Case Study: Rakuten achieves one-third equipment and power consumption and consolidates infrastructure with A10 Networks' AX Series

Striving to Reduce Equipment and Power Consumption to a Third of Previous Levels, Rakuten Achieves Increased Functionality and Consolidation of Equipment with AX Series

Rakuten, a leading Japanese e‑commerce and services company with millions of members, faced rapidly growing traffic across its marketplace and related services and needed a private cloud platform that delivered high performance, IPv6 support and greater reliability while cutting equipment, rack space, power and operational costs. The company’s goals included reducing downtime during maintenance and traffic surges, shrinking management overhead, and improving energy efficiency as part of broader corporate sustainability targets.

Rakuten replaced legacy load balancers with A10 Networks’ AX Series (AX 2600‑GF), leveraging its 64‑bit platform, Application Delivery Partitioning (ADP), VRRP‑A and aXAPI for automation and multi‑tenant isolation. Dozens of 1U AX units now handle 20+ Gbps, enabling consolidation to less than half the previous equipment (with a target of one‑third), reduced rack and power usage, simplified operations, and reliable performance during traffic spikes—while also paving the way for future cloud and GSLB expansion.

Rakuten

Yoshimasa Suzuki

Rakuten, Inc.