Industry: Hospitality
With more than 380 hotels in 40 countries and four continents, Meliá Hotels International is the largest hotel company in Spain, Latin America, and Europe, and is the 10th largest lodging company worldwide.
Up until 2018, the company used a file transfer solution developed in house more than 20 years ago, which transferred files through MQ queues. The chronic stability problems, daily incidents, and inability to quickly diagnosis issues made it clear they needed to find a better way.
Furthermore, their homegrown system did not allow them to connect with external companies, such as American Express or Iberia, or to integrate with the main cloud platforms and their file repositories, namely Amazon S3, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Azure, Box, and Dropbox. This lack of functionality forced the hotelier to use other tools, making the overall operation more complex than it needed to be.
GoAnywhere MFT Eased File Transfer Complexities
Adding GoAnywhere MFT to their IT environment for secure file transfers was the remedy Melia needed. Antonio Ramos Elías, Integrations Architect at Meliá, explained how the change improved his day-to-day work life. “GoAnywhere MFT has given us a lot of peace of mind. Apart from the stability, the logging system saves everything that happens, so it is very easy for us every time there is a problem or incident, to search the logs for an explanation of what happened. Usually, if there is an incident it is not motivated by GoAnywhere and, thanks to the fact that we can trace things, we have the evidence to prove it,” said Elias.
Quick Implementation and Solution to Stability Problem Delivered
To identify and select their new MFT tool, Meliá drew up a catalog of requirements and evaluated 10 providers with the help of a specialized consultancy. GoAnywhere MFT was selected as the file transfer tool that best met Meliá's specific needs.
From there, implementation was very fast. In just two months, the software solution was installed in the entire infrastructure and the pilot file transfer project was put into production.
File Transfers Now Automated 98 Percent of Time; Cost Savings Result
Today, Meliá uses GoAnywhere to transfer files between their headquarters and all their hotel properties worldwide, streamlining and automating:
- Reservations and availability of rooms in hotels and restaurants
- Guest and customer information
- Backoffice data, such as SAP billing and accounting
- Employee information
Although the primary users of GoAnywhere MFT is the organization’s IT team, there are some file submission processes performed by other business users and some of their partners. "Compared to the previous product, GoAnywhere delivers multiple efficiency advantages as the system management is centralized in a single point," noted Elias.
GoAnywhere manages information to and from IBM mainframe servers, SAP, and ERP and securely sends and manages all kinds of file types, including XML, JSON, Excel or plain text. And due to the needs for immediacy and confidentiality of the data files are sent encrypted and protected, both at rest and in motion.
Around 10,000 files are exchanged daily through the network of more than 130 Meliá hotels, and nearly 98 percent are done unattended using GoAnywhere File Monitors. The monitors detect the presence of new files in folders and automatically execute the corresponding process, reducing human error and increasing efficiency. More than 40 processes are executed approximately 3,500 times per day.
These operations are carried out through GoAnywhere Agents installed on-premises in each of the chain’s hotels. The agents allow the organization to deploy and manage the execution of file movements with all hotels from one central location, with real-time visibility and automatic alerts in the event of any failure. In addition, when using GoAnywhere agents, there is no need to program or update scripts locally at each hotel, as GoAnywhere allows for automations to be configured via an intuitive, dashboard-style user interface. Centralized management and ease of configuration without the need to program scripts has resulted in significant cost savings in system maintenance for this hotel chain.
“The main benefits obtained with GoAnywhere MFT include saving time and effort in the resolution of incidents, as these have been reduced by 99%, with consequent cost savings in the areas involved,” added Elías.
Third Party Data Exchanges are Easier with GoAnywhere MFT
In addition to transferring information internally between the hotel network, Meliá also needed a secure way to exchange data with their strategic partners, such as American Express and Iberia. Before implementing GoAnywhere, they made these file transfers using an unmanaged SFTP server or solutions that were developed on an ad-hoc basis.
GoAnywhere allowed them to integrate these third-party exchanges into the same tool as the rest of their transfers, without making any protocol changes, and with added security through its built-in SFTP and Secure Forms capabilities.
Using Secure Forms allows Meliá to create personalized secure forms and publish them in public or private links, so that its partners can send them information securely. They simply need to connect through the GoAnywhere web client, load the data into the form, and the information is encrypted and sent immediately.
High Availability Ensures Continuity
Due to the large volume of transfers and their importance to the lodging business, Meliá needs GoAnywhere to work at all times. For this reason, it installed a High Availability scheme that helps guarantee the continuity of all its functionalities.
The architecture includes an active/active cluster (2 MFT servers + 2 Gateways), accessible both from the Meliá network and from the Internet. It has a MySQL database on RDS, an EFS shared filesystem mounted on the machines that make up the cluster, and two network layer balancers (one in front of the Gateway, one between the MFT cluster and the private network).
Future Plans for Incorporating GoAnywhere Into The Organization
Elías, leader of the GoAnywhere MFT project, is very satisfied with the results obtained. Since the implementation of GoAnywhere, he has resolved the incidents caused by the old platform, saved money and, above all, gained peace of mind that all his organization’s file transfers go smoothly, and can be controlled and managed with fewer complications.
Going forward, Melia plans to continue implementing file transfer processes to get even more value from GoAnywhere.
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