Dot-com hot-wires its network: fast, secure and reliable operations ensured by move to Internet exchange hub - Network Services

Communications News, July, 2003 by Phil Bowman

With an increasing number of consumers relying on the Internet to book discount travel, San Francisco-based Hotwire experienced a surge in customer traffic. The online travel discounter's existing Internet infrastructure, however, was not prepared to accommodate the rapidly increasing volume of users seeking to buy airline, hotel and car rentals via the company's website. In addition, the turbulence within the telecommunications industry had Al Pappas, Hotwire's CIO, concerned with redundancy and continuity of the company's Internet operations--the lifeline of Hotwire's business.

Hotwire's service depends on real-time customer transaction processing, requiring the highest level of network performance, due to minute-by-minute changes in pricing and availability. Hotwire partners with more than 7,000 travel providers, including all seven U.S. full-service airlines and more than 6,000 hotels in 300 U.S., Canadian and Caribbean destinations. Seven million visitors per month visit the firm's website. Network latency and poor systems performance could lead a customer to abandon the site for a competitor.

When Hotwire began evaluating new approaches to its Web operations, the objective was to introduce a high level of diversity and redundancy to its outside infrastructure sources to ensure fast, secure and reliable operations. Hotwire reviewed a variety of colocation and hosting options--with criteria that included facility quality, telecommunications and Internet protocol knowledge, service flexibility, Internet footprint, and financial stability.

"One of our primary concerns was to ensure that we had the largest diversity and aggregation of networks and service providers within arms reach for connectivity in case one network could not handle the traffic load," says Pappas. "We did not want to assume the great risk of being tied to one network any longer."

Ultimately, Pappas chose the benefits of operating within the network-rich environment of an Internet exchange hub, where Hotwire could directly interconnect with a large aggregation of networks. This direct interconnection provided Hotwire with the ability to reduce the cost and performance degradation associated with linking to its critical content and network-peering partners in multiple locations and over long distances.

In addition to the cost reduction and performance enhancement, Pappas found that by establishing operations within a centralized Internet hub--where hundreds of carriers, networks and service providers offer their services--he had also introduced provider diversity into Hotwire's operations. Pappas knew that he could quickly and easily provision service from a different provider within the Internet exchange hub.

Once he selected Equinix of Mountain View, Calif., as the provider best suited to provide these services, Pappas tested the provider's services by utilizing Equinix's San Jose Internet Business Exchange (IBX) center as a redundant production site for Hotwire's Web and network operations. After several months, Pappas decided to move Hotwire's primary Web operations within the center. Equinix was able to ready a site in under three weeks.

By utilizing the services and networks available within an Internet exchange hub, Hotwire has virtually eliminated all local loop charges and reduced its transit costs by more than 70%, while at the same time driving up reliability, diversity and speed of implementations. This is accomplished by having immediate access to more than 90% of the Internet routing table within the center.

According to Pappas, "Equinix's carrier-neutral facility allowed us to take advantage of the competitive marketplace for bandwidth. Our Internet connectivity to our customers and network links to our travel suppliers are critical to our business, and the telecommunications companies and service providers available at the IBX center allow us to partner with these companies for the best possible business results."

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