Imperva Case Studies Datalex's Integration of Imperva with F5 for Advanced Bot Protection

Edit This Case Study Record

	Datalex's Integration of Imperva with F5 for Advanced Bot Protection Imperva

Datalex's Integration of Imperva with F5 for Advanced Bot Protection

Imperva

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Robotic Process Automation (RPA) Sensors - Environmental Sensors
Applicable Industries	Cement Retail
Applicable Functions	Logistics & Transportation Maintenance
Use Cases	Chatbots Inventory Management
Services	System Integration
Challenge	Datalex, a leading provider of a unified Digital Commerce Platform, was facing a significant challenge with bad actors scraping their customers' sites. This activity was diminishing SEO, luring away upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and increasing Global Distribution System (GDS) API pull costs. The travel industry, in which Datalex operates, is particularly vulnerable to such activities due to the valuable data available on their sites. Persistent scrapers were stealing content from travel sites, posting it on their own sites, and monitoring fare prices to undercut with lower fare offerings. One of Datalex's airline customers was being bombarded with deep-digging attacks, driving up backend payment costs. Even smaller customer sites were hit by bots multiple times a day, slowing them down or even taking them offline. Datalex had been using an anti-bot solution from F5 Networks, but it was proving ineffective in distinguishing good bots from bad ones and was burdensome to manage. Read More
About Customer	Datalex is an Ireland-based company that provides a unified Digital Commerce Platform, combining pricing, shopping, order management, and customer insights to deliver competitive and differentiated retail experiences at every touch point in the travel journey. Voted the 'World's Leading Travel Merchandising Solution Provider' at the 2014 World Travel Awards, Datalex's commerce platform enables a travel marketplace of over one billion shoppers covering every corner of the globe. Its customers include some of the world's most innovative airline retail brands such as Aer Lingus, Abacus, Air China, Air Transat, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Edelweiss, HP Enterprise Services, JetBlue Airways, Philippine Airlines, SITA, Swiss International Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, West Air, and WestJet. Read More
Solution	Datalex found a solution in Imperva Bot Management. This solution was able to detect more because of its graduated path, unlike previous solutions. It was able to block persistent scrapers, which F5 Networks was unable to do. Imperva Bot Management offered granular controls around rate limiting and signature detection, which F5 Networks did not. It also used device fingerprinting, behavioural modelling of each domain's web traffic, automated JavaScript detection, and other advanced browser validation tools. Imperva Bot Management's level of automation was unique among bot detection solutions, allowing Datalex's team to easily set tolerance levels, limits, and specify how to block bad traffic. Once Imperva Bot Management was implemented on the site, it was able to block all bad bots. After tuning was completed, it eliminated all but allowed scrapers. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Robotic Process Automation (RPA)

Sensors - Environmental Sensors

Applicable Industries

Cement

Retail

Applicable Functions

Logistics & Transportation

Maintenance

Use Cases

Chatbots

Inventory Management

Services

System Integration

Challenge

Datalex, a leading provider of a unified Digital Commerce Platform, was facing a significant challenge with bad actors scraping their customers' sites. This activity was diminishing SEO, luring away upsell and cross-sell opportunities, and increasing Global Distribution System (GDS) API pull costs. The travel industry, in which Datalex operates, is particularly vulnerable to such activities due to the valuable data available on their sites. Persistent scrapers were stealing content from travel sites, posting it on their own sites, and monitoring fare prices to undercut with lower fare offerings. One of Datalex's airline customers was being bombarded with deep-digging attacks, driving up backend payment costs. Even smaller customer sites were hit by bots multiple times a day, slowing them down or even taking them offline. Datalex had been using an anti-bot solution from F5 Networks, but it was proving ineffective in distinguishing good bots from bad ones and was burdensome to manage.

About Customer

Datalex is an Ireland-based company that provides a unified Digital Commerce Platform, combining pricing, shopping, order management, and customer insights to deliver competitive and differentiated retail experiences at every touch point in the travel journey. Voted the 'World's Leading Travel Merchandising Solution Provider' at the 2014 World Travel Awards, Datalex's commerce platform enables a travel marketplace of over one billion shoppers covering every corner of the globe. Its customers include some of the world's most innovative airline retail brands such as Aer Lingus, Abacus, Air China, Air Transat, Brussels Airlines, Copa Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Edelweiss, HP Enterprise Services, JetBlue Airways, Philippine Airlines, SITA, Swiss International Air Lines, Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Australia, West Air, and WestJet.

Solution

Datalex found a solution in Imperva Bot Management. This solution was able to detect more because of its graduated path, unlike previous solutions. It was able to block persistent scrapers, which F5 Networks was unable to do. Imperva Bot Management offered granular controls around rate limiting and signature detection, which F5 Networks did not. It also used device fingerprinting, behavioural modelling of each domain's web traffic, automated JavaScript detection, and other advanced browser validation tools. Imperva Bot Management's level of automation was unique among bot detection solutions, allowing Datalex's team to easily set tolerance levels, limits, and specify how to block bad traffic. Once Imperva Bot Management was implemented on the site, it was able to block all bad bots. After tuning was completed, it eliminated all but allowed scrapers.

Impact #1	The integration of Imperva with F5 has resulted in significant operational benefits for Datalex. The solution has effectively blocked advanced persistent bots, relieving the heavy administrative load that was previously required to manage bot traffic. The level of automation provided by Imperva Bot Management is unique among bot detection solutions, allowing Datalex's team to easily set tolerance levels, limits, and specify how to block bad traffic. This has resulted in the elimination of advanced scrapers, making sites more stable and secure than ever. The solution has also forced advanced persistent scrapers to 'throw in the towel', completely eliminating all unruly web scraping on customer sites. This has significantly increased site stability, especially for smaller customers whose sites could be brought down by a big hit. On the security side, Imperva Bot Management has been a helpful tool to protect against brute force login attempts, vulnerability scanning, and other attacks against their sites.

Impact #1

The integration of Imperva with F5 has resulted in significant operational benefits for Datalex. The solution has effectively blocked advanced persistent bots, relieving the heavy administrative load that was previously required to manage bot traffic. The level of automation provided by Imperva Bot Management is unique among bot detection solutions, allowing Datalex's team to easily set tolerance levels, limits, and specify how to block bad traffic. This has resulted in the elimination of advanced scrapers, making sites more stable and secure than ever. The solution has also forced advanced persistent scrapers to 'throw in the towel', completely eliminating all unruly web scraping on customer sites. This has significantly increased site stability, especially for smaller customers whose sites could be brought down by a big hit. On the security side, Imperva Bot Management has been a helpful tool to protect against brute force login attempts, vulnerability scanning, and other attacks against their sites.

Benefit #1	20%-30% decrease in page requests
Benefit #2	Elimination of unwanted airfare scraping
Benefit #3	Increased availability at lower costs

Benefit #1

20%-30% decrease in page requests

Benefit #2

Elimination of unwanted airfare scraping

Benefit #3

Increased availability at lower costs

Download PDF Version

Overview

Datalex's Integration of Imperva with F5 for Advanced Bot Protection

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit