TUI Marine API Initiative, Content Repository & Architecture

Transcription

1 TUI Marine API Initiative, Content Repository & Architecture

2 TUI Marine API Initiative, Content Repository, & Architecture Contents 1.0 Background P Project Overview P Development P. 7 P.2

3 1.0 Background Section 1.1 TUI Marine Project & Background TUI Marine (TUI) is a collection of companies that are members of the TUI Travel group. With approximately 20 million customers, 48,000 employees and over 200 brands, TUI Travel is one of the world s largest leisure travel companies. TUI operates over 70 bases worldwide, has a fleet of more than 2,500 boats and is considered a leading innovator in yacht design. TUI brands operate in multiple markets and control 50 websites in 7 unique languages. TUI s 5 brands include: The Moorings, Sunsail, Footloose, Le Boat and Leopard Catamarans. Each brand offers a wide variety of water-based vacations, products, and activities catering to a variety of skill levels from novice to expert, and accommodates any size budget. TUI s specialty packages range from yacht charter vacations and flotillas to sailing clubs and sailing schools. There are also packages for events and hospitality, yacht racing and European canal cruising. TUI engaged Appnovation Technologies for their knowledge in architecting scalable platforms and their unique expertise with integrating open source technologies for enterprise customers, better known as the Canopy Initiative. With each TUI brand tailored to a unique customer base and the vast number of people involved with TUI Travel, a structured and organized communication framework was at the forefront of the company s needs. Appnovation was approached to design the architecture and develop the content repository for the P.3

4 1.0 Background Section 1.1 TUI Marine Integration Application Program Interface (API) Initiative. The repository contains fleet pricing, availability data and rich media content (boat attributes, images, etc.) that would allow TUI affiliated websites access to real-time information for travel bookings or sales purposes. In order to properly design the architecture around the API Initiative, TUI use cases were given to Appnovation to analyze before project planning began. 2.0 Project Overview Section 2.1 Consulting, Content Repository, & Architecture The heavy consulting aspect of the TUI project made it unique compared to typical Appnovation projects. Beginning with use case analysis, Appnovation was able to outline the complex integration architecture, as well as the main technologies needed to accomplish TUI s goals of efficiently communicating with their affiliates. Focused on consulting more so than development, Appnovation s role was to integrate the intricate architecture that involved many of TUI s properties, design a content repository, and ensure associated websites corresponded properly with the API. TUI needed a technology solution that was scalable so that it could unite the core business transactions and the data connecting The Moorings, Footloose, Sunsail, Le Boat, Travelink with their rich media content. Furthermore, it was vital for TUI P.4

5 2.0 Project Overview Section 2.1 to easily connect and provide information to channel partners and other TUI websites to increase customer sales. By implementing this integration API architecture, TUI is now able to: Simplify communication between new and pre-existing partnerships Expose core business transactions and data in a consistent and standard format Organize work flow and agility Extend its reach and attract new customers through partnerships Today s businesses are always looking to limit their risk exposure. In a technology filled world, companies must adapt to ensure their business processes are as efficient as possible. TUI noted that their many affiliate companies required current and up to date pricing (previously worked from static price lists) to prevent communication breakdowns, which would lead to declines in sales. The Integration API was the solution aimed at eliminating and simplifying the communication process. By P.5

6 2.0 Project Overview Section 2.1 ensuring pricing and availability information was current and in a format potential partnering companies could understand, TUI was able to prevent a loss in translation, thus reducing their risk and creating a more simplified process. This standardized API meant the data transferred back and forth between the various entities could be tracked and further analyzed to best serve each affiliate s demographic. Thus, the integration would help TUI accumulate measurable data from all affiliated websites, and make it easier to attract new business with a standardized communication platform. This also meant costs reductions associated in building and maintaining one-off interfaces, often requiring modifications in multiple programs. Providing an integration layer capable of becoming the single point of messaging between all applications, systems, websites, external sources and vendors, TUI anticipated to extended their reach as the API Initiative rolls out to their top tier partners and potential new sales channels. TUI estimates an approximate benefit of $2 million over a five-year period by adding incremental moorings crewed, Le Boat bookings, and factoring additional sales from new brokers. By updating the IT architecture and internal communication strategies for TUI, Appnovation was able to help the company prepare for growth, increase agility, standardize and simplify their approach to uture business expansion. P.6

7 3.0 Development Section 3.1 Development & Process The project began with TUI s architect explaining the schematics of their current system, while Appnovation s senior architect Mark Lugert investigated possible solutions for improvement. TUI walked through their business needs with Appnovation and further refined their plans for the API initiative. TUI and Appnovation realized they needed to integrate new technologies MongoDB and MuleSoft to achieve TUI s business goals. This signified the need to redesign the architecture starting with the foundation. MongoDB was chosen as the primary repository for its ability to analyze big data, and handle e-commerce, rich media content, and online collaboration. MongoDB is a scalable, agile and a reliable open source document-orientated NoSQL database. Unlike other relational databases, MongoDB stores and manages JSON-like documents with dynamic schema, significantly reducing the impedance mismatch between the ways data structures are represented in the database, and application s data structures themselves. MongoDB map-reduce operations can handle complex aggregation tasks, allowing data to be processed on the server side. TUI data was not document data; instead it was a cache of metadata. MongoDB was a perfect fit because of its speed relative to caches such as memcache and because of its ability to store data dynamically without a schema. MuleSoft was the communication technology chosen for the TUI Integration API Initiative. The MuleSoft Enterprise Service Bus (Mule ESB) was used as an API layer and is recognized for its high-performance multi-protocol connections. Mule ESB is used to link MongoDB, and the API framework, with TUI s 50 Drupal P.7

8 3.0 Development Section 3.1 websites. The modular open source technology requires low memory usage, and can be easily deployed. A key point of the project was to take the load off their backend legacy AS 400 system. Once TUI agreed to the architecture designed by Appnovation, the next step was to build a prototype to show the technologies working together in each specific set of API calls. After verifying and testing the code, the ensuing challenge was to integrate the solution to all of TUI s global affiliates. A change of this magnitude posed some challenges with integration, and general user buy in. Appnovation needed to meet with Tui Marine stakeholders and demonstrate the benefits of the new architecture, and the Canopy Initiative to the various TUI groups. The implementation provided seamless messaging between applications, systems, websites, and other external vendors. The Canopy Initiative (Mule ESB, MongoDB, with Drupal) provided a single point of access for content that allowed for faster searches on the web via a centralized content database (product and pricing information, availability data from the reservation system and related rich content). Information was P.8

9 3.0 Development Section 3.1 updated nightly to ensure content was current. The first stages of integration enable the information from The Moorings, Footloose, Sunsail, and Le Boat for: general search providing availability data and rich content pre-booking product av ailability and pricing real time quotes based on currencies, base, boat, departure date, and duration, extras and ancillaries booking basics including contracts, payment processing, boat reservations, confirmations, and passenger manifests Sales and booking support Flights and pilots with brokers where necessary After the primary four sites were successfully integrated, the development team set out to include TUI s various other subsidiaries. Over 100 other web properties connected to TUI saw the updated payment process, extra features added to the purchasing options, and new architecture. This proved to be a challenging step because of the many entities that were involved. To complete of the project, the system needed to be installed beyond the pilots, and onto top tier brokers: TUI Crewed (TUI Germany, TUI Spain, TUI Switzerland, Thomson UK, TUI Nordic, TUI Canada, TUI Netherlands), and TUI Le Boat (TUI Spain, TUI Switzerland, Europe Express, TUI Netherlands). As one of the largest travel companies in the world, TUI Travel group communicates to countless demographics around the world. With so many outlets, TUI must ensure their business practices are current and efficient. With Appnovation s aid, TUI was able to redesign their system architecture and redevelop their content repository for the TUI Marine Integration Application Program Interface Initiative using the Canopy Initiative. Launching the API Initiative meant a more streamlined approach when it comes to communicating with current and potential partners. P.9

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