END USER INSIGHT
advantage of a wide range of Rackspace
engineers with a broad expertise in
networking, database administrators,
public cloud experts and more.
With the help of Rackspace, Trading Point
employs industry leading practices for a
scalable and fault-tolerant infrastructure
with a selection of Tier 1 Internet Service
Providers. This enables a fast, highly
available and low latency service around
the globe.
All the company’s hardware and services
are continuously being monitored on
various levels: both for performance,
hardware and software failures. A multi-
level backup policy is also maintained to
secure data both on-site and off-site.
Working closely with Rackspace, Trading
Point has been able to further isolate and
secure its Internet Edge infrastructure.
While the dedicated infrastructure is
maintained internally, the Internet Edge
Infrastructure in the data centre was
previously shared with other customers.
The new service provided is the Prolexic
Connect service, with a dedicated
connection from the Rackspace
environment into the Akamai network for
DDoS protection at various layers.
Using the ‘always on’ option, all incoming
traffic now goes through Akamai’s
scrubbing centres, where the traffic
is constantly being monitored and, in
the case of a DDoS attack, malicious
traffic is discarded, delivering only the
‘clean’ traffic. This is all delivered over
dedicated fibres.
Rackspace has a strong partnership with
Akamai, so the team provide and add
value to their full portfolio of services.
All aspects of the setup and provisioning
of the service were handled by
Rackspace after working with and
understanding Trading Point’s business
requirements and challenges. Rackspace
continues to handle all operational
management of the service with Akamai
on behalf of Trading Point.
Rackspace and Trading Point were able to
design and implement a custom solution
to install a dedicated Internet Edge
Infrastructure. Furthermore, with the help
of Rackspace, Trading Point purchased its
own public subnets and migrated all of its
systems there. Rackspace supports improved and
secure performance
This allowed the company to have
dedicated subnets that were exclusively
used by its online trading company, XM,
and none of the other customers of
Rackspace. This was a pre-requisite and
the first step towards the deployment of a
robust anti-DDoS solution. The implementation of Akamai’s Prolexic
DDoS solution has supported a far better
performance of Trading Point’s web
applications, particularly in China where
firewalls slow down websites, so there is
an inconsistent user experience.
Loizides said: “This has completely
isolated Trading Point’s entire
infrastructure from other customers
and the backup data centre for added
security and to further reduce the risk of
service disruption.”
To improve its defences against DDoS
attacks, Trading Point worked with
Rackspace to introduce Akamai’s
Prolexic DDoS solution. Previously,
Trading Point only had Layer 7 protection
for its websites, via the KONA Site
Defender service.
www.intelligentdatacentres.com
The strategic partnership with Rackspace
has delivered significant improvements to
the performance, security, reliability and
scalability of Trading Point’s services.
The improved infrastructure helps make
sites load faster, with the added ability to
increase bandwidth when needed.
The implementation has also significantly
enhanced the security posture of the
organisation, with negligible performance
impact and most cyberattacks now
automatically blocked without needing
any intervention from the IT team.
The company has also benefited from
the wealth of expertise at Rackspace,
particularly for specialist skillsets that are
difficult to find.
All the solutions deployed are very stable
without issues or surprises. However,
additional help is always on hand for
maintenance and improvements –
Rackspace’s 24/7 ‘Fanatical Experience’
has been greatly valued by Trading Point.
Ultimately, thanks to the improved
security, resiliency and scalability
of the infrastructure, alongside the
expertise brought through the Rackspace
partnership – and, in turn, with Akamai –
Trading Point now has the secure bedrock
it needs for future growth.
Loizides added: “Rackspace is a strategic
partner that allowed us to grow, focus
on our core business and competencies
without having to worry about the
management of our infrastructure and
allowing us to sleep well at night.
“Further to the breadth and depth of
engineering expertise it has to offer to
us, Rackspace supports our strategic
goal to move certain infrastructure in the
public cloud. In fact, we have access to a
dedicated team of cloud experts to help us
implement the switch. We see Rackspace
as a long-term strategic partner, who will
continue to support, audit and manage our
cloud infrastructure, without bias towards
cloud providers and allowing us to
continue focusing on our core business.” ◊
THE STRATEGIC
PARTNERSHIP
WITH RACKSPACE
HAS DELIVERED
SIGNIFICANT
IMPROVEMENTS
TO THE
PERFORMANCE,
SECURITY,
RELIABILITY AND
SCALABILITY
OF TRADING
POINT’S SERVICES.
Issue 03
49