Citrix saves Kiwi hotel chain

The Millennium Hotels chain in New Zealand has saved about NZ$700,000 per annum by consolidating 21 databases into one, with a new storage area network (SAN) to boot.

Prior to a centralised SAN, disparate storage solutions at its 19 hotels resulted in performance problems and system instability, and since reservations weren't replicated in real-time across all sites, there was only 40 percent accuracy in bookings.

"In some instances, we had to bump up customers who, after making a booking, were told there was no vacancy because everything was full.

"Their booking wasn't captured in real-time and distributed across all sites," said Eli Salant, vice president for IT at Millennium Copthorne Kingsgate Hotels.

Salant turned to Citrix to replace its SQL data replication servers and existing legacy servers, in addition to streamlining the number of databases. And based on SQL, the old reservation system -- which dated back to the early 1980s -- was replaced with Epitome, an application developed by Hotel Information Systems.

With the new solution, the company has managed to simplify data management and significantly reduce WAN bandwidth costs, Salant told participants at a storage conference in Sydney this week.

"The consolidation of remote hotel databases into a single, real-time database located at head office made the need to replicate data redundant," he said.