Red Hat summit airline discussion centres on cloud technology

It’s been an energetic event, where attendees debated the common challenges we face in the industry. We looked at the need to be stable and innovative at the same time, how to best work with the users (in addition to vendors) who are innovating for the industry; and the move from legacy to open systems, among other topics.

It’s been an energetic event, where attendees debated the common challenges we face in the industry. We looked at the need to be stable and innovative at the same time, how to best work with the users (in addition to vendors) who are innovating for the industry; and the move from legacy to open systems, among other topics.

Red Hat CEO, Jim Whitehurst and Dietmar Fauser, VP R&D Architecture, Quality & Governance at Amadeus opened the event. This was followed by presentations from Amadeus, Red Hat and airline customers. It is clear that there are challenges we all face within the complex airline industry where, in addition to the key technology requirement of stability, we must also be innovative.

So much innovation today is coming from users rather than vendors. And when you look at machine learning as an example of technologies airlines need to implement, there are extraordinary solutions that will improve customer service and improve operations. This is where collaboration becomes vital, in order to understand what others are doing, and learn from their experiences.

Dietmar Fauser, VP, R&D Architecture, Quality & Governance at Amadeus reflected on this: “The speed and capability of moving existing applications to the cloud is a common challenge across industries, and one that is getting increasing attention.”

There was much discussion, sharing and challenging one another. How do you set up your Dev Ops team to optimize your OpenShift platform? How can you compare on price and agility versus that of public cloud providers? All airlines had a common question, which centred on how to best move to the cloud. This is a path Amadeus has already taken and is well underway – stay tuned for upcoming news on this. We shared our experience with OpenShift, including what drove us to move to OpenShift, and the selection of Red Hat as a partner, which was the know-how and support that they provide together with a strong partnership approach. Jim Whitehurst said: “Amadeus has been one of our most innovative partners, bringing open source to the airline industry.”

Today is the final day of this fantastic summit and we’ll be sharing updates from the floor on our Twitter @AmadeusITGroup.