Travelport GDS achieves ranking of #11 among 500 most innovative technology companies; Nowroz named head for Asia Pacific.

Travelport GDS has achieved a ranking of 11 on the 2009 InformationWeek 500, an annual listing of the most innovative users of business technology in the US. This is the highest ranking that Travelport GDS has achieved in the four years it has been named on this prestigious list.

"It is an honour for Travelport GDS to once again be included in the InformationWeek 500, and particularly to be named number 11 in 2009," said David Lauderdale, Chief Technology Officer, Travelport GDS.  "The goal of the global IT team at Travelport GDS is to harness technology to improve efficiency, boost productivity, drive revenue, and establish a competitive advantage for our customers.  The recognition by InformationWeek is the latest testament to the tremendous results achieved by the IT team at Travelport GDS.  Each day, we process a remarkable 1.5 billion messages." 

Travelport GDS was recognised for the innovative use of technology in the migration of its Denver Data Center to its Atlanta facility.  Meeting the challenge through new technologies, the Technical Operations team excelled through pioneering use of peer-to-peer technology to migrate over one petabyte of critical data.

During the migration cutover, data for three different mainframe environments and 600 servers were moved; over 60,000 network route changes were made and 45 million travel reservations were cut over to Atlanta with minimal service interruption.

Results of the data center migration have exceeded expectations. Utilities run faster and customers report a 50 percent improvement in response time for key applications. For Travelport, the migration delivered significant infrastructure improvements to its technical infrastructure, provided major cost savings, improved reliability of its global operations, and reduced the physical footprint in support of its Green Initiative.

Meanwhile in Asia Pacific, Travelport GDS has appointed Simon Nowroz (pictured right) as President and Managing Director for the region, following the decision by Brad Holman to leave the company in early 2010.

Currently Managing Director of Travelport Asia, Nowroz assumed the region-wide role from September 28, 2009. Nowroz will continue to be based in Hong Kong and Shelley Beasley, Managing Director for the Pacific region, will now report to Nowroz.

"Within Travelport's Asia Pacific region, we've been very fortunate to have a strong and capable leadership team. I would like to thank Brad Holman for his contributions to our business over many years, which include developing strong airline relationships in the region, developing our European and Middle East travel agency business during his time in London and ensuring Travelport is Asia Pacific's market-leading GDS," said Armin Meier, Chief Commercial Officer, Travelport GDS.

Yeoh Siew Hoon, one of Asia's most respected travel editors and commentators, writes a regular column on news, trends and issues in the hospitality industry for 4Hoteliers.com.

Siew Hoon, who has covered the tourism industry in Asia/Pacific for the past 20 years, runs SHY Ventures Pte Ltd. Her other writings can be found at www.thetransitcafe.com

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