Challenges Leading up to the world’s most famous marathon and on race day, the Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A) needs a reliable, capable IT infrastructure to support the massive planning effort and hundreds of thousands of website visitors who track runners in near real time. SolutionEarthLink Business hosts the B.A.A.’s website in its secure Marlborough data center, as well as provides a 20MB Private network for voice, MPLS and data.

Results• Uptime —B.A.A. has the

reliable, rock-solid site hosting

to support one million visitors

and 12 million page views – or

more – on race day.

• Faster Performance —

MPLS boosts application

performance and enables

them to prioritize voice

traffic, improving employee

productivity by ensuring

staff can communicate

efficiently leading up to

and during races.

“ “EarthLink is a great partner to have our back with web traffic on race day. When we get 10 million site visits in the span of a day, we have great peace of mind knowing that we have ample data storage and servers in our arsenal. We know we can provide a good web experience to the many people who may only visit us a few minutes each year

Boston Marathon Keeps Pace with Record-Setting Web Traffic Boston Athletic Association Partners with EarthLink for Uptime, Peace of Mind Before, During Race Day

T.K. Skenderian Marketing and Sponsorship Manager, Boston Athletic Association

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CASE STUDY

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Business Challenges

The Solution

Every April, runners from every state and 90 countries converge in Boston to run the world’s most prestigious marathon – the only one in the world where runners must qualify to participate. To get here, they’ve spent months, if not years, preparing, counting the miles, their split times, their calories and their heart rates.

For the race organizers, just as much goes into planning the massive event each year. It takes major coordination for Boston Athletic Association (B.A.A.), the cities along the course, law enforcement, vendors and other agencies to pull off a smooth race.

While some things have remained the same since the Boston Marathon was first run in 1897, the technology required to make it all happen has changed dramatically. These days, runners sign up online, and are tracked with timing chips. On race day, the media and runners’ friends and family members can follow their progress on the B.A.A. website, where they can also watch a leaderboard and Twitter stream. For one of the world’s most data-driven sporting events, uptime is not optional.

“With thousands of runners and hundreds of thousands of spectators, access to data is critical to allowing us to track all of our runners and manage all of the information flow required to support this event,” said T.K. Skenderian, marketing and sponsorship manager, Boston Athletic Association. “It’s not like a basketball game, where you can see everything. People are dependent on our site to know when a loved one will run by.”

As the Boston Marathon’s longtime, official data center provider, EarthLink provides the reliable, secure infrastructure that enables the B.A.A. to manage this iconic event seamlessly online. EarthLink Business hosts the B.A.A.’s website, where thousands of runners register for the marathon, as well as a 5K, 10K and half marathon each year.

The B.A.A’s infrastructure is housed in EarthLink’s state-of-the-art, fully redundant SSAE 16 compliant data center in nearby Marlborough with a 99.999% uptime guarantee. There, the runners’ stats and registration information are stored securely in the cloud, and event organizers, runners, spectators and worldwide media view it in near real time on the company’s website.

Boston Athletic Association

BostonAthleticAssociationCaseStudy2013

CASE STUDY

“Thanks to EarthLink, our event organizers and 26,895 participating runners know they have safe and convenient access to a high-performance website that has the information they need both before and on race day,” Skenderian said.

The B.A.A. staff also rely on EarthLink Business for business-critical voice and data networking for its corporate offices in Boston and Hopkinton. The organization was initially on a T1 point-to-point network between offices. However, with 100-year-old copper wiring in Boston’s Back Bay, the B.A.A. experienced weather-related reliability issues.

“Our network has to operate seamlessly,” Skenderian said. “We need it for everything we do.”

Recently, the organization upgraded to fiber to address their infrastructure issues. The EarthLink team worked with the B.A.A. to design the network for optimal performance. The network is configured with 20M internet at both locations and a 2M MPLS connection, with QoS, between offices with voice traffic form both offices going through Boston. This provides, the B.A.A. improved performance, minimizing delay and jitter, and eliminating the additional bandwidth demands placed on the host in order to support all network traffic.

With the upgraded network, the organization has the reliable backbone it needs for day-to-day operations and critical race-day communications.

“It’s nice to know that in EarthLink we have a partner right in this area,” Skenderian said. “All of our communications run as seamlessly as turning on the lights, and that’s why we continue to partner with them.”

With its website hosted in EarthLink’s data center, the B.A.A. has the bandwidth it needs for traffic surges leading up to and during races. Last year, more than one million people tracked runners online on the day of the marathon, racking up 12 million page views.

“EarthLink is a great partner to have our back with web traffic on race day,” Skenderian said. “The peace of mind is huge that we have ample data storage and ample servers in our arsenal. If we get 100 million site visits, we can provide a good experience to people who may only visit us a couple of minutes a year.”

The B.A.A. staff has seen performance improve with the move to an MPLS network. The organization no longer suffers from outages and can send large files without issue. The strength of its infrastructure means staff can focus on the marathon, not the IT infrastructure, keeping planning and event coordination on track.

“Working with EarthLink is a pleasure, and it’s a terrific partnership,” Skenderian said. “My team and I are confident that, when the world is looking at us, we are confident that we can deliver a good web experience.”

Positioned for the Future

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With one million site visitors and 12 million page views on Boston Marathon race day, the Boston Athletic Association must ensure that its site remains accessible at all times. EarthLink’s data center in nearby Marlborough provides the reliable, secure infrastructure to handle traffic spikes, while a 20MB MPLS network keeps daily operations moving quickly.

“It’s a huge undertaking each year to put on New England’s biggest sporting event. EarthLink provides ample and reliable data storage and servers to handle the onslaught of massive traffic that race day brings,” Skenderian said.

Why B.A.A. Selected EarthLink Business

Boston Athletic Association

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