tangible environment working in an airport where if something goes wrong, it very quickly manifests in flight delays and passenger queues and where very quickly these issues are making the national news. From a company reputational perspective, it’s essential that we can provide good IT and good technology. What were some of the challenges that you encountered before the implementation and how has the solution helped to overcome these? How has the solution reduced downtime and enabled efficiencies in other areas of the business? In terms of reducing downtime we’ve delivered a much more resilient, secure and flexible infrastructure that can better withstand failure. What we’ve built is fully resilient high availability data centres on- premise and a hybrid cloud environment so that we can seamlessly run workloads wherever it makes most sense. The reason we’re using hybrid cloud and not just putting everything into the cloud is because a lot of the critical airport systems need to run locally due to latency and bandwidth requirements – we can run these more efficiently in our own data centres. Given the nature of the airport environment, we have a huge amount of CCTV across the estate, with lots of high-quality video recording, this generates significant Referring back to my earlier point with regards to how the airport has grown organically, airports are hugely dynamic environments so from Manchester alone, we have 70+ airlines that fly from the three terminals there and they change all the time so you’re constantly having new airlines to onboard as well as airlines and their ground handlers moving between terminals. The level of change is even greater currently, because we’re building a new terminal. Moving someone from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2 sounds easy but from an IT perspective this is a massive logistical challenge on our old infrastructure. What we’ve built now and what we are still building now is a much more automated and dynamic environment so if a new airline wants to come in, it’s much easier for us to support. We’ve been able to deliver a lot more flexibility and agility to the business, which means we can offer a much better service to our customers, whether they are the airlines or the millions of passengers who use our airports every year. THE NEW INFRASTRUCTURE ALLOWS US TO MUCH BETTER SUPPORT THE 24X7X365 AIRPORT OPERATIONS, WE’RE NOW BETTER ABLE TO MOVE RUNNING APPLICATIONS AND WORKLOADS ACROSS THE ESTATE. www.intelligentcio.com Why did you select Keysource as a vendor? Keysource has a track record of working in airports and of delivering high-quality mission critical data centre and IT infrastructure. It quickly understood our requirements, the complex nature of the airfield environment and was able to meet the needs of the business. How smooth was the implementation process? It was tough but not so much from a vendor perspective – the environment is really difficult to work in. So, with regards to the two data centre locations we’ve built on-premise in Manchester, one is on the far side of the runways away from the main terminal buildings and in an airside location. We pulled many kilometres of fibre around and under a live 24x7 dual runway airfield, which in itself presents a significant challenge, particularly when you also factor in the weather. We solved for collapsed and flooded ducts, missing pits, fog and torrential rains. The Keysource team and my team worked brilliantly together and came up with innovative solutions to solve problems. How far has the solution future- proofed the company? Massively. What we’ve implemented is leading edge, hugely scalable and will support the airports for years to come. We’ve also put a plan in place which will ensure we continue to refresh and keep pace with technology advances. We have the partner relationsips in place to take advantage of innovations as they arise. What are the benefits to the end-user? The key benefits for me boil down to performance, security and resilience – we’re providing infrastructure which helps the business to go faster with less downtime. Downtime in particular has a massive impact and is felt very quickly, sending a huge ripple right the way through the airport operation. So, less downtime, more consistent operations means a much better passenger experience, more reliable and efficient operations and a happy airport community. n INTELLIGENTCIO 61