HONG KONG, March 18, 2003 - Hutchison-Priceline (Priceline®), Asia's largest online travel agent, has chosen technology from Cisco Systems® to supply a storage area network (SAN) that will help Hutchison-Priceline better manage its expected growth of data as it expands its popular Internet travel service.
Built with the Cisco® MDS 9500 Series of multilayer directors, the SAN will direct data traffic between Hutchison-Priceline's transactional systems, applications and database.
Hutchison-Priceline maintains one of the industry's largest databases of travel suppliers, including 34 Asian and international airlines and 9,000 hotel properties worldwide.
Recently, Hutchison-Priceline began expanding its travel product choices in Asia with a range of discounted, published-price travel products. These will operate alongside its innovative "Name Your Own PriceTM" model. Initial products include car rentals, through a tie-in with Hertz, and hotel rooms. The company will add more travel-related products and services this year.
US-based strategy and research company PhoCusWright forecasts that the Asia Pacific online travel market will increase by more than 178 percent from 2002 to 2004. Revenues are estimated to grow from US$4.78 billion to US$13.3 billion. Key growth markets include Australia/New Zealand, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Hong Kong and China.
"Since launching in Asia in April 2002, Hutchison-Priceline has made significant inroads into the online travel business in Asia," said Chief Technology Officer Parakh Davi of Hutchison-Priceline. "With thousands of regular customers and a growing number of innovative new services, we have to invest in the operational infrastructure; storage is a critical element."
As a key building block for the SAN, the Cisco MDS 9509 will provide Hutchison-Priceline new levels of SAN consolidation capabilities through intelligent network services such virtual SANs, security, advanced traffic management, sophisticated diagnostics and unified SAN management.
The Cisco MDS 9509 is also built to natively support a wide range of storage transport protocols. This includes 1- and 2-Gbps Fibre Channel, the current industry standard for high-end SANs. In the future, the Cisco MDS 9509 will also support 10 -Gbps Fibre Channel as well as IP storage transport protocols, namely Small Computer Systems Interface (iSCSI) and Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP).
Before selecting the Cisco MDS 9509-based SAN, Hutchison-Priceline evaluated a wide range of vendors but chose Cisco after it demonstrated it had a highly capable solution. "Cisco equipment met all of our requirements and integrates well into our existing network infrastructure," Davi said. "Additionally, our technical staff is familiar with Cisco products and a minimum amount of training is required for them to master the new Cisco storage equipment."
"The unique architecture of the Cisco MDS 9509 means we can easily integrate new transport protocols and network intelligence for the most flexibility, reliability and scalability available in the SAN market today," said Frankie Sum, Managing Director, North Asia, Cisco Systems. "The goal at Cisco is to offer enterprise customers the same level of network scalability, performance and manageability to storage networking that Cisco pioneered in LAN and IP networking. The Cisco MDS 9000 Series, which includes the Cisco MDS 9509, is the embodiment of this goal."
About Hutchison-Priceline
Hutchison-Priceline (Travel) Ltd was formed with investments from Hutchison Whampoa Ltd in Hong Kong and priceline.com Inc in the United States. Hutchison brings to the alliance its unparalleled brand, huge customer pool, vast management experience and deep knowledge of Asia. Priceline.com also boasts an extremely strong brand. It adds unique technology to the mix, plus outstanding e-commerce experience.
Priceline® operates a unique Name Your Own PriceTM Internet travel service for airline tickets and hotel rooms. It offers great savings for flexible travellers. For airline tickets customers choose their destination, dates of travel and desired price, then agree to fly on a major airline at the times when the airline has empty seats. For hotel rooms customers specify their dates, the star rating, the area of a city and, of course, the price. Priceline then finds an international-brand or boutique hotel willing to meet that price. Hutchison-Priceline also operates a Choose Your Own Brand Internet service for discounted, fixed-price hotels and rental cars around the world.
Hutchison-Priceline (Travel) Ltd works with one of the travel industry's largest collections of travel suppliers. These include 34 Asian and international airlines and more than 9,000 hotel properties around the world.
