July 25, 2019 The Holiday Inn Express Deploys Scale Computing

July 17, 2019

The Holiday Inn Express Paris – Roissy CDG Airport

The Holiday Inn Express brand, part of the IHG Group, recently opened a 305 room hotel located in the heart of the largest international airport in France, Roissy CDG Airport. The hotel is set to see hundreds of visitors each day and is in a prime location near Terminal 1, with a free shuttle service to the remaining terminals only steps away. The hotel opened to the public in January 2018 and is committed to delivering outstanding hospitality, with a focus on providing the highest quality of service to its customers.

The Holiday Inn Express at Roissy CDG Airport

IT Challenges

IT has a critical role to play in supporting the day to day operations of the hotel, and with the need to deliver a service 24/7 it was essential the hotel could implement a robust IT infrastructure. Typically, hotels within the IHG group opt for a local storage solution, however, the cost of hosting the Property Management System (PMS) was extremely expensive in the airport area. The company needed a cost-effective solution that would meet its requirements. In addition, as a new hotel it had the added flexibility of been able to design the entire architecture without working around an existing platform.

Cyril Gilgenkrantz at The Holiday Inn Express at Roissy CDG Airport commented, “It was essential that any new solution we opted for be cost-effective. We turned to our trusted partner IT Guard looking for advice and guidance on the best approach to take. As a new hotel we had the opportunity to construct an entirely new platform, but we were restricted by the expensive hosting costs due to our location.”

Alongside cost savings, the hotel wanted a solution that would be able to simplify virtualization, meet performance requirements and cater to any future demands. Ensuring real time recovery was also a priority as the hotel needs to be able to keep services up and running 24/7.

Evaluating The Market with Trusted Partner IT Guard

After evaluating the market and looking at a number of alternative solutions, including a HP branded physical server with VMware, the hotel opted for Scale Computing’s HC3 cluster on the recommendation of IT Guard. Not only was the technology a smoother fit, but with no additional software to license or expertise needed, the Scale Computing (https://www.scalecomputing.com/) platform was 50% cheaper than VMware.

“With the help and advice of IT Guard we decided to opt for Scale Computing’s robust, flexible and secure computing system,” Gilgenkrantz noted. “We evaluated the market extensively and after several testing scenarios we opted for Scale Computing as it met our full criteria. We didn’t have to compromise on any of the features.”

Hugues Bonnefont, co-founder of IT Guard commented, “Scale Computing seemed like a natural fit for the hotel. The company needed performance, simplified management and disaster recovery rolled into one solution that was cost effective. Not only does Scale Computing cater to the hotel’s current needs, but the technology is future-proof – with the ability to scale-out on demand. The hotel now has peace of mind that its requirements will always be met.”

Disaster Recovery (DR), High Availability (HA), Cloning, Replication and Snapshots for Complete Business Continuity

With the help of IT Guard the hotel opted to install the new HC3 cluster on site to supports its IT operations. It delivers disaster recovery (DR), high availability (HA), cloning, replication and snapshots for complete business continuity, an essential requirement for the hotel.

Gilgenkrantz added, “We didn’t opt for a proof of concept as it was clear through our testing and market research that Scale Computing would meet our needs. The deployment was smooth sailing and both IT Guard and Scale Computing were on hand throughout the entire process, from pre-sales right through to the final set up and deployment. The technology truly is simplified and easy to use, it took less than a day to deploy the platform, configure the machines and get up and running.”

Increased Performance and Speed – with HEAT

One of the main benefits the hotel experienced was the immediate high performance of SSD, enabling fast access to databases and critical applications. With Scale Computing’s native HEAT feature, the company can now increase speed and performance on demand. The technology monitors data access and creates a dynamic mapping of active data blocks, moving these onto SSD storage tiering to meet each applications performance requirements.

Business Continuity

In addition, with business continuity of paramount importance, the hotel has been enjoying the replication, snapshot and disaster recovery features within the HC3 cluster. “One of the first things that appealed to us about Scale Computing was the ability to manage the environment remotely.” Gilgenkrantz commented, “We have a business that runs 24 hours a day and we need to have a plan in place in case of downtime, to ensure we are fully automated and can recover. Scale Computing is perfect for this.”

Gilgenkrantz continued, “Everything now works perfectly, we have value for money and the solution meets all of our requirements in terms of business continuity and disaster recovery. It’s also an added bonus that we don’t need a dedicated person on site to manage the solution. It simply takes care of itself.”

The new solution’s single node deployment is designed to store and create digital file copies ensuring a replica of all critical workloads is immediately available and ready to run from another location, should a disaster occur. Live virtual machine (VM) migration is also available, which allows VMs to be non-disruptively moved between nodes without any downtime.

Simplified Management and Cost Savings

The appliance-based approach ensures the IT architecture is streamlined and easy to manage and maintain. The cluster combines servers, storage and virtualization into one easy to use platform with automated management, saving both time and money. Streamlining on costs and resources, the new cluster required no additional training or certification and there were no additional licensing requirements. Gilgenkrantz noted, “The Scale Computing solution is the same as VMware but it’s 50 per cent cheaper.”

Gilgenkrantz added, “IT Guard was instrumental in helping us throughout the entire process, with expertise and knowledge on both specific software environments and the hotel industry. We now have a business continuity plan in place, high performance, simplified management and the added bonus of value for money. We were extremely pleased with the entire process, and look forward to the flexibility to grow with the new technology.”

Summary

Key Challenges:

• Ruled out hosting the Property Management System (PMS) on local storage, due to cost
• Needed to be simple to manage and offer high performance
• Needed a cost effective solution that would not compromise on features
• Business continuity was key, as the hotel offers a 24-hour service

Business Benefits:

• No licensing fees
• No additional training, certification or dedicated IT staff needed, saving on costs and resources
• Increased performance
• Replication, cloning and snapshots ensure business continuity
• Overall cost savings
• Simplified management
• Ability to scale-out on demand

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