Cloud Migration of a Booking Platform for Hotels and Hotel Networks.

Our client runs a platform for hotels and hotel networks. It gives hotels the tools and expertise to act as their own Online Travel Agencies (OTAs), enabling direct bookings and exceptional customer experiences. Beyond room bookings, hotels can sell complete vacation packages, bundling accommodations with flights and other services to increase profitability through better commission opportunities.

The platform also integrates with third-party systems, property management systems (PMS) and booking engines among them, under a transparent transaction-based fee structure. That leaves hotels with fewer systems and vendors to manage. Independent hotels and large chains both use it to drive direct sales in the hospitality industry.

The overarching business objectives for the project were:

• Reducing costs: streamlining the platform’s cloud infrastructure to significantly lower operating expenses.

• Enhancing reliability: ensuring the platform could handle high transaction volumes and complex integrations without downtime or performance issues.

• Improving financial health: aligning infrastructure and operational strategies with broader business development goals to sustain and enhance the company’s competitive position.

The project presented several pressing challenges, each requiring a tailored approach within strict constraints:

• Time sensitivity: the migration had to be executed rapidly to avoid service disruptions, since the existing infrastructure was nearing obsolescence.

• Complex service ecosystem: the platform spanned diverse services and third-party integrations, and needed to onboard modern PMSs like Opera Cloud and partners like Shift4 and IBS Software. Migrating these seamlessly, without impacting existing operations, was critical.

• Outdated technology: reliance on legacy Azure services and older frameworks increased the risk of performance bottlenecks and limited the platform’s ability to scale with growing demand.

• Scalability and performance: the system needed to handle large transaction volumes while reliably processing messages, payments, and integrations, which meant overhauling message queues and middleware.

• Extended onboarding times: the platform’s intricate nature required new hotels and chains to undergo a six-month onboarding period, limiting how fast operations could scale.

To address these challenges, unicrew implemented a comprehensive set of technical and strategic solutions, delivering both short-term efficiency gains and long-term scalability:

• Technology migration: the platform was migrated to a modern technology stack, addressing obsolescence and ensuring future compatibility. A significant update to Microsoft Orleans improved the performance and reliability of the platform’s distributed systems.

• Containerized infrastructure: a containerized solution using Docker and orchestrated deployments enabled faster updates and seamless scaling of services.

• Modernized Azure services: the platform transitioned from outdated Azure services to the latest cloud offerings, leveraging enhanced capabilities for storage, processing, and scalability.

• Infrastructure-as-Code (IaC): Terraform was introduced to define and automate infrastructure deployments, reducing manual errors and providing greater flexibility for future updates and disaster recovery.

• Message processing optimization: high-volume transaction processing was optimized using Azure queues, ensuring reliable, efficient communication with third-party integrations.

• Seamless integration with new PMSs: advanced property management systems like Opera Cloud were integrated, and existing connections with IBS Software and Shift4 were updated, broadening functionality for hotel clients.

• Enhanced booking engine: a new booking engine was developed to serve as middleware, smoothing integration between the platform and third-party systems and simplifying onboarding for new hotel clients.