Techzine Talks on Tour
Techzine Talks on Tour is a podcast series recorded on location at the events Coen and Sander attend all over the world. A spin-off of the successful Dutch series Techzine Talks, this new English series aims to reach new audiences.
Each episode is an approximately 30-minute discussion that Coen or Sander has with a high-level executive of a technology company. The episodes are single-take affairs, and we don't (or hardly) edit them afterwards, apart from polishing the audio up a bit of course. This way, you get an honest, open discussion where everyone speaks their mind on the topic at hand.
These topics vary greatly, as Coen and Sander attend a total of 50 to 60 events each year, ranging from open-source events like KubeCon to events hosted by Cisco, IBM, Salesforce and ServiceNow, to name only a few. With a lot of experience in many walks of IT life, Coen and Sander always manage to produce an engaging, in-depth discussion on general trends, but also on technology itself.
So follow Techzine Talks on Tour and stay in the know. We might just tell you a thing or two you didn't know yet, but which might be very important for your next project or for your organization in general. Stay tuned and follow Techzine Talks on Tour.
Techzine Talks on Tour
Connected from curb to gate at Harry Reid International Airport
Harry Reid International Airport is a special airport, with some very specific needs. The network infrastructure is very important. That makes it possible to offer travelers a good experience, from curb to gate. During HPE Discover, we sat down with Rishma M. Khimji, the airport's Chief Information and Technology Officer, to talk about how special it is exactly.
Harry Reid International Airport is the largest largest 100% common-use airport in the United States. That means that Khimji and her team have a lot of control over its infrastructure and what runs on it. That's a good thing, because that means they can go for a unified approach, from gate assignments to passenger flow, without being constrained by airline-specific systems that plague other major hubs.
At the core of the airport is an extensive HPE infrastructure featuring over 3,000 HPE Aruba access points delivering connectivity throughout the terminals. This network does more than just provide free Wi-Fi; it also generates valuable analytics about passenger movement patterns. That's very valuable data for things like retail placement, bottleneck reduction, and service enhancements. The airport's segmented network architecture ensures casino gaming operations remain completely separate from other systems.
As Khimji explains, "The airport is the first and last look of the city." It should reflect that in terms of what travelers can do and experience. Listen to this new episode how Harry Reid International Airport does this and how it intends to do that in the future.
We're at HPE Discover and we're talking to Vishnu Pivinjee. He is CITO at Harry Reid International Airport and we're going to talk about how they have implemented many of HPE's products in their infrastructure stack. And next to me is, of course, my co-host, sander. Hello Welcome, how are you? Very good? Thank you, okay, thank you.
Speaker 3:Maybe just to clarify Harry Reid International Airport is the airport of Las Vegas, right?
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, that's right.
Speaker 3:Maybe not everybody knows that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, welcome Rishna. Yeah, what is it that you do as a CITO at Harry Reid International Airport?
Speaker 2:Well, thank you first of all for having me today. I really appreciate the conversation as we talk and dig into our HPE technology stacks, or HPE technology stacks, I'm very excited to kind of talk through that with you guys. So my role basically at the airport is to ensure that we have a technology platform that helps the airport manage its businesses, and so anything under the technology umbrella is for my division to manage and maintain and upgrade and support and all that good stuff. So I manage the whole technology platform.
Speaker 3:Why is the I and the T combined in your role?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question. I want to say it's because I can multitask really well, right, but it's also just because we understand the technology and the CIO and the CTO role nowadays can be combined, especially if we have a business angle to it, and it's something that I excel at very well and obviously I have to excel at to to help manage an airport. This size.
Speaker 3:So it has nothing to do with the fact that it's an airport, because that it sort of makes sense at an airport, maybe not another, you know that doesn't have any.
Speaker 2:No, just because I'm that great, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3:Well, you can, I mean you can say it.
Speaker 1:I mean I don't know you very well, so you never know but you run all the it at the airport, or do the airlines bring their own it as well? How does that work?
Speaker 2:so really good question. So the way our airport functions is we're 100 common use. We're the largest airport in the us to have a 100 common use platform. It's a very european platform, right. So it allows us to manage the airline's locations and gate assignments. So if we need to make moves, we can. No airline owns or permanently leases any of our area, and so we have full reign of the airport to use as appropriate for our operations.
Speaker 1:Okay. So at other airports, sometimes, when the whole terminal is leased by an airline, they also handle the IT.
Speaker 2:It depends on the relationship they have with that airport and how they want to construct that IT relationship. But for our airport, common use, so we're going to manage it as a common use airport.
Speaker 3:Does it also have positive implications for your decisions when it comes to infrastructure, IT infrastructure?
Speaker 2:Absolutely, because we want something that is going to be easy to use, easy to manage. If we have something that is too complex, too complicated, then that means I have more administration costs to manage that, and when we're trying to run our 30 plus airlines and ensure we can get everybody departed and arrived in a timely manner, we don't want technology to be one of the things that causes delays or interruptions, and so we need something that is easy to use. So we want something that is also centered throughout the entire airport, so we don't want different products in different areas.
Speaker 3:The thing is, because it's common use, you have full control of what you choose right, Correct. You don't have anything to do with what other airlines want.
Speaker 2:Correct, they have to fit.
Speaker 3:What was the situation before you went for, because this thing is about the solution that you've bought or that you've subscribed to or whatever it is from HPE is GreenLake for private cloud business edition right.
Speaker 2:So we're moving towards that. Currently we have all of our Wi-Fi is with an amazing partnership with HP. We have Aruba's all over the entire campus, I noticed, I noticed.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so it's a great product. Right, we've been with HP for, I want to say, 15 to 20 years now, so this was a decision made long before I got there. But what we have noticed over time is that it is easier to use. We have less administration costs because the technology and the solution is so robust. It allows my technicians to do the changes when they need it. We have, you know, timed up rollouts for upgrades. We're now going into the Wi-Fi 6 platform and we're hopefully looking at what GreenLake would do for us and how it would help us manage things. We are a on-prem type solution airport, but that doesn't mean we're not trying to do a good cloud journey, so we're trying to figure out how that fits into our rollout.
Speaker 3:You're moving to Wi-Fi 6. Why not Wi-Fi 7 immediately? Has it been discussed internally? Is it a cost thing?
Speaker 2:We're just a little behind when we set our strategy to move towards Wi-Fi 6. And we have 3,000 plus APs in our airport, so to get them all switched on in a timely manner. It's like the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge if you haven't heard, they paint one side. By the time they're done, they've got to paint it again.
Speaker 3:So that's how we kind of or those huge skyscrapers with glass on the outside. Watch the windows when you're done. So just to be clear at the moment you're mostly using the Aruba products. Yes, and do you manage them already from GreenLake? Not yet.
Speaker 2:We have some management in GreenLake. We try and do a lot of analytics in the GreenLake platform. We just haven't completely switched over because we still have a mix of the older Wi-Fi's that we need to upgrade and we plan to upgrade. But once we're on a platform that is fully supported on GreenLake and we feel like we have the administration tools there that give us what we need, then we'll look at a full transition.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so full transition in the full stack as well. So from storage compute to the network, correct, and what kind of analytics.
Speaker 1:Do you hope to get in the future from it, if everything is loaded onto the platform?
Speaker 2:So, look, the business of airports is really to ensure that our guests are able to come in, get through the airport, get through security, get through the gate and get onto their plane to wherever they need to go, right and the airport. Get through security, get through the gate and get onto their plane to wherever they need to go, right. And the reverse is true they get here, they get through their gate, they get to the curb, and we want to make sure that while they're here, they understand that when they connect to their Wi-Fi at the airport, it's free, it's secure, and if we can ensure those two things, then what we are able to get back is we can see where passenger movement takes place. That doesn't mean we are focusing on one person or one identity. We're looking at this very holistically as to what the movement patterns are throughout the airport. That allows us to start looking at what kind of businesses do we have there?
Speaker 2:What kind of retail do we have there? Do we have bottlenecks? What do we need to do to reduce those bottlenecks? What kind of device support do we need to ensure that we're providing for our Wi-Fi? And if Wi-Fi is not the only and the ever-present signal, then what else can we do to ensure that our guests have connectivity to their platforms using their phones, their laptops, their tablets, things like that? So getting data back on performance, getting data back on number of users, where those users are traveling through the airport, it helps us make those decisions so that we're able to give them more effective and efficient services.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so could you elaborate on those services a little bit more? I mean, you can have maybe customer experience or give them. If they're in a certain terminal and there's a free ice cream thing going on, you can push that to their devices. Yeah, so really it's.
Speaker 2:you know, we generate a lot of revenue from when the passengers are in the gate, and this is Vegas, right. So we want to make sure that they're getting the full Vegas experience. We have casinos in our, in our terminals, and what we want to make sure is that one. They're either, you know, gaining an advantage at the casino by playing and having a good time, or when they're at the Starbucks or they're at a fast food place, they are not just dwelling there and then moving on without purchasing an item, because then that means either the restaurant is too slow or we don't have enough capacity to manage all those guests.
Speaker 2:So when we're starting to look at how can we ensure our passengers get a good experience in the airport, that means they're getting their food and drink and gambling all in a time span before they have to board their flight and leave. And if you put roadblocks in the way, right, if you have to wait more than five to 10 minutes at a Starbucks to grab a coffee, you're going to start looking for another coffee place, right. And so maybe our decision at that point is maybe we have more than one coffee shop within a certain area or a certain gate space. Maybe we have more food in those areas, maybe we have them traverse to a different place to have a bigger selection of options and retail. So really we want to make sure that they're getting the biggest bang for their buck, sort of saying, while they're at the airport Literally, sometimes at the casino, yeah right and we want to make sure that it's effective.
Speaker 2:It's seamless, that they're getting what they want when they want.
Speaker 3:Do you think the Las Vegas airport is unique in that sense because it is, to a certain extent, the most fun airport, if that's possible? I mean, because airports usually are not necessarily associated with fun. Las Vegas is obviously with the casino in there and all that stuff. It is different from a lot of other airports, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so one of our creeds is that the airport is the first and last look of the city, and so really, what we want people to enjoy is when they come in, they see the lights, they see the glitter, they know that this is Vegas. It's the Vegas experience. If you think about it, las Vegas is probably the most unique city you're ever going to be to. It is a destination city. We have gambling, resorts, entertainment, we now have huge sports here right, we have national level sports here and so we want to make sure, when people come to the airport, they feel like they're in a hub in the Las Vegas downtown area or the Strip area, and so we have to make sure that we have that type of atmosphere and vibe there as well. So because we are so unique, we also don't want to lose the fact that that uniqueness comes with a high level of customer service. No matter where you go on the strip or in the downtown area you get great customer service. The airport should be just as superior when it comes to that.
Speaker 3:How easy is it to maintain this and to upgrade this right? Because when you're doing all this stuff over the network, I imagine all the casinos are somehow connected to a network as well. I don't know no, we are.
Speaker 2:We are our own network. Yeah, we are completely um, who owns them?
Speaker 3:they're not. So the casinos over there and the slot machines and all these things are not connected at all.
Speaker 2:They are so the way we have it set up is to ensure one. We have security right. We want to make sure security is at the highest level of performance, and so we have things that are segmented on a fabric, and so our gaming is on its own complete segmentation and fabric, so there is no interference to the guests.
Speaker 3:And just to be sure, that means more than just a separate VLAN right. That is correct. It's an actual segmentation.
Speaker 2:You can spin and play the casino games in a different way. No, it is completely segregated, completely bifurcated from our own infrastructure, just because we know how important the security at our airport is the same for the retail and the lounges. Everything. Yes, we have put in a very tight fabric with tons of segmentations, redundancy and dr. Because we want to make sure that, no matter who is on site, no matter what you're doing on site, everything you do is safe and secure. That is our top priority, okay as that should be the top priority of anything concerning airlines right.
Speaker 1:That is correct. You said at the beginning you're starting to move to HPE private cloud and business relations. We're looking at the cloud experience?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. What do you?
Speaker 1:hope to get out of that.
Speaker 2:Efficiencies right. What is the biggest move to the cloud is for those efficiencies, right. You're able to process more, gather more data and really look at things in a more fine-tuned or holistic manner right. The cloud gives you the options to really build out what you want to build out in a way that makes sense for you and your business, and so that's where we're starting to look at what makes sense for us, and then we'll start developing that journey with our partners at HP and our SMEs and figure out the right pathway to get us to where we need to go.
Speaker 1:It's a very early journey. It is a very early journey.
Speaker 2:Yes, and we're very excited, right, we've been with HP for, I said, almost 20 years and we have a great relationship with HP and a great relationship with their third parties.
Speaker 3:I can imagine you could also reduce your footprint as well, a lot right On-prem, not necessarily by moving it to the cloud, but by going for more modern kind of solutions when it comes to storage and compute.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. Look, one of the things that what makes your technology stack better is that you're open-minded to the modernization capabilities. Right, how can we move to that next level? Can I move my staff to that next level? Can we do it in a way that makes sense for them, makes sense for us, makes sense for the bottom line, right? And so, as we're looking at what is our next journey, a lot of it is going to be based on automation, cloud processing, more segmentation, right, a broader fabric, a more intense and robust network. And we can only do that so long as we understand what the tool sets look like in GreenLake. And once we get that fundamental understanding and we can design what we're looking for, then we can add whatever we need to right, because we're going to build that foundation for ourselves to be right.
Speaker 3:Probably also easier to, even easier to control or to manage than you're doing already right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, but we have to also remember an airport has a lot of passengers that go through right 58 plus million. Last year we had that many passengers roll through our airport, and so, even if there are the new tools out there, we need to make sure they're safe, they're secure and they're trainable.
Speaker 3:To my staff, um and so you see moving, so sort of wrapping it up towards the future? Yeah, do you see this growth? Because there's still a lot of growth in at the airport absolutely, there's always room for growth do you see that as um?
Speaker 3:how do you take that into consideration when you're looking at future deployments of IT infrastructure, because an extra 5 million a year can have quite a big impact on how many access points you should deploy or whatever Correct. How do you take that into consideration, because it's a very volatile kind of thing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and so what we're looking at as part of our modernization efforts is what do we need to be a part of our ecosystem in the network topology? What other types of bands do I need? So, although we have Wi-Fi right, we love our Wi-Fi, we think it provides amazing services we also have our wired and we're also looking at private LTE right, because this is not just one or the other, it is an ecosystem of multi, and so we need to look at how can we encompass these other new technologies that are coming now and how can we envelop them into what we need to do. Our strategy is really looking at automation and the autonomous vehicles, autonomous jet bridges, and that's five years out, but we got to start building that today. So if we can be smart, put the right tools in place, then