Case Study: The French Tennis Federation (FFT) protects Roland-Garros internet services and cuts DNS resolution time 4-6x with EfficientIP SOLIDserver

SOLIDserver™ Protects Internet Services for Grand Slam Roland-Garros

The French Tennis Federation (FFT), which runs Roland-Garros, faced recurring internet slowdowns and a high risk of DNS-based attacks as thousands of journalists, broadcasters, players and VIPs connected during the tournament. After a 2015 incident where external DNS performance degraded under peak load, FFT sought a French, appliance-like solution that could be quickly integrated, secure DNS against insider and external threats, and eventually manage DHCP in overlay.

FFT deployed EfficientIP’s SOLIDserver with redundant servers, DNS Blast caching and DNS Guardian for real-time threat detection (DDoS, data exfiltration, NXDomain and other DNS attacks). The rollout was smooth and delivered measurable gains: DNS availability was maintained throughout the 2016 tournament, resolution times dropped 4–6×, user experience and latency improved significantly, and FFT gained centralized management with Microsoft DHCP overlay support.

The French Tennis Federation (FFT)

Franck Labat

Head of IT