Realia Group is the largest company in the Nordics focused on real estate brokerage and facilities management. The group owns Huoneistokeskus, SKV Kiinteistövälitys, SKV Isännöinti and Realia Management. The company evaluates, manages and procures offices on behalf of business customers. Realia Group has 1,500 employees in 200 offices around Finland. In 2006, the company had revenue of almost 120 million Euros.
 
Realia Group manages six different Web sites that are visited by people looking for new homes. When they visit the pages they can search the available houses and apartments by different criteria, and can see photos, floor plans and location maps of the houses/apartments. It is also possible to do a map search on desired area, determine where there are houses for sale and instantly find more information on those properties.

Combined, these Web sites receive1.3 million weekly page impressions and 320,000 unique weekly visitors. Most-visited sites are Huoneistokeskus.fi with 110,000 –120,000 and SKV.fi with 70,000 – 80,000 different weekly visitors.

The Challenge: A Powerful, Centralized Application Optimization Platform

Realia Group has expanded its online activities due to acquisitions of new companies. Originally, the company took care of the Huoneistokeskus site only, but upon acquiring other companies it started managing their sites as well. These sites were based on different platforms and managed locally, adding IT complexity.

The company wanted to increase IT efficiency via standardization and centralized management of the Web sites, as well as several browser-based applications including customized real estate management and brokerage solutions.  

“It was more efficient to centralize the administration of the Web sites, so we decided to consolidate them on a single platform. Also, we wanted to accelerate performance, reduce load on the Web servers and improve security,” said Marko Laukkanen, IT manager for Realia Group.

Also, as the business value of online commerce on Realia Group’s sites increased, it became more critical to guarantee user satisfaction. The company needed to be sure all Web sites would operate without delays, interruptions or page failures, even during periods of heavy traffic volume. Of particular concern was protection against Denial of Service attacks.

Implementing a Citrix Application Delivery Infrastructure Solution

Realia Group selected Citrix® NetScaler®, Platinum Edition to optimize performance of the company’s Web traffic, balance server loads and provide protection against application-layer attacks. The company wanted the application caching, application firewall and user experience monitoring features provided by NetScaler, Platinum Edition.

Laukkanen was already familiar with Citrix products because Realia Group uses Citrix Presentation Server™ for virtualized application delivery, and Citrix Access Gateway™ to provide secure remote access to applications.

“We want to offer the best possible user experience to our customers. NetScaler has many features that improve this, such as faster transfer of images, application-layer security and the ability to monitor Web page activity in real time,” Laukkanen said.

Migration to the new system was made step by step, which helped ensure that every phase and detail worked the way it should. The system was implemented by Ironnet, a Citrix® Solution Advisor. Ironnet participated in the whole migration project, from defining the test sites to building the new system and maintaining it.

“I have been very pleased with our cooperation with Ironnet. They have been very flexible in their work and we have received expert help during every step of the process,” Laukkanen said.

Accelerating Web Site Performance and Reducing Server Load

After the NetScaler implementation there was a significant reduction in the server workload. “Thanks to the NetScaler AppCache function our Web servers have benefited from a remarkable reduction in workload. I estimate a 40-percent reduction since NetScaler started delivering photos of our housing notices directly from its cache. This means we can reduce future demand for Web servers. At the moment we have two servers running the Web sites and two servers for the databases, but in the future, we can implement new services without adding new servers,” Laukkanen explained.

Also, customer complaints about slow response or page failures have been minimized. “One thing I have learned is that silence is a sign that the system works fluently. Real estate agents will instantly let you know if the system is too slow or doesn’t deliver,” Laukkanen said. “Also, we now receive much less negative feedback from customers, which means that NetScaler does its job.”

Monitoring the End-user Experience in Real Time

Real-time end-user experience monitoring powered by Citrix EdgeSight™, which is included in Citrix NetScaler, Platinum Edition, collects statistics on the experiences of users regarding usability and availability of the system. Every user’s experience is monitored, which enables pinpointing of all problematic situations. For instance, Realia’s IT team can determine how long it takes for Web pages to open, how many visitors there are on different pages, and what browsers and operating systems they use to access the sites.

“EdgeSight-powered functionality enables us to see immediately in which part of the sites the problems or bottlenecks lie. Citrix has also promised that in the next version of NetScaler we will be able to see the problems on a page level. Then we can tell the page developers instantly which parts cause problems to the users,” Laukkanen said.

Helping Achieve the Corporate Goal of a Redundant System

Realia Group aimed to create a highly available system with redundant servers and other hardware. To achieve this goal and to ensure seamless traffic redirection and undisturbed acceleration of the Web sites, Realia Group chose a solution with an HA pair of NetScaler appliances.

“We can define in which address the users arrive and let NetScaler take care of balancing the load between the servers. This is a benefit for the administrator who doesn’t have to come up with ‘magic solutions’ to accelerate the traffic. In practice, users will not notice maintenance downtime at all. We can first update one NetScaler appliance and check that everything works, and in the meantime the other one keeps working without any interruptions to the Web sites.”

Application Firewall Protects Against Application Layer Attacks

As mentioned, Realia Group is implementing the rich features of the new NetScaler, Platinum Edition solution one by one. Next, the company will start using the Application Firewall functionality, which protects against application-layer attacks.

”Even if we don’t have an indication that we are being attacked, it feels safer to know that we are not dependent on Windows Server security and network firewalls only. I believe that NetScaler will prevent DoS and DDoS attacks, and let only valid traffic through the firewall,” Laukkanen said.

Thanks to NetScaler, Realia Group’s Web sites can now accommodate growth in traffic. In addition to handling more users, the system can support implementation of totally new Web sites and services. In addition, other Web traffic can be directed through NetScaler.

“In the future we will test implementing remote access through the SSL VPN functionality of NetScaler, since that would remarkably accelerate our remote connections,” Laukkanen said.

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