Skyscanner travels with Paessler PRTG to the moon and back
About Skyscanner
Skyscanner is a global travel search site and app which aims to inspire people to plan and book direct from millions of travel options, at the best price.
By travellers, for travellers, Skyscanner offers everyone the opportunity to search for flights, hotels and cars. The site’s success is based on its self-built and industry-pioneering technology which operates across more than 50 nationalities.
As an internet business, Skyscanner has to offer a reliable and consistent service to its customers and partners. And it cannot do so without a stable and reliable internal network.
To ensure employees work on a stable and frictionless network, Skyscanner relies on regular and up-to-date insights into how its network is performing. Systems monitoring has a vital role to play in keeping the technology up and running – and in preventing downtime.
However, in the past, Skyscanner found that the monitoring solution it was using was far too expensive in terms of the support overhead. The solution was too complex to use, it required a lot of in-depth knowledge from the individual working with the software, and therefore limited the amount of people who could use it. With Skyscanner being a fully cloud-based company, this solution provider was not fit to meet the needs of Skyscanner which requires the ability to set up sensors, at speed, as it adapts its internal network infrastructure.
"Ultimately, people do better when they focus on the solution, not the tool. This is the mantra we live by at Skyscanner. Without PRTG, we’d still be spending half a day or more on monitoring our internal tools."
Barry Kelly, Systems Engineer at Skyscanner
Enter PRTG
Skyscanner sought a solution that would automate routine systems monitoring and facilitate a frictionless working experience for the team. Paessler PRTG Network Monitor offered a solution that provided the business with just that.
Skyscanner is currently using over 6000 PRTG sensors. However, given the flexibility to add or remove sensors, this can change on a daily basis. Skyscanner chose PRTG because it frees up the team from having to monitor everything themselves. Sensors can be deployed easily, they monitor all the switches and alert the team to potential problems when they arise. This is important given that Skyscanner does not have a traditional internal IT team.
With PRTG built into AWS using CloudFormation and PowerShell to automate, Skyscanner is now planning to measure user experiences across all of its services from each of its offices. With PRTG, the travel company has reduced the time it spends on network monitoring from half a day to just 20 minutes – thanks to the ability to replicate sensors and automate tasks.
The business benefits
As a result of implementing PRTG, Skyscanner can now gather data on network performance, track network utilisation and find out how its routes are working, all in real-time. With PRTG, the travel company has reduced the time it spends on network monitoring from half a day to just 20 minutes – thanks to the ability to replicate sensors and automate tasks. Because of this, the company could improve the overall working experience for employees on the internal network. And without a traditional IT department, Skyscanner wanted to automate the ability to predict and anticipate potential challenges.
The network team at Skyscanner has been able to improve its relationship with employees. This is because PRTG ensures the latest system information is always logged and accessible, and if anything prevents partner access to critical data, PRTG will flag it.
Skyscanner has had lots of small wins internally as a result of PRTG, whereby the solution has shown sensors going up and down in a predictable pattern. The patterns of the sensors it is monitoring has enabled the team to plan ahead for every eventuality.
Conclusion
Barry Kelly, Systems Engineer at Skyscanner said, “Ultimately, people do better when they focus on the solution, not the tool. This is the mantra we live by at Skyscanner. Without PRTG, we’d still be spending half a day or more on monitoring our internal tools. With a small team running the network at Skyscanner, we needed a tool that could automate much of the process, to help us get the job done. As an international company, PRTG is ideal for us. If something went down half way across the world, we wouldn’t be woken up – we can rely on PRTG to identify the problem and alert us before it occurs – enabling the right person, in the right time zone to resolve the problem. At the end of the day, if we’re to provide an internal network experience for our employees that meets expectations, we need a tool like PRTG to be successful.”
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