News

Sabre's Mainframe Applications Will Travel to Compaq

• 08/28/2001

Sabre Holdings Corporation announced it will begin migrating its mainframe applications to Compaq Computer Corp.'s NonStop Himalaya server and database environment to create its next generation travel technology platform. Sabre hopes that Compaq's technology will allow the company to more efficiently address customer demands.

According to the companies, Compaq's open system will provide Sabre's customers a continuously available platform to power its air shopping system. Once Sabre's air shopping application is fully integrated onto the Compaq NonStop platform, airlines and travel consolidators will be able to update their fares in the Sabre system faster and with greater frequency. This access to fare information includes a ever-changing database averaging over 45 million fares and over 5 billion constructed fares (which are dynamically created for unique travel itineraries) that are available through the Sabre system.

"Maintaining this database of fares and complex fare rules is no easy task with over 300,000 changes on a typical day and up to 2 million fare changes in a single fare load during fare specials," said Craig Murphy, chief technology officer at Sabre.

Sabre's selection represents one of the largest Compaq NonStop installations ever. The value of the deal (including Compaq Global Services) is in excess of $100 million over the multi-year term of the agreement. Implementing air travel shopping application on the Compaq platform is expected to reduce Sabre's total cost of ownership by 40 percent, improve development productivity by 100 percent and reduce cycle time to update fare requirements (rules) by 75 percent.