Bet365 hails “game changer” potential of new Kubernetes technology

Bet365 has developed a new Kubernetese cluster which it says marks a new phase in the development of the company’s sports betting platform.

The cloud-based cluster allows the firm to speed up the development of new products and features.

“It’s early days but we believe that Kubernetes has the potential to be a game changer for bet365,” said James Nightingale, principle infrastructure architect at Hillside Technology, the tech arm of bet365.

“It promises to increase the speed at which we can spin up production environments, while at the same time, delivering a highly malleable deployment mechanism that will enable the Sports Development team to rapidly release code.”

The Kubernetes cluster was a joint project between the Infrastructure and Sports Development teams at the operator, which helped clarify responsibility for different parts of the platform.

“As bet365’s architecture has become more complex, we’ve noticed a growing grey area around responsibility for configuring the platform,” Nightingale said

“[The new cluster] enables us to decouple this complexity and clearly delineate responsibility between platform and deployment.”

Currently in its first phase of development, the Kubernetes platform is initially being tested by running the authentication module for the streaming of Italian horseracing, before a planned wider roll-out.

“In many ways this is a natural next step for us. Our move to Linux and recent successes with Golang, the language of Kubernetes and containers, have delivered the right environment to make containerisation possible for bet365.” said Alan Reed, head of sports development, Hillside Technology.

Bet365 has long prided itself on developing its technology in-house, with the firm’s recent sports innovations including partial cash-out and a proprietary bet-builder product.

The Stoke-headquartered firm recently topped the EGR Power 50 for the ninth consecutive year.