Fujitsu technology is helping keep flights on schedule at one of Europe’s busiest airports. KLM Equipment Services B.V. (KES) has deployed a unified, high-availability Fujitsu ETERNUS storage cluster to double the speed and performance of its critical enterprise applications – ensuring a more efficient and reliable ground support service at Schiphol, Amsterdam’s main airport, ultimately helping flights to operate on schedule.
KES operates as an independent subsidiary of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. With Amsterdam Schiphol airport as its permanent home base since 1952, the company has wide expertise and a long heritage of providing all aspects of ground support equipment – which includes all the vehicles and equipment responsible for the handling of aircraft on the ground, an indispensable link in any airport’s logistical processes. KES’s goal is to realise low operational cost, while maximising the availability of this equipment: The company cannot afford downtime, as this greatly impacts airport operations at Schiphol – which is ranked 5th best airport in Europe by leading aviation reviewer Skytrax.
To replace an old storage platform, which was plagued with performance and capacity issues, KES worked with Fujitsu and SELECT Circle Partner SJ-Solutions B.V. to design and deploy two clustered Fujitsu Storage ETERNUS DX100 systems at two sites. Designed for maximum data availability and business continuity at a competitive price, the Fujitsu solution provides high-performing and scalable data storage for all of KES’ core business functions, including enterprise asset management (EAM), finance, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and other office applications used by 150 KES employees.
Siwart van der Veen, Manager ICT, KLM Equipment Services, said: “Based on their knowledge of our environment, and the challenges we were facing, Fujitsu and SJ-Solutions provided a solution within our deadlines which met our requirements and budget. Since the implementation we have seen an enormous boost in performance – somewhere in the region of 180,000 input/output operations per second (IOPS), which means our critical EAM application runs twice as fast as before so users are more productive. We are delighted with the seamless transition between old and new systems, which included the migration of 35 virtual machines and their associated data.”
Round-the-clock availability is guaranteed thanks to the ETERNUS storage cluster architecture with two mirrored devices, which allows for immediate, automatic full disaster recovery. Should a complete storage system fail, the second one takes over in about five seconds.
As well as providing the ultimate in reliability, robustness and performance, the Fujitsu solution has already helped KES lower its energy consumption for storage by 40 percent, reducing electricity bills, cooling costs, and minimising its environmental impact.
Olivier Delachapelle, Head of Data Center Category Management at Fujitsu EMEIA, says: “Everybody hates airport delays, and to help reduce these at Schiphol airport, we’ve teamed up with KLM Equipment Services to minimise any kind of disruption to flight schedules that may be caused by ground equipment – for example, a jetway not being available to disembark passengers from an incoming flight. KES has recognised that disaster-proof configuration is an absolute must for mission-critical data and applications that must be available at all times, especially at a major airport. Our storage cluster solutions provide this reliability without adding unnecessary complexity or high costs. The virtualised storage cluster, based on Fujitsu ETERNUS DX100 devices, has given KES the performance it needs, combined with stability and resilience, all in one cost-efficient, truly unified architecture. We’re proud to be playing our part in helping one of the biggest airports in Europe operate more efficiently.”
