www.sophos.com

solutions:

• Electronic Software Delivery

DOWNLOAD SOPHOS CASE STUDY

• Averages greater than 99.9% download success rate
• Offloads average of over 85% of traffic
• Handles 20X more traffic with no infrastructure build out
• Saved tens of thousands of pounds annually by shutting down co-location facility
• Saved hundreds of thousands of pounds by avoiding data-center build out

With over 100 million users in more than 150 countries, Sophos provides a full range of market-leading security solutions to businesses around the world. For the last ten years, the Internet has been the delivery hub for the company's software products and updates to customers globally. Via its Web site, Sophos offers thousands of electronic files - some of which are hundreds of MB in size – and as many as eight security and hundreds of antispam updates per day. The company sees an average of over 350 million hits per day and handles 200 TB worth of traffic each month.

Sophos initially explored options such as global load balancing and supplementing its London facility by serving updates out of its data center in Canada. "We like to be as self-reliant as possible, but we quickly realized that it would be too expensive and complex to address this issue in-house," explains Andy Smith, Senior Systems Engineer, Sophos.

Because Akamai avoids Internet problem spots and applies performance-enhancing compression and encoding technologies, Sophos' customers receive downloads quickly. When Sophos' customers visit the company's site for updates, they're getting files from a server that is geographically nearby. "We have successfully expanded our business through innovative products and rapid response to new threats. Akamai's ability to deliver fast, reliable updates to our customers has helped make this growth possible," says Smith. In fact, average download success rates are now over 99.9%.