Airport Improves Availability of Baggage Handling System by Using Microsoft Azure

OverviewCustomer: Changi Airport GroupCustomer Website: www.changiairportgroup.comCountry or Region: SingaporeIndustry: Transportation

Customer ProfileChangi Airport Group (CAG) operates Singapore’s Changi Airport, the world’s sixth busiest airport for international traffic, serving 53 million passengers annually. CAG is based in Singapore.

Business SituationCAG is expanding Changi Airport and needed to ensure that its business-critical baggage handling system and software could accommodate the increased load.

SolutionCHS Engineering Services, provider of the maintenance management application used by Changi, migrated its application to Microsoft Azure to help ensure greater scalability and performance and uninterrupted operation.

Benefits Improved availability of critical airport

system Instant reporting for faster response to

problems Scalability to accommodate growing

data volumes Reduced IT costs

“After our baggage handling maintenance management system moved to Azure, we were able to get faster query response times, which improves efficiency for system users like us.” Elanggo Kannaiyan, Senior Manager, Baggage Handling System, Changi Airport Group

Already one of the busiest airports in the world, Singapore’s Changi Airport is expanding to accommodate more planes and passengers. Changi Airport Group and its baggage handling system (BHS) service partner CHS Engineering Services migrated that software to Microsoft Azure. With the platform change, Changi benefits from improved application performance and availability. Azure powers real-time BHS health reporting, scales to accommodate growing data volumes, and lowers costs.

SituationChangi Airport Group (CAG) was formed in July 2009 when Singapore privatized the airport operations of the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore. CAG operates Singapore’s Changi Airport and Seletar Airport. Through its subsidiary Changi Airports International, it also invests in and manages foreign airports.

Changi Airport is the world’s sixth busiest airport for international traffic, serving more than 53 million passengers in 2013. With more than 100 airlines providing connectivity to 300 cities worldwide, Changi Airport handles about 6,600 flights every week, or about one every 90 seconds.

Changi is expanding existing terminals and adding new terminals to increase its passenger handling capacity to 82 million passengers a year. This growth requires that the airport’s baggage handling system (BHS) be able to handle the increased load.

Changi Airport uses UK firm CHS Engineering Services to inspect and monitor its BHS to ensure that it remains up and running at all times. CAG maintenance employees use CHS Foundations, an equipment maintenance management application, to guide maintenance work, issue and manage work requests, and store a complete history of the airport’s maintenance operations. Airport maintenance workers use Foundations to do their jobs more effectively, and airport management uses it to make informed decisions about airport assets.

CHS hosted Foundations in a European Rackspace datacenter and delivered it via web browser. However, sometimes bandwidth and performance were poor, which delayed BHS health data reporting and slowed maintenance work.

“It is essential that our BHS operates without a glitch,” says Elanggo Kannaiyan, Senior Manager of the Baggage Handling

System for Changi Airport Group. “Ensuring that every single bag is transferred quickly to either the right aircraft or an arrival belt is critical to customer satisfaction. Delays are unacceptable.”

SolutionTo ensure uninterrupted availability of the equipment maintenance management application at Changi Airport, CHS Engineering Services made the decision to migrate Foundations from Rackspace to the Microsoft Azure datacenter in Dublin and then to the Azure datacenter in Singapore. By moving to Azure, CHS was able to run the application in multiple datacenters and improve availability and performance for both Changi Airport Group users in Singapore and CHS employees in England and Australia.

“We felt that Azure had many more services available and was more adaptable than other cloud competitors,” says Colin Smith, Chief Executive Officer at CHS Engineering Services. “It was also less expensive.”

CHS uses Azure infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) services—Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines, Virtual Network, and Storage—to run the Foundations application, which uses Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 database software running on the Windows Server 2008 R2 operating system.

After moving Foundations to Azure, CHS created an award-winning app called Foundations Pulse, based on the Windows 8.1 operating system, for maintenance managers to use in viewing condition reports and status of airport assets. If a piece of equipment such as a conveyor belt fails, the maintenance engineer on call uses Foundations Pulse on his tablet or phone to find out when it was last inspected, who worked on it, and its complete repair history, which helps him determine next steps.

CAG managers, too, use Foundations Pulse dashboards to study the health status of

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“Azure had many more services available and was more adaptable than other cloud competitors. It was also less expensive.”

Colin Smith, Chief Executive Officer, CHS Engineering Services

the baggage handling system. “Foundations Pulse pulls BHS health data from Azure and provides essential analytical information that allows our management to ‘feel the pulse’ of our BHS and know what needs to be done to improve the system,” Kannaiyan says.

CHS is developing other Foundations applications for engineers to use in recording inspection details using Windows tablets and Windows Phones. Previously, maintenance engineers performed equipment inspections with clipboards and entered data into Foundations at the end of the workday. With the new Foundations Central application, maintenance engineers will be able to input digital data in Foundations in real time.

BenefitsBy migrating its equipment maintenance management application to Microsoft Azure, CHS Engineering Services is able to deliver far superior application performance to a key customer, Changi Airport. Improved performance means that airport maintenance crews and management have better, real-time insight into baggage handling system health and can maintain BHS availability. With Azure, Changi Airport has ample scalability to accommodate growing baggage volumes and reducing IT costs.

Improved Availability of Critical Airport SystemsWith the Foundations application moved from the previous hosting company to the Azure datacenter in Dublin, Changi Airport Group saw a vast improvement in performance for users in Singapore. Deploying additional virtual machines in the Singapore Azure datacenter improved performance further. “After our baggage handling maintenance management system moved to Azure, we were able to get faster query response times, which improves efficiency for system users like us,” Kannaiyan says.

When maintenance crews and executives have instant insight into BHS health, they can avert problems that could cause that system to fail. It’s also seen a significant reduction in maintenance costs and improved inventory management.

Instant Reporting for Faster Response to Problems Adopting Foundations Pulse on Windows 8.1 tablets and Windows Phones increases the productivity and accuracy of engineers performing inspections and provides a richer reporting infrastructure to airport managers. “The rich reporting capabilities in Foundations Pulse helps users to review the performance of different vendors that provide maintenance services,” Kannaiyan says.

Scalability to Accommodate Growing Data VolumesCAG now has three terminals and is building two more, which will dramatically increase passenger and baggage loads. With Azure, CHS will be able to scale Foundations to accommodate rising data volumes and maintain excellent application performance in all locations.

Reduced IT CostsBy moving its equipment maintenance management application from Rackspace to Azure, CHS Engineering Services reduced its hosting costs and passed these savings on to Changi Airport. “We’re saving on data storage and system maintenance costs by running Foundations in Azure,” says Chris Maxwell, Development Director for CHS. “This contributes to a healthy bottom line.”

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Transform the datacenterWith Windows Server, Microsoft System Center, and Microsoft Azure, customers can take advantage of an enterprise-grade platform across the on-premises datacenter and the cloud. Consistency between the datacenter and the cloud makes it easier to integrate new capabilities. With datacenter innovation and new hybrid options, you can reduce costs, simplify management, and access cloud resources on demand.

For more information about transforming the datacenter, go to:www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-cloud/cloud-os/modern-data-center.aspx

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This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published March 2015

Software and Services Microsoft Azure− Microsoft Azure Storage− Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines− Microsoft Azure Virtual Network

Microsoft Server Product Portfolio− Windows Server 2008 R2

− Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Windows 8.1

Partners CHS Engineering Services

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For more information about CHS Engineering Services, visit the website at: www.chsservices.com

For more information about Changi Airport Group, visit the website at: www.changiairportgroup.com