Skymark Airlines

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Secure online reservations even during periods of intense activity. ETERNUS works behind the scenes at Skymark's Computer Reservation System (CRS).

"Even in peak times during the Golden Week holidays there was no degradation in response time. That was really astonishing."

Skymark, a popular low-fare airline company, develops and manages its own private airline system. Their customized database handles all data for reservations, ticketing, boarding, operations, payments and analysis, in an integrated fashion. In recent years, due to the increasing number of customers, this backbone system has suffered from significant response problems, particularly at times of intense reservation activity. Analysis pointed to I/O bottlenecks as the cause.

To eliminate this I/O latency and improve reliability and availability for customers, Skymark decided to introduce Fujitsu's storage system ETERNUS4000. ETERNUS4000 not only eliminated the I/O delays but also enabled business opportunities to expand. In addition the RAID5 and Redundant Copy function improve reliability, enabling stable and continuous operation on a non-stop 24 hour basis.

The rapid increase in the number of customers led to a detrimental load on the system.

Founded in November 1996, Skymark Airlines entered the domestic flight market, aiming at improving user convenience. By exclusively focusing on provision of domestic flights, Skymark gained the position as the customer-friendly airline company. Skymark initiatives included offering more affordable fares through review of overall costs, while giving first priority to flight safety. Further discounted "Sky bargain" fares plus the availability of "pre-booking" menus, enabling low prices even for late bookings, also added to their good reputation.
After merging with Zero, an Internet service provider, in November 2004, Skymark started developing its own in-house system. Since then they have worked to create a new airline business model through use of Information Technology (IT).
The increases in Skymark's online reservation system users proved the new system was well accepted by customers. Passenger numbers on flights between Tokyo and Sapporo (Chitose) and Tokyo and Kobe, routes which started operation in 2006, have exceeded one million each. Equally astonishing, the average boarding rate across all routes during peak summer 2007 (10th-19th Aug) achieved 91.3%.

However, while part of the success, the existing system had begun to reach its performance limits.
"In peak periods, reservations via e-mail and mobile phone become huge. Had we not worked on resolving the issues in our system over the last year, we might not have been able to survive. 2007 recorded an unexpectedly high boarding rate." says Mr. Hitotsugi from Skymark's Information Systems Department.

The introduction process

Performance, reliability and redundancy were key when choosing the storage system.

In recent years, the servers were at times unable to handle the intensive access from the growing number of customers trying to make reservations. Mr. Maruyama, also from Skymark's Information Systems Department recalls. "While it must have been available in theory research and analysis, with help from Fujitsu, revealed that the internal disk drives required considerable time to read/write, plus could consume as much as 60% of CPU performance. The bottleneck wasn't strictly the servers'."
Degraded response from I/O delays was a serious issue and might have led to serious problems such as loss of sales opportunities and delays in business operation.
To resolve this, Skymark selected Fujitsu's ETERNUS4000 storage system, and the installation process went smoothly.
"With its compatibility with Solaris OS, unparalleled performance, high-capacity, maintenance capability, and RAID6 configuration for redundancy and reliability, ETERNUS4000 was amongst the best." (Mr. Hitotsugi)
However for the initial installation of the ETERNUS4000, Skymark chose RAID5 configuration. This was because RAID6 had only just come onto the market, there were few installation examples, and RAID5 excelled in speed.
"The downside of RAID5 is its inability to recover failures occurring on more than one drive simultaneously. But Fujitsu's unique technology called Redundant Copy function allowed preventive exchange of disk drives while maintaining the RAID.
This solved this issue and was the decisive factor in selecting ETRNUS4000." (Mr. Maruyama).

System Outline

UNIX servers are clustered for management and stand-by purposes.

Following recommendations in October 2006, Skymark decided on Fujitsu in November. Further testing continued for a month or two with installation in January 2007. The system commenced live operation in February, and switching to the new system required special care. "The entire migration process including an operational check needed to occur overnight during the period 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. In the end, as a result of a number of tests this went smoothly, in the short time allowed." (Mr. Maruyama)

A clustered configuration was adopted for Skymark's system, with UNIX servers for operational and stand-by purposes. They were multipath connected to the ETERNUS4000 to ensure high-performance and high-reliability. "The airline reservation system handles customer related operations including reservations, ticketing, boarding and payments, plus the systems for internal operations management of flight schedules and accounting. Both rely on ETERNUS4000 for the storage and use of data. ETERNUS4000 is the heart of our system." (Mr. Hitotsugi)

The multipath configuration uses the ETERNUS Multipath Driver, which enables Skymark's systems to achieve both availability and performance. "As CPU workload can be heavier in a single database server configuration, we used two servers to disperse the workload and connected them both to the same ETERNUS4000 via the multipath. Fujitsu fully supporting us in the course of this activity." (Mr. Maruyama)

Installation benefits and future expectations

Elimination of I/O delays achieved stable system operation 24 hours a day.

The primary benefit of installation of ETERNUS4000 was the removal of I/O delays.
Mr. Maruyama appreciated the value represented by ETERNUS4000. "Even at peak times during Japan's Golden Week holidays there was no degradation in response time. That was really astonishing."

"Now with the new system even backup operations place little burden on the environment. We are able to offer a stable customer service at enhanced speeds even at midnight. The response delays that occurred with the previous system, due to locked tables, never occurs with the new system." (Mr. Hitotsugi)

While online backup couldn't be employed due to the specification of its custom database, Mr. Hitotsugi says however, "what previously took several hours can now be finished in less than half that time."

There is also a benefit in terms of reliability. Previously, they had to work in response to disk failure as it might have affected the entire system.
"Being an in-house operation, how the system was working was always at the back of my mind, even on holiday. But with the remote communication functions of the maintenance and operating assistance service provided by Fujitsu, I now feel much more secure. For disk exchange, all that's needed is the removal and insertion of a disk and Fujitsu's CEs do this for us," said Mr. Maruyama. "With four times as many disk drives as the previous system, we also don't need to delete history data which the accounting division use for analysis. Further enhancement of the entire system is another side benefit of removing the I/O delays. The number of accesses has continued to grow dramatically due to the new responsive system."

"Eliminating the I/O bottlenecks enabled the servers to use sufficient CPU resources, resulting in increased customer access. In order to handle operations for the growing number of customers, we did enhance server CPU and network. This enhancement turned out to be very instrumental in further expansion of our business, while never missing any sales opportunities." (Mr. Hitotsugi)

Skymark, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, has started working on the assignment of the right planes to the right flights in anticipation of new customer demands. IT is a crucial factor in the enterprise strategy of Skymark. On the subject of future prospects, Mr. Hitotsugi says "Making our systems operate stably is the mission of our department. Based on this, we'd like to respond to our enterprise strategy flexibly through system enhancement and by analyzing both customer trends and our planes."

User Profile
Company Name: Skymark Airlines Inc.
Location: Hamamatsu-cho square 12F, 1-30-5, Hamamatsu-cho, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Representative: Shinichi Nishikubo, President
Capital: 4,202,465,625 yen (As of July 2007)
Employees: 1,075 employees (Permanent employees, As of July 2007)
Business Profile: Air transportation service, and other activities.
URL: Skymark Airlines Inc.

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