Japan Airlines has a vision: to serve as the world’s most preferred and valued airline. This vision is guided by three core principles:

• Transform Japan Airlines into a truly global airline.
• Create new value one step ahead of competitors.
• Achieve sustainable growth.

However, the company came to realize that outdated IT infrastructure hindered the digital transformation necessary to achieve its goal.

“The IT role has changed with the advance of digital technology,” said Hideaki Yaze, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Architect at JAL Information Technology (JAL INFOTEC), Japan Airlines’ core IT subsidiary. “We couldn’t keep up with the change because of the infrastructure’s old system architecture.”

To establish a flexible IT environment that adapts as business needs change, Japan Airlines and JAL INFOTEC worked with IBM to build an automated hybrid multicloud infrastructure. The result is an integrated private and public cloud that use the same virtualization architecture, and a hybrid cloud management infrastructure that unifies operations and evolves with the business.

“Embracing the concept of a hybrid cloud infrastructure that evolves every half year is the foremost achievement for realizing the digital transformation of the entire JAL Group,” said Masahiko Obata, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Project Manager at JAL INFOTEC.

Dive deeper: Explore Japan Airlines’ full transformation story

Following on the heels of the successful hybrid multicloud implementation, Japan Airlines and JAL INFOTEC will continue working with IBM in the next phase of its digital transformation, which includes moving even more of Japan Airlines’ systems to the cloud.

“IBM closely cooperated with us in a complex multivendor project, flexibly addressed multi-discipline issues and completed the project with responsibility,” said Masashi Oshima, Hybrid Cloud Infrastructure Program Manager at Japan Airlines. “We expect IBM’s continuous support for the operation phase.”

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