Using In-Memory Grid Compute to Achieve Scalability and High Performance with Legacy Travel Applications
JacTravel is a global B2B travel provider, providing live availability for over 15,000 city hotels worldwide. JacTravel Group, with headquarters in London and offices worldwide, have an annual turnover in excess of £350m and process upwards of 260 million API searches of hotel inventory each day.
This presentation looks at the technical challenges presented to JacTravel Group, following the acquisition of rival hotel accommodation provider, TotalStay Group in 2016. Working with specialist technology consultancy, CG Consultancy, a strategic 18 month project was formed with a roadmap to consolidate booking platforms, ring-fence legacy functionality and to deliver enhanced search capability - underpinned with in-memory data grid technology from GridGain.
One of JacTravel’s primary business objectives was to deliver a consolidated store of hotel inventory ARI (Availability Rate Information), sourced primarily from two separate booking platforms, which would deliver “search” responses to end customers in sub 1 second and continue to achieve this whilst servicing current (year 1) incoming traffic volumes of 260 million searches per day, 400 million in year 2 and upwards of 500 million in year 3. Such exponential growth in search traffic drove the need to design a robust and linearly scalable solution platform.
JacTravel’s CTO, Francesco de Marchis, will talk about:
- The approach to design and prove the architecture with a proof of concept, concluded in April 2016
- Working with a technology partner to deliver the solution
- How the Grid has allowed decoupling of complex functionality from existing legacy platforms, protecting existing legacy investments as well as providing a sensible migration path for the project
- Messaging and middleware technology stack
- Efficiency gains of grid technology vs the original expensive hardware hosting environments
- Performance results
- Next steps and further usage of the technology
About Francesco:
Francesco de Marchis – CTO JacTravel Group
Francesco de Marchis has been responsible for JacTravel’s IT division since November 2016. At JacTravel he is driving an innovative Technology and Product Roadmap to enhance the business in the competitive Travel and Hospitality arena.
Prior to JacTravel, Francesco was the CTO for Lowcost Travel Group where he led a Digital Transformation Program bringing the company to become a key innovator player in the Travel Technology domain.
Other previous roles included:
- CIO of Play.com building a new Digital e-commerce offering in the media business while expanding the 3rd parties offering bringing Play.com to become the 3rd largest marketplace in UK.
- CIO/CTO for Travel Companies like Orbitz World Wide and Travelport where he accomplished major complex platform implementation and migrations.
- Before coming to the UK, Francesco worked for 12 years in the USA playing a key role in the E-Commerce market. As VP of Product Development for ATG, he led the implementation of the E-commerce Suite which was awarded #1 in Gartner Magic Quadrant and best product of the year 2004-2006.
Francesco has a degree in Electrical Engineers and Computer Science from University of Rome. He lives in North London with his wife and 2 sons.
Francesco de Marchis – CTO JacTravel Group
Francesco de Marchis has been responsible for JacTravel’s IT division since November 2016. At JacTravel he is driving an innovative Technology and Product Roadmap to enhance the business in the competitive Travel and Hospitality arena.
Prior to JacTravel, Francesco was the CTO for Lowcost Travel Group where he led a Digital Transformation Program bringing the company to become a key innovator player in the Travel Technology domain.
Other previous roles included:
• CIO of Play.com building a new Digital e-commerce offering in the media business while expanding the 3rd parties offering bringing Play.com to become the 3rd largest marketplace in UK.
• CIO/CTO for Travel Companies like Orbitz World Wide and Travelport where he accomplished major complex platform implementation and migrations.
• Before coming to the UK, Francesco worked for 12 years in the USA playing a key role in the E-Commerce market. As VP of Product Development for ATG, he led the implementation of the E-commerce Suite which was awarded #1 in Gartner Magic Quadrant and best product of the year 2004-2006.
Francesco has a degree in Electrical Engineers and Computer Science from University of Rome. He lives in North London with his wife and 2 sons.
