LONDON, Sep 07, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS), a leading software provider that enables enterprises to be operationally responsive, has announced that Air France-KLM Airlines will use the Progress(R) Actional(R) SOA Management platform, part of the Progress Responsive Process Management(TM) (RPM) suite, to offer better visibility and help deliver 100 percent availability on its reservation systems.
Subsequent to their merger with Air France in 2004, KLM recognized they had an ever-growing amount of complex IT systems needing to work together to ensure their transactions work as expected. They also needed to find a way of integrating the multiple disparate systems from both companies, and avoid a costly "rip and replace" strategy. The company performed a gap analysis in order to compare its actual performance with its desired performance. It decided a monitoring solution for the entire IT infrastructure was needed to meet the requirements for a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and to maximize its effectiveness.
With the Actional SOA Management platform, Air France-KLM IT professionals will be able to collaborate across their newly merged enterprise to detect, diagnose, and repair problems and exceptions that could disrupt flight operations and reservations systems, and prevent them from recurring. A flight operations and E-Booking system is like any business transaction, typically involving many steps, and usually flows through multiple custom and packaged applications, middleware and databases. Even if each of these is running correctly, the transaction itself could still fail. The use of technologies such as integration brokers, messaging, ESBs, BPMs, SOA, cloud computing or Web 2.0 further increases the complexity of a transaction - resulting in an additional increase in issues and failures. Bringing two company's IT infrastructures together exponentially increases this complexity.
"After completing a rigorous proof-of-concept, we chose the Actional product for its enterprise-class features and functionality that fit right into our SOA-based infrastructure. The tool has a modern look and feel and its functionality fits all vendor environments," stated Hans Rietman, ICT Production Manager Connectivity at KLM. "In addition, the dedication and flexibility from the Progress Software team was extremely impressive."
The Actional product will first be implemented to monitor and govern the Electronic Booking Tool (EBT), end-to-end in real-time. The EBT was designed to offer customers an easier and more flexible booking system, thus allowing employees to focus on the value-added services that will contribute to Air France-KLM's business performance. The result of the project included the ability to detect early stage errors, quicker developing times and ultimately faster delivery of services to customers - driving competitive advantage.
Rietman continued: "Currently, global pressures in the travel industry mean E-Booking systems need to be up and running 24x7. By increasing real-time visibility with a proactive tool, like Actional, we are able to guarantee 100 percent availability for booking systems. We can monitor the environment, detect any unusual activity, then react and respond accordingly."
Joshua Norrid, Industry Vice President, Travel and Leisure for Progress Software commented: "With Progress Software, Air France-KLM is able to respond to changes in their business much more rapidly than before. Continuous revenue pressure, volatile fuel prices and the looming threat of highly irregular operations such as those created by the recent volcanic ash cloud all indicate that it remains a critical period for the airline industry. The steps that Air France-KLM is taking today to become more operationally responsive will continue to pay dividends for many years to come. Its ability to monitor, detect, react and respond is now greatly improved, which will help them gain and maintain competitive advantage."
Norrid added: "Modern air travel is dependent on more intelligent use of technology. Air France-KLM recognize the need for its business to be more operationally responsive and are taking action to achieve this."
Air France-KLM will initially use the Progress Actional Enterprise for Business Transaction Assurance product from the Progress RPM(TM) suite. Roll out to three data centers, in a SOA environment, will take place starting with KLM. Soon, this will be rolled out as a standard implementation across the Air France-KLM group.
About Air France-KLM
Air France-KLM website: http://www.airfranceklm-finance.com/
About Progress Software Corporation
Progress Software Corporation (NASDAQ: PRGS) is a global software company that enables enterprises to be operationally responsive to changing conditions and customer interactions as they occur - to capitalize on new opportunities, drive greater efficiencies and reduce risk. The company offers a comprehensive portfolio of best-in-class infrastructure software spanning event-driven visibility and real-time response, open integration, data access and integration, and application development and deployment - all supporting on-premises and SaaS/Cloud deployments. Progress maximizes the benefits of operational responsiveness while minimizing IT complexity and total cost of ownership. Progress can be reached at www.progress.com or +1-781-280-4000.
Progress, Actional, Progress Responsive Process Management, and Progress RPM are trademarks or registered trademarks of Progress Software Corporation or one of its subsidiaries or affiliates in the U.S. and other countries. Any other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.
SOURCE: Progress Software Corporation
Progress Software (EMEA)
Rachel Harnden, +44 (0) 1753 216 387
rharnden@progress.com
or
Octane PR
Laura Gillen, +44 (0)20 7802 2662
laurag@octanepr.com
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