ONgroup: Case Studies

International Travel Industry Giant Increases Competitive Advantage with ONware™ and Oracle Offering

Challenge: Acknowledged as best of breed, Datalex’s booking-engine, was a bit outside of the mainstream. The de facto standard for database management systems (DBMS) in the international travel industry is Oracle. Datalex needed an Oracle solution. Originally developed with IBM’s UniVerse and UniData (U2) DBMS, the cost of re-engineering for an Oracle platform is cost prohibitive.

Solution: Re-use the U2 application logic on Oracle.

With an increasing number of prospects and existing clients demanding Oracle, Datalex turned to ONware from ONgroup. ONware enhances Oracle with the ability to execute U2 logic. With ONware Datalex can run their BASIC programs, MultiValue dictionary objects, and query statements on Oracle with out re-engineering. Datalex now has an Oracle offering.

Datalex's record of accomplishment in producing Internet booking engines is impressive. Each day Datalex products and solutions are in use throughout the world by major airlines, transportation and hospitality providers, travel distributors, and many thousands of travel consumers. Datalex's professional staff brings many years of experience to the design, analysis, development, and deployment of solutions, products, applications, and services.

Datalex's impressive list of customers include, Aer Lingus, Air Canada, American Express, ATA Airlines, Amtrak, Best Western International, British Airways, California State Automobile Association, Delta Air Lines, Disney Cruise Lines, Emirates Airline, Galileo (for United Airlines), GoHop.ie, Japan Travel Bureau, KLM, Korean Air, LasVegas.com, Malaysia Airlines, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Page & Moy, Saudi Arabian Airlines, Siemens, SilkAir, Singapore Airlines, SNCF, South African Airways, Thomas Cook, Trailfinders, Travelcare, Travelers' Advantage, T-Systems, Vail Resorts, Unisys, WEXAS, Worldspan and major travel portals.

Having refined their booking engine over decades starting over is a risky and costly proposition. ONware gives Datalex the ability to store their data in standard relational table format in Oracle tables without starting over. ONware utilizes the U2 dictionary objects to automatically build Oracle database functions, triggers, and views. With these Oracle DBMS objects in place, any SQL UPDATE, INSERT, SELECT type statement is able to manage the normalized tables as if they were a single U2 file. By providing normalized data structures, Datalex’s clients have their data easily accessible in standard relational format.

The migration from U2 to Oracle consists of compiling BASIC source code, compiling dictionary objects, loading data (equivalent of an account save/restore), and testing. Of key importance was ONware’s ability to support UniVerse’s GCI interface to customer developed C and C++ routines. Datalex's core competence includes the development of Internet booking engines and Web-technology solutions that extend from mainframe to desktop. These include a comprehensive suite of Internet and connectivity applications, mainframe development, and professional services.

In the financial year 2004, Datalex turned over $30.5 million. The first customer installation of the booking engine on Oracle via ONware was at the Japan Travel Bureau (Japan’s leading travel agency group). With Oracle as a database offering, Datalex foresee greater competitive advantage, and the opportunity to increase market share.

Trademarks

Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. ONware is a trademark of ONgroup. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.