Although server virtualisation is still in its infancy in the air transport industry, research shows it promises to enable a substantial shift in the way IT is delivered over the next decade.
The airline ITC services company SITA (Soci'et'e Internationale de T'el'ecommunications A'eronautiques) released an airline IT trends survey yesterday, which shows 42% of airlines plan to make a significant investments in hardware virtualisation in the next three years, while another 48% plan to evaluate it.
The survey was an independent poll of senior IT personnel working within the top 200 passenger carriers, and 129 airlines responded to this year's study. Of these, 14% classified as low-cost carriers, 81% as full service carriers; and 5% as charter carriers.
The survey indicates a strong objective among airlines to implement virtualisation technologies, with an initial priority being IT infrastructure. It shows 40% of airlines have already created a virtual infrastructure environment, with this expected to rise to 85% by 2013.
Senior VP of products and solutions at SITA, Rene Azoulai, says server virtualisation could address a number of pressing issues within air transport, most notably significant cost savings. “It can also be a sustainable means to cope with the explosion of data processing and storage required for today and tomorrow's air travel,” he adds.
Azoulai says its ability to efficiently manage IT operations dispersed over a wide geographical area also opens up a new lower cost model for managing IT infrastructure at outstations.
“It is a model that sharpens the competitive edge by enabling the faster roll-out of new IT-based services, improving uptime and enhancing service quality to customers and employees,” he points out.
Virtualisation is not just a single piece of a jigsaw; it covers servers, storage, applications, and desktops, he notes. “Together they form a more efficient environment for data storage and running infrastructure, which are underpinning the use of new business models such as cloud computing.“
In the long run, he says, the powerful economics of virtualisation technology could see airlines and airports move more functionality to large server farms that are centrally managed.
However, the adoption of virtualisation technologies and virtualised environments does not come without challenges, notes Azoulai, adding there are new skills and best practices the industry's IT practitioners will need to learn.
“As has proved the case with a lot of the IT infrastructure that serves our industry so well today, there is much to be gained from pooling resources to reduce unit costs and avoid unnecessary duplicate investment,” he points out.
By doing this, the industry will also share its knowledge and experience, Azoulai says, enabling it to gain the benefits of virtualisation faster than if it worked alone. “It also provides us with a solid baseline from which we can all innovate further,” he adds.
Upon unveiling the survey, Paul Coby, chairman of the SITA board, said: “The stabilising budgets and increasing business confidence translates into a change in spending behaviour for airlines away from short-term tactical remedies needed in 2009 and a return towards long-term strategic thinking.”
According to him, after the past two difficult years, there is still an emphasis on accelerating IT projects which promise an early return on investment.
Industry analysts underline virtualisation as one of the business-strengthening technologies of today. The IDC says virtualisation will be a cornerstone technology as enterprises accelerate the need for more dynamic and converged infrastructure, to support the business needs of the next economic cycle.
Earlier this year, Forrester Research reported that business is entering “a new six- to seven-year cycle of IT growth and innovation” - a period it calls 'smart computing'. The firm states that smart computing rests on new foundation technologies, including server and storage virtualisation, with 2010 marking the beginning of this next phase of technology advancement.
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