British Airways selects Juniper Networks for private cloud infrastructure

Activities including ticketing, check-in and baggage tracking will be underpinned by a private cloud

British Airways has announced plans to build a private cloud data centre using Juniper Networks technology.

Many of the operations that underpin the daily activities of British Airways, such as ticketing, check-in and baggage tracking, will be run using the new private cloud infrastructure, which will be based on Juniper Networks' MetaFabric architecture

The Juniper Networks deal with British Airways comes shortly after Finnair, Finland's national airline, signed a five-year hybrid cloud deal with IBM in an effort to improve services.

British Airways opted to upgrade its data centre in order to provide a cost-effective, reliable and scalable platform for new flight management and customer management systems being introduced this year.

It was important for British Airways to invest in a data centre infrastructure capable of growing with ever-increasing business needs.

BA said it selected Juniper because of "the fast response and agility of its cloud technology" and its "emphasis on business continuity".

The new core and data centre infrastructure is underpinned by Junos OS, Juniper's single operating system. That OS enables British Airways to simplify its network management operations, and also supports an upgrade path for future development of infrastructure, should it be required in future.

Gerard Allison, senior vice president of EMEA for Juniper Networks, said the company was thrilled to have been selected by British Airways following a "rigorous competitive process".

"British Airways is an iconic global brand synonymous with quality and customer service. Its ongoing expectations of online capacity growth and dependence on critical applications to drive the business require an intelligent network that delivers automated, secure, agile networks," he said.

"The company is a vivid example of how fundamentally important the data centre has become for today's innovative enterprises that are building clouds," Allison added.

The upgraded network core will link British Airways' data centres and other operational sites around the UK to help ensure fast, reliable connectivity and digital communications in order to provide services to all British Airways staff and customers who require them.

British Airways isn't the first big-name cloud customer for Juniper Networks; NIKE previously selected the firm to build a data centre for its cloud and network infrastructure.

NIKE is focused on elevating and accelerating innovation in our products, services and our digital ecosystem," said NIKE chief information officer Anthony Watson.

"This requires progressive and agile technology solutions that keep pace with our growth, which is what Juniper's solutions offer," he added.