Com-Net recently completed phase one of an upgrade of the Electronic Visual Information Display System (EVIDS) at Tampa International Airport (TPA). “The goal was to modernize the look of the airport’s EVIDS screens before thousands of Super Bowl fans descended upon the airport,” said Dave Michaels, Com-Net President and CEO. “The project was kicked-off on November 12, 2008 and by January 23, 2009 we were finished.” Phase one of the upgrade included installing the ECLIPSX® Multi-User Flight Information Display System version 5.0 and 48 new LCD-TFT displays in the landside terminal. “As simple as it sounds, the deployment was actually quite unique and involved several ‘firsts’ for us,” said Chance Fultz, senior vice-president, sales and marketing for Com-Net Software. As part of the IT roadmap, TPA is in the process of migrating as many of its critical production systems to virtual servers running a solution by Marathon Technologies Corporation. “We have deployed on virtual platforms at several other airports in the past,” said Fultz, “but this was the first time we had used the Marathon solution and it went very well.” According to Richard Rogers, Deputy Director – ITS Projects and Strategy for Tampa International Airport, Marathon’s everRun HA keeps the ECLIPSX® application running – and end displays connected – through both network and disk I/O failures. In addition to the virtualization of the application servers, TPA standardized its client machines on WindowsTM64-bit VistaTMBusiness Edition. “We subjected the ECLIPSX display engine to a battery of quality assurance (QA) tests because the new 64-bit operating system is quite different,” said Fultz. “Our team worked quickly and did a great job refining our OEM process to work flawlessly with Vista 64”. “We have been fortunate to work with some of the most sophisticated and forward thinking IT organizations in the airport industry,” said Fultz. “These are the projects that make us stretch and grow and why we believe we have the most mature and flexible product to offer.” The second phase of the project is ongoing which will replace 97 displays on all of the airside terminals. In addition, phase 2 will include another first, a new Com-Net application to provide direct command and control of the LCD-TFT displays. Now, the airport can truly detect whether a monitor is on or off and can schedule to place it in the lowest level of power saving mode which will improve energy consumption and significantly extend the life of the hardware. |
