All Systems Go: Tech Firm Lands
Contract From Festive Airlines
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Houston - based DYONYX LP has landed a contract to handle
information technology operations for Festival Airlines Inc., a new
carrier out of Chicago. The deal marks the second commercial
airline contract for DYONYX. British Airways Plc was the first
customer for the 10-year-old company.
DYONYX will design, develop, implement and provide ongoing IT
support for Festival. The deal covers functions ranging from
aircraft operations and scheduling to reservations systems and
customer service. Financial terms of the multiyear contract were
not disclosed.
Trent Henson, executive vice
president of DYONYX, says Festival represents a unique model in the
airline industry with a "very progressive" approach to
incorporating technology into operations. He says the deal is
significant both in sheer size of the project and the level of
technology provided. Says Henson: "The airline wants to focus on
every amenity possible for the traveler. From a technology design
standpoint, it's a fairly significant undertaking."
Festival markets itself as a
vacation only airline with different combinations of packages
covering airfare, hotel, food, and beverage, ground transportation
and entertainment. The airline's inaugural flights are scheduled to
take off in 2006 from Chicago/Rockford International Airport, the
site of Festival's operations base, as well as Midway Airport in
Chicago. Festival CEO Carl George, in a prepared statement, says
the airline chose to work with DYONYX because of the company's
"broad platform capabilities, leading edge technology deployment
ability and the strength and depth of their team."
Festival flights will be high on
entertainment. DYONYX will equip each aircraft with custom-delivery
video systems on every seat back as well as Gameboys and Play
Stations consoles. "Passengers will be able to pick the
entertainment they want during flights based on their interest,"
Henson says.
Comfort is another consideration. A system being installed by
DYONYX will allow the airline to adjust a plane's interior design
based on customer feedback. If passengers say they'd like an extra
two inches of seat space, during the next maintenance cycle one row
of seats can be eliminated to provide for a more spacious seating
arrangement.
In addition, DYONYX will serve as
Festival's telecommunications provider through an adaptable Voice
Over Internet Protocol system.Other DYONYX clients include the
Department of Homeland Security, the City of Houston and Millennium
Challenge Corp. DYONYX ranked No.9 on the Houston Business Journal
Fast Tech 50 list in 2005. Company revenue has jumped from $4.5
million in 2003 to $8.7 million in 2004 and $20 million in
2005.
To learn more, visit www.dyonyx.com
Client Profile
El Paso Electric Company (EPE) is a medium sized integrated
electric utility operating in the Rio Grande Valley in west Texas
and southern New Mexico with over 347,000 customers. With
approximately 1,000 employees, EPE has an installed net generation
capacity of 1,500 MW including about 16% interests in the Palo
Verde nuclear plant. While EPE is moderate in size when compared to
many corporations, as an electric utility, the technology
infrastructures are very complex incorporating real-time systems,
large customer databases, multi-layered geographic information
systems, communication and dispatch systems, and comprehensive
facilities management systems all supporting the delivery of
electricity to the customers. This environment, coupled with the
key responsibility to operate and maintain the critical electric
grid infrastructures for the region, sets the stage for the need of
a robust set of information system infrastructures. These
infrastructures, which include hardware architecture, application
system architecture, network architecture, and supporting
organizational resources, need to incorporate appropriate
technology, integrated design concepts, and efficient processes to
meet the needs of the corporation.
Executive Summary
EPE retained the services of DYONYX to perform a cooperative
technical examination and assessment of various aspects of the
current technical environment considered by leadership to be of
high importance and worthy of focus. Our team concentrated on the
methods and support of functional interfaces for core business
applications, the design of EPE's LAN/WAN infrastructure, server
strategies and storage architecture, desktop and software
management, and secure communications.
Upon completion of this assessment DYONYX was awarded the contract
to virtualize the EPE server environment to reduce the physical
footprint required to provide current business functions while
minimizing any disruptions to the current production environment.
The intent of this consolidation was to reduce the physical
footprint only and not change the logical infrastructure design as
EPE was preparing to move their data center to a new location.
DYONYX was asked to respond to an RFP on the data center relocation
to determine if continuing to support their IT internally, hosting
their services in a third party hosting facility or fully
outsourcing all of IT was the most cost effective solution. Upon
completion of the RFP, DYONYX was requested to respond to a full
outsource RFP, which was also awarded to DYONYX.
End User Support
DYONYX provides technical personal computer, laptop and software
assistance to all EPE personnel. Service Desk Level I personnel
located in our centralized ITIL compliant Service Desk respond to
employee questions and requests for service. Software support
includes operating system, word processing, e-mail, presentation
graphics, spreadsheet, drawing, illustration, file compression,
workflow management, database, networking, web browser, and
industry specific Commercial off the Shelf (COTS)
