American Airlines Plans to Soar Into the Cloud
Joe Cortez September 26, 2016
Legacy carrier considering Amazon, IBM and Microsoft as cloud partners.
American Airlines is looking to three partners to help them soar into another cloud: the digital cloud. The Wall Street Journal reports American is considering moving parts of their website and other information technology processes to the cloud, joining a larger trend among American corporate computer structures.
According to the plans announced to the newspaper, American in the process of vetting partners now and could make a decision on how to move to the cloud “within months.” Amazon, IBM and Microsoft are all in consideration for partnerships.
The move comes after American’s internal developers ran a test to determine if smaller portions of the website could thrive in a cloud-based system. After the test was complete, the company began looking to the cloud for supporting the website and keeping sales engines moving during airfare sales. During peak hours, the cloud could draw more resources to keep the website running, while overall data usage could be reduced in off-hours.
In the meantime, American is evaluating all three companies on multiple variables, including approaches to cloud computing and internal framework. Once a partner is selected, the airline would work with them to move parts of their system, which may include key parts of their customer-facing website.
Once the move is complete, American would join several other major corporations in moving their business critical systems online. Other major corporations shifting their systems online include Johnson and Johnson, which has completed 85 percent of their transition, while NTT Communcations is planning to shift their systems online by 2018.
