CASE- 2: JET AIRWAYS TAKES OFF WITH CITRIX

1) What problem does Jet Airways hope that Citrix technologies will solve?

Jet Airways was set up in 1993 after the central government opened civil aviation to
private investment. By 2005, Jet Airways had been listed on India’s main stock
exchanges an had obtained permission to operate international flights. The company
lacked in its Information System, they had installed various packages over the years.
The systems weren’t able to interact with one another or with finance and inventory
systems. This inefficiency costs a lot to Jet airways in terms of time, money and
efforts which could be utilized on maintaining its planes.

Jet Airways took the help of Citrix Systems, which is considered to be renowned in
airline industry for its software package that provides integrated, intelligent aviation
MRO (maintenance, repair, and operations) software to improve productivity. Jet
Airways was interested in the following benefits by the installation of the software so
as to solve its problems, they are:

 Enhanced and faster delivery of business-critiacal applications to local and

international users
 Timelier decision making
 Increased operational efficiencies
 Superior service levels
 Lower IT administration costs

2) How does Critix Systems’ improve operational efficiencies and decision

making?

Jet Airways got to deliver another critical airline operational application called Load
Manager with Citrix Presentation Server. This generated “Load sheet” that helped in
timely take-off of the flight. The application of Load Manager will also enable quick
availability of reports from the system. The sales and marketing team uses the BW
system as needed. Data entry operators at different locations frequently use the
revenue management system. Middle- and even lower-management staff regularly
access finance and budget applications. All users connect using the Web Interface
functionality of Presentation Server. This is important as any delay in reports would
lead to a flight delay and affect operational efficiencies and passenger satisfaction.
 3) Give examples of three decisions supported by the Citrix system. What
information does the system provide to support each of these decisions?

Jet Airways partnered with Mumbai-based Ontrack Solutions, a Silver Citrix Solution
Advisor, to implement the latest version of Citrix Presentation Server software with
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 running on three two-CPU Intel servers. this system
provided Jet Airways to support some of its important decisions.

 Delays in accessing applications, which hampered decision-making processes

and many other aspects of business operations.
 Troubleshooting problems at different locations was time-consuming and
expensive due to the deployment of many IT resources.
 Timely take-off of the flight.

MIS IN ACTION

1) How could an airline benefit from implementing these modules?

The Citrix Presentation Server provides a wide range of benefits by its software to the
airlines. It helps in reducing the total manpower required and inturn helps in reducing
cost. The system helps in timely departure and landing of the flights without any
inconvenience. Citrix System also provides centralization centralized application
management capability, IT resources have now been streamlined greatly.

2) Give an example of a decision that each of these modules support.

 NetScaler XML API

1. The XML API provides a framework for building

custom interfaces for configuring & monitoring a
CNAS
2. The API supports custom applications built within C,
C#, Java and Perl
3. Relies upon Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) to
communicate over HTTP with the CNAS
4. Corresponds closely to the NetScaler CLI syntax

Client IP Extraction Module - ISAPI - for use with NetScaler

NetScaler connection management is implemented by cascading or multiplexing

client connections over persistent connections maintained between NetScaler and
Web servers. Web servers see a NetScaler Mapped IP address as the source of the
connection, and not the actual Client's address.
But there are some situations where customers may wish to use the actual Client IP.
The following are some examples.
1. Client IP in Web Access Log
Client IP addresses in the Web Access Log may be used for usage analysis or billing
purposes.
2. Client IP accessed by an application or a script (CGI)
Web based applications may use the client IP to influence ad selection. For example,
the client IP may be used to determine the country of origin of the client, or the
originating ISP of the client.
3. Filtering/Authentication
Web servers allow filtering based on the client’s host name or IP address. For
example, the Apache server allows filtering based on HostnameLookups. The
directives allow from domain or deny from domain result in a double reverse DNS
lookup based upon the client IP (a reverse, followed by a forward to make sure that
the reverse is not being spoofed).
4. IP level Packet Filtering
Firewalls perform packet filtering using the client IP address. The recommended
configuration is to place the NetScaler between the firewall and the Web servers.
In order to solve this problem, NetScaler inserts the custom header called Client_IP in
each HTTP request header like the other proxies. Responsibility for extracting and
using the actual ClientIP address is left to the Web Server and/or Web Server
applications (CGI scripts, ASPs, and so on).