Dive Brief:
- American Airlines tapped IBM to serve as its cloud provider, the companies announced Tuesday.
- AA will migrate "select enterprise applications" to IBM's cloud and will also use the advanced analytics capabilities and technologies IBM provides.
- Tapping IBM as AA's cloud provider is a continuation of a long-standing relationship between the two companies. They started working together in the 1950's to develop the industry's first electronic reservation and ticketing system, according to the announcement.
Dive Insight:
American Airlines' choice is a boon for Big Blue, as both Amazon Web Services and Microsoft were previously in the running. The airline spent months mulling its choice of cloud provider, assessing costs, service levels and terms and conditions within the contracts.
In addition to other applications, AA is working to move customer website to the cloud, which saw an average of 1.2 million visitors each day during the summer. To choose a provider, the company had to ensure it had a global footprint that could keep up with network traffic its applications see.
Airlines are one of many sectors that have been working to adopt the cloud, but are slow in their migration efforts because of the number of legacy systems and concerns over provider's system reliability. But with recent airline computer failures, it is likely more will seek to outsource parts of their infrastructure and applications.
