Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Developers Improve Reservation Process for Resort Operator; Reduce Support Times
Overview
Country or Region:United States
Industry:Recreation
Customer Profile
Vail Resorts owns and operates six winter and summer destination resorts in Colorado, California/Nevada, and Wyoming.
Business Situation
Vail Resorts wanted to offer better customer service by improving the reservations process and expanding travel services offerings.
Solution
Working with Interlink Group, Vail Resorts created an application that provides access to both the company’s central reservation system and an online airfare service, from one interface.
Benefits
Quick development and centralized updating
Improved access to system resources
Reduced support times / “We are constantly incorporating new types of travel-related business into our network, so having a system that’s easy to support and scale is vital to our success.”
Susan Rubin-Stewart, Director of Reservations and Travel, Vail Resorts
Vail Resorts owns and operates five popular ski resorts in Colorado and California/Nevada, and one summer resort in Wyoming. The company’s reservation agents were challenged by a central reservation system that was difficult to use and almost impossible to update. Vail Resorts found the answer to these troubles with the help of Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Interlink Group. Within six months, the team created AirLink, a rich client application, using the Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET 2003 development environment. AirLink provides Vail Resorts’s reservation agents an easy-to-use application that integrates the company’s central reservation system with an online airfare service and allows the company to scale its system efficiently to take advantage of new opportunities.
Situation
Vail Resorts, with popular destination properties in scenic locations in California/Nevada, Colorado, and Wyoming, is one of the leading resort operators in North America, and is host to both winter and summer vacationers from all over the world. The company employs more than 15,000 people during the busiest seasons to meet customer demand.
Vail Resorts’sreservation agents had been using a custom-developed application that connected them to the company’s central reservation system and to the online airfare service Galileo International. The central reservation system is hosted on an IBM AS400 server. Another server provided a connection gateway to Galileo International, which required propriety hardware to connect to its network and limited the number of simultaneous connections to 12.
While the custom-developed application was functional, it was extremely difficult to use, often requiring reservation agents to use multiple application windows to complete a single reservation. For example, in order to check the rates of multiple vacation packages, reservation agents needed to open a separate application window for each of these items.
The application also required constant support from the Vail Resorts IT department to prevent system crashes and server downtimes, but could not be updated or patched due to the proprietary nature of the application’s source code.
“The original system was nearly impossible to scale, and we were concerned that we wouldn’t be able to handle the reservation volume we were expecting during our busy times,” says Mike Hibbs, Director of IT at Vail Resorts.
Vail Resorts focused on building a new application that would:
Integrate easily with the AS400 server and GWS.
Reduce overall support.
Scale to meet new business and IT needs at the company.
Provide reservation agents with an easy-to-use interface.
Solution
With the help of Microsoft® Gold Certified Partner Interlink Group, Vail Resorts created a new reservation application in six months. The development team, which included four developers from Interlink and two developers from Vail Resorts, built the new application, called AirLink, based on the Microsoft .NET Framework—an integral component of the Windows®operating system that provides a programming model and runtime for Web services, Web applications, and smart client applications. The team used the Microsoft Visual Studio® .NET 2003 development system and the C# programming language. The development team created the application user interface using Windows Forms controls in Visual Studio .NET 2003 and performed all tests and application reviews in a Microsoft Virtual PC environment. AirLink provides reservation agents access to both Galileo Web Services (GWS) airfare service and the Vail Resorts central reservation system from one easy-to-use interface.
How It Works
Through the Microsoft .NET–connected AirLink application, reservation agents access the central reservation system located on the AS400 server. As soon as reservation agents log into the Vail Resorts network, connection to the AS400 server and GWS is made and maintained throughout the session in a client/server interaction that is transparent to reservation agents. User credentials are automatically verified against Active Directory® directory service, based on thereservation agent’s username and password needed to log on to a client computer running AirLink.
A Microsoft SQL ServerTM 2000 database running on the Microsoft Windows ServerTM2003 Standard Edition operating system stores SQL Server configuration tables, whichprovide AirLink a standard set of business rules and processes the application uses to complete reservation processes. Component-based Scalable Logical Architecture (CSLA) .NET, an open-source programming framework, was used to manage the separation of the business logic layer from the presentation layer of the application.
The development team usedthe .NET Framework to develop the architecture required to connect to GWS. As seen in Figure 1, AirLink connects to GWS using the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) over Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) through a Web services Internet proxy created in Visual Studio .NET 2003. Once connected, reservation agents have access to updated pricing and scheduling information. By allowing AirLink to connect to this service using Web services, an unlimited number of users can be logged on to the service and no proprietary hardware is required to maintain those connections.
The development team used the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN®) developer program to find useful resources during the development process. The team turned to the MSDN Website to find technical resources and support during the development process for AirLink.
Deploying AirLink
After testing was completed, the development team deployed AirLink to 86 client computers at Vail Resorts. Using Microsoft Updater Application Block, the Vail Resorts IT department can deploy updates to the application from the server running Windows Server 2003 andInternet Information Services (IIS) 6.0; this server contains the links to the AirLink update site.
“From a development standpoint, Visual Studio [.NET] was great to work with. We were able very quickly to create functional application interfaces for testing and get the comprehensive feedback we needed to make an application that works for Vail reservation agents,” says JohnMcPherson, Managing Consultant for Interlink Group.
Benefits
Visual Studio .NET 2003 and the .NET Framework provided the development team with the tools to quickly create an application to meet the needs of Vail Resorts. With AirLink, Vail Resortsnow has an updated, easy-to-use interface that helps enable employees to deliver better customer service by providing access to resources located both inside and outside the Vail Resorts network. In addition, the flexibility of technologies used allows the company to take advantage of future opportunities more easily.
Quick Development and Centralized Updating
Using Windows Forms in Visual Studio .NET 2003, developers were able to quickly create working prototypes of AirLink for Vail Resorts reservation agents to test.
“We were able to take functional specifications from Vail Resorts and quickly create working user interfaces in Visual Studio and Windows Forms, sometimes within a couple hours of when the request was made,” says McPherson. “Simulating a work situation allowed us to easily get feedback from multiple sources.”
AirLink also allows Vail Resorts to quickly update client computers running the application thanks to integrated support for Windows-based updating services. Updates to code or Web service connections can be deployed centrally to client computers, without physical intervention by IT personnel or reservation agents.
Improved Access to System Resources
AirLink provides a single user interface for reaching the resources that reservation agents need to do their jobs. With access to GWS and a constant connection to the AS400 reservation system, Vail Resorts reservation agents now can complete the booking tasks without losing connection because of user limits. Reservation agents also find that AirLink is comparatively effortless to use.
“With our previous system, reservation agents would use four or five different application windows for what they can now do in one,” says Susan Rubin-Stewart, Director of Reservations and Travelfor Vail Resorts. “AirLink effectively connects the two reservation systems into one easy-to-use interface.”
Reduced Support Times
Vail Resorts has eliminated the complicated infrastructure used to maintain the previous GWS connection. And, because AirLink is easy to update, Vail Resorts expects a dramatic reduction in support time required by its central reservation department. Vail Resorts no longer has to tend to the constant network monitoring and support necessary to sustain the previous application. This frees the Vail Resorts to focus on developing new line-of-business applications for the company.
AirLink and the .NET Framework are setting the trend for how new applications are being created and incorporated into the daily business flow at Vail Resorts.
“We are constantly incorporating new types of travel-related business into our network, so having a system that’s easy to support and scale is vital to our success,” says Rubin-Stewart.
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET
Microsoft Visual Studio .NET is the rapid application development (RAD) tool for building next-generation Web applications and Web services. Visual Studio .NET empowers developers to rapidly design broad-reach Web applications for any device and any platform. In addition, Visual Studio .NET is fully integrated with the Microsoft .NET Framework, providing support for multiple programming languages and automatically handling many common programming tasks, freeing developers to rapidly create Web applications using their language of choice. For more information, go to:
msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio
Acquire Visual Studio .NET at:
msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/howtobuy
For more information about MSDNsubscriptions, go to:
msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions
The Microsoft .NET Framework is an integral Windows component for building and running the next generation of applications and Web services. For more information, go to:
msdn.microsoft.com/netframework