Hurtigruten and Cegal together on the world's best cloud journey
Safety is the most important thing when Hurtigruten Group now embarks on its cloud journey. Cegal helps with the "cloud platform first" strategy and plans the cloud migration.
It is called the world's most beautiful sea voyage, the distance that Hurtigruten has been sailing since 1893. Back then, several regional shipping companies joined forces to coordinate a freight route along the Norwegian coast; from Bergen in the southwest to Kirkenes in the northeast.
Today it is Hurtigruten Norway, part of Hurtigruten Group, that is behind the traditional offer. Freight and local passenger transport is still an important part of Hurtigruten Group, who have also developed Hurtigruten Expeditions to become a world leader in adventure travel. With small, unique ships and land-based adventures from north pole to south pole, Hurtigruten Expeditions takes guests to the most spectacular places on earth and visits everything from pristine wilderness to different communities. At the centre of the business is still "the world's most beautiful sea voyage".
The world's best cloud journey
Hurtigruten Group attracts passengers from all corners of the world and has sales offices in a number of key markets. Therefore, there are great demands for IT infrastructure and IT security. Hurtigruten Group offers the world's most beautiful experiences, and the goal is to have a world-class IT platform with a focus on flexibility and scalability.
"Our product and our remote destinations create technological opportunities and challenges that you won't find many other places. Hence, it is extra important to build a good internal team that is given great creative freedom to create good partnerships with solid suppliers so that together you deliver something unique," says Lars Ihler, head of the Automation Team at Hurtigruten Group.
Hurtigruten Group has long since embarked on a journey where increased IT security, reduced IT costs, extensive use of on-premises and cloud-based automation and increased sustainability are central. Further migration to the cloud will give Hurtigruten Group even better digital customer experiences and support the Group's need for modern IT solutions.
At times, we have a high demand on booking solutions. In other situations, something needs to be rolled out quickly in several places at once. Then the underlying platform must work well and scale quickly.
Ida C. Lilledahl, Hurtigruten Group
"A well-adapted and managed cloud platform is an important part of this," says Ida C. Lilledahl. She is Product Owner in IT and has led several of the most important initiatives in this area.
Today, Hurtigruten's IT infrastructure consists of several on-premises solutions in their own and external data centers, combined with solutions in the cloud.
The goal is for Hurtigruten Group's IT infrastructure to be standardized and automated. Microsoft Azure is the primary cloud service for the company. Cegal assists with expertise in cloud migration together with several of Hurtigruten's IT teams.
For Hurtigruten Group, it is important to have a common cloud strategy, with a concrete priority plan that focuses on security, performance, and automation.
Cegal has helped Hurtigruten Group to compile the various requirements and set up a strategy according to the above together with a plan for how this will be implemented.
Amir Zarei, Cegal
Industry leader in sustainability
Hurtigruten Norway and Hurtigruten Expeditions are known for driving a sustainable mindset into the industry and among guests who travel with them. They lead the way in the industry to eliminate plastic waste and preserve nature and the environment in the Arctic and Antarctic, among other things.
A transition from on-premises IT operations to the cloud will also have a positive environmental impact. Cloud platforms can reduce power consumption by more than 80 percent and help greenhouse gas emissions to zero, according to a recent IDC report. Hurtigruten Group has also chosen to connect to cloud data centers that are powered 100 percent by renewable energy.
