“IT is becoming an integral part of shaping the hospitality business and how it functions,” comments Lynsdale.
“It’s about anticipating business needs before they materialise and how we in ‘IT’ translate this into workable solutions. As business demands have increase… it’s important to ensure we are one step ahead of the game, particularly with competition being so high. Rather than ensuring systems are running smoothly, IT is a key player in helping drive business change through innovation and system optimisation,” he adds.
To match the business demand, the 25-strong IT team at Atlantis has virtualised much of its IT infrastructure, shifting applications, data and servers to the cloud, accelerated the check in process, deployed an IPTV system and instigated a rolling app development programme that aims to offer greater personalised services to guest.
Initial discussions about overhauling Atlantis’ servers and core business applications started in early 2017 and RFPs went out in the summer.
After exploratory discussions with the major vendors, the hotel team opted for infrastructure based around Dell’s VxRail and VMware.
“We already had a very good understanding of VMware and the nuts and bolts of VxRail,” says Lynsdale.
“But a key factor was the post-implementation customer care. For us that was critical. We’ve worked with a lot of vendors, [and] a lot of products have the capability, but it’s really about how they support [you] post-implementation. I felt that Dell were very solid in that regard,” he adds.
The revamped infrastructure offered Atlantis some immediate business benefits, not least of which was a more robust and simplified setup. Given the size and scope of the resort and the volume of transactions it handles every day, a bulletproof infrastructure, without a single point of failure was vital.
The shift to the cloud also has allowed the hotel to significantly reduce its number of on-site servers from 70, to just 10.
“As a result of the volume [of transactions] that we have, we had to have a lot of server infrastructure… We were looking for vendors that could streamline that for us and put the data centre into one rack,” explains Lynsdale.
With sister property, The Royal Atlantis due to open on the plot next door, adding another 793 rooms and 230 service apartments sometime in 2019, the infrastructure also had to be scalable. The additional server and storage capacity for The Royal Atlantis should plug-in straight into the existing setup. There is also the possibility of building a disaster recovery site across both properties. “For us, it is about scalability,” says Lynsdale.
“We have enough room and scale here to support them, but I would like to have a disaster recovery type of scenario, where we have primary infrastructure here and then secondary [data centre at the Royal]. That would be the ideal situation,” he adds.
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