September 22, 2009, 3:47 PM — Skyservice Airlines is a dynamic aviation enterprise servicing the needs of Canadian travelers. Skyservice is Canada's number one requested airline in the charter industry with customers including tour operators, corporations, professional sport teams, governments, relief agencies, and travel incentive companies. The airline is widely recognized for its quality service and the versatility of its charter operations. Quality, safety, respect, and efficiency are the core values that guide Skyservice's staff every day and help build their reputation as leaders in aviation services and as Canada's premier commercial charter airline.
Challenge
Running a successful charter airline generates a significant amount of data, including data for fleet management and bookings, international customs security requirements, document encryption, and regulations and certifications.
In 2008, Skyservice was looking to expand its data center and began to implement a VMware environment. It was then that they identified some issues with their data center: NAS storage with isolated arrays, multiple points of potential failure, an ineffective disaster-recovery policy, and storage that was inefficient to cool and required a substantial amount of power. Furthermore, the non-centralized NetApp system they had in place was difficult for the IT staff to maintain, making efforts to scale both complex and costly - not to mention hampering their VMware deployment.
With an eye toward protecting their original and substantial NetApp investment, the company made plans to acquire a new storage system.
Solution
After looking at a range of storage products, Skyservice purchased the Pillar Axiom 600. Their new system would be easy to consolidate with the existing NetApp system while adding 10TB to their storage pool. Its modular design meant that future scaling of capacity could be done easily and without downtime, and it had a simple graphical user interface that would make it easy to maintain. A final, important consideration was that the Pillar Axiom was the only system that met the company's rigorous efficiency policies.
Skyservice takes its commitment to efficiency very seriously. In August 2007, the company announced the addition of Canada's first fuel-efficient Boeing B-757 with blended winglets to its fleet; the new aircraft saves fuel, cuts noise, and reduces the carbon footprint of each flight. Since then, the company has expanded its green policy, replacing office equipment and implementing policies to achieve results that are better for the environment.
"All the storage vendors claim to be environmentally friendly," said Hilton Reading, Skyservice vice president of IT and CIO, "but when it came down to it, in order to get the environment-positive results, it was at the cost of performance and power. The Axiom was by far the best environmental alternative."
Results
"All the storage vendors claim to be environmentally friendly," said Hilton Reading, Skyservice vice president of IT and CIO, "but when it came down to it, in order to get the environment-positive results, it was at the cost of performance and power. The Axiom was by far the best environmental alternative."
Another key reason that Skyservice chose the Pillar Axiom 600 was its ease of use. "In the last year, only 60% of the VMware migration had been completed because our existing system was so complex, " said Reading. "Within just two weeks of deploying the Pillar system, we completed another 30% of the project."
Skyservice's IT staff immediately experienced improvements in the performance of their systems. "Our software seems to function faster and more efficiently on the new platform, and it is very clear how much easier it is to maintain," Reading said.
The IT staff also appreciated the effect that the Pillar Axiom's ease of use would have on the bottom line. A simple management GUI means the company's existing staff can manage the system without the use of consultants and in far less time than it took to manage the previous system. Another benefit: the system's reduced cooling and overall power costs, as well as its smaller footprint, translate into additional savings.
"Our intention is to migrate to a new data center where the Pillar Axiom will be the main production system, Hilton Reading said. "Our existing NetApp system will then come back here to be a backup."
