Case Study: UCAS (Universities and Colleges Admissions Service) achieves continuous high availability and scalable performance with Radware APSolute solutions

UK College Admissions on Course with Radware

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), the UK’s central application hub for universities and colleges, processes online applications for over 450,000 applicants and saw rapid growth in web traffic (98.5% online submissions and tens of millions of monthly page impressions). Facing intense, seasonal demand spikes, heavy SSL transaction loads and the need for reliable multi‑ISP connectivity, UCAS required a scalable, fault‑tolerant and secure web infrastructure to keep services available and responsive.

Radware deployed its APSolute suite—WSD for real‑time health monitoring, traffic redirection and unlimited scaling; LinkProof for optimized, cost‑efficient multi‑ISP connectivity and content acceleration; and CertainT 100 for high‑speed SSL offload, compression and caching. The result was continuous availability and improved performance under peak loads, more efficient SSL handling and lower server costs, delivering immediate ROI while maintaining secure, responsive access for thousands of applicants.

UCAS