The Emirates Group Soars After Embracing Red Hat’s JBoss Enterprise Middleware to Build Powerful Open Travel Platform

Company utilizes open source Enterprise Service Bus and business rules technologies to bring together disparate travel systems

RALEIGH, N.C. -

Red Hat, Inc. (NYSE: RHT), the world’s leading provider of open source solutions, today announced that the Emirates Group, a major player in the global aviation, travel, tourism and leisure industries, has standardized on Red Hat’s JBoss SOA Platform’s ESB and JBoss Enterprise Business Rules Management System (BRMS) to create its Open Travel Platform (OTP). The Emirates Group’s new Open Travel Platform is expected to deliver substantial cost savings, thus earning the Group the prestigious 2011 JBoss Innovation Award in the “Carved Out Costs” category.

The Emirates Group, comprising Emirates Airline, dnata and subsidiary companies, has more than 57,000 employees worldwide and sought a service-oriented platform based on open source that could service the needs of the Group and its subsidiary companies. Across 16 projects, their goal was to reduce development and running costs, while significantly simplifying the application portfolio by eliminating redundant components and interfaces.

Based entirely on open source technologies, the solution stack used to create the OTP includes deployment platforms and management environments that include JBoss Enterprise BRMS, JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and JBoss Operations Network. JBoss ESB provides the backbone for OTP’s composite services and their integration.

The JBoss ESB allows the OTP’s applications to interoperate with vital travel related services, including the global distribution system (GDS), suppliers and hotels.  This delivers reliability and optimized message delivery, as well as enabling the addition of new suppliers and back-end systems without modifying the client applications.

Red Hat’s Consulting team was involved from inception and throughout the project’s deployment, providing on-site support for tools evaluation, performance testing, architecture review, production infrastructure review and production readiness. In addition, Red Hat Training  successfully transferred  knowledge to Emirates’ IT team.

In 2011, the mission-critical OTP launched with success, with the first application providing more sophisticated travel planning and booking services via the Emirates Group’s Internet booking engine, www.emirates.com.

With the OTP, the Emirates Group can now standardize and centralize all travel-related services onto a single, integrated platform built as a SOA. The system enables value-added and context-specific business services, which are reusable across departments. Migrating from proprietary to the open source technology of JBoss Enterprise Middleware reduces Emirates' total cost of ownership by lowering IT development and maintenance costs while reducing turnaround time and external expenses associated with multiple suppliers. Open source technologies allow the IT infrastructure to continue to evolve while reducing the risk of costly vendor lock-in.

“We worked closely with Red Hat to execute our vision and strategy, ultimately achieving tangible results,” said Neetan Chopra, vice president of Strategy and Architecture, Emirates Group Information Technology. “Red Hat’s solutions and services team provided exceptional consulting and helped us to successfully execute our SOA project within the timeframe and quality levels needed. We also benefited from training that ensured we were up-to-speed and comfortable with the new OTP solution, including its key components, JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and JBoss Enterprise BRMS. We expect open technologies and standards to flourish in the future and now is the time to explore and take the plunge into an open source IT estate.”

“Red Hat is delighted that Emirates Group selected JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and JBoss Enterprise BRMS to meet the high performance demands of the new OTP,” said Craig Muzilla, vice president and general manager of Middleware Business, Red Hat. “This open source initiative based on Red Hat technologies will benefit the entire Group, including dnata travel service and Emirates’ market-facing business, Mercator, giving it the necessary agility to react quickly to emerging business opportunities and further fuelling the success of the Emirates Group.”

For more information about JBoss Enterprise Middleware, visit http://www.redhat.com/jboss/.

For more information about the Emirates solution and JBoss Enterprise SOA Platform and JBoss Enterprise BRMS in action, watch a replay of an Emirates Group webinar here:  https://engage.redhat.com/forms/20110728CarvingCosts.

For more information about Red Hat, visit www.redhat.com.  For more news, more often, visit www.press.redhat.com.

About Red Hat, Inc.
Red Hat, the world's leading provider of open source solutions and an S&P 500 company, is headquartered in Raleigh, NC with more than 70 offices spanning the globe. Red Hat provides high-quality, affordable technology with its operating system platform, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, together with cloud, virtualization, applications, management, storage and service-oriented architecture (SOA) solutions, including Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization and JBoss Enterprise Middleware. Red Hat also offers support, training and consulting services to its customers worldwide. Learn more: http://www.redhat.com..


About The Emirates Group
The Emirates Group’s extensive and diverse international portfolio includes Emirates airline, Dubai's 52 year-old household name dnata, Emirates SkyCargo, Emirates Destination and Leisure Management and Skywards. Together with a number of joint venture businesses, the Group comprises more than 50 brands, employing 57,000 people.

In the 2010/11 financial year, the Emirates Group announced record net profits of US $1.5 billion. To find out more about Emirates Group, visit: theemiratesgroup.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the ability of the Company to compete effectively; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company's growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission's website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as the earthquakes and floods, including events in Japan. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company's views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company's views as of any date subsequent to the date of the press release.


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  • About Red Hat
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  • Forward-Looking Statements
  • Certain statements contained in this press release may constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements provide current expectations of future events based on certain assumptions and include any statement that does not directly relate to any historical or current fact. Actual results may differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements as a result of various important factors, including: risks related to delays or reductions in information technology spending; the effects of industry consolidation; the ability of the Company to compete effectively; the integration of acquisitions and the ability to market successfully acquired technologies and products; uncertainty and adverse results in litigation and related settlements; the inability to adequately protect Company intellectual property and the potential for infringement or breach of license claims of or relating to third party intellectual property; the ability to deliver and stimulate demand for new products and technological innovations on a timely basis; risks related to data and information security vulnerabilities; ineffective management of, and control over, the Company’s growth and international operations; fluctuations in exchange rates; and changes in and a dependence on key personnel, as well as other factors contained in our most recent Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q (copies of which may be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s website at http://www.sec.gov), including those found therein under the captions "Risk Factors" and "Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations". In addition to these factors, actual future performance, outcomes, and results may differ materially because of more general factors including (without limitation) general industry and market conditions and growth rates, economic and political conditions, governmental and public policy changes and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes and floods. The forward-looking statements included in this press release represent the Company’s views as of the date of this press release and these views could change. However, while the Company may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, the Company specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing the Company’s views as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release.