Fast Facts
Industry: Consumer
Geography: International
Business Challenge: To establish an open source platform to support Centrebet’s OpenBet online betting application and provide the reliability demanded by a 24×7x365 business
Migration Path: Mixture of heterogeneous systems to Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Red Hat Network Satellite
Solution:
- Software: OpenBet, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Red Hat Network Satellite
- Hardware: 10 x HP DL360 G5, 10 x Sun Sunfire x4200
Benefits: Experienced increased performance results, lowered costs with the elimination of licensing costs and easy-to-manage maintenance for its solution
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BACKGROUND
Centrebet was Australia’s first government-approved bookmaker to offer online sports betting. Today, it’s regarded around the world as one of the most reputable and established sports and racing betting operators.
Since its beginnings in 1992, Centrebet has grown into a leading global wagering and gaming company offering competitive fixed-odds betting via the Internet or phone. Its offerings cover a wide range of sports and racing events with availability 24 hours per day, 7 days per week.
Centrebet also offers state-of-the-art gaming products through Centrebet Poker and Centrebet Casino. All licensed companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Centrebet International Limited, which is today listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX Code: CIL).
Generating revenue from gaming services means that Centrebet relies on a loyal customer base.
“ICE Systems understands high availability computing. We have invested and honed our expertise to consistently design and deliver highly reliable, resilient and robust enterprise computing platforms.” explained Ian Atkins, Sales Director at ICE Systems.
“Centrebet customers enjoy 24 hour-a-day, 365 day-a-year access to our services, but if those services are unavailable, our customers will simply go somewhere else,” said Shane Paterson, Network Operations Manager for Centrebet.
“Our backend IT systems are the core of our revenue-generating business and how we manage and maintain the technology is critical to the ongoing success and growth of the company.”
CHALLENGE
In May 2007, Centrebet introduced the Orbis OpenBet application for establishing and maintaining high-traffic gambling websites. OpenBet delivered a solution that would enable Centrebet to provide customers with the ability to bet and play across multiple products and platforms in all languages and currencies.
“Using OpenBet meant we had a user-friendly, singular, clear view of all customers via comprehensive management and reporting tools, but it also demanded we had a steadfast open source platform to run it on,” said Paterson.
Centrebet also recognised the need to manage its open source infrastructure in an efficient manner. Without a dedicated management resource, the company had to look for a solution for managing patch deployment and software consistency.
SOLUTION
Working with technical partner ICE Systems, one of Australia’s premier Systems Integration houses specialising in the design and implementation of high-availability, storage, disaster-recovery and backup solutions, Centrebet implemented Red Hat Enterprise Linux on a combination of HP and Sun hardware, including 10 HP DL360 G5s and 10 x Sun Sunfire x4200s, which provided a solid base for the company’s OpenBet application.
“Most of the software that we were planning to install was geared toward running on Red Hat solutions, and we knew that with Red Hat we would have a consistently supported platform, which was a high priority,” said Paterson.
“We were familiar with the all of the available Linux-based operating systems on the market, but Red Hat offered a highly secure operating system with lower ongoing security maintenance costs, and it was the only proven platform with the support to back it.”
Centrebet also introduced Red Hat Network Satellite, a centralised tool to help boost productivity by creating a single template for managing multiple servers, enabling the organisation to tie all of the management and maintenance of its machines into a single, easy-to-use interface.
According to Sam Higgins, an analyst for Australian research firm, Longhaus (http://www.longhaus.com), only Red Hat provides a value-added, appliance-based option that offers users a way to keep operating systems current, updated and, more importantly, secure.
BENEFITS
Today, Centrebet boasts a resilient and robust IT environment that can be patched or upgraded seamlessly, with limited interruption to its customer base.
“In our 24/7 business, uptime is paramount. Today our system stability is critical in the website delivery to the customer and we attribute that stability to our Red Hat technology,” said Paterson.
“If ever we do experience any problems, we can instantly diagnose the issue and have immediate access to the excellent support available from ICE Systems and Red Hat.”
In addition to impressive performance results, Centrebet has benefited from significant cost savings with the ability to eliminate the need for expensive software licence renewals and the need to invest in additional administrative resources.
“Not only is ICE Systems’ implementation of Red Hat helping us make money by supporting our revenue-generating operations, but it is also helping us to save money,” said Paterson.
Red Hat Network Satellite’s scheduled maintenance has also proven beneficial for Centrebet. It has enabled customer packages to be loaded on Red Hat Network Satellite Server and automatically deployed either at scheduled times or as required.
“At ICE Systems, our goal is to understand the client’s business and support their goals by utilising proven technology. We ensure that the technology is a perfect fit and fully supported.” said Patrick Speare, Senior ICE Systems Solutions Consultant.
Centrebet’s next priority is to work with ICE Systems and Red Hat on implementing a viable virtualisation solution.