Managing different international hotel brands is far from simple. Each brand needs to develop and preserve its own identity in order to drive differentiation and minimize inter-brand competition. In the modern hospitality sector, Web sites provide an important first point of contact for potential customers, so it is particularly important for each brand to have its own individual look and feel on the Web.
IBM Case Study
Major hotel chain builds brand value
with SOA and IBM WebSphere
Overview
? Business Challenge ? Solution ? Key BenefitsA major hotel and leisure Designed a Service Oriented Core back-end systems can be organization wanted to introduce a Architecture (SOA) and migrated its surfaced in a variety of ways by flexible IT architecture that would systems from the legacy mainframe different hotel Web sites, helping to support the differentiation of its systems to newly developed Java- strengthen brand identity. nine hotel brands by enabling the based application components Componentized architecture makes development of highly running on IBM WebSphere it easier to extend and add new individualized Web sites based Application Server. functionality - helping to unleash the on standardized, reusable power of Web 2.0 technologies.components. Its existing ? Key Solution Components mainframe-based architecture IBM HTTP Server, IBM WebSphere lacked the versatility to support Application Server, IBM WebSphere this vision. DataPower XI50 Integration Appliance, IBM WebSphere MQ, IBM WebSphere Service Registry and Repository When one of the world's largest hotel and this environment did not offer Creating a new service would then be as and leisure organizations wanted the flexibility required to support the easy as linking together the necessary to maximize the differentiation of its creation of highly individualized Web components, enabling rapid time-to-multiple hotel brands, it turned to IBM sites for each of the brands, built on market with a high degree of control and for a flexible and cost-effective Service the same fundamental back-end at low risk.Oriented Architecture (SOA) solution. components. The IT team identified three key data Managing different international hotel "We decided to explore the possibilities domains - hotel information and brands is far from simple. Each brand offered by a Service Oriented content; rates and availability; mapping, needs to develop and preserve its own Architecture," explains a company routing and weather. The team moved identity in order to drive differentiation spokesperson. "If we were going this data from the mainframe into and minimize inter-brand competition. to move away from the mainframe, new databases, and developed new In the modern hospitality sector, Web we didn't just want to put in another functional engines and messaging sites provide an important first point of hardware platform - we wanted to structures to stitch together the contact for potential customers, so it is introduce a new way of thinking about components into a working whole.particularly important for each brand to the software architecture. SOA offered have its own individual look and feel on a way to build a componentized "At first, the communications between the Web. infrastructure that could be reused, our new software components were extended and even replaced as the handled by XML over HTTP, but as On the other hand, many of the key business requires." SOA technologies have matured, we functionalities provided by hotel Web have started to build SOAP services to sites are fundamentally identical Building a Service Oriented Architecture replace them," says the spokesperson. - they need to provide information The SOA concept involves the "The move to SOA has really paid about hotel locations, rooms, facilities, componentization of the software off, because the services we have rates, availability, weather and so on. architecture, so that functionality developed can be used by all of our The company wanted all its brand developed in one area can be brands, and they are much easier to Web sites to use the same back-end packaged and re-used in another. extend and develop."systems to provide this information, This can significantly increase flexibility, without homogenizing their front-end boosting speed-to-market for new He adds, "Since all the elements of the appearance. services and reducing cost by enabling functional architecture are disengaged the "recycling" of existing functionality. from each other, we can complete Most of the back-end systems were In practical terms, this means that each performance enhancements and running on an ageing mainframe, component of the software architecture upgrades to one part of the architecture may support a number of different without worrying about... [download for more]
