TUI Travel A&D optimizes its business operations with Cisco UCS for SAP HANA

It’s the first SAP HANA on UCS public reference in EMEA

Madrid, November 5^th, 2012. – Cisco has announced that TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations (A&D) has implemented Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) servers and Cisco Nexus switches as a key platform for optimizing its business operations improving the performance of their main applications.

Cisco technology has been selected to support the SAP HANA (High Performance Analytic Appliance) platform, SAP Business Intelligence applications (SAP Business Warehouse and SAP Business Objects Suite) and VMware virtualization software, a combination that enables TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations to process and analyze large amounts of information in seconds, create innovative applications, and significantly speed up data transfer rates.

Based in Palma de Mallorca, TUI Travel A&D is a global provider of travel services that operates through four business lines: accommodation wholesale; accommodation online travel agent (OTA); inbound services and cruise handling. It has an unrivalled local presence of destination services companies in over 50 countries and operates a database of over 55,000 hotels worldwide, with international brands such as Hotelbeds, Intercruises, Destination Services, Worldcome and Pacific World.

Key facts of the announcement

• In its data center, TUI Travel A&D has incorporated the certified SAP HANA platform on high-availability mode Cisco UCS servers. Many SAP and Cisco customers are deploying HANA on UCS but TUI is the first public reference in EMEA (Europe, Middle-East, Africa) region.

• Thanks to Cisco UCS, TUI Travel A&D now enjoys rapid access to critical business information -without the delays of typical data warehouse environments- improving the performance of SAP HANA and main SAP Business Intelligence applications (SAP Business Warehouse and SAP Business Objects Suite). The Cisco UCS platform combines advanced computation capacities with the dynamic provision of servers, a single cabling structure for its LAN and SAN networks (unified fabric), and unified management of physical and virtual servers to reduce total cost of ownership.

• TUI Travel A&D has also selected Cisco to renew and consolidate its data center with a hardware platform focused on virtualization and the adoption of Cloud Computing environments, ready for the leap forward to 10 Gb Ethernet. All of this contributes to improving its online operations and obtaining optimal network performance in terms of data transfer. With a smaller physical footprint, TUI Travel A&D estimates that the company will save more than 150,000 euros per year in IT housing and administrative costs.

• The unification of components – networks, servers, data storage access and virtualization – that Cisco UCS provides can reduce energy consumption by more than 50 per cent compared with traditional server environments, while the two new Nexus 7009 switches increase data transfer rates to 15 Tbps to prepare the network for the imminent migration to 100 Gb Ethernet. In addition, Cisco UCS Manager enables the IT team to deploy new virtual servers in minutes versus days or even months.

Statements in support

• Greg Garrison, Chief Technology Officer of TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations.

“We need the support of the best data center technology and network infrastructure to manage our online business with the maximum scalability, adaptability and security, supporting intensive 24×7 operations and software updates, while guaranteeing maximum availability and data transfer rates. Cisco UCS servers, based on standards and supported by a complete ecosystem of partners like VMware, EMC, Oracle and SAP, have met our expectations and constitute a complete platform for promoting our growth now and in the future”.

• Santiago José Reig, Head of Business Intelligence B2B at TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations.

“Now that we’re using SAP HANA on Cisco UCS, we have gone from analyzing millions of records in hours to the flexibility of analyzing hundreds of millions of records in seconds”.

• Xavier Massa, Partner Organization Manager in Cisco Spain.

“SAP solutions combined with Cisco UCS provide confirmed value with a unified high-performance fabric, optimized memory capacity, reduced energy consumption, and low total cost of ownership. The project with TUI Travel A&D is the first SAP HANA reference on UCS in production in the EMEAR region and an unequivocal demonstration that Cisco UCS is becoming an ideal colleague for SAP HANA to increase the yield of data warehouse systems”.

Additional resources:

• More information about Cisco Unified Computing System y Cisco Data Center Solutions.
• Padmasree Warrior, Cisco CTO, explains on this videohow Cisco and SAP are working together to give customers the ability to make better decisions faster.
• More information about the SAP HANAappliance.
• Learn more about SAP HANA on Cisco UCS.
• Read the Cisco Data Centerblog.
• Cisco News RSS Feed.

About TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations

TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations is part of TUI Travel PLC (www.tuitravelplc.com), one of the world’s leading leisure travel companies. TUI Travel PLC has over 250 trusted brands in 180 countries and more than 30 million customers.

TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations competes in high growth areas of the leisure travel market: accommodation wholesale; accommodation OTA (online travel agent); inbound services and cruise handling. The Sector is fast growing and has market-leading brands including the global brands Hotelbeds, Intercruises, Destination Services, Worldcome and Pacific World and leading local brands including LateRooms.com and AsiaRooms.com.

In the financial year ended 30 September 2011, TUI Travel Accommodation & Destinations had sales of €3.1 billion and over 8000 employees across 50 countries.

More information at: http://www.tuitravelplc.com/about-us/our-business/accommodation-destinations.

About Cisco

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