Can you imagine an airline’s website that cannot handle the traffic increase when thousands of users flood the site after a low fare promotion? Or a ticketing network that fails during check-in? These systems are critical for airline operations.
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Three years ago, the largest Brazilian airline, TAM Linhas Aéreas, made a decision to move several key systems to the cloud computing model. Now, TAM’s reservations, check-in, inventory and departure control processes, as well as its e-commerce and payment systems are in the cloud, under a software-as-a-service model.
“We’ve been running our critical mission applications in a private cloud for three years, and I have to say all promises were fulfilled,” Elói Prado de Assis, TAM’s IT senior manager, said this week at the Cloud Computing World Forum Latin America 2012. “Before moving to the cloud, TAM had two or three marketing promotions each year, and now we put out about six or eight.”
According to Assis, the critical point was that the cloud provides scalability and a faster time to market. However, it did not mean there were no issues. “Since we put all the systems in the cloud, one single unavailability means keeping all systems offline. In addition, there is increased dependence on the network and the need to reduce latency,” he said.
On the other side, moving to the cloud increased availability from 99.5% to 99.95%. This slight percentage change may not seem like much, but for TAM, it represents 90% less time that systems are unavailable. “Now, there is no impact on the system’s performance, even with15 times more volume,” Assis said.
Assis also said there was a 30% reduction in costs.
The IT transformation started in mid-2008, when the company decided to change its legacy systems. TAM replaced its multiple legacy applications with Amadeus Altea customer management solution, a system already used in part or in its entirety by more than 60% of Star Alliance’s member airlines. Back in 2009, TAM and Amadeus also announced a 10-year technology agrement.
Assis would not say exactly how much TAM spent. “You can say it was tens of millions of dollars,” he told RCR Wireless News.
The implementation of the new system started in November 2009 and was finished in March 2010.
