Availability, flexibility & security thanks to Open Source!

As the operator and manager of Brussels Airport, Brussels Airport Company is responsible for all activities on the ground and in the buildings. And that's a lot: flight information, automatic baggage check-in, security, cargo handling, ground escorting and so on. It is not surprising that Brussels Airport Company has a permanent IT team of about thirty people to ensure that the infrastructure of these business-critical applications runs smoothly.

Luc Logghe, Head of ICT operations, with ultimate responsibility for the IT infrastructure, was looking for creative IT solutions to make the airport work better. At a data center conference, he struck up a conversation with Peter Dens, managing director of Kangaroot, about the potential open source technologies could bring to the airport. And so the ball started rolling.

Open Source

Open source solutions in a production environment are not obvious for many companies. Some companies are afraid that they are not yet reliable enough or that there is not enough support for them. However, Brussels Airport Company also saw the possibilities of open source technology and therefore started a test.

Luc Logghe: “We first used open source software to monitor our IT systems. That was a success that made us decide to expand the open source story.”

“The challenge for a company like Brussels Airport Company is to guarantee the security and availability of our services and at the same time to be able to respond quickly to changing business needs. Open source has proven to be a good instrument in this regard,” concludes Luc Logghe.

Kangaroot getting started

Brussels Airport Company was looking for a partner who could guide and guide them in the open source world and they found it in Kangaroot. “We presented our choices for open source software to Kangaroot, they gave their advice and input and then we started the implementation together,” says Johan De Graeve, Senior Unix system engineer at Brussels Airport Company.

Peter Dens, managing director Kangaroot: “Our collaboration started with a thorough analysis of what Brussels Airport Company does in the IT field and how they do it. What was technically feasible? This allowed us to draw up a roadmap and mile stones, creating a structural framework.”

“At Kangaroot we go further than just consultancy”, explains Peter Dens. “Several of our programmers worked with Brussels Airport Company's IT team for a while to make sure everything went smoothly. We now fulfill an important advisory role and offer concrete support when necessary.”

Business Critical Applications

Johan De Graeve: “We mainly use open source technologies for configuration management and virtualization. You can still install a limited number of servers manually, but when that number becomes too large, you are assigned to automation.”

Luc Logghe adds: “The goal is to offer our customers IT services in the best possible way. Open source technologies enable us to do this, also for business-critical processes. We are currently already doing this for baggage handling and flight information, among other things. Other processes may follow in the future."

“Of course you can realize a number of savings by using open source software”, concludes Luc Logghe. “I estimate that for us it is about thirty to forty percent. But we never looked at open source with the primary goal of saving money. The main reasons are the flexibility, scalability and adaptability that the technologies offer us.”