Recommended OTA Solution Architecture
Solution description
- 1. Business process support
- All business requests are forwarded to the online reservation ECS clusters through server load balancers, with the business data generated being written to the backend databases. Alibaba Cloud offers on-cloud databases, and when a single database is unable to meet the performance requirements, distributed relational database services may be used to enhance database capacity. To ease the pressure on the database, ApsaraDB for Memcache is used to stream database reading tasks, thereby separating reading and writing functions.
- 2. Mass data collection and processing:
- OTA customers are able to make use of Alibaba Cloud's ECS clusters to collect data on hotels, air tickets and other tickets over the Internet. Alibaba Cloud 's ECS clusters process the raw data acquired over the Internet and write the processed results to the business databases to integrate the Internet data with the OTA business data.
- 3. Image storage and processing:
- Alibaba Cloud Object Storage Service (OSS) stores various types of image files of OTA customers, which can be processed based on URL parameters, such as cropping, resizing, rotating, format conversion, and brightness/contrast adjustment. Watermark and anti-leech features are also provided, effectively meeting the needs of OTA customers in terms of image storage and processing. Through integration with the Alibaba Cloud content delivery network (CDN), Object Storage Service supports network acceleration, reducing the pressure on website servers, thereby speeding up the opening of images on the client side.
- 4. Log collection and analysis:
- Alibaba Cloud provides a simple log service (SLS) to collect and analyze application server logs. SLS client-side data collectors are deployed on the application servers to collect access logs, error logs, etc. from application servers in real time, formatting the collected data into regular expressions before storing it in the SLS log storage area. Alibaba Cloud SLS logs help to locate errors for quick troubleshooting and improving consumer experience.
Solution Driven
Complications of traditional models
Alibaba Cloud OTA solution
Inflexible IT infrastructure
Flexible, large-scale and low cost
Business growth means that OTA customers require large numbers of servers and network resources, whether to support a greater number of users or to collect greater volumes of data from the Internet. If either self-built machine rooms or hosting machine rooms are used, it is very difficult to expand IT resources in line with business growth.
Alibaba Cloud ECS offers flexible hourly/monthly/annual charging modes. The scale of ECS servers can be readily re-sized based on business demands. Compared with the traditional IDC procurement and deployment models, Alibaba Cloud ECS can reduce costs by 50%, and shorten the deployment cycle by 90%. At the same time, Alibaba Cloud also offers low cost mini-sized single-core servers with memory of 512MB and 1MB bandwidth (with public IP address). The mini-sized servers are well suited for establishing large-scale data-collecting server clusters for OTA customers.
Insufficient storage and processing capabilities for large quantities of images
Reliable and speedy image storage and processing
OTA customers often need to store large quantities of images, such as room photos and scenic spot photos. As businesses grow, there will be a surge in the number of images. The high cost, long cycles and difficulties in terms of maintenance are issues which affect self-built large-scale storage systems. In addition, with the development of mobile Internet, OTA customers need to adapt to various terminals by resizing, cropping and watermarking images.
Alibaba Cloud Object Storage Service boasts a 99.99999999% reliability rate and offers image processing features to meet the needs of OTA customers, supporting adaptation to various mobile Internet terminals.
Inadequate processing capabilities for massive logs
Big data analysis
OTA customers usually need to engage in business with a large number of hotels, airlines, and ticketing companies. The business chain is long, and errors of various types can easily occur. As a result, error locating must be carried out with the help of log analysis. However, many OTA customers lack the capability to store, query and analyze large volumes of logs.
Alibaba Cloud's SLS log collection and analysis service is based on Alibaba Cloud big data platforms, enabling the storage and analysis of large amounts of log data. The service provides an interface for the speedy collection and formatting of data, greatly easing the effort of analyzing large amounts of log data.
Difficult to guarantee network experience
Optimal network experience
An increasing number of users are accessing OTA applications using the mobile Internet. This places higher requirements on network quality. With traditional IDC, it is difficult to adequately guarantee the network experience of users due to lacking multi-line access capabilities. In addition, OTA customers are often vulnerable to Internet-based attacks (such as DDoS attacks).
Big data analysis Alibaba Cloud's SLS log collection and analysis service is based on Alibaba Cloud big data platforms, enabling the storage and analysis of large amounts of log data. The service provides an interface for the speedy collection and formatting of data, greatly easing the effort of analyzing large amounts of log data. Optimal network experience Alibaba Cloud data centers in every region support multi-line BGP network access to ensure the optimal network experience of OTA users either with PCs or mobile clients. Alibaba Cloud is gradually rolling out more overseas data centers to support the global business expansion of OTA customers. Alibaba Cloud Security can provide an effective defense against a wide range of network attacks, such as DDoS attacks, ensuring the security of OTA customers.