888 Holdings Assures Top Performance for Online Gaming Customers

Overview

Challenge

• Maintain customer satisfaction levels in gaming while meeting data protection regulations.

Solution

• Underpin 3-data-center solution with high-performance flash infrastructure.

Outcome

• Meet customer demand for high-performance in gaming.
• Achieve low latency and high availability in data centers.
• Meet regulation requirements for data protection.
• Manage data growth.

Challenge

888 Holdings is one of the world’s leading online betting and gaming companies, which owns and operates a wide range of online casino, sports betting, poker and bingo brands. “We continuously aim to be one of the world’s best performing online gaming companies and always strive to provide customers with a safe, world-class, enjoyable experience,” explains Eran Elbaz, CIO at 888 Holdings.

Hosting more than 40,000 concurrent users, each expecting the same high standard of service in terms of performance and availability, 888 Holdings recognizes that infrastructure performance is essential. “Response time for players is crucial. When they hit a button, the outcome should be immediate — any latency affects our players’ overall experience. There can be no delay, no slow-down of service and obviously no downtime,” says Gabi Dvir, head of IT infrastructure at 888 Holdings.

In addition, the gaming industry is heavily regulated, with an increasing number of data protection requirements for 888 Holdings to meet, including keeping a third copy of all data. This now-required extra copy and increased business has led to rapid data growth for the company.

Solution

Enhanced Performance and Protection

888 Holdings chose to partner with Hitachi Vantara to meet all these needs, building a 3-data-center solution, based on Hitachi’s flash storage infrastructure and data protection solutions.

With Hitachi Global-Active Device, 888 Holdings was able to build an active-active replication between two Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform (VSP) G700 systems and between two VSP 5100 systems in their data center. Hitachi Universal Replicator’s semi-synchronous replication of a third copy to another VSP G700 ensures even greater resiliency and data availability.  Plus, a VSP G350 for data warehousing.

The solution also uses Hitachi Ops Center Analyzer, data center management software that monitors and reports on performance. This allows 888 Holdings staff to further optimize their infrastructure and plan for future growth. At the same time, the integrated diagnostic engine allows them to troubleshoot any performance bottlenecks.

Outcome

Stable, High-Performance, Compliant Infrastructure

The new infrastructure allows 888 holdings to address their customers’ demands for performance and continuous service, as well as meeting regulation requirements. 

“With Hitachi’s flash infrastructure we are able to manage this growth, while achieving even better performance, low latency, high availability and reliability across our data centers. With greater scalability we are also ready for future growth,” explains Dvir.

“888 prides itself of being innovative and technology-led. Our customers expect the best from us, and we expect the best from our partners. Our industry is rapidly expanding, and as we continue to grow and diversify, it’s important that we continue to invest in our infrastructure and that we partner with experienced companies, like Hitachi,” concludes Elbaz.