A U.S. airport operations IT team transforms platform APIs using MuleSoft
The solution fully integrates vendors and clients to keep passengers happy
The governing body of a U.S. airport is committed to award-winning service and seamless travel, but it takes innumerable vendors to make it happen. The organization’s IT department is tasked with ensuring that all vendors and accompanying airlines are integrated and fully synced within their network system.
The commission wanted to upgrade its Mule runtime version and operating system. Additionally, it sought to implement a maintenance plan and upgrade to existing platform APIs to help develop a seamless transition for the airport’s processes.
Business Needs
For over 80 years, a commission has operated a major U.S. airport and six reliever airports. They enlist multiple vendors to ensure a smooth travel experience for the hundreds of thousands of guests who pass through its facilities each year.
To accomplish this goal, the IT department must ensure that all vendors and accompanying airlines are integrated and fully synced within the organization’s network system. Because most of the vendor and client systems operate on their own hosted networks, they require heavily authenticated, secure Mule integrations to prevent data breaches to the outside world.
The commission turned to NTT DATA and its MuleSoft experts for help upgrading its Mule runtime version to 3.9.3 and OS to Windows 2019. It also wanted to implement a maintenance plan and upgrade to existing platform APIs to help develop a seamless transition for the airport’s processes.
Outcomes
- Updates Mule Runtime to version 3.9.3 and OS to Windows 2019
- Creates a managed services contract to maintain and upgrade existing APIs and create new APIs
- Develops reusable APIs following industry best practices
- Solves crucial bug issues with current APIs that previously limited integration functionality
The integrations developed and refined by the NTT DATA team provide crucial data transfers necessary for daily airport operations and serve to increase the satisfaction of all travelers.
Solution
All the governing body’s current vendor and/or client systems use either Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) or Representational State Transfer (REST) services that integrate via APIs on the MuleSoft® Anypoint Platform™. Several applications also use Active MQ to process datasets with numbers that vary daily.
When meeting with the organization to discuss its current operating environment, NTT DATA focused on the airport’s biggest pain points:
- An outdated operating system that lacked current market functionality
- Buggy APIs that required review, maintenance and significant upgrades to accomplish the end goal of seamlessly integrated data transactions
To overcome these challenges, NTT DATA updated the airport’s four network servers, including two for quality assurance and two for production, to the more robust Windows 2019. The team also upgraded the existing MuleSoft Anypoint Platform to the recent 3.9.3 release.
Working with a total of 41 established production APIs, NTT DATA then focused on the functionality of these APIs based on the organization’s specific requirements. While 50% of the APIs in production were developed prior to the engagement, some of the APIs required bug fixes and/or system updates to maintain efficiency.
Developers built the remaining system APIs the organization needed after an extensive analysis of the airport’s current network and business requirements. This process involved reviewing and analyzing existing APIs for potential changes, pushing the code and testing the API in the environment for functionality prior to moving it into production.
Working alongside the organization’s dedicated team of MuleSoft resources as part of a managed services contract, developers helped ensure all updates reflect industry best practices while boosting the customer experience.
At the end of the engagement, the organization’s old legacy system had been fully integrated with the new user interface installed in the local airport. The integrations developed and refined by the NTT DATA team provide the crucial data transfers necessary for daily airport operations and serve to increase the satisfaction of all travelers.
About the case study
The governing body of a U.S. airport refines and upgrades the APIs that provide the crucial data transfers necessary for daily airport operations and increase traveler satisfaction.