Extend Windows Azure core Trave platform applications to mobile devices

As part of the real World Windows Azure series, we contacted Paul Saggar, director of technology and product development Hogg Robinson Group (HRG), to learn about how to Azure extends its core Trave platform application to mobile devices, cutting start-up costs by 80% and increasing productivity by 25%. Let's hear what he says.

Himanshu Kumar Singh: Tell us about Hogg Robinson.

Paul Saggar:hrg is located in Britannia, offering group travel booking services to customers around the world. Through its platform HRG with dozens of third-party suppliers, through the air tickets, hotel rooms, train tickets and other travel needs of the best pricing, to provide customers with high-quality, cost-effective tourism services.

How does HKS:HRG provide its services?

PS: To provide services, HRG integrates systems and data from third-party vendors, customer business systems, and internal software by using Microsoft BizTalk Server Enterprise. The software creates a layer of connectivity between the Web, mobile terminals, and desktop applications, including its core platform. The customer's data is always protected by the firewall behind the company or the customer.

HKS: What affects HRG's decision to add a mobile function?

PS:HRG wants to develop a mobile version of the solution, because most customers need to access the booking system via mobile devices while traveling. To provide our services on mobile devices, we have to face a number of challenges: scalability, performance, and security.

Hks:hrg How do I use Windows Azure?

PS: My team and I created a HRG i_suite mobile application that incorporates mobile gateways based on Windows Azure. Gateways use cloud services, service buses, and SQL databases to create a hybrid solution that makes up cloud and non cloud services. Some functions are provided directly by the cloud, while a reliable and secure messaging and relaying infrastructure connects the intended platforms of non-cloud to cloud services.

HKS: How do you store your customer's personal information and manage transactional data?

PS: Any personally identifiable information is not stored on the device. A service bus is a managed service that supports multiple messaging protocols and schemas. Using the service bus, we send the personally identifiable information to BizTalk Server and Microsoft in accordance with the prescribed route. net– services based on non-cloud. In this way, the security protocol information is protected according to our customer. Tables are used to maintain information about active and authenticated users to provide fast, secure mechanisms to connect to HRG services not in the cloud.

Highly available and scalable SQL databases have built-in fault tolerance and manage transactional data to complete some of the scheduled processing. Data that is frequently accessed on HRG i-suite mobile applications, such as the airport location, is stored on the SQL database. With cloud services, servers are automatically provisioned for device locations and transaction types to support appropriate messaging patterns and best performance.

HKS: What are the benefits of Windows Azure development that you've gone through?

PS: By incorporating the cloud computing platform into our hybrid solution, the project is about 25% more efficient with or managed to the Windows AZURE,HRG team, we have started a second phase of mobile strategy, which is proof of our development and expansion of services with the cloud platform.

HKS: Does your client benefit from your use of Windows Azure?

PS: Absolutely. This is an important factor in our decision to use Windows Azure. Our customers typically access services while traveling, and mobile solutions provide them with convenience and security without impacting performance. Make transactions faster, more seamless, and more secure by using Windows Azure, as close to the user's device provisioning service as possible. We also provide users with the choice of telephone, web and mobile device travel booking services. Although the HRG travel reservation service between internal and Third-party applications requires complex technical configuration, our team now has the ability to quickly create new services.

HKS: What are the benefits to HRG?

PS: HRG Capital expenditures are significantly lower than those we have to purchase and provide our own physical servers and connect many cloud and non cloud applications. With Windows Azure, we spent about 20% of our commitment to developing and experimenting with the new solution budget. Financial risk for us is even smaller because we don't have to predict which servers and licenses we need to buy, but we can easily scale them when we need them.

Read the complete HRG case study here. Learn about other customers ' stories here.