Detur - Case study

Detur's e-commerce portal on AWS, with Runibex as cloud partner

Detur, a tourism group founded in Turkey in 1993 with branch offices across Scandinavia, set up the e-commerce portal tripoki.com to handle its online transactions and its API integrations with travel partners. It chose cloud managed hosting on AWS with Runibex as the project’s cloud partner, and reported that the move avoided costs it would otherwise have faced and gave it a much faster provisioning cycle.

At a glance

Customer	Detur
Industry	Tourism
Founded	1993, in Turkey, as a travel agency
Group	Six group companies held under Detur International B.V. in Amsterdam; branch offices across Scandinavia opened in 1998
E-commerce portal	tripoki.com
Hosting model	Cloud managed hosting and services on AWS
AWS services	Amazon EC2, Elastic Load Balancing, Amazon S3, Amazon CloudWatch, Amazon RDS
Runibex role	The project’s cloud partner
Outcomes Detur reported after moving to cloud	Costs avoided, a much faster provisioning cycle, assured site uptime, and a site that scaled with fluctuations in demand

About Detur

Detur was founded in 1993 as a travel agency in Turkey, with a customer-oriented philosophy it describes as “genuine hospitality and personalised service”. At the time of the case study, it provided professional services, event organisation, domestic and international trips, package tour programmes and flight tickets, alongside events management and incoming tourism operations.

In 1998 Detur opened branch offices across Scandinavia, and Greece, Tunisia, Egypt and Thailand were added to its destinations. The Detur group companies, held under Detur International B.V. in Amsterdam, were Detur International B.V., Detur Operations Ltd, Detur Finland O.Y., Detur Sweden AB, Detur Denmark ApS and Tatil Seyahat Turizm A.S.

The Challenge

Detur set up the e-commerce portal tripoki.com for its online transactions. Through the site it offered everything from professional services and event organisation to trips, package tours and flight tickets. Because Detur operated in several geographies with a different customer base in each, the site depended on many partners, including hotels, third-party tour organisers, airlines, maritime and rent-a-car companies, and the organisers of events such as festivals and sports events.

The integration points with these partners were the main consideration. They were built on APIs and had to be highly available and very quick to respond. Detur was also planning for rapid online growth, so the system had to be highly scalable.

The approach

Detur never considered hosting the portal on premises. It chose cloud managed hosting and services as the base model, with Runibex as the project’s cloud partner. Working with Runibex, Detur was able to continually introduce new processes and integrations based on the latest cloud-based technologies.

The AWS architecture

The tripoki.com environment used these AWS services:

Application, cache and search servers. The application, cache service and search servers ran on Amazon EC2 instances.
Load balancing. Elastic Load Balancing distributed incoming traffic across multiple EC2 instances.
Storage. Amazon S3 stored backups and static files, including user pictures.
Monitoring. Amazon CloudWatch monitored the server resources, so Detur could supervise its EC2 assets through the AWS Management Console, command line tools or a web services API.
Database. Detur moved its main MSSQL database to Amazon RDS.

The results

Detur reported these outcomes after moving to the cloud.

Outcome

Result

Cost

Detur reported that moving to cloud saved it costs that would otherwise have been unavoidable.

Readiness for growth

Detur reported that the flexibility and responsiveness of cloud were helping it prepare for more growth.

Provisioning

The low cost and simplicity of the services gave Detur a much faster provisioning cycle.

Partner integration

Detur was continually introducing new processes and integrations, and described the simplicity and pace of integrating partners and business services as a key factor in its growth.

Uptime

Site uptime, one of the main service level indicators for the value Detur delivered to customers, was assured to protect and grow the brand and revenues.

Scalability

Cloud services let the site scale with fluctuations in demand and keep the user experience consistent.

Customer trust

Detur reported that customer trust was maintained.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Which AWS services did Detur use for tripoki.com?

Detur ran the tripoki.com application, cache service and search servers on Amazon EC2 instances, with Elastic Load Balancing distributing incoming traffic across multiple instances. Amazon S3 stored backups and static files, including user pictures, and Amazon CloudWatch monitored the server resources. Detur also moved its main MSSQL database to Amazon RDS.

What was Runibex's role in Detur's e-commerce project?

Runibex was the project’s cloud partner. Detur chose cloud managed hosting and services on AWS as the base model for its e-commerce portal, tripoki.com, and working with Runibex it was able to continually introduce new processes and integrations based on the latest cloud-based technologies.

What were Detur's requirements for tripoki.com?

The tripoki.com integration points with Detur’s partners were built on APIs and had to be highly available and very quick to respond. Detur was also planning for rapid online growth, so the system had to be highly scalable.

What results did Detur report after moving to cloud?

Detur reported that moving to cloud saved it costs that would otherwise have been unavoidable, and that the flexibility and responsiveness of cloud were helping it prepare for more growth. The low cost and simplicity of the services gave Detur a much faster provisioning cycle, and cloud services let the site scale with fluctuations in demand and keep the user experience consistent.