www.randa.org

solutions:

• Akamai HD Network
• Akamai Media Analytics
• QoS Monitor
• Akamai Professional Services

DOWNLOAD R&A CASE STUDY

• Supported 5 million unique visitors during Championship week
• Delivered over 23,000 concurrent streams
• Served peak of 28 Gbps of live streaming
• Offloaded nearly 100% of bandwidth
• Scaled instantly to support millions of site visitors
• Gained ability to deliver optimised version of site to mobile devices
• Avoided Web infrastructure build-out

Formed in 2004 and based in St Andrews, Scotland, The R&A drives and supports activities that are undertaken for the benefit of the game of golf. Among these, The R&A organises The Open Championship, golf’s oldest Major Championship, along with a number of amateur and junior events. In addition, together with the United States Golf Association, The R&A is responsible for administering the Rules of Golf with the consent of 143 organisations from the amateur and professional game. The R&A relies on the Internet to deliver the latest golf news, information, and tournament scores to the millions of golf fans around the world.

The R&A is continually evolving its offerings to keep pace with rapid technological changes and the rise of mobile and social networks. For example, for the 2009 Open Championship, it developed an enhanced mobile site and delivered content to mobile devices. As The R&A serves content to a global audience, it is cognizant of the fact that its content is delivered on a broad range of browsers, desktops and handsets – not all of which are the latest generation. At the same time, for the 2010 Open Championship – the 150th Anniversary – The R&A planned to make the event viewable in high definition (HD) online. “We want to offer golf fans the best possible experience of The Open, whether that means they are taking advantage of the latest technologies or are on an older platform,” explains Kevin Bain, Digital Media Manager for The R&A.

With Web servers in London and the need to quickly and reliably deliver mobile and HD content to viewers worldwide, The R&A knew it needed to find a way to achieve its goals.