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
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