Deploying Airport Service Industries’ Application to Alibaba Cloud for Cost Optimization And Excellence SLA

IT infrastructure investment really needs to be done in business development to be able to remain competitive in the digital race. One of the main focus in the investment of IT infrastructure is system protection. The National Cyber and Crypto Agency (BSSN) informed a number of more than 1 billion traffic anomalies that could be categorized as cyber-attacks from January to September 2021. This could be a concern for companies to understand security for IT.

One of the long-term IT infrastructure investments that companies can make is the use of Cloud Computing. When compared to using an on-premise server, Cloud Computing is superior in terms of flexibility. In addition, data stored in cloud computing can be backed up regularly and companies only pay based on the resources used.

If the company has an application it should also run in cloud services because it will save costs compared to running it on premise. When it is run on-premise, company has to invest physical servers that will cost more than using cloud. This is because cloud’s cost is calculated according to the use of the company.

This time ViBiCloud will discuss how a company engaged in airport services (terminal handling and cargo handling) in the airport runs its application in the cloud.

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Pt Jasa Angkasa Semesta or commonly abbreviated as PT JAS is a trusted provider of ground and cargo handling services in Indonesia. Established in year 1984 with more than 38 years of experience, PT JAS provides comprehensive ground and cargo handling services, airport hospitality services, Today, JAS Airport Services serves more than 49 international and domestic airlines and many other partners in the air travel, cargo, and hospitality industries, across 12 major airports throughout Indonesia.

To meet the demand for flights in Indonesia, PT JAS operates in almost all airports spread throughout Indonesia. The company not only serves domestic cargo but also serves export and import.

As PT JAS's operations grew, their IT infrastructure became increasingly complex, leading to difficulties in managing and maintaining their systems. To address these issues, PT JAS decided to migrate their IT systems to Alibaba Cloud, with the support of VibiCloud.

In line with the increasing growth of aviation in Indonesia and the high access by many people in Indonesia, there is a need for a service that can keep the PT JAS application workload usable. If the application goes down, it is hoped that it will be restored quickly in a short time. PT JAS faced several challenges like:

1. Managing a large and complex IT infrastructure
2. Ensuring the availability and reliability of their IT systems
3. Protecting their systems against security threats
4. Processing and analyzing large amounts of data to gain insights into their business operations

Having partnered with airline industry giants, the team in Alibaba Cloud was already aware of importance of high scalability, uptime and security for PT JAS. JAS had chosen Alibaba Cloud due to its stable platform and a thoughtful migration plan. Tools like Server Migration Center and DTS proved effective for a seamless migration. This ensured that the workloads are migrated to cloud without impacting the business and ensuring minimal downtime.

Alibaba Cloud, VibiCloud and JAS teams also had in-depth discussions about security rules that need to be configured on cloud to ensure holistic security for the apps in production. This included security rules configured on Alibaba Cloud WAF but it also included deployment of best practices in security around OS hardening, audit trail management, identity access management for internal employees and permission management for users who had access to the application code.

This collaboration between Alibaba Cloud, PT JAS and VibiCloud ensured JAS applications were migrated to cloud without any downtime for the customer. It also resulted in a scalable and highly available deployment for JAS which will ensure business continuity in case of sudden bursts of traffic or any downtime in the primary site.

READ ALSO: Understand what cloud computing is and its benefits to your business

The solution provided by ViBiCloud team consists of deploying the application of PT JAS to cloud, and the cloud used is Alibaba Cloud:

1. Elastic Compute Service (ECS): To host their applications and services
2. Relational Database Service (RDS): To manage their databases
3. Web Application Firewall (WAF): To protect their web applications from security threats
4. Server Migration Center and Data Transmission Service for seamless migration to Alibaba Cloud

By using RDS, PT JAS will be able to focus more on database management and not need to think about its hardware infrastructure management so that its database services are more efficient, scalable, simple and secure. The migration to Alibaba Cloud allowed PT JAS to streamline their IT operations and improve the performance and reliability of their systems. In addition, Alibaba Cloud's WAF helped to protect PT JAS's web applications from common web attacks, such as SQL injection and cross-site scripting.

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After migrating to Alibaba Cloud, PT JAS experienced several benefits, including:
1. Improved performance and reliability of their IT systems
2. Simplified IT operations and management
3. Enhanced security of their web applications
4. Improved scalability and flexibility of their IT infrastructure

In addition to these benefits, PT JAS is now exploring big data with Alibaba Cloud, using products such as MaxCompute and DataWorks to process and analyze large amounts of data. By doing so, PT JAS is able to gain insights into their business operations, improve their services, and make data-driven decisions.

Running applications to the cloud also reduces the workload of the IT team because there is no need to manage and expand data protection so that PT. Jasa Angkasa Semesta Services can focus more on IT development that supports business growth.

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