Partner Article

Liverpool FC turns to Cloud

Liverpool FC, one of the leading Premier League football clubs, selected Cloudreach, the fast-growing cloud computing consultancy, to alleviate the pressure on its website by moving it to a public Cloud platform. By migrating its main website, Liverpoolfc.com, to Amazon Web Services’ (AWS) Cloud, Liverpool FC now benefits from scalable capacity and can better manage unpredictable, abrupt spikes in website traffic.

During peak times such as match days, breaking news and a sequence of exceptionally busy transfer deadline days, Liverpool FC realised it needed elasticity and scalability within its IT infrastructure to prepare for unexpected busy periods, minimise downtime and ensure optimal user experience. One such spike in traffic occurred on 30thAugust 2012 at 20:56 coinciding with the end of the Hearts Game, where the website experienced a 165 per cent jump in traffic within three minutes.

AWS provides instantly elastic, low cost compute, storage and networking capacity. It enables enterprises to increase infrastructure size within minutes, not hours or days. AWS will enable Liverpool FC to handle website traffic spikes in the future - without human intervention. Equally, when traffic levels are low, the infrastructure will automatically decrease in capacity and Liverpool FC will not pay the traditional over-provisioning costs associated with traditional, static infrastructure.

Working with the Liverpool FC technology team, Cloudreach simplified the migration process through continuous consultancy and has supported Liverpool FC through both the go-live and post go-live periods providing UK-based technical support throughout this process.

Pontus Noren, director and co-founder of Cloudreach, said: “As a top tier partner for AWS, we are able to provide comprehensive consultation around what companies need and how the Cloud can help. Liverpool FC was looking for a solution that was quick to adapt, scales on demand and requires little up-front investment – AWS allows Liverpool FC to do just this. Cloudreach’s in-depth expertise around AWS, coupled with our managed services capabilities enabled a swift and trouble-free migration in time for the new season.”

David Channon, solutions architect at Liverpool FC, commented: “Following an extensive planning phase we have moved through a relatively trouble free migration into day-to-day running and consolidation. During all phases Cloudreach has provided expertise and knowledge that has proven to be as flexible, adaptable and professional as the AWS platform itself. Cloudreach has played a key role in all phases of the significant business and technical changes we have made.”

Michael Crowder, systems and development manager at Liverpool FC stated: “Working with our in-house team, Cloudreach completed an in-depth evaluation of the existing system, and helped us to meet our requirements with AWS. We now have a more stable scalable and accountable platform, which is well set to cope with the business needs of the new season and beyond.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Cloudreach .