Paddypower Betfair brochure - 2017

A POWERHOUSE OF TECHNOLOGY

PROJECT SPONSORS

Powering forward with new technology Written by: Fran Roberts Produced by: Danielle Harris

PADDY POWER BETFAIR, ONE OF THE WORLD’S LARGEST ONLINE GAMBLING COMPANIES, HAS INVESTED STRONGLY IN TECHNOLOGY SINCE THE COMPANY’S FORMATION LAST YEAR – INCLUDING MOVING TWO DATA CENTRES ACROSS THE IRISH SEA

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echnology certainly looks set to play an integral role in the future success of Paddy Power Betfair, one of the world’s largest online gambling company.

“Our company’s performing well, we’ve got strong year-on-year growth. Alongside the technology, our greatest development is probably our i2 platform and ensuring that we are head and shoulders above our competition,” states Peter Giles, Senior Data Centre Manager.

“If we’re not innovating, we are effectively standing still. That’s just not an option for our business,” notes Giles. “We always like to ensure our place at the top of the queue for the latest and greatest technologies, and to see how we can integrate that into our estate, and products.” i2 stands for Infrastructure 2 and is Paddy Power Betfair’s

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Inside Paddy Power Betfair’s data centre

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ENABLING USERS AND THEIR BUSINESS IN A DIGITAL WORLD Computacenter is Europe’s leading independent provider of IT infrastructure services, enabling users and their business. We advise organisations on IT strategy, implement the most appropriate technology, optimise its performance, and manage our customers’ infrastructures. In doing this we help CIOs and IT departments in enterprise and corporate organisations maximise productivity and the business value of IT for internal and external users.

DISCOVER HOW COMPUTACENTER MAKES DIGITAL WORK Computacenter helps establish flexible foundations for the future with physical, virtual and cloud infrastructure solutions. From software-defined and hyperconverged, to information, analytics, network and security solutions, we understand the platforms and the processes needed to maximise agility for IT and the business.

We bring together existing and emerging technologies to establish stable and sustainable infrastructure foundations in the datacenter and beyond, by combining best-ofbreed technologies with expert advice and seamless services. We future-proof your Digital Gateway (infrastructure) to support mobile work styles, big data analytics, the Internet of Things, cloud and virtualised workloads.

With our end-to-end expertise and vendor relationships, we help organisations bring together the best solutions and deliver the best outcomes.

Computacenter will expand and open an office premises in the centre of Dublin Computacenter is excited to announce that we are opening an office in the heart of Dublin. It is a decision that we have considered for some time and we now feel that time is absolutely perfect; it will give us closer proximity to our long standing existing customers who are based in Ireland whilst also allowing us to expand our offerings and services to new customers. In recent years, Ireland, and the city of Dublin in particular, has established itself as a popular European base for large technology companies like salesforce.com, Google, Facebook and Twitter. Computacenter’s view

is that Ireland understands the current and future value of the technology and web industry and is wholeheartedly embracing it.

This, coupled with Computacenter’s core values of ‘putting our customers first’, ‘inspiring success’ and ‘always considering the long term’; presents us with a new and exciting journey ahead.

Computacenter’s focus on the Technology & eGaming sector Computacenter supports many technology and eGaming companies throughout the business and IT consolidation process.

We take a holistic approach to rationalising, transforming and optimising IT, driving better value for the business and better outcomes for users. We consolidate datacenters. We upgrade networks. And we transform licensed retail offices.

Maximising business agility We help eGaming companies unlock financial and efficiency savings from their datacenter operations following a merger or acquisition. Our independent assessments and industrialised processes enable CIOs to build the infrastructure foundations needed to maximise agility and availability. We identify technologies that need to retired or replaced, and advise on consolidation and standardisation strategies for both systems and suppliers. From storage arrays and networking environments to server farms and private clouds, we help CIOs achieve an optimal balance between cost, performance and risk.

Safeguarding customer data Computacenter brings expertise

to every stage of the security cycle - from protection and detection to reaction and prevention. By taking a holistic approach across the workplace, the network, the datacenter and the cloud, we help to strengthen and simplify security following a merger or acquisition. From deploying next-generation defences and integrating existing monitoring tools to assessing vulnerabilities and managing system patching, we help to mitigate security risks before, during and after consolidation initiatives.

Enabling users From a licensed betting office to a company’s headquarters, we source and deploy the workplace technologies needed to deliver a compelling and consistent eGaming experience. Following a merger or acquisition, we help CIOs map the right IT devices and services to the right user workstyles. We also review and renegotiate software agreements to prevent under- or over-utilisation.

Our expertise spans the entire hardware and software portfolio – from collaboration and print solutions to virtual and mobile client devices. We benchmark.

We configure. And we maintain.

Unlocking business insights Computacenter helps e-gaming companies extract more value from their data so they can drive greater competitive advantage and make smarter decisions.

As a trusted advisor, we help to evaluate and implement analytics solutions, such as data visualisation and data lakes, as well as lay the infrastructure foundations needed to detect, capture and analyse customers’ data.

For more information please visit: www.computacenter.com/uk/egaming

PA D D Y P O W E R B E T FA I R

“THIS WAS REVOLUTIONARY, NOBODY WAS REALLY DOING IT IN THE MARKET AND CERTAINLY NOBODY WAS DOING IT AS WELL AS BETFAIR WERE DOING IT” – Peter Giles, Senior Data Centre Manager

Brian Cullen

Head of Infrastructure

“I love technology and I’ve had a career in several technical leadership roles, primarily in banks prior to joining Paddy Power Betfair five years ago. During my 18 years in the banks I’ve gathered a deep technical expertise across various disciplines – especially data centres, networking, virtualisation, storage and infrastructure design and with that delivering large-scale migrations in mission critical environments.

In 2012 I wanted a change of scene and joined Paddy Power. During the last five years I have had the following roles: Senior Engineering Design Lead, Head of Networking and Head of Infrastructure prior to the Paddy Power and Betfair merger and post-merger continued with the role of Head of Infrastructure in the new combined organisation.”

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next generation infrastructure platform, which is comprised of a private cloud and a continuous delivery pipeline used to deploy the company’s software to that cloud.

“The i2 cloud works pretty much like any publicly available cloud operator but is entirely hosted by Paddy Power Betfair,” observes Brian Cullen, Head of Infrastructure. “It gives developers the ability to write applications and deliver it all the way through the pipeline to production for

our customers. The single customer platform is a common platform we’re building as part of hosting multiple brands. Paddy Power and Betfair branded applications are going to run on this platform. The single customer platform runs on i2 and it is the largest project for our technology team for 2017.”

REVOLUTIONARY TECHNOLOGY Despite being a household name, Paddy Power Betfair is a relatively

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new entity – the organisation was formed in 2016 following the merger of Paddy Power Plc and Betfair Plc. “Paddy Power Betfair is one of the world’s leading sports betting and gaming operators,” advises Giles.

“We operate four main brands – Paddy Power, Betfair, Sportsbet – a major sporting operator in Australia – and TVG, a major operator in the United States. Worldwide we have about four million customers.”

Paddy Power was formed in 1988 through the merger of three Irish bookmakers. In 2000, the company established its online presence with the launch of paddypower.com. In the same year, Betfair was launched.

“It was one of the first online gaming marketplaces for punters to bet against each other on sporting and cultural events around the world.

This was revolutionary, nobody was really doing it in the market and certainly nobody was doing it as well as Betfair,” comments Giles.

Over the years, the two companies expanded their respective online footprints with the introduction of online poker, mobile betting

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and online casinos. As the rival companies expanded, so did the amount of business being processed.

“In 2010, Betfair’s exchange was processing more transactions than all of the European stock exchanges combined in a single day,” advises Giles. In November 2011, Paddy Power was the largest bookmaker in Europe by total share value.

The merger of the two companies created one of the world’s biggest online gambling companies, making it a FTSE 100 company. Paddy Power Betfair has over 7,000 employees and over 600 bookmaking shops. “We operate on five real core values and they are – collaboration, integrity, agility, low ego and a relentless will to win,” Giles observes.

GIANTS OF ONLINE GAMBLING Of course, merging two giants of online gambling has required a number of consolidation activities.

One of the largest was the migration of data centres from the Isle of Man to Dublin. “As part of the merger, we decided for operational and regulatory reasons to migrate two

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Peter Giles

Senior Data Centre Manager “My responsibility and accountability is to ensure the delivery, implementation and support of Paddy Power Betfair’s Data Centre and corporate hosting estate. Working closely with strategic projects and program delivering against road-maps, strategy and investment plans created and owned by the team. All while ensuring alignment to the overarching IT and Business strategy. I am a strongly experienced in manager, maintaining and supporting 24x7 Data Centre critical operational environments. Responsible for managing a team of engineers, their performance, workload and development, with a passion for operational prudence, transparency, simplicity and team engagement, while managing key stakeholders ensuring expectations are clearly set and managed.”

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TRUST AND CONFIDENCE DELIVERED Tech Move Solutions provides Trusted, Specialist Logistics and Value Added Solutions for the Safe & Secure movement of High Value I.T Equipment Globally Some of the services we offer include White Glove Deliveries, Datacentre Relocations, Site Surveys, Project Management, RAMS, Reverse Logistics, Rack / Server Builds, Certified Electronic Waste Disposal, Asset Collections / Management / Refurbishment, Specialist Packaging

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TECHNOLOGY

THE ORGANISATION WAS FORMED IN 2016 FOLLOWING THE MERGER OF PADDY POWER PLC AND BETFAIR PLC

Paddy Power data centres from the Isle of Man to Dublin. The project started in May 2016 and scheduled to be finished by October of that year. Six months for any data centre move is aggressive, never mind two within two weeks of each other.

With excellent collaboration and pace displayed by the infrastructure team, the migration was completed on time,” advises Giles.

One of the main reasons for the move was to be able to regulate the Paddy Power business through the same regulatory authority as Betfair. “Essentially, it was part of a consolidation of regulatory authorities which necessitated moving data centres,” comments Cullen.

The move was very ambitious and was designed to minimise disruption

to customers as much as possible.

“The migration was to be completed within a two-week window,” Giles continues. “We’re talking about downing two live production sites, moving one, bringing it back online in Dublin, and two weeks later downing the other data centre in the Isle of Man, moving it to Dublin, and bringing it back online.

All of this with little or no impact to our customers.” Such a short turnaround helped to motivate the staff, as Cullen illustrates: “There’s nothing like an unmovable deadline to focus the hearts and minds of the team.”

UNDERSTANDING THE CHALLENGES Short timeframes were not the only challenge posed by the project.

“Having come from the heritage Betfair organisation, the greatest challenge for me,” explains Giles “was understanding how I could consolidate one of the heritage Paddy Power data centres in Dublin, which I knew little or nothing about, into one of the heritage Betfair data

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centres, which I obviously knew a considerable amount about.”

In order to build an understanding of the legacy estate being inherited, a thorough audit was carried out.

“We carried out a complete audit of the Paddy Power data centres on the Isle of Man and in Dublin, so we could understand and work through what the pinch points were going to be. By doing that extensive audit we were able to understand where every cable started and stopped, and how the data centres were breathing.

That really gave us a great point to kick on from,” Giles advises.

HIGH-PACED NEEDS To achieve the move with minimal disruption, Paddy Power Betfair enlisted the help of a number of partners. “A considerable amount of the hardware that was in the Paddy Power heritage data centres, had not been powered off in years,” Giles explains. “We brought in technical support from all of our major vendors and manufacturers, and proceeded, under a tight change window, to power cycle the hardware during a

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TECHNOLOGY

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controlled period of time. By doing that, we were able to eliminate risks at all stages, that may have arisen during the actual migration itself.”

Such partners are invaluable to the operations of Paddy Power Betfair.

“We like to work with technology partners to help us deliver value with our projects. Logicalis helped us move the two data centres from the Isle of Man to Dublin, a project

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which was pretty much seamless for our customers and delivered with precision,” Cullen advises.

“Computacenter, who have been the partner behind the i2 project since its inception, has helped with the challenges across the journey.

Both have areas of expertise which we tap into. We also work with Evros Technology Group in satisfying our high-paced needs with keeping

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“There’s nothing like an unmovable deadline to focus the hearts and minds of the team”

– Brian Cullen, Head of Infrastructure

our data centres operational.”

Giles, too, is keen to praise the work of Paddy Power Betfair’s partners: “We have a close working relationship with Server Technology, who provide a bespoke power strip to suit our high-density rack requirements. A significant part of our success for this specific project comes from the very close support and commitment of our key vendors,” he comments.

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Paddy Power Betfair Belfield Office Park, Beaver Row, Clonskeagh Dublin 4 T: 1 800 238 888 communications@paddypowerbetfair.com www.paddypowerbetfair.com