Lyndos.net hosts central IT system for Focus Hotels

The Focus Hotels Group has discovered the benefits of a fully-hosted IT solution, providing a central integrated system without the need for in-house technical know-how.

The group is using Lyndos.net to host the property management software Protel, providing centralised reservations, checking in and out, house keeping and all other IT needs across 11 hotels.

The system is run from a remote data centre owned and operated by Lyndos.net, part of the Catalyst Management Group, with applications delivered straight to the PCs of all 56 users in the 11 separate sites.

Focus Hotels, founded in February 2009, has taken over both individual and small groups of 3 and 4 star hotels many of them rescued from administration.

Each hotel had its own ageing IT system which prevented the group from having the level of control and integration needed to survive in today’s competitive market.

The hosted solution saves Focus from needing its own IT department and from the large capital costs in hosting their own IT system.

Instead it pays an all-inclusive monthly rental for a system which is maintained and updated constantly by Lyndos.net.

Mike Hall, Chief Operating Officer for Catalyst Management Group, said: “Most hotels have their own internal IT departments and networks which cost a lot of money to run.

“The old fashioned way of having a multiple of servers and a network of fibres between each hotel is extremely expensive.

“For this hosted Protel system, all you need is an internet connection and PC’s in each hotel. More hotels can be added quickly and easily.

“Many companies are moving towards ‘cloud computing’, where information is held in a remote data centre rather than on an individual PC, and Software As A Service, where they rent a complete service rather than buying their own hardware. “It saves businesses from all the capital costs and hassles of installing and updating their own system and is much more flexible.

“It means Focus can concentrate on running their hotels without having to worry about the IT.” Linda Cowdry, Operations Support Manager for Focus Hotels, said: “We decided to use Lyndos.net because of the significant cost and administration advantages versus hosting a central system ourselves, in addition to the security of supply provided by external hosting.

“Our skill is running hotels, not running computer systems. We just want everyone in the hotels to be able to check guests in and out, make reservations and so on without having to worry about what’s going on in the background and provide central management with instant access to the entire hotels network remotely from any location “If we have any problems, we just make one phone call and it’s dealt with. The joy is not having to deal with any technical issues ourselves.”

There is also an environmental advantage to Lyndos.net’s centralised data centres, because one piece of physical hardware can be used for 10 or 20 virtual servers. This uses only one tenth of the power of having a physical server for each system.

If one piece of hardware fails or needs maintenance work, the networks can be moved to a back-up server without any interruption in service.