CASE STUDY
After going live with CDNetworks, Bally
Interactive saw game download times
improve by 300% - 500%.
At a Glance
Company|
Founded|
Key Results
++ Improved interactive game download
Bally Interactive (a division
of Bally Technologies, Inc.)
performance by 300% - 500%
++ Reduced bandwidth costs by more than
Bally Technologies, 1932
Bally Interactive, 2012
90%
++ Routinely deliver 500 simultaneous
Headquarters|Gibraltar
Industry|
Global Online Gaming
CDN Services |
Dynamic Web
Acceleration, Content
Acceleration, SSL
downloads of full-featured games
++ Comply with online gambling regulations
requiring a local data center
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Established in 1932, Bally Technologies has been providing high-quality technology and systems to
the global gaming industry for more than eight decades. Today, they have built upon that tradition to
serve the global online casino industry through the Bally Interactive division (Bally Interactive). Based
in Gibraltar, Bally Interactive encompasses the company’s mobile, Internet, and social initiatives,
complementing its traditional games and systems business lines.
Through Bally Interactive and its iGaming Platform, Bally Technologies offers casino operators the ability
to augment their land-based casino gaming with mobile and online play-for-free and wager-based games.
The Challenge
Bally Interactive recently began serving online casinos with downloadable games, but the organization ran
into major cost and user experience challenges from the start. Serving both dynamic and static content
from a single data center location in Gibraltar, bandwidth pricing and performance challenges increased
as player counts grew. With players originating from Europe, nearly every game-play request came from
an international location.
“We had to overcome performance and pricing issues immediately,” says Hampus Hagglof, Operations
Manager at Bally Technologies. “Gibraltar’s extremely expensive bandwidth and the inconsistent application
and download performance from the local data center meant we had to act fast or lose our fast-growing
audience.” Complicating matters further, many of Bally Interactive’s gamers request downloads from local
Internet connections, which vary greatly in performance throughout Europe.
Key Objectives
Due to regulatory restrictions around online gaming, Bally Interactive is limited to the locations where
it can establish data centers. To achieve optimal gaming performance for its global client base, the
company sought a CDN service provider with infrastructure in numerous international locations. This,
they reasoned, would help Bally Interactive meet several objectives
ff Comply with industry regulations
ff Optimize performance to users everywhere
ff Drastically reduce bandwidth costs
“Very few service providers can deliver
the end-user experience globally the
way CDNetworks does for us.”
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HAMPUS HAGGLOF
Operations Manager,
Interactive
Bally Technologies, Inc.
Bally was aware of several CDN service providers with strong performance within the United States.
However, with Europe starting to grow in importance and other parts of the world to follow later, the
team wanted to serve their gaming applications from a CDN with strong performance in multiple regions.
“Serving the U.S. free-play market and European gaming involves so many different countries,” says Hagglof.
“We needed a CDN with high-performing points of presence in all the places we care about.”
The Solution: A CDN for Dynamic Applications
and Heavy Content
The company evaluated several CDNs, running performance tests across multiple regions. In the end,
Bally Interactive selected CDNetworks to speed its interactive games, dynamic applications and platform
downloads as well as its SSL-based environment. “We threw everything at CDNetworks, and they handled it
all,” says Hagglof.
The Results
After just a week of serving game downloads, SSL and other dynamic applications over CDNetworks’
global, cloud-based PoPs, Bally Interactive realized they had made the right choice. According to Hagglof,
“The results were off the charts. Actually, they were clear to see on the performance charts.” After going live
on CDNetworks infrastructure, Bally Interactive saw game download times improve drastically. Large-file
games that had been taking three to five minutes to download are now ready for play after less than one
minute, reducing game abandonment and growing the user base.
Adding to the boost in user growth, the company also benefitted from a major drop in bandwidth usage.
In fact, Bally Interactive’s bandwidth cost savings have proven to hold steady at 90 percent, virtually
eliminating a major cost element of online gaming. Monthly costs of $25,000 to $30,000 have shrunk
to just $2,500. Even adding in monthly CDN costs, the company has reduced its costs to distribute
applications and content by two-thirds. “We had to double-check our bill at the end of the first month of using
CDNetworks and were elated to see such a low number,” smiles Hagglof. “Three to five times the performance at
a 90 percent discount seemed like a no-brainer to us.”
Large-file games that had been taking three to five minutes to download are now ready for play
after less than one minute, reducing game abandonment and growing the user base.
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In more recent performance measurements, Bally Interactive has seen simultaneous user counts
grow without any reduction in performance. In fact, the company now routinely serves upwards of 500
simultaneous game downloads. “These are full-featured, dynamic games and not your typical lightweight
content,” says Hagglof. To maintain the real-world casino look and feel, each game includes a complex
feature set with a highly visual presentation layer, game-style buttons, and even wheels that spin on
demand.
Needless to say, the online casinos that connect to Bally Interactive’s games stand to benefit from the
improved application and download performance. “Our casino clients are also fighting hard to please their
end users, so we are certain they appreciate our CDNetworks-driven improvements,” says Hagglof.
Websites with Dynamic Applications and High
Bandwidth Usage Benefit
The formula that Bally Interactive uses to optimize the end-user experience adds value far beyond the
gaming industry alone. Today’s marketing and IT teams across nearly all industries are dealing with
demanding consumers who want immersive and personalized experiences. This means higher use of SSL,
recommendation engines, client-specific content, and other dynamic applications being served to a global
audience. That audience demands all those features at high speed. When it comes to creating the best
end-user experience in the age of the consumer, Hagglof sums it up this way: “Very few service providers
can deliver the end-user experience globally the way CDNetworks does for us.”
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About Bally Technologies, Inc.
Founded in 1932, Bally Technologies (NYSE: BYI) provides the global gaming industry with innovative
games, table game products, systems, mobile, and iGaming solutions that drive revenue and provide
operating efficiencies for gaming operators. For more information, please visit http://www.ballytech.com.
Connect with Bally on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Pinterest.
About CDNetworks
CDNetworks is a global content delivery network (CDN) with fully integrated Cloud Security DDoS
protection and web application firewall. Our mission is to transform the Internet into a secure, reliable,
scalable, and high-performing Application Delivery Network. CDNetworks accelerates more than 40,000
websites and cloud services over a network of 160 global PoPs in established and emerging markets
including China and Russia. We have been serving enterprise customers for 15 years across industries
such as gaming, finance, ecommerce, high tech, manufacturing, and media. CDNetworks offices are
located in the U.S., UK, South Korea, China, Japan, and Singapore. For more information, please visit:
http://www.cdnetworks.com
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