Omni Hotels is a privately owned company headquartered in Irving, Texas, operating 40 first-class and luxury hotels and resorts throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico.

Omnilink is a Windows client, which acts as a link between central office and the individual properties. It transfers reservation data to the properties in their own format.

Distribution of enhancements in Omnilink to 40 locations is a very cumbersome and unmanageable process. After converting Omnilink to VB.NET, it can be distributed with the ease of a web application.

Business Situation

Omnilink interfaces Omni Hotel's Central Reservations System (CRS) and the Property Management System (PMS) working at individual properties. It goes through frequent minor and major upgrades regularly. Deploying the application to 40 properties is always a complex project. Typical lifecycle from release to full deployment is 2 months.

Solution Description

Omnilink was converted from VB6 to VB.NET. No Touch deployment uses Download Assembly Cache to always execute the latest version of the application available. .NET versions of third party controls were used to replace older versions.

Key Benefits

As a .NET application it can now be deployed with the same ease as a web application.
Third party components can now be added and updated without worrying about breaking other applications. An important piece of information architecture is now up-to-date and can take advantage of all .NET features.

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