SITA Launches Dedicated Air Transport Industry Cloud

Air transport IT specialist, SITA, has announced a programme to build a community cloud dedicated to the air transport industry (ATI) that will improve efficiencies and reduce costs. SITA’s investment in shared cloud infrastructure is already well underway and the ATI Cloud applications and services will go live from June. These include infrastructure, platform, desktop and software-as-a-service offerings, which will enable true end-to-end business and IT solutions on demand for the unique needs of air transport.

The ATI Cloud is based on six large regional virtual datacentres across five continents; together with virtual datacentres based at large airports. Services will be delivered through leading-edge self-service and automation portal technology, providing IT managers with on-demand provisioning, control, visibility and reporting. End-users will be no more than 100 milliseconds away from one of the datacentres.

The ATI Cloud will provide agility and global consistency and will be fully integrated into the ATI ecosystem at three levels: network services will be seamlessly integrated with ATI specific applications; the ATI Cloud services will be integrated with the private cloud of ATI customers; and all ATI stakeholders will be integrated, particularly in the IT environment of the 320 airports where SITA already operates.

The ATI Cloud will also support compliance with choice and control on where data and applications are located, in high end data centres meeting industry standards, and securely integrated with the private clouds of ATI customers. It will enable ATI end-users to get simple and reliable access to a large catalogue of applications and it will provide a unique platform for independent software vendors (ISVs) and application service providers to distribute their applications to ATI customers and their end-users.

“SITA has a successful 60-year track record of working solely for the air transport community, taking a long-term view and investing for the industry’s future. Our global communications backbone and industry knowledge provides the foundation for our investment in the ATI Cloud. The best way to really serve the industry’s needs is to build an integrated cloud combining network and IT solely dedicated, and specifically tailored, to the air transport industry. SITA has a community ethos of providing solutions to the air transport industry and providing the ATI cloud is the logical next step for SITA,” said Francesco Violante, CEO, SITA.

“The ATI Cloud is firstly about having a secure and reliable global network, and SITA already has that; the ATI Cloud is about managing shared IT infrastructure such as that at airports, in which SITA is a leader; and it is about optimising the operation and distribution of applications from data centres to end users. As the leading provider of air transport IT solutions, SITA has now committed to the delivery of the ATI Cloud.”

“The ATI Cloud will be a game changer for the industry. For example, by deploying new applications on virtual servers and by providing access to desktops in the cloud to its ground operations staff and partners, an airline will be able to adapt its IT to route expansion, disruption or traffic spikes at lower cost. Such deployments would normally take months but with the ATI Cloud all operators at the various locations globally will have their applications instantly,” said Gregory Ouillon, SITA’s Vice President heading the ATI Cloud programme.

SITA will make further announcements about the ATI Cloud in the coming months, including details of partners; applications to be launched; and first customers for the ATI Cloud. Several airlines are already involved in the pilots and others have expressed interest in becoming customers of the ATI Cloud.