National network integration and infrastructure management specialist Integr8 IT, through its partnership with Amadeus GTD Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd, has provided local retail travel agency, Club Travel, with service and support as part of a network enhancement project.
Club Travel has been utilising its own servers in-house and running Windows Terminal Services, Citrix, both a local and an Oracle database. The company required expertise to help address issues pertaining to load balancing, power supply and strain on the line.
"Load balancing or increasing the speed of service by spreading the work of one PC among two or more machines can add value to an environment. It is typically the main reason for computer server clustering. In the case of Club Travel, not all the servers were optimised and this presented a bit of a challenge," explains Lance Fanaroff, joint-MD of Integr8 IT.
The company experienced difficulty on the line as soon as its branches, located throughout South Africa, accessed applications.
The decision was made to acquire an optimised and secure server environment from Amadeus GTD Southern Africa (Pty) Ltd, the local national marketing company for Amadeus, a global distribution system (GDS) that provides marketing, distribution and IT services to the international travel industry.
"This new server environment is based on the latest in Microsoft technologies and will maximise uptime, ensure the security and stability of the booking process and resolve power issues," adds Fanaroff.
Integr8 IT assisted in the deployment of numerous servers in a secure hosted environment in IS. This includes multiple terminal servers with a controlling load balancing server as well as a separate server for Oracle database. This allows Club Travel to scale accordingly without loss of initial investment.
"The company can add terminal servers as the amount of users grow. It is also possible to accommodate multiple sites, branches, franchises and independent travel consultants accessing various applications," adds Fanaroff.
Amadeus software was loaded locally via terminal services and Microsoft Exchange loaded as multiple domains on this environment.
"The entire network was moved onto IS's ADSL MPLS over fibre links, so Amadeus could be accessed via direct link to Germany as well as over the Internet," Fanaroff continues. "The benefits of this project included the fact that there are no more power supply issues and users have terminal server and local access if need be. All users have mail running of the IS Hosted Exchange environment (again, MS Exchange), securely in the IS Data Centre."
Charmaine van Niekerk, operations director at Club Travel, says Integr8 IT's professional approach and its efficiency in service and delivery has made for a highly effective and mutually beneficial working relationship.
"My main function is to ensure a specific level of operations. I have to ensure that operations run smoothly, efficiently and cost-effectively. It helps to have an IT partner that 'speaks your language' and fits in with your focus, direction and strategy. We identified a few critical aspects of service in dealing with Integr8 IT, namely prompt responses, effective assessments, effective and prompt solutions, and genuine commitment to the project," explains Van Niekerk.
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