F5 Case Studies Education Solution Provider Helps Customers Do More with Less Using F5 Solutions

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	Education Solution Provider Helps Customers Do More with Less Using F5 Solutions F5

Education Solution Provider Helps Customers Do More with Less Using F5 Solutions

Technology Category	Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries	Education
Applicable Functions	Business Operation
Use Cases	Traffic Monitoring Remote Asset Management Cybersecurity
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services System Integration
Challenge	Hobsons, an education solution provider, delivers a suite of education-oriented Software as a Service (SaaS)-based applications to colleges and universities. These include web-based course and career planning, recruiting, enrollment, and retention tools. The company's application delivery infrastructure is mission-critical, and it has to manage significant increases in web traffic that coincide with student application and enrollment deadlines. Hobsons also has to support a range of users, including prospective students completing online applications and administrators needing access to the same systems for recruitment efforts and application reviews. The company needed a solution that could easily direct different types of traffic to different pools of servers and manage users’ authorization and access to various applications, without requiring modifications or adjustments on the customer's end. Read More
About Customer	Hobsons is an education solution provider that was founded in 1974. The company provides web-based technologies that help educational institutions promote students’ readiness for college and the workplace, advance their marketing initiatives, recruit students, manage information, and deliver online tools that help increase student retention. Hobsons relies on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, and delivering highly available and reliable applications to its customers is the company’s top priority. The company has to contend with significant increases in web traffic that coincides with student application and enrollment deadlines. Hobsons also has to support a range of users, including prospective students completing online applications and administrators needing access to the same systems for recruitment efforts and application reviews. Read More
Solution	Hobsons implemented BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) at its four data centers, and BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager (GTM) at two of the data centers. The deployment coincided with the release of BIG-IP version 10 (v10), which enables BIG-IP LTM, BIG-IP WebAccelerator, and BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM) modules to run natively on F5’s TMOS plug-in architecture. Using iRules, Hobsons can easily direct traffic to the appropriate application server pools—whether physical or virtual—and manage the redirection of traffic from the data center that it closed to other locations, as well as from its legacy systems to its newer applications. To optimize the performance of its applications, Hobsons also uses BIG-IP WebAccelerator features, such as: Intelligent Browsing Referencing, SSL offload, and dynamic caching and compression. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Education

Applicable Functions

Business Operation

Use Cases

Traffic Monitoring

Remote Asset Management

Cybersecurity

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

System Integration

Challenge

Hobsons, an education solution provider, delivers a suite of education-oriented Software as a Service (SaaS)-based applications to colleges and universities. These include web-based course and career planning, recruiting, enrollment, and retention tools. The company's application delivery infrastructure is mission-critical, and it has to manage significant increases in web traffic that coincide with student application and enrollment deadlines. Hobsons also has to support a range of users, including prospective students completing online applications and administrators needing access to the same systems for recruitment efforts and application reviews. The company needed a solution that could easily direct different types of traffic to different pools of servers and manage users’ authorization and access to various applications, without requiring modifications or adjustments on the customer's end.

About Customer

Hobsons is an education solution provider that was founded in 1974. The company provides web-based technologies that help educational institutions promote students’ readiness for college and the workplace, advance their marketing initiatives, recruit students, manage information, and deliver online tools that help increase student retention. Hobsons relies on a Software as a Service (SaaS) model, and delivering highly available and reliable applications to its customers is the company’s top priority. The company has to contend with significant increases in web traffic that coincides with student application and enrollment deadlines. Hobsons also has to support a range of users, including prospective students completing online applications and administrators needing access to the same systems for recruitment efforts and application reviews.

Solution

Hobsons implemented BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) at its four data centers, and BIG-IP Global Traffic Manager (GTM) at two of the data centers. The deployment coincided with the release of BIG-IP version 10 (v10), which enables BIG-IP LTM, BIG-IP WebAccelerator, and BIG-IP Application Security Manager (ASM) modules to run natively on F5’s TMOS plug-in architecture. Using iRules, Hobsons can easily direct traffic to the appropriate application server pools—whether physical or virtual—and manage the redirection of traffic from the data center that it closed to other locations, as well as from its legacy systems to its newer applications. To optimize the performance of its applications, Hobsons also uses BIG-IP WebAccelerator features, such as: Intelligent Browsing Referencing, SSL offload, and dynamic caching and compression.

Impact #1	With the BIG-IP system, Hobsons has streamlined its data center management, resulting in significant time savings.
Impact #2	The flexible management and server offload capabilities that F5 products provide, result in lower costs for Hobsons, and, consequently, a better, more cost-effective SaaS environment for Hobsons’ customers.
Impact #3	The BIG-IP system results in server hardware cost savings for Hobsons because it enables the company to offload CPU-intensive tasks from its web and application servers.

Impact #1

With the BIG-IP system, Hobsons has streamlined its data center management, resulting in significant time savings.

Impact #2

The flexible management and server offload capabilities that F5 products provide, result in lower costs for Hobsons, and, consequently, a better, more cost-effective SaaS environment for Hobsons’ customers.

Impact #3

The BIG-IP system results in server hardware cost savings for Hobsons because it enables the company to offload CPU-intensive tasks from its web and application servers.

Benefit #1	The offloading of SSL tasks and browser connections directly translates to roughly a 20 to 30 percent reduction in the number of servers needed to support the application.
Benefit #2	The compression capabilities of BIG-IP devices reduce bandwidth usage by 30 to 50 percent.

Benefit #1

The offloading of SSL tasks and browser connections directly translates to roughly a 20 to 30 percent reduction in the number of servers needed to support the application.

Benefit #2

The compression capabilities of BIG-IP devices reduce bandwidth usage by 30 to 50 percent.

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Overview

Education Solution Provider Helps Customers Do More with Less Using F5 Solutions

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit