Qantas:Yesterdays Technology Tomorrow
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Qantas:Yesterdays Technology Tomorrow
Sunday June 19th, 2011 By Ian GRAYSON
Having spent much of the past week as a victim of the volcanic ash cloud, I've got one thing to say to Qantas about it: get into the clouds.
And by that I'm not talking about getting your planes into the air (although that's what rival Virgin Australia managed to do) No, I'm talking about making use of cloud computing to ensure your web site remains usable during times of unexpected demand - because it most certainly wasn't last week.
When ash clouds brought flights to and from Melbourne, Tasmania and New Zealand to an abrupt halt last Monday, the travel plans of tens of thousands of people were thrown into disarray. Naturally they were keen to find out what was happening and many went online to do it.
As a Qantas passenger, I headed to Qantas.com to try to figure out when I might be able to get home. Evidently I wasn't alone and the site's performance dropped through the floor.
Pages would not load or, if they did, displayed little of value. Re-booking or checking the status of flights became almost impossible as the extent of the delays increased and more people joined the online rush for information.
Now, I acknowledge that demands on the site were unexpected, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be able to cope. Major disruptions to airlines schedules are not a "never happens" kind of thing.
So why, like so many other companies, does Qantas not have the ability to rapidly scale its web site capacity at times of increased demand?
Such scaling is not as difficult as it used to be. Thanks to the rise of cloud computing, there are a number of providers that can provide on-demand capacity for customers during their hour of need.
Rather than having server racks installed but sitting idle just in case they might one day be needed, companies can rent extra capacity in the cloud and bring it online instantly.
So, as demands on the Qantas website spiked, capacity could have been scaled to ensure user access was maintained. The result? Much happier customers.
As well as getting its jets back into the clouds, it could be time for Qantas to take the same approach to the the data centre running its website.
Having spent much of the past week as a victim of the volcanic ash cloud, I've got one thing to say to Qantas about it: get into the clouds.
And by that I'm not talking about getting your planes into the air (although that's what rival Virgin Australia managed to do) No, I'm talking about making use of cloud computing to ensure your web site remains usable during times of unexpected demand - because it most certainly wasn't last week.
When ash clouds brought flights to and from Melbourne, Tasmania and New Zealand to an abrupt halt last Monday, the travel plans of tens of thousands of people were thrown into disarray. Naturally they were keen to find out what was happening and many went online to do it.
As a Qantas passenger, I headed to Qantas.com to try to figure out when I might be able to get home. Evidently I wasn't alone and the site's performance dropped through the floor.
Pages would not load or, if they did, displayed little of value. Re-booking or checking the status of flights became almost impossible as the extent of the delays increased and more people joined the online rush for information.
Now, I acknowledge that demands on the site were unexpected, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be able to cope. Major disruptions to airlines schedules are not a "never happens" kind of thing.
So why, like so many other companies, does Qantas not have the ability to rapidly scale its web site capacity at times of increased demand?
Such scaling is not as difficult as it used to be. Thanks to the rise of cloud computing, there are a number of providers that can provide on-demand capacity for customers during their hour of need.
Rather than having server racks installed but sitting idle just in case they might one day be needed, companies can rent extra capacity in the cloud and bring it online instantly.
So, as demands on the Qantas website spiked, capacity could have been scaled to ensure user access was maintained. The result? Much happier customers.
As well as getting its jets back into the clouds, it could be time for Qantas to take the same approach to the the data centre running its website.
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The idea of cloud computing (fancy name for an old concept - hosted services, but with more elasticity available as demand changes, and heavily leveraging virtualisation technologies) sounds nice, but its not as simple as the author thinks.
Moving to a cloud model introduces some significant security concerns, such as shared storage, multi-tenancy, and importantly, and a common practice of service providers to wash their hands of security - i.e. placing the responsibility to accept the risks onto the customer.
With critical services and personally identifiable information being held on Qantas's systems (and other airlines systems too), a breach due to weak security (i.e. in the cloud) could have major financial and reputational consequences, not to mention the risk of attacks on these systems that may not cause disruption but allow for the creation of false identities or other data.
Moving to a cloud model introduces some significant security concerns, such as shared storage, multi-tenancy, and importantly, and a common practice of service providers to wash their hands of security - i.e. placing the responsibility to accept the risks onto the customer.
With critical services and personally identifiable information being held on Qantas's systems (and other airlines systems too), a breach due to weak security (i.e. in the cloud) could have major financial and reputational consequences, not to mention the risk of attacks on these systems that may not cause disruption but allow for the creation of false identities or other data.
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Yes. And I hear on the grapvine from the people doing the work that some companies that went to shared hosting environments at a certain large outsourcing vender are moving their systems back onto their own dedicated equipment due to the issues involved with the shared hosting and it not living up to the hype! Not to mention that they were most likely being charged an arm and a leg for a cheap as chips environment!! 
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Corporate history just works in cycles.
Outsource to demonstrate cost savings.
Then bring it back in house when it fails and/or becomes too expensive.
When will the smartest guys in the room catch up with everyone else. Not soon I presume.
Outsource to demonstrate cost savings.
Then bring it back in house when it fails and/or becomes too expensive.
When will the smartest guys in the room catch up with everyone else. Not soon I presume.
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What about the Technology LEAP forward.........then back....then into a black hole????
You guessed it.....the BLACKBERRY PROJECT.
Cost=$1.2m (down the S-bend)
Company=Telstra/RIM (say no more!)
Sponsor=LG
Functionality=Phone calls only(if really,really necessary!)
Introduced=2007
Dumped=2010
Promise=Tech revolution
Delivery=Zip
You guessed it.....the BLACKBERRY PROJECT.
Cost=$1.2m (down the S-bend)
Company=Telstra/RIM (say no more!)
Sponsor=LG
Functionality=Phone calls only(if really,really necessary!)
Introduced=2007
Dumped=2010
Promise=Tech revolution
Delivery=Zip
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127.0.0.1 there are extremely easy technical solutions to the problems you've described. It's possible to outsource only part of the website and keep secure information inhouse. Obviously you then lose the advantages of the cloud concept for the secure sections... but you still keep the vast majority of your millions of customers and their associates happy who just want to know when their flight disruptions are going to end or when they should head to the airport to pick up their friend.
Good enough for Cathay Pacific...
Customer Stories
Good enough for Cathay Pacific...
Customer Stories
