Introduction

As more airlines are adopting NDC, there is a need to manage their release life cycle (De-Coupled Model) with the ability to test each airline API in isolation with 100% automation and improved quality, on demand scaling, and airline-level customisations. 

• As more airlines are adopting NDC, need ability to manage their release life cycle (De-Coupled Model) 

• Ability to test each airline API in isolation with 100% automation and improved quality 

• On demand scaling based on in-take needs 

• Ability to do customizations at airline level instead of waiting for core product updates 

• Ability to run entire test cycle with 100% automation and improve quality 

• Auto scaling infrastructure by component by airline to efficiently use cloud capabilities. 

• Coupled dependencies between core product and airline specific modules 

• Any changes to core modules force testing for all airlines and force to absorb changes 

• Airline level scalability by application for better efficiencies is dependent on de-coupling 

• Ability to do customizations at airline level instead of waiting for core product updates 

• Ability to run entire test cycle with 100% automation and improve quality 

• Auto scaling infrastructure by component by airline to efficiently use cloud capabilities. 

• Designed and built a de-coupled NDC packaging model by airline that can mange their own release life cycle. 

• Airline team 100% autonomy to mange any change without dependencies on other teams 

• Left-Shift testing with automation solves defect-leak issues 

• On-demand management of environments along with autoscaling in production environments 

• High availability and configuration consistency across environments of dev life cycle 

• Test automation with improved quality using data driven and low code platforms. 

Technological Framework

Why these Setup?

Terraform enables each airline's environment to be provisioned identically and on-demand, while Gitlab pipelines give airline teams the autonomy to deploy independently reducing release cycles from 5-6 months to under a month. 

Why this Setup?

Katalon's low-code test automation enables comprehensive coverage without large QA teams, while AWS autoscaling ensures each airline's production environment scales precisely to demand eliminating over-provisioning. 

Why this Setup?

Per-airline module connectors with isolated environment management ensure that changes to one airline's PSS or NDC configuration have zero impact on other airlines sharing the same platform. 

Takeaway

Zapcom built a de-coupled NDC packaging and deployment model that reduced airline release cycles from 5-6 months to under a month achieving 80% reduction in release time, 25% infrastructure cost savings, and 50% manpower cost savings through test automation.