Online hotel reservation specialist secures high availability using Radware solutions
Radware (NASDAQ: RDWR), the leading provider of integrated application delivery solutions for business-smart networking, announced today that Hotel Reservation Service (HRS), Europe’s leading online hotel reservation portal, has successfully deployed Radware's intelligent Application Delivery solution to ensure the high availability and accelerated performance of HRS’ network systems and offer the best user experience - simple, secure and fast.
Online booking is more popular than ever. That is why Europe's leading electronic hotel reservation system put its trust in Radware technology. Radware’s scalable OnDemand Switch platform keeps HRS and its global corporate network running smoothly, even when faced with constantly rising demand. The OnDemand Switch enables HRS to work with confidence, knowing that its applications have high availability around the clock – even during extreme peak periods.
HRS has been working with Radware’s proven product portfolio for many years. Radware’s new generation of platforms based on the OnDemand Switch, allows its AppDirector to provide optimal application delivery through real-time traffic redirection, local and global server load distribution, and comprehensive dynamic bandwidth management. Radware’s AppXcel product also helps HRS put its full network resources to work. This includes compressing web content as well as keeping access and transfer times consistently low. The quick processing of SSL transactions and digital certificates lowers the workload on application server CPUs and ensures quick and reliable process flows. As a result, HRS customers experience a noticeably faster booking process.
"HRS has to be available for our customers 24/7," explains Carlton B. Woestmann, CIO at HRS. "Our day-to-day business cannot be interrupted at any time. At the same time, we also need to ensure that every customer query is captured and answered by the database in a quick and appropriate manner."
Not surprisingly, HRS' expectations for a high availability solution were demanding: "To also guarantee the future growth of the portal, load distribution must be structured toward scalability, including implementation, while the system is running," explains Frank Pursch, Director of the HRS data center. "A solution was also required to ensure complete security for the SOA/XML environment without compromising performance,” he added.
After extensive research, the IT experts at HRS found their attention drawn to Radware solutions. A single deployment test of one Radware solution was enough to convince the HRS team – not just in terms of functionality, but also in terms of support: "We were quite surprised at how much individual support the experts at Radware gave us," Pursch remembers. “Our IT infrastructure is large and quite technically complex. This made the integration of the AppDirector units anything but easy. All the same, Radware’s team was able to implement our customization requests quickly." Satisfied with their experience, HRS quickly switched from pilot operations to full deployment.
"We offer our customers the tools that not only guarantee availability but also improve response time for applications, provide optimal coverage in the security area and which can be customized to future standards and requirements," says Markus Spahn, Regional Sales Manager at Radware.
The implementation partner for this project was Networkers AG, a subsidiary of Controlware GmbH. As an elite partner, the company not only has years of expertise in the area of network and infrastructure technology but also boasts more than 10 trained Radware specialists on its German staff.
About HRS
HRS operates a free, global, electronic hotel-booking system based on a database of more than 230,000 hotels in all categories in 180 different countries. HRS’s free reservation service enables direct bookings to be made with immediate confirmation and at daily best-buy prices guaranteed to be the cheapest available on the market. The room prices quoted for selected hotels are guaranteed for the booking in question. Credit cards are not required to make a hotel booking since prices are paid directly at the hotel rather than in advance. Bookings can be changed or cancelled free of charge right up until 6pm on the day of arrival, while more than a million hotel evaluations by customers for customers rovide an ideal decision-making aide when choosing hotels. Further information can be found at www.hrs.de
About Radware
Radware (NASDAQ:RDWR), the global leader in integrated application delivery solutions, assures the full availability, maximum performance, and complete security of business-critical applications for more than 6,000 enterprises and carriers worldwide. With APSolute™, Radware's comprehensive and award-winning suite of intelligent front-end, access, and security products, companies in every industry can drive business productivity, improve profitability, and reduce IT operating and infrastructure costs by making their networks "business smart." For more information, please visit www.radware.com.
This press release may contain forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, general business conditions in the Application Switching or Network Security industry, changes in demand for Application Switching or Network Security products, the timing and amount or cancellation of orders and other risks detailed from time to time in Radware's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including Radware's Form 20-F.