Case Study: TUI Cruises achieves fail-safe, always-on shipboard storage and high availability with DataCore Software (SANsymphony)

TUI Cruises enjoys (fail-)safe travel with DataCore’s software-defined storage

TUI Cruises needed rock‑solid, highly available storage for its Mein Schiff fleet to keep navigation, reservation and corporate systems running despite limited shipyard installation windows, intermittent connectivity at sea and high bandwidth costs. To meet these constraints, the cruise line worked with BSH IT Solutions and deployed DataCore’s SANsymphony software‑defined storage platform across each ship’s redundant data centers.

DataCore’s SANsymphony was implemented on HP and Dell hardware with synchronous mirroring, transparent failover and automated resyncs, integrated with VMware and Veeam to protect about 50 virtual machines. The solution delivered zero downtime during an actual hardware failure, extended storage lifespan (e.g., ~20 TB SAS per side on some ships), simplified remote management and provided scalable capacity and performance across the fleet.

TUI Cruises

Matthias Fahrner

Director IT Competence Center & Strategy