“I loved quad biking but was also very thankful for some


server resources within minutes rather than weeks. Many companies worry about


security, but advocates of cloud solutions argue that trusting your IT infrastructure to professionals who spend all day, every day finding new ways to counter the latest cyber- attacks is, in fact, the most secure solution.


In the same way, as Edwards says, cloud computing is a good insurance against natural disasters or burglary. Technology consultant


Tell Tale’s Dee Edwards turned to cloud computing for its cost and resilience


and the young company is going from strength to strength. In the past two years it has doubled turnover, and Edwards has never regretted the decision to put her IT infrastructure in the Drop Box cloud.


Potential benefits She was one of the first travel companies to take this step, but towards the end of last year several larger players followed suit, and many are predicting that 2012 is the year when cloud computing becomes the norm rather than the exception in the travel industry. The initial appeal for many is the cost. At the end of last year, Holiday Extras moved its IT infrastructure to the cloud with Amazon Web Services (AWS). Nilan Peiris, chief marketing technology officer, reports that it has more than halved the company’s spending on IT hardware. He adds: “If you want to secure a sale online, speed of response is vital, especially in today’s highly competitive market. AWS allows us to use a network that is far superior to anything we could operate on our premises, and this has cut end-user response times by 20%.” For Skyscanner, the key issue was scalability. Its website receives more than 14 million visits a month, and that number is growing rapidly. So in October last year the company turned to Iomart’s cloud hosting service on the promise of additional


Dr Graham Oakes adds: “Even if it won’t cut your direct costs, cloud computing might allow you to reduce your indirect overheads and focus instead on running your business and delivering to your customers.”


Getting it right Moving to the cloud is a major undertaking and not to be rushed. Holiday Extras spent nine months moving its customer-facing websites to AWS. You need to find the right provider and conduct careful analysis of your existing IT, deciding which areas are right for the cloud, then run extensive tests before switching. If you are a multinational you might be able to afford to bring in the likes of Accenture to design and implement your cloud-based IT infrastructure, as Thomas Cook did last September. Most travel companies can turn to services such as the AWS Architecture Center (aws.amazon.com/architecture) for advice throughout the building of their cloud-based applications.


R&R in the hot tub and steam room afterwards!” ZENA CALDERBANK TELLS US ABOUT A GO ACTIVE BREAK, P42


TechTalk


Travelzoo business development director for mobile Dave Ambrose on being phone friendly


Virgin Atlantic is one AWS customer THE PROVIDERS


Virgin Atlantic and Voyages- SNCF use AWS, which provides a handy cost calculator. ■ calculator.s3.amazonaws.com/ calc5.html


KLM and InterContinental Hotels Group use Google Apps for Business, which costs £33 a year, per user, and is accessed through a reseller such as Ancoris. ■ ancoris.com/cloud-computing/ google-apps/google-apps-for- business.html


Holidaybreak uses Daisy Group. Prices start from £150 per Virtual Private Server, or for larger capacity, £950 a month for a Virtual Data Centre. ■ daisygroupplc.com/products- and-solutions


Elastic Hosts ■ elastichosts.com/cloud-hosting/ pricing


HP Cloud Start Solution ■ www8.hp.com/uk/en/ services/services-detail. html?compURI=tcm:183-818487


Colt Cloud Infrastructure Service ■ colt.net/uk/en/products- services/cloud-services/cloud- infrastructure-service-en.htm


Drop Box ■ dropbox.com/teams


iomart ■ iomarthosting.com/cloud- hosting/cloud-servers


Holiday Extras’ Nilan Peiris is making savings


AS YOUR company starts moving effort and budget behind mobile campaigns – from dedicated apps to mobile web experiences – you’ll face a similar problem as we did when the web first started: things got crowded, fast. But there are simple ways to be mobile friendly among all those travel destination sites cluttered with flashing gif-files telling customers to “book today” or “fly here, now”. In 2012, with web traffic


from mobile devices growing at exponential rates, agents cannot take the channel for granted any longer. We have seen how subscribers


have interacted with our advertisers’ deals from the web to mobile, starting with our iPhone app. Simplicity, speed and scale are our core focus on the mobile channel. Even if your agency has no mobile website or app, create simple sites in a readable format, with the most important information above the “palm fold” – the visible part of a webpage on a smartphone. Make content fast to load.


Remember, a happy mobile customer can scale your business along the meteoric growth curve everyone is talking about: mobile.


01.03.2012 25


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