A.M.S. Advanced Maintenance Systems (AMS), the airline solutions division of the John Bryce Group in Israel has upgraded the "Control 2000" mission critical Flight Operations Control System of El Al Israel Airlines to a native Java language application accessing data from an Oracle database and operating on Sun Microsystems JavaStation network computers (NC's).

AMS has recently completed stage one of a planned two phase upgrade to the El Al "Control 2000" system. "Control 2000" is a GUI based system which is used to manage and monitor the flight operations of the Airline. The system was developed in 1992 and operates 24 hours per day, 6 days per week.

Control 2000 is loaded with flight schedule data covering a two week time window; the system monitors the 72 hour period immediately prior to each aircraft departure. During this time the Operations Control Center (OCC) is fully responsible for the flight, and the aircraft remains under OCC supervision until it has landed at the scheduled destination.

In addition to providing a visual display of all aircraft at all locations during the time window, the system stores information relating to El Al ground operations at airports world wide, passenger reservations, weather conditions, and other relevant flight operations data. The system generates alarms and warnings of any unusual situations which require intervention by the OCC staff, such as indications of irregular weather prior to landing, lack of acknowledgment of scheduled take off, or landing, and delays leading to infringement of airport noise regulations.

The upgrade involved the replacement of a Motif graphical interface, by a new GUI based on the Java language and operating on JavaStation NC's, linked to a Sun SPARC Server. The upgrade was designed and developed over a 90 day time window, in order to support the summer flight schedule of El Al.

This new and innovative solution will be used by El Al for the delivery of flight information from the "Control 2000" system to current and future El Al Intranet and Extranet networks.

This success of this project, which has been one of the first production implementations of Java technology in Israel, could not have been achieved without the efforts of Kobi Lif, the Managing Director of Sun Microsystems in Israel, in dedicating the support and commitment of Sun Microsystems to the success of the venture. The For.Net organisation, part of the "EMT" Group in Israel, supplied and installed the Sun NC's and SPARC equipment, and also played a key role in the project.

Arik Cahana, an information systems (IS) analyst and the representative of the El Al MIS department for Control Center IS/Communication projects claims that the new system has considerably improved the response times obtained from the Motif implementation of the original system, and that the development and installation was completed rapidly and smoothly, according to the planned project time scale.

"These operational improvements were obtained at an overall cost of hardware, software and maintenance, significantly lower than that offered by the other alternatives evaluated by El Al. As a result, the ability to react rapidly to situations with potential for schedule delays increased, the quality of decision making processes improved and consequently the service provided to our passengers." stated Cahana.

Amir Raskin, Senior Project Manager at AMS, praised the decision of the El Al Information Systems management in the application of state of the art technology to a mission critical information system.

"Through the application of Java technology and network computing, AMS has increased its leadership in Intranet enabling and upgrading of data base applications. The "Control 2000" system strengthens AMS's position as the leading supplier of advanced Intranet solutions. AMS and other members of the John Bryce Group have developed a number of Intranet projects for local subsidiaries of major world wide Corporations. In this manner, the Group has brought network computing technology closer to center stage and has proven that Java and network computers are already a key technology in supporting business goals.

Izik Eldar, the Managing Director of Four.Net , said that the new system is a significant enabling a new approach based on low cost end user terminals, which pull information from a server that controls all the software. "This modern solution establishes El Al as an outstanding Information Technology pioneer ", said Eldar.

The El Al decision to upgrade the system using Sun Microsystems Java language, JavaStation NC's and SPARC servers was based on the following considerations:

• A real need for upgrading the existing system to obtain improved response times, in a very limited time frame
• The ability to separate the project into distinct phases, with defined 'fallback' alternatives in the event of delays due to technological immaturity
• The ability of the JAVA implementation of "Control 2000" to utilize, with no additional effort, existing Intranet /WWW technology and infrastructure to deliver flight information to internal and external consumers in El Al.
• The requirement to increase dramatically the number of end user stations with access to the flight operations data, at economically justifiable levels of investment and maintenance

Java is a programming language which is completely independent of hardware and software considerations - Java provides an environment for the rapid development of flexible, reusable and secure software modules which can be implemented within and outwith the organisation using Internet/ Intranet technologies.

The JavaStation network computers from Sun Microsystems provide a low cost alternative to traditional PC computers (approximately a quarter of the cost for a period of 5 years), with simple and convenient end user operation as programs reside on, and are managed from, the organization's central server.

The Oracle database was selected by El Al in 1992, as it provided the most stable platform for high performance, scaleable and portable data base applications. Today Oracle fully supports the Java language interface, thus ensuring rapid and reliable completion of Java based projects.

Contact Information

For more information about the John Bryce Group, and Control 2000, please contact Amir Raskin at araskin@johnbryce.co.il, or:

John Bryce Systems Ltd.
Twin Towers #2
35 Jabotinsky Street
Ramat Gan 52511, Israel
Tel +972-3-7535700
Fax +972-3-7517089

Source: Advanced Maintenance Systems Ltd.