Virgin Radio improves web site performance

Improved levels of quality and reliability will match those of radio

Virgin Radio has chosen vendor F5 to ensure high availability and secure delivery of Windows Media Server and audio services, resulting in quicker download speeds of online content for listeners.

Prior to implementing the F5 product, Virgin Radio’s web infrastructure had relied on a number of Cisco Local Directors that were running near capacity and unable to meet anticipated increases in usage and traffic volumes.

'We considered a number of products but were particularly impressed by the technical performance of the F5 solution,' said Mark Bodenham, technology operations manager, Virgin Radio. 'Due to strict business demands, it was essential that the installation was seamless and didn’t impact the day-to-day running of the Virgin Radio network systems.'

The solution has improved the speed of the Virgin Radio web site, as well as providing a monitoring service that efficiently load balances the new podcast download facility.

Following the success of the F5 implementation, the technology will now be extended to the Virgin Radio SQL servers.

'With the increasing wealth of online content such as new downloads, uploads, live streams and multimedia content available on Virgin Radio, the increase in online listeners is huge. Therefore, it’s important that our infrastructure offers the same level of quality and reliability that is expected from radio,' said Bodenham. 'We believe that we are now equipped to deal with the changing online world and cater to the iPod generation.'