Cathay Pacific to take cloud journey to new heights

Even as its cloud journey reaches cruising altitude, Cathay Pacific Group IT is not slowing down. Instead, the publicly held operator of Cathay Pacific Airlines and HK Express is shifting from migration to optimization mode in an effort to wrest additional benefits from its all-in cloud transformation.

“Cloud optimization is the new initiative in 2024,” says Rajeev Nair, general manager of IT infrastructure and security at Cathay, a major airliner and cargo carrier in the Asia-Pacific region, with headquarters in Hong Kong. “It’s about optimizing the cloud workload, rewriting some of the applications, and, [as] ESG comes into the big picture, how we can be more efficient to reduce Co2 emissions.”

Cathay launched its cloud journey four years ago, and its migration has accelerated over the past three years. To date, the carrier has migrated an estimated 98% of its 400 applications, mostly to AWS, but with some workloads on Azure and a plan for further “rebalancing” cloud providers to ensure Cathay is not locked in to any one vendor, Nair says.

Like many enterprises, Cathay Pacific relied heavily on a lift-and-shift approach in its initial phase to benefit from the immediate efficiencies and scalability of the cloud. But in this next cloud optimization phase, the airliner will focus on enhancing the security and performance of these workloads on the cloud, says Nair, who was hired by Cathay in 2011 as an application service manager, working his way up to his current position 10 years later.

Data management is another key priority for Cathay this year, as the company aims to consolidate data feeds and data repositories from its multiple data warehouses to better enable analytics in all applications, Nair says.

The optimization strategy will also include modifications to Cathay’s SaaS-based implementations, such as Salesforce CRM, ServiceNow, and SAP, to better align them with the business and maximize Cathay’s return on investment on the model.

Enhanced automation and self-service will also be emphasized as part of the cloud optimization strategy, Nair says. Many of Cathay’s internal business processes are automated using UiPath, and Nair aims to improve on those implementations to better enable employee self-service for fulfilling requests and incident resolution.

On the business side, Cathay, which uses Airbus airplanes for passenger flights and Boeing for its cargo fleet, aims to expand routes into China and fill airplanes to capacity to be more profitable, while also becoming more fuel efficient, Nair says.

Securing the network

One major aspect of Cathay’s cloud optimization plan is embracing Aryaka’s unified secure access service edge (SASE) converged networking, security, and observability platform across its global network, Nair says. It will replace the standard MPLS network, he adds.

Cathay’s move to a modern SASE will deliver reliable internet bandwidth, enhanced interoperability between network elements, and enable the airliner to better manage and secure hundreds of workloads on AWS and Azure, Nair says.

Nair, who was employed by Emirates Airlines before joining Cathay 13 years ago, says his deep experience on the application side gives him unique insights into the business problems of relying on older networking technology in a cloud environment.

“Often the issue when you’re on the infrastructure side is that one doesn’t really understand the customer pain point,” Nair says.

Analysts say the ability to support digital business transformation efforts with a zero-trust security posture while keeping complexity manageable is a significant driver of SASE adoption.

“Digital business has driven requirements for new digital capabilities — such as cloud and edge computing, and work-from-anywhere initiatives — which have, in turn, inverted access requirements from forcing end users to connect to a managed network for security to securing their access regardless of their locations,” adds Gartner analyst John Watts. “At the same time, enterprises are increasingly pursuing zero-trust strategies. Delivering a zero-trust security posture is an integral part of a SASE architecture and integral to emerging SASE offerings.”

SASE is defined by IDC as a combination of network as a service and security as a service into a unified cloud-native architecture, shifting the focus from a traffic-centric to an identity-based methodology.

Aside from Aryaka, Cato Networks, Cisco, Fortinet, Palo Alto Networks, and Zscaler are among the list of vendors supplying SASE solutions globally.

Aryaka’s SASE will replace a myriad of legacy networking technologies used by Cathay currently, including Cisco Viptela SD-WAN service, Symantec Web Security Service (WSS) proxy for internet browsing, zone-based firewall for security control, Meraki corporate WiFi service for staff, its VPN for remote working, and the CX business partner network to connect to its business partners, such as Amadeus, Champ Cargosystems, and The HAECO Group.

As the threat landscape expands in its airspace, the need for networked infrastructure has increased, including the “amalgamation” of connectivity, network functionality, and security, claims one IDC report published in December.

“The cybersecurity threat landscape in the Asia-Pacific region is worsening progressively,” IDC India research analyst Sakshi Grover says in the report. “To address these challenges, enterprises are integrating crucial security technology under the SASE/SSE framework.”

Finetuning for agility

For Cathay, security is a key concern, but cybersecurity can be a roadblock to agility if not designed effectively, Nair points out. Cloud optimization also entails finetuning capacity allocated for each workload. The goal to reduce overprovisioning not only reduces costs but aids in meeting Cathay’s sustainability goals and being “greener,” Nair says.

“We have a particular day of the month when rosters are published for the cabin crew and flight crew and during this period of time there are capacity issues and we will have teams working behind the scenes just to manage that particular moment,” Nair explains. “The cloud has helped us to be more scalable and agile.”

Cathay is also an early innovator in making use of blockchain’s digital ledger technology. Nair claims that in 2019, Cathay Pacific Cargo became the first airline to use blockchain to manage custody of its stock of Unit Load Devices (ULD), applying the technology in its own Cargo Terminal at Hong Kong International Airport.

“The second phase included Hong Kong cargo agents,” Nair adds. “Previously when drivers delivered or collected pre-packed shipments or empty ULDs, they would write down the ULD numbers and manually exchange the paperwork at the Cargo Terminal. Under the new system, they can enter the ULD number into a dedicated smartphone app that logs the transfer of custody in a blockchain ledger, so both parties — agent and airline — know who has custody of which ULD.”

According to Nair, the blockchain solution ensures ULD ownership is tracked at every phase of delivery to help Cathay assign ownership and inventory across 200 ports in real-time.

Gen AI on the horizon

Airplane manufacturers employ sophisticated automation technology that takes full control of an aircraft in flight. This is helpful in an era in which airliners are having difficulty finding pilots to hire. But behind the scenes, another type of copilot is on the rise, with an eye toward helping business users better navigate their workdays, and Cathay Pacific Group is among the many enterprises exploring where use of these emerging generative AI copilots might lead.

An early user of Microsoft’s recently released Copilot, which automates many tasks and enhances employee productivity, the carrier is also using machine learning models “more frequently” of late, with more sophisticated use of generative AI on the radar, Nair says.

Still, Cathay is in the very early days of development and testing, and it remains unknown how quickly adoption will change business on a grand scale, Nair says, noting that there’s no doubt that digital transformation has already had a major impact on corporate and consumer culture in less than a decade — and that is only accelerating.

Once viewed as a supporting function of business, IT has become the biggest game changer in business, Nair says. “Technology is becoming the backbone of an organization,” Nair says. “If you’re not embracing technology, you are losing. Even though gen AI is in its early days, you’ve got to understand it and think through all the possibilities.”