BOXBOROUGH, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Crossbeam Systems, Inc., the leading provider of next-generation security platforms for high-performance networks, today announced that Sportsbet.com.au has successfully deployed its X-Series platform to ensure a fast, uninterrupted and secure experience for users when betting online.
Year after year, Sportsbet.com.au, Australia’s premier Internet betting and entertainment website, experiences tremendous growth in both the number of customers and transactions per second. During major race days, Sportsbet.com.au sees massive spikes in traffic. The Spring Carnival horse races in 2010, for instance – Sportsbet.com.au’s busiest period of the year – saw traffic peaks reaching 2,000 new connections per second. It is critical that the site offers visitors superior performance, quality of service and, most of all, high availability.
“Security is paramount to protecting our customers and the Sportsbet.com.au brand. We chose Crossbeam’s X-Series because of its high-performance, best-of-breed security architecture and modular approach, allowing us to build redundancy at every level, scale easily and conduct maintenance without any service downtime,” said Agustin D’Onofrio, IT operations manager at Sportsbet.com.au. “With Crossbeam, we are able to run a Check Point firewall and have the option to add other security applications to the chassis as needed. As we look to build out our security infrastructure, this level of flexibility is a major advantage.”
Boosting Security for 2010 Melbourne Cup with Crossbeam
In the months leading up to the 2009 Melbourne Cup, Sportsbet.com.au was one of many Internet gaming sites that experienced a large scale distributed-denial-of-service (DDoS) attack. While Sportsbet.com.au only saw service degradation for an hour or two, the IT organization sought to upgrade its firewalls – the first line of defense – and ensure the entire security infrastructure had the capacity, scalability and intelligence to easily handle any future attacks, without interruption of service.
Sportsbet.com.au initially started with an X-Series chassis combined with a Check Point firewall for the 2009 Melbourne Cup. The success of that deployment led Sportsbet.com.au to upgrade to Crossbeam’s most powerful X-Series, the X80 – offering the highest levels of performance with a modular 14-slot chassis that can run up to 10 applications and scale to inspect a real-world mix of traffic at speeds up to 150 Gbps of throughput. Despite the heavy spikes in traffic experienced during the 2010 Melbourne Cup, Crossbeam delivered seamless and secure protection.
“The X80 platform exceeded our expectations,” added D’Onofrio. “Our firewall CPU utilization during the busiest period was less than 10 percent, and feedback from customers was that the Sportsbet.com.au site was just as quick during the Melbourne Cup race as any other time during the year – making this a win-win situation for everyone.”
“The growing popularity of online gambling makes it extremely important for brands such as Sportsbet.com.au to safeguard the experience for users,” said Jim Freeze, Crossbeam’s vice president of marketing and business development. “Not only do they have to deploy strong protection, they have to ensure their site can handle the massive influx of traffic during events. Sportsbet.com.au’s use of the X-Series offers the best example of what the platform is designed to deliver – a high-performance, best-of-breed security architecture that lets customers enable their business through smart and scalable security.”
About Crossbeam
Crossbeam Systems®, Inc. offers a proven approach to deploying network security that meets the extreme performance, scalability and reliability demands of large enterprises, service providers and government agencies. Its leading X-Series security platform offers an open, high-performance architecture that easily provisions and scales multiple best-in-class security applications to meet the ever-changing threat landscape. Companies rely on Crossbeam to intelligently manage risk, accelerate and maintain compliance, and protect their businesses from evolving threats. Crossbeam is headquartered in Boxborough, Mass., and has offices in Europe, Latin America and Asia Pacific. More information is available at www.crossbeam.com.
Crossbeam Systems and Crossbeam are registered trademarks of Crossbeam Systems, Inc. All other company, product or service names not owned by Crossbeam mentioned in this press release are the property of their respective owners.