Fastly Case Studies RVU's Strategic Use of Fastly's Edge Cloud Platform for Enhanced User Experience and Business Scalability

	RVU's Strategic Use of Fastly's Edge Cloud Platform for Enhanced User Experience and Business Scalability Fastly

RVU's Strategic Use of Fastly's Edge Cloud Platform for Enhanced User Experience and Business Scalability

Fastly

Technology Category	Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms
Applicable Industries	Equipment & Machinery Utilities
Applicable Functions	Quality Assurance
Use Cases	Experimentation Automation Time Sensitive Networking
Services	Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services Testing & Certification
Challenge	RVU, a leading tech company in the UK, owns several market comparison sites and apps. The company has grown through strategic acquisitions, which has led to inconsistencies in tech stacks as each acquired business comes with its own back-end architecture, integrations, and more. This inconsistency posed a challenge to RVU as it sought to provide a secure, single layer of consistency across all its brands. Furthermore, as users have grown increasingly reliant on price-comparison tools, their expectations around security and privacy have also increased. RVU needed a solution that would not only standardize operations across all brands but also fortify all of its brands equally in terms of security and privacy. Read More
About Customer	RVU is a leading tech company in the UK that owns several market comparison sites and apps, including Uswitch for home services and utilities, Money for financial services, and Bankrate for mortgages. The company serves millions of users every month, helping them save on services they use every day. RVU has grown into a national leader in the UK in market comparison tools by focusing on strategic acquisitions. However, the growth-by-acquisition model often leads to inconsistencies in tech stacks, as each acquired business comes with its own back-end architecture, integrations, and more. Read More
Solution	To address these challenges, RVU implemented Fastly’s edge cloud platform as a layer of consistency behind each of its brands. This platform standardizes operations across all brands for performance, experience, and compliance. It allows RVU to scale because each new implementation of Fastly becomes more efficient and enables streamlined workflows for RVU developers. Fastly’s modularity and focus on microservices allow the RVU team to repurpose code across brands without having to start from scratch. To enhance security, RVU began implementing Fastly’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) from day one. Fastly’s WAF provides global protection without any significant performance impact. One of Fastly’s most beneficial features is real-time log streaming, which RVU uses consistently within its WAF. This feature enables leadership to make data-driven security decisions as soon as issues occur. Read More Log in to view content
Contents

Technology Category

Analytics & Modeling - Real Time Analytics

Platform as a Service (PaaS) - Application Development Platforms

Applicable Industries

Equipment & Machinery

Utilities

Applicable Functions

Quality Assurance

Use Cases

Experimentation Automation

Time Sensitive Networking

Services

Cloud Planning, Design & Implementation Services

Testing & Certification

Challenge

RVU, a leading tech company in the UK, owns several market comparison sites and apps. The company has grown through strategic acquisitions, which has led to inconsistencies in tech stacks as each acquired business comes with its own back-end architecture, integrations, and more. This inconsistency posed a challenge to RVU as it sought to provide a secure, single layer of consistency across all its brands. Furthermore, as users have grown increasingly reliant on price-comparison tools, their expectations around security and privacy have also increased. RVU needed a solution that would not only standardize operations across all brands but also fortify all of its brands equally in terms of security and privacy.

About Customer

RVU is a leading tech company in the UK that owns several market comparison sites and apps, including Uswitch for home services and utilities, Money for financial services, and Bankrate for mortgages. The company serves millions of users every month, helping them save on services they use every day. RVU has grown into a national leader in the UK in market comparison tools by focusing on strategic acquisitions. However, the growth-by-acquisition model often leads to inconsistencies in tech stacks, as each acquired business comes with its own back-end architecture, integrations, and more.

Solution

To address these challenges, RVU implemented Fastly’s edge cloud platform as a layer of consistency behind each of its brands. This platform standardizes operations across all brands for performance, experience, and compliance. It allows RVU to scale because each new implementation of Fastly becomes more efficient and enables streamlined workflows for RVU developers. Fastly’s modularity and focus on microservices allow the RVU team to repurpose code across brands without having to start from scratch. To enhance security, RVU began implementing Fastly’s Web Application Firewall (WAF) from day one. Fastly’s WAF provides global protection without any significant performance impact. One of Fastly’s most beneficial features is real-time log streaming, which RVU uses consistently within its WAF. This feature enables leadership to make data-driven security decisions as soon as issues occur.

Impact #1	By using Fastly’s edge cloud platform as an extension of their network, RVU has built innovative efficiencies into its pipeline. This has allowed new brands to onboard sooner, developers to solve problems more effectively, and sites to load even faster. The decrease in RVU’s time to first byte (TTFB) by approximately 30% allows users to access always-current, money-saving information right when they need it. This has enabled the RVU brand to consistently outpace and outperform the competition. Furthermore, Fastly’s new serverless compute environment, Compute@Edge, is already part of RVU’s vision for the future. The team plans on experimenting with parallel fetches, redirects, pixel tracking, click tracking, and authorization — all opportunities to externalize business logic that weren’t possible before.

Impact #1

By using Fastly’s edge cloud platform as an extension of their network, RVU has built innovative efficiencies into its pipeline. This has allowed new brands to onboard sooner, developers to solve problems more effectively, and sites to load even faster. The decrease in RVU’s time to first byte (TTFB) by approximately 30% allows users to access always-current, money-saving information right when they need it. This has enabled the RVU brand to consistently outpace and outperform the competition. Furthermore, Fastly’s new serverless compute environment, Compute@Edge, is already part of RVU’s vision for the future. The team plans on experimenting with parallel fetches, redirects, pixel tracking, click tracking, and authorization — all opportunities to externalize business logic that weren’t possible before.

Benefit #1	New brands onboard sooner
Benefit #2	Developers solve problems more effectively
Benefit #3	Sites load even faster

Benefit #1

New brands onboard sooner

Benefit #2

Developers solve problems more effectively

Benefit #3

Sites load even faster

Download PDF Version

Overview

RVU's Strategic Use of Fastly's Edge Cloud Platform for Enhanced User Experience and Business Scalability

Operational Impact

Quantitative Benefit