Online leisure and travel retailer Lastminute.com is
changing its server and database architecture to cope with an
expansion in its "dynamic packaging" holidays.
The company intends to offer users the ability to package all
products - from flights and hotel rooms to train tickets, car hire
and restaurant and attraction bookings - in any combination by next
summer.
This increased functionality will put huge pressure on
Lastminute.com's IT systems, said Luther Garcia, manager of global
e-commerce at the company.
"There will be millions of possible iterations with dynamic
packaging. For example, we are linked to about 45,000 hotels, so
the complexity of the search will be massive," he said. "We have to
look at innovative ways of coping, as the traditional database is
not scalable enough."
The company has already migrated most of its applications from four
large Sun Sparc servers to 70 Intel Xeon processor-based blade
servers, with a single image, running in four IBM xSeries blade
centres.
"We found we kept having to increase capacity because the firm's
rapid growth meant the server load was increasing by 70% to 100%
each year," Garcia said. "Rather than put more high-end servers in,
we changed the architecture."
Next year, Lastminute.com will be one of the first companies to use
IBM's JS20 product, the first blade server based on 64-bit IBM
Power processors, which was launched last week. "All our new
applications will be written on 64-bit IBM blades," Garcia
said.
Lastminute.com is also splitting its databases, which are primarily
based on Informix products, into smaller segments to improve the
quality of data.
"We are breaking our databases apart as it makes sense to have more
databases split into vertical functions," said Garcia. "We are also
making some fairly radical changes to our user interface, moving
our application servers from Dynamo to JBoss and putting in a new
content management system."
Tony Hart, managing analyst at Datamonitor, said using smaller
databases would allow the site to run more smoothly and improve
supplier relationships.
"By not putting all its eggs in one basket, Lastminute.com will be
able to run more efficiently," he said. "It may also allow for
clearer data synchronisation with its suppliers."
Other companies with multiple suppliers may also adopt a similar
strategy, Hart said. "It would improve data integrity and help them
meet supplier relationship requirements," he added.
Lastminute.com's technology strategy is based on being first to
market with new products, with return on investment coming a close
second. This puts a great deal of pressure on the company's IT
team, said Garcia.
"Being leading-edge is a huge challenge for the technology team,"
he said. "With growth at 70% to 100% a year, integration,
performance and scalability are issues we always have to address.
Because we work at speed, other things have to be sacrificed, such
as rigorous testing - we have to troubleshoot as we go."
Garcia said Lastminute.com is in a unique position because of the
number of technical upgrades it makes to its portfolio of
websites.
"We do an important release once every two weeks, which means we
have a different philosophy to large enterprises which do releases
every few months," he said. "Part of the challenge is to automate
that process as we have lots of sites. Moving this quickly brings
great complexity."
What has the company done?
- Moved from four Sun Sparc servers to 70 Intel-based IBM blades
running in xSeries blade centres. It will use 64-bit IBM processor
based Blades next year
- Split Informix-based databases into smaller segments
- Information is stored in an Informatica datawarehouse
- Moved application server and content management software from
Dynamo to JBoss
- Volantis multi-channel application server software used for
creating content in adevice-independent format.