BetClick picks a winner with Citrix

Case Studies BetClick picks a winner with Citrix

Case Study - BetClick picks a winner with Citrix

BetClick optimises website performance and enhances security, thanks to NetScaler’s wide range of features.

In 2006, online bookmaker BetClick was launched in the UK and France with a staff of ten. Now in 2008, it boasts a global team of over 100 who work across ten international sites, catering to markets in France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Poland, Greece, Belgium, Austria and the UK. While BetClick once only offered betting on sporting events, the site has now expanded to include gaming, casino and poker facilities. In 2007, it moved operations to Malta for licensing reasons.

High traffic levels slowing the site

At first, the site received between 250 and 500 requests per second. As the site’s popularity grew, so did the traffic, resulting in the present average of 2,500 requests per second. As BetClick’s operations expanded, the demand on the site began to outgrow its basic infrastructure.

With response times being affected and no real way of balancing web traffic, network manager Sargon Petros looked for an alternative.

The sharp rise in users put pressure on the existing platform, forcing Petros to rethink the site’s hardware and seek new ways of providing additional support.

“At the beginning, the cost of our infrastructure was a real issue. The site was very small and we only needed basic load balancing. As we grew, we needed to ensure a consistent user experience plus the option for failover in case of emergency,” Petros said. “As more people started making bets, the website was not being delivered to our customers quickly or efficiently.”

Facilitating international expansion with NetScaler

BetClick had worked with Citrix Gold Partner Computrad for a long time, during its development from a static French site to a multimedia platform with a presence in multiple European countries. Computrad suggested a trial with NetScaler Platinum Edition to ease the challenge of expansion.

“They were looking for a robust device they could build on. When you are running a 24 hour business, you don’t want to be constantly changing products and infrastructure,” said Ben Gooch, sales director at Computrad.

The trial was a success – NetScaler ensured the load was distributed across BetClick’s network efficiently and minimised page response time. In addition, the NetScalers’ compression ability sped up the delivery of web applications like news articles about sporting events, while web caching helped quicker serving of frequently accessed content. Crucially for a website that operated for a continuous 24-hour cycle, NetScaler virtually eliminated downtime. The NetScaler appliance’s additional features allow BetClick to dynamically rewrite URLs and redirect users from any other site – a powerful marketing tool. It also allows content to be replaced on the fly, without having to directly edit the website.

“We use a lot of rich content such as graphics, and as our traffic rises, so does the demands for this content. As we have grown, we have used more and more of the features NetScaler provides,” said Petros.

A winning choice for expansion and innovation

Recent sporting events like the Olympics and Euro 2008 generated a huge rush of live betting, with up to 4,000 requests per second.

NetScaler’s ability to cope with spikes in traffic enabled BetClick to continue to serve customers, even when under extreme pressure.

A key advantage is security. When customers register or make payments on BetClick via SSL, NetScaler can handle that secure traffic.

As a result, the transaction is a safe as possible – an important requirement in the gambling world, which can regularly be exposed to security risks. Another threat, Distributed Denial of Service attacks, where servers are saturated by concentrated external traffic, can also be intercepted by the NetScaler solution.

“One of the most important elements is the NetScaler’s monitoring capabilities: we can forget about the device in a sense, but its monitoring tools give us a great insight into how our business is performing and we couldn’t function without this,” concluded Petros.

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