Akamai improves Rugby World Cup experience

The RFU Rugby World Cup website has been set up to cope with increased demand with help from Akamai's Secure Dynamic Site Delivery solution.

Akamai Technologies, the leading global service provider for accelerating content and applications online, has announced that the English Rugby Football Union (RFU) has asked the company to improve the speed and performance of its England Supporters' 2007 World Cup site with its Secure Dynamic Site Delivery solution.

Around one million rugby fans from around the world are expected to visit the site during the six weeks of the World Cup competition which is being held in France this year, 7 September - 20 October.

Akamai's Secure Dynamic Site Delivery solution will help in several ways.

Allow more control over the delivery of applications.

Improve customer experience by making the site faster and more reliable.

Reduce infrastructure costs by offloading traffic from existing web infrastructure, with no additional hardware required.

Scale to meet peak usage requirements.

Help protect content and reduce security risk.

A micro-site, which is part of the main RFU website, contains exclusive content and features, including daily video footage from inside the England camp, "behind the scenes" photos, Rob Andrew's personal opinion column, Brian Ashton's QandA feature "Ask Ashton" and a daily England rugby podcast.

Emma Wright, Digital Media Manager at Akamai, said: "When England became World Champions in 2003, interest in rugby exploded, with an estimated 650,000 fans visiting the rfu.com website, which sometimes struggled to cope with the demand.

"The new site is expected to attract over a million visitors culminating in the final on 20 October 2007 and Akamai will be supporting site delivery throughout".

Kate Saunders, the RFU's Digital Media Manager, said: "Akamai is a great partner to help us deliver the ultimate rugby experience to England fans worldwide.

"The World Cup site will also play a major role in our grassroots campaign Go Play Rugby, which aims to bring former players back into the game.

"Go Play Rugby is the largest recruitment drive ever mounted by a sport in the UK and we're confident the website will give it a huge profile".

Akamai will be allowing the site to meet the peaks in demand that are anticipated during the 44 days of the competition, and ensuring users are able to navigate the site easily and download pages quickly.

Owing to the number of global expatriates who support rugby, the traffic to the site will be global and may vary considerably according to which teams are playing and who gets through to the final on 20 October.

Back to top