Carnival Cruise Lines

Carnival Sails to Higher Performance and Lower Costs

Carnival Cruise Lines is the largest and most successful cruise line in the world. With a fleet of 21 FunShips, Carnival operates 3- to 16-day voyages to the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the Mexican Riviera, Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, New England, Europe and Bermuda.

Customer Challenges

Provide executives with timely, accurate information needed to optimize pricing and grow revenue
Minimize costs and maximize availability of IT infrastructure

Solution

Carnival upgraded to a Sun Fire E2900 server running Solaris 9 Operating System, and is now migrating to Solaris 10. Sun offered a competitive trade-in for Carnival's existing Sun server through the Sun Upgrade Advantage Program. SunSpectrum Service Plans provide Carnival with integrated whole-system support for the Sun hardware and the Solaris operating system.

Business Results

Investment protection without recompiling applications, and no hardware forklift upgrades required
50% faster reports and pricing models for more timely executive analysis
Reduced capital outlays thanks to Sun Upgrade Advantage Program trade-in allowance

Products and Services

Story Details

Carnival Cruise Lines needs speed and reliability in its ships--and its IT infrastructure. With customers constantly visiting the line's Web site for cruise vacation information, Carnival's pricing information must be accurate and available. Executives who must set prices and terms in a constantly shifting competitive environment require up-to-the-minute information, placing a premium on performance and reliability. To meet these needs, Carnival has depended on Sun hardware, software and services for over 15 years.

" By upgrading to the Sun Fire E2900 server running Solaris, we realized a six-fold increase in performance throughput and capacity without growing the footprint. We now have the ability to create a pricing model quickly to determine effective ways to maximize revenue. "

— Doug Eney, Vice President of IS Engineering, Carnival Cruise Lines

Recently, Carnival upgraded its Oracle Database 9.2, ERP, Business Intelligence Data Warehouse, and business applications to improve the guest experience and the company's bottom line. It also decided to upgrade its IT platform for increased performance, availability and reliability. Minimizing IT expenditures is essential to profitability in a highly competitive market, so Carnival sought a cost-effective approach.

The Sun Fire E2900 running the Solaris 9 Operating System was the perfect replacement for Carnival's existing Sun Enterprise 4500. Featuring UltraSPARC IV processors with Chip Multithreading Technology, the new server offers superior performance--by a factor of six for some applications. Sun's UltraSPARC IV processor-based systems also allow customers to mix and match older UltraSPARC processors all in the same system. Thanks to the Sun Upgrade Advantage Program, Carnival received a competitive trade-in allowance for its existing Sun server, reducing its capital outlay. One hundred percent binary compatibility of Solaris means that Carnival can migrate existing applications from Solaris 8 with no conversion costs and no downtime.

The Sun platform is highly reliable, and with the comprehensive support coverage provided by SunSpectrum Service Plans, the company can count on high availability for its mission-critical revenue management and logistics system. The increased performance of the new Sun platform allows Carnival to generate daily reports with instantaneous booking data from their Data Warehouse, and to create pricing models in half the time. By providing a high level of availability and reliability, the Sun platform is helping Carnival succeed in a highly competitive market while minimizing capital and operating expenses.

Print-friendly Page

Search Customer Content

Sun Customers In The News
»	Sun in the Ice Age
»	Meeting Research Needs in a Changing HPC Landscape
»	See All Press Releases
»	See All Customer Articles