The FFT hosts and supports large tournaments such as the Grand Chelem Roland-Garros - also known as the French Open. During the 2015 Roland-Garros tournament, the external DNS services experienced a high volume of traffic in a short period of time - resulting in long DNS resolution times and slow Internet access. This prompted the FFT to consider an alternative in-house solution to achieve increased network reliability and security, whilst also being cost-effective. A solution was needed that was easy to implement, would bring a single point of management to the team, and facilitate the transition smoothly. EfficientIP’s SOLIDserver operating system allows the FFT to simply manage and deploy cost-effective DNS services, and ensure high availability across core network services.
Franck Labat, CTO at the FFT, said: “During the tournament there are billions of DNS requests that have to be served; we have more than 3000 journalists, photographers, VIPs, players and coaches using our network services. Therefore, we cannot afford any interruptions and it’s vital we can provide good availability –quite simply, the quality of these services are key to the reputation of Roland-Garros.”
He continued, “The use of many personal devices to access the network also places a large demand on our network, which if left unmanaged could lead to all manner of security issues – including the loss of sensitive data.”
Labat concluded, “There was no other solution available on the market that was able to compete with SOLIDserver in terms of DNS performance. We wanted an appliance that could easily be integrated into our existing IT environment and be user-friendly.”
As part of the SOLIDserver implementation, the FFT deployed DNS Blast to ensure performance of DNS resolution and the absorption of large amounts of traffic. Not only did this help during the tournament, but the company will now always be able to answer legitimate traffic. DNS Guardian was also deployed to monitor and analyse DNS traffic with suspicious behaviour; the FFT was unable to monitor all devices connected to the network before - but it can now detect DDoS attacks, data exfiltration and much more.
David Williamson, CEO of EfficientIP, said: “The boom in personal devices connecting to networks has upped the demand for organisations to ensure they maintain reliability and security. Roland-Garros’ experience at the 2015 tournament shows just how important DNS server security is. If a DNS server crashes it can have disastrous consequences for an organisation, yet most are still leaving themselves vulnerable to attack.”
He added, “As a French company ourselves, we are very proud to be supporting the French Tennis Federation, and we look forward to continuing to work with them to ensure they no longer face any DNS issues.”
