CW500 “Datacentre Transformation” Josko Grljevic

Thetrainline.com Train ticket retailer e-commerce busines with multiple fulfilment channels growing business high transaction volumes Large scale operation >0.5 billion journey requests, >20 million txns, 100’s of sites, Millions of customers Development Software Development team – 160 strong Based across two sites IS Primarily outsourced services Datacentre hosting and application support

Thetrainline.com Market Presence Independent retail TMC and Corporate Source: LEK, Management estimates Note: Estimated 2012 net internet-related channels ticket sales (ex. Seasons) by retail market segment and competitors .com TMC and Corporate Retail Solutions

Transformation Programme 3 years ago; Production & non-prod hosted in a shared DC in Rotherham – mixed estate predominantly physical with very traditional architecture Challenge by the business – renew 5 year contract with a significant cut in DC operating and support costs Contract signed, costs reduction was clear but the new operating model was not Delivery of cost saving; Technology: Virtualise the estate, introduce SCOM - easy bit. Virtualisation and SCOM were stable technologies. Still presented considerable challenges during implementation People : Application support team re-organisation was ambitious to say the least. Built a new team in Bangalore and UK, reduced the number from ~50 to 20 and did it with brand new people in a new location Programme delivery successful - May 2011 Significant cut in operational cost Improves availability Clearer view on the actual cost of running IT

Today’s Challenge Budgets flat or negative Need to do more with less budget & fewer people Finding good people is a challenge India Inflation Datacentre costs going up – transformation programmes on the go Disruptive technologies and services is the mix Doing the same thing you did 2 years ago is NOT an option

So What Now? The Business wants EVEN more…..Rightly So! Pressure is a Catalyst for change Disruptive technologies like Cloud and Virtualisation are focal points for delivering value

Cloud “Cheap” PaaS, Iaas, SaaS Good option for commodity solutions Quick and easy with little or no integration Acceptable for point solutions

Trainline Cloud Platform cloud service not an option Build in-house - Opportunistic approach Test integration environments T2’s Result: • We took our flaky 10-12 test integration env’s • Automated their build from tin to application • Stood up environments in 3.5 hrs • Fully built and integrated ready to run end to end testing. • Ended up with 16 envs = 380 servers

Trainline Cloud - Benefits Improved Dev velocity and Release predictability Lower support cost Efficient use of physical resources Platform for production cloud service build Understanding of “true cost” unit price Mobility of platform! Discovering People Gems! Service Unit cost

What Next Extend the automation to Production Question the “acceptable” Technology choices and services Continue to understand the true costs and how to drive them down Continue to be proactive in driving out cost

Summary Pressure is a great catalyst for change and innovation Develop and recruit stars Be on the front foot and deliver value to the business The tools are readily available