Global Airports Group, daa, Flies through COVID-19 Turbulence with HPE GreenLake
October 06 2021 - 4:30AM
Business Wire
HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform brings performance and
capacity to mission-critical operational services at Dublin and
Cork airports, while pay-as-you-go model was beneficial during
pandemic slowdown
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) today announced that daa,
the Ireland-based global airports group, has selected the HPE
GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform for a major performance and
capacity upgrade to its mission critical operational services. All
of the airport operators ‘Gold Services’ – passenger and baggage
handling, security systems, business intelligence, and retail
operations – have migrated to the HPE GreenLake platform running
from daa’s two data centers. This significant upgrade was achieved
with no upfront investment and on a pay-as-you-go model, which
helped daa manage, predict, and control costs and spend during the
pandemic.
daa is a global airports and travel retail group headquartered
at Dublin Airport with operations in 16 countries. It owns and
manages Dublin and Cork airports, the two largest airports in the
Republic of Ireland that welcomed a combined 35.5 million
passengers in 2019, as well as operating travel retail outlets in
Europe, North America, the Middle East, India and Asia-Pacific.
Prior to the HPE GreenLake platform migration, daa’s reliable
estate of HPE servers and storage was reaching end of life and,
although performance was still good, they needed to prepare for the
next generation. The airport would grind to a halt if the mission
critical services running on these systems were down for even a few
minutes, so getting this upgrade right was absolutely vital.
Following the impact of the pandemic, capital funding for all
projects, including IT infrastructure replacement, was facing
significant challenges. By choosing the HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud
platform this problem was taken away and the daa team didn’t need
to make a business case for capital investment in servers and
storage. With HPE GreenLake, daa could achieve significant cost
savings as they did not have to make any upfront investment and are
only required to pay for what they use. This pay-as-you-go model
truly came into its own during the pandemic, as it removed the need
for ongoing lifecycle replacements and upgrades, which typically
bring ongoing capital expense costs.
“During this period where passenger numbers dropped from 115,000
to under 10,000 per day, every cent of capital that we were
spending was being closely scrutinized, but with HPE GreenLake that
whole headache was removed,” said Padraic Doyle VP Technology at
daa. “Although the primary driver was cost savings, the performance
of the systems has exceeded our expectations and was an unexpected
bonus. HPE GreenLake brings us many of the benefits of using a
public cloud service, without some of the risks which are less
palatable to us, such as latency, security and an increased
dependency on external networks. Another really nice benefit of the
HPE GreenLake platform is the built-in headroom that we don’t pay
for, so if someone asks for additional compute for a project we can
deliver that in a day or so, whereas before it would take 8-12
weeks to add the physical servers to our environment.”
Airports, by their nature, are large physical infrastructure
businesses and daa has made long term investments in their own data
centers. Their IT team also has a high level of competency in
managing data centers and networks. By running HPE GreenLake in
their own data centers, daa control physical access to it and have
peace of mind that it is behind their firewalls. The HPE GreenLake
platform was up and running in a matter of weeks, with HPE
Pointnext engineers installing and testing the systems then handing
over to the daa team to complete the migration. HPE also provides
daily monitoring and advisory support, including managing any
necessary fixes or upgrades. This frees up the daa team’s time to
focus on adding value to the business, such as their latest project
to transition the airports’ CCTV systems to the HPE GreenLake
platform.
“HPE is proud of our role in supporting Ireland’s critical
national infrastructure, so we are delighted that our HPE GreenLake
platform helped daa navigate a difficult period during the
pandemic,” said Maeve Culloty, Managing Director, HPE Ireland.
“Customers like daa that run crucial international travel
operations cannot afford to take risks or have concerns around
security, latency and network outages. The HPE GreenLake platform
gives daa full control of their business-critical services,
delivers high performance and value for money, and is helping keep
Ireland connected to the rest of the world.”
daa saw further financial benefits by converting some of their
newer systems into the HPE GreenLake platform while upcycling
obsolete legacy assets through the HPE Financial Services (HPEFS)
Asset Upcycling Service. This service allowed daa to take the
residual market value of the old IT and apply it to the new
program. It also helped daa meet its sustainability objectives as
the HPEFS service extends the life of old technology rather than it
becoming e-waste - an important circular economy initiative.
Globally in 2020, HPEFS upcycled more than three million assets and
returned over $230 million into customer budgets.
The HPE GreenLake edge-to-cloud platform provides customers with
a powerful foundation to drive digital transformation that can run
on premises, at the edge, or in a colocation facility. The HPE
GreenLake platform combines the simplicity and agility of the cloud
with the governance, compliance, and visibility that comes with
hybrid IT. HPE GreenLake offers a range of cloud services that
accelerate innovation, including cloud services for analytics, bare
metal, compute, container management, core payment systems, data
protection, electronic medical records, 5G, HCI, high performance
compute, machine learning operations, networking, risk management,
SAP HANA, storage, VDI, and VMs. The HPE GreenLake business is
rapidly growing with over $5.2 billion USD in total contract value
and 900 partners selling HPE GreenLake. Today, HPE GreenLake has
about 1,200 enterprise customers across 50 countries in all
industry sectors and sizes including Fortune 500 companies,
government and public sector organizations, and small and midmarket
enterprises. For more information on HPE GreenLake, please visit:
https://www.hpe.com/us/en/greenlake.html.
About Hewlett Packard Enterprise
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE: HPE) is the global
edge-to-cloud company that helps organizations accelerate outcomes
by unlocking value from all of their data, everywhere. Built on
decades of reimagining the future and innovating to advance the way
people live and work, HPE delivers unique, open and intelligent
technology solutions delivered as a service – spanning Compute,
Storage, Software, Intelligent Edge, High Performance Computing and
Mission Critical Solutions – with a consistent experience across
all clouds and edges, designed to help customers develop new
business models, engage in new ways, and increase operational
performance. For more information, visit: www.hpe.com
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Alastair McCormick alastair.mccormick@hpe.com
Hewlett Packard Enterprise (NYSE:HPE)
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