SITA DaaS

The SITA company announced in July, 2011 SITA DaaS start (the computer as service) — the first service on the basis of cloud computing intended for an aviation industry. The DaaS system from SITA will provide to airlines and the airports access to the applied systems, programs, processes and data from information centers, control of which is exercised directly of SITA company. The solution is applicable to any personal computers, tablets and smartphones, differs in efficiency and usability, without requiring at the same time the special equipment, says SITA. Thus, crews of airlines should not install specific programs on each working notebook or the personal computer. Any device connected to the Internet will allow them to get access to the resources placed in "cloud", such as working schedule, e-mail and corporate applications.

According to SITA, transfer of systems to "cloud" will ensure to airlines comfortable functioning with applications as response time of cloud infrastructure does not exceed 100 ms. It is caused by the fact that the global infrastructure of a system developed taking into account requirements of the world industry of air transportation includes six data processing centers placed on five continents. Having combined efforts with Orange Business Services company, SITA implemented a global high-performance network with the managed cloud infrastructure. Thanks to it both partners have an opportunity to offer clients a number of the flexible, safe and quickly unrolled program systems working on demand on the basis of technology of cloud computing.

The CEO of SITA Francesco Violante noted: "In April, from the moment of the first declaration of creation of a cloud system in the aviaindustry, we successfully were engaged in development and deployment of new services in this area. Our first offer — the SITA DaaS system which changes in a revolutionary way methods of conducting business operations in the industry, providing to airlines an opportunity to quickly solve any problems. Besides, the SITA DaaS system will allow to reduce costs due to failure of use of traditional personal computers and local computing resources".

Recently, the trend of change of conditions of activity in the aviaindustry which are expressed in increase in quantity of routes or contracts, violation of air communications or sharp growth of a passenger traffic is observed. Providing land services and partners with access to virtual work places, will allow airlines to adapt quickly the information and technical infrastructure to the new environment, are sure of SITA. Usually on introduction of corresponding changes months leave, but now the cloud of ATI will give the chance to all operators acting in different corners of the world to get an immediate access to the applications.

"SITA DaaS start once again confirms our confidence in perspectives of 'cloud' and also shows to the companies using technologies of cloud computing that this solution — the right step forward — continued Francesco Violante. — It is constructed on the basis of protected infrastructures with the general access, is the standard for the industry that promotes cost reduction and provides advantages in management of the general services. Security and reliability of private cloud computing are combined in this solution with the high performance and reliability which are necessary for the global systems".

The aviaindustry is interested in development of technology of cloud computing and application of the DaaS system, noted in SITA. So, according to "The overview of implementation of IT in airlines" 2011, nearly 93% of airlines implemented cloud computing services or are going to make it by 2014. At the same time about 77% of the companies are going to pass to DaaS till 2014. One of these airlines, Malaysia Airlines, already started the new SITA DaaS system.

"Our successfully implemented project of pilot implementation SITA DaaS showed that as a result such airlines as Malaysia Airlines, pay more attention to requests of clients, becoming more flexible and effective. It allows to decide many business challenges of the company to organize, for example, virtual call center, to open new and to transfer the existing offices and also to ensure functioning of temporary users whose involvement is required during the periods of crisis management — the vice president of Malaysia Airlines for retail sales and distribution Abdul Mutalib Ishak told about SITA DaaS implementation results. — At the moment, negotiations on system implementation of SITA DaaS are in the final stage".

Today SITA DaaS includes more than 30 applications certified by clients, including a solution package for management of passenger traffic of Horizon, SITATEX client, the mail Type B system servicing about 2300 clients worldwide and other applications for the industry of air transportation created by different developers. Within the coming months of SITA is going to provide a number of the applications developed taking into account extensive experiment of the company on management about 1.2 thousand application programs applied in the industry. Start of the SITA IaaS system (infrastructure as service) will become the next step of SITA in this direction.