Coffee Breaks With Customers: Internet Vikings

Hi, everyone. I'm Kayla Geigerman. I'm on the customer advocacy team here at Cloudflare.

And welcome to our Cloudflare TV segment called Coffee Breaks with Customers, where we meet all of our wonderful customers from around the world and get a chance to hear a little bit about them.

Because you guys hear about Cloudflare all the time, you might as well get some time to hear about some of our wonderful, wonderful customers.

So today, I am joined by Rickard Vikström from Internet Vikings.

Rickard, why don't you go ahead and tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Internet Vikings every day?

Absolutely. I'm the CEO and founder of Internet Vikings and literally work with my team and run the company.

It's an amazing company and a lot of work goes in to make sure that we are doing the best we can each and every day.

You know, I find talking to founders so interesting because it's got to be such a special kind of person to found a company.

How many times have I woken up on any day and been like, I have a great idea for something and then immediately forgotten about it and never touched it again.

But the fact that you had an idea, you actually went and made a big, amazing, successful company with it internationally.

How did you start with this?

What did you think, this is what we're missing and this is how we can help solve it?

Yeah, we have worked with hosting for all my life, basically. And 15 years ago, we figured that we need to build a hosting company specialized for the gaming industry.

Me, coming from the hosting industry, my colleague, Victor, coming from the gaming industry.

And that's what then evolved into Internet Vikings.

It wasn't like we had this great idea 15 years ago, but it always transitioned into what Internet Vikings are today.

Cool. Why don't you give me a little bit of background about Internet Vikings?

What exactly it is you do, who you serve, where you're located, something like that.

Yeah, we are a hosting company. It's super easy.

We don't do anything more fancy than that. We are trying to keep it as simple as possible.

We have done domain registrations before, but we, throughout the last two years, we put a more decision to like, okay, we need to super focus on one thing and do that really, really well.

So that's how we went into the hosting and focus even more on that.

So we host the gaming industry, the iGaming, the online sports betting.

That's our core, that's our focus. That's more or less the only thing we do.

We do have some other customers in e-commerce, in other niches, but if we look at the majority of our new customers, it's all licensed customers, mostly in the US.

So most of your customers are in the US, where are you located?

Exactly. So most customers are in the US where we actually deliver the service.

Many of the customers do have the tech team spread around the world. So we talk, I don't know how many calls, each and every day where we talk with people from different time zones.

It could be someone in Manila, it could be someone in West Coast US.

So it's literally 24 seven to where I'm talking to them. Also in Australia, we have a lot of customers from Australia as well.

That's great. Do you have a favorite location that you'd like to visit your customers in?

I don't think so.

And that's the beauty of Indiana Vikings, we have customers all over the world.

And I think that's why I'm never getting bored on it because there's so many different things that we solve for our customers.

And that makes it like my day-to-day work so diverse that I always think it's fun to go to work because it's like, okay, what do I need to solve today?

I love that. What do you think has been the biggest accomplishment over the last 15 years for Internet Vikings?

I think for the last five years, really put the company together going from like a smaller company to what is today, the more mature company.

We have a focus and a clear path where we want to take the company.

I think that's the number one thing right now. And also that will lead us within the next five years where we'll take the company going forward.

Amazing. Okay. Is there anything else about Internet Vikings, about the background of the company, about yourself that you want to add in here before we move on to the next section?

No, not really. I'm really happy with that. Cool.

Okay. So let's move forward. Raise your cup for me. Take a drink if you want. So we're going to start talking a little bit about how Internet Vikings has been working with Cloudflare specifically.

So how did you first hear about Cloudflare? That must have been like 10 years ago when you guys started.

Because we've done some tests with Anycasting TCB like 15 years ago or 20 years ago.

And it's a very interesting concept.

And when we saw what Cloudflare did 10 plus years ago in trying to build that network, this is really interesting.

This is really cool what Cloudflare on a technical level are doing.

Because I'm an engineer, Linux sysadmin from the start.

So I would really understand the technical issues to Anycast TCB, but also the benefits for the users and also to battle DDoS.

So 10 years. I mean, Cloudflare just celebrated our 13th birthday last week.

So you really have been around with us from the beginning.

And as Cloudflare has grown and Internet Vikings has grown, what is the relationship been like?

No, but we have used the services for...

Like when we had customers, we needed to protect when there were domain names, like, how can we deal with this?

What can we do to basically provide a better service for our customers?

And we've always said, maybe we haven't bought directly from Cloudflare, but we always said to the customers, the best solution for this problem is go to Cloudflare.com and buy a subscription for your domain name.

It's just the easiest solution to solve the issue you currently have.

And what are the main issues that your customers are facing? Like everyone else in a high competitive market, it's basically DDoS.

To battle DDoS in the most efficient way and at scale, because when you're battling someone that's trying to take down your site, you need to have so much more capacity than the attacker.

And that's what I think Cloudflare have been amazing at, to build up that network throughout the last, like I said, 13 years.

Are there any sort of specific attacks that you guys see more than others?

No, just they're getting more advanced.

They're getting much more traffic, of course.

That's what we're seeing. The PPS, it's really increasing compared to 10 years ago, when you could see a few 10, 20K PPS.

And today you see multiple mega PPS is a normal attack.

And what are the main Cloudflare products that you're using to combat these DDoS attacks?

The Magic Transit. So we are working, we have the Magic Transit set up in all our locations.

It's on, I think one of the largest deployment of Magic Transit, because we have so many locations.

And each location, we do have multiple routers, multiple connections.

So each locations have so many connections to the Cloudflare network.

And it's a lot of things to keep track on. Like my colleague that put it all together, it was a lot of work to just roll it out into each and every data center.

How long have you guys been using Magic Transit specifically? For the last six months.

Six months. And what were you guys using before? Was it just the standard DDoS protection?

Yeah, we, like everyone else, tried to use... First of all, of course, I tried to, okay, what can we do?

Can we just build it ourself? And then did some analysis around it, or not build it ourself as an undercast network, but build it ourself as just have more capacity than the attacker.

But then a few years back, we just realized we can't keep up with attackers.

It's just not economically feasible to do it.

So then we decided, okay, we need someone that's really, really good at it.

So that's why we looked at a few different providers. And then of course, we went with Cloudflare.

And what do you think makes Magic Transit stand out compared to other security products that you looked at?

Because every site is a scrubbing center.

I think that was the major thing, that each and every location that we connect to is its own scrubbing center.

And it's all undercast within the global network of Cloudflare.

So there's not a few scrubbing centers here and there in the world that can be overloaded.

So it's where really that diversity or that it's spread out, that's the biggest benefit, I would say.

Can you talk a little bit more about the benefits that you've seen since adopting Magic Transit, whether that's feedback from your customers or feedback from your own team?

You said it was too much to handle on your own before. So what has it been like to be able to focus on other stuff?

Of course, to work with a well -known provider like Cloudflare, also from the customer side, we are well-protected.

We didn't have major DDoS issues prior to starting working with Cloudflare because we've been good at being able to handle the DDoS in an efficient way even before.

But we see it as trying to protect Internet Vikings and also protect our customers for the future.

Because you don't know what threats will be tomorrow or who will attack you tomorrow.

And we don't want to be down because we didn't think ahead.

And that's, I think, the reason why we did it, why we implemented it all over directly, was we wanted to think ahead.

We wanted to be prepared if something happens.

I love that. I love the idea of being proactive instead of reactive.

I think that's probably the smartest thing to do, honestly. Is there anything else about Magic Transit that you want to talk about?

Not really. We're really happy with the support as well that we've got from Cloudflare and the team have been able to talk directly if there's any issues.

Yeah, I would love to hear a little bit about your Cloudflare team and the experience you have working with your account team.

I feel like sometimes those guys are a little bit of the unsung heroes.

So why don't you chat a little bit about them? Look, we work together very closely with the gaming team at Cloudflare.

They're a really amazing team. I visited them in London six months ago just to also build a connection.

We've met at conferences, to trade shows, to build the relationship between us.

And I think that what makes it even stronger that we have that kind of industry relationship.

And the team at Cloudflare also knows the issues that might happen, the challenges that the customers are facing, because that can enable us to work on solving issues together.

Absolutely. Teamwork makes the dream work, as we like to say. And just to add to that, because our Magic Transit basically just protect the IPs.

But in the ideal world, and what we tell to every customer is like, yes, we do have Adidas protection on the IP level, but you need to use it.

You need to do like a layer seven protection as well, because you don't want to show the data center IP to the attacker.

There's no reason in 2023 to show data center IP to anyone. Just don't, and you will solve 95% of your issues.

That actually brings me to the next section, which is just talking about the iGaming industry in general.

So what are the unique challenges that the iGaming industry faces when it comes to security?

I think it's just that it's a lot of money involved, and that then correlates to a lot of attack vectors.

A lot of- When you say money involved, do you mean like, because people put their own money on the line in these sort of gaming events and things like that?

That's what you mean? Or do you mean as the industry as a whole? No, both.

Basically both. But it all starts with the casino being like a bank. You put in money, you do something, and then you take out money.

So it's the same kind of attacks as a bank would have, and the same kind of issues as a bank.

And a bank is always trying to be well -protected, aka the need to be the same thing for an online sportsbook or online iGaming operator.

Where do you see, obviously, and the industry has probably changed a lot in the last 15 years, as with streaming and AI, and just the fact that things are a little bit faster.

How do you see, where do you see the iGaming industry heading in the next five to 10 years?

Yes, being more competitive and also much more money involved into it, because it's a growing market.

It's growing so rapidly worldwide, especially in the US, but also in other markets.

And that maturing the entire industry to make it better.

Looking back 20 years ago, it was not maybe the best websites, was not the most efficient ones.

But today, it's getting better and better. And I think that's progress, because everyone wants to just do better things, to do better experience for the customer, and that will evolve going forward.

I think that sounds super cool.

How do you see Cloudflare growing alongside of Internet Vikings as you guys move on forward in the industry?

Like I said before, we work together and we are solving our part in the industry, like the hosting and also the IP level protection with Magic Transit.

But then also on the Cloudflare inside, working with all other products around protecting the asset, aka the domain names, the applications, the APIs.

That's what we want.

And that's why I really like the partnership between Cloudflare and Internet Vikings, because we really complement each other.

Because Cloudflare is not a hosting company, and we are not the Adidas protection buff, like all the things that Cloudflare is doing, we don't.

And that's the best way to have a partnership. I completely agree. So you've obviously had some really great success in iGaming and with your business and being a founder.

What advice do you have for people who are kind of just starting out?

Just continue to do what you do, believe in yourself. And it would take so many hours, it would take so much time to build a company.

And there's always a lot of obstacles that you need to figure out how to solve.

But that's also the beauty, because if you wouldn't have all those obstacles to try, how do I solve it?

It wouldn't be fun.

It's all about tweaking and figure out, okay, what can we do better here?

And have that on a constant, the constant mindset to do that. Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's great advice. I'm going to move into kind of some fun questions while we wrap this up.

So iGaming, obviously really big in the sports industry.

What is your favorite sport? Formula One. Formula One. That's actually my manager, Christina's favorite.

She talks about it all the time. Her goal is to go to the big one in Italy, I think, next year, maybe.

Actually, my friends just went to the one in Singapore.

And it was pretty cool. Who's your favorite driver?

I don't have a favorite driver. I've been trying to, because stay away from it, and not having that kind of attachment to a driver.

You're always like an underdog, an underdog team.

So I think I would go with that. And that differs from year to year and from race to race.

Why don't you want to have an attachment? Is it because you feel like you're going to get too loyal, and then you're not going to place the bets correctly?

I'm not. Rather than the leader, you need to think about it.

And then you need so much other things involved in you have like one, this favorite team, this favorite driver, this favorite something.

So I'd rather watch the sport because I really like the sport, not anything else connected to it.

Do you have a favorite sports team, non-Formula One? No. The Swedish national team.

In each and every sport. In every sport. I respect that. Okay, Sweden, then.

What is the best city in Sweden? Stockholm. Stockholm? There's no other cities.

There's no other cities in Sweden? But I would say Stockholm. It's obviously the biggest one.

For me, it's my hometown. And it's also the city that's big enough because it is the biggest city.

I like to be in a city where you have possibilities.

And Stockholm, of course. And what is the best month to visit Stockholm?

June, July? June, July, September. Stockholm in December, January, February, then it's dark and rainy.

And best Swedish food? Is it meatballs?

Probably not meat, but like potatoes, some beef, salad, like some normal proper food that you can barbecue.

Have you ever been to Ikea? Of course. Many, many times.

We're actually doing the big conference next week in Vegas, and we ordered all our furniture at Ikea in Las Vegas.

Really? And then we're going to assemble it on Friday.

You're going to have a... That's going to be a good time. I'm going to send you some pictures of it.

I would love to see that. Every piece of furniture I have ever made is just a little bit wrong.

So I'm glad that I won't be joining you for that.

Actually, you should be glad that I'm not joining you for that.

But that sounds like fun. Yeah, it's going to be good. Yeah. All right. Well, is there anything else that you want to add before we wrap this up?

No, not from my side.

Again, to Rabia, thank you for having me. Cool. So to end, I want to toast and say skål, since we're talking Swedish.

Um, one. Okay. One, two, three. Skål.

Thanks. One of the things that sets Polestar apart from other car brands is it's heavily focused on design.

It's in the blood of the company. These are very premium cars. They look premium.

They feel premium. The experience of riding the car, driving the car, is different from what we've previously seen in the EV industry.

Polestar has a pretty unique take on how you buy a car.

It's like a museum that really aids you in understanding Polestar as a brand, as a product, as a concept, and getting extremely rich hands-on experience.

The China market is one of our absolute key markets.

So you got into the space and you went to the huge touchscreen and you could feel, you know, all the materials, but things would not work.

It was too slow.

Certain pages were unresponsive, slow or laggy, and the overall customer experience when you're trying to configure a car was being hampered and impacting customers if they should buy a car or not.

Moving over to Cloudflare, it was just one of those things that just worked.

We saw immediate improvement in application performance within the showrooms.

That has been very appreciated, both from customers interacting with our products, but also from the people working in spaces and in China.

The overall experience working with Cloudflare has been nothing short from perfect.

It's natively understood by all developers and there's no extra need for someone to onboard to get to know the product before they can be productive.

I'm super satisfied with the commitment to continuously innovate on, you know, each other's kind of core ideas when it comes to performance and security on Cloudflare, and for us to deliver immensely positive experiences to our end users.

Genuine Parts Company has 53,000 employees worldwide.

Primarily, we have two lines of business, aftermarket automotive replacement parts and industrial aftermarket replacement parts.

We're a Fortune 200 company doing about $20 billion of revenue a year.

Some of the biggest security challenges we face today is really around security.

We have a lot of security management. GPC has over 900 websites protected by Cloudflare today globally.

Our busiest website gets approximately two and a half billion requests a month.

It is hit by approximately 57 million threats each and every month, and each and every month Cloudflare protects against all 57 million.

Cloudflare and the Security Insights technology is allowing me to see what's happening across all of our digital footprint.

We did have a competitor product, but we were in the dark. There's a peace of mind that we can say we have the visibility and we know, but then to be able to say we can tell you 450 million threats were thwarted by Cloudflare, each and every one of those could have been a really, really bad day.

In selecting Cloudflare, we selected them with the knowledge that they had multiple areas that we could expand into.

So the more that we can put with a single provider, the more we can centralize and orchestrate.

I don't have to go to four different places to get an idea of Zero Trust versus what's going on with my apps versus what's going on with my APIs.

The consolidation is real. The strategy is real.

We're executing on it. I'm not necessarily interested in working with a vendor where that's all they're trying to sell me, where I only ever hear from them on a renewal.

What I need are people to help me solve problems and Cloudflare has been there along the way to help us solve our web problems.

The biggest IT priorities in the state of Arizona really are focusing on modernization of legacy, applications and technologies, and bringing together and delivering better digital services to our citizens.

As a government entity, we face a tremendous amount of cyber interest from around the world.

We have to guard our systems against a lot of different things.

We're running a program that we're calling the Statewide Cyber Readiness Program, essentially providing cyber protections to all of our local government entities, including cities, counties, K-12 school districts, trying to help them up-level themselves to prevent cyber attacks across the entire state.

Most of the organizations that we work with, especially talking about some of the smaller entities, don't have dedicated full-time cybersecurity professionals or IT staff.

One of the things we looked at is what is the ease of deployment for these tools and Cloudflare stands out above a lot of the others, especially in that it doesn't require any sort of deployment in your environment.

It's all just a quick DNS change and usually we've seen with onboarding and deployment within half an hour to a couple of hours at the very most for some of our more complicated entities.

We're getting very high-powered, very technical cybersecurity detections and protections with this platform with essentially little to no effort to deploy them.

With the Arizona Cyber Readiness Program, we were able to get access to all the feature sets with Cloudflare, including the web application firewall, bot management, rate limiting, caching, while the website stays online.

Maricopa County is the fourth largest county in the United States.

We're about half the population of Arizona and we're the second largest voting district next only to LA County.

Leading up to the 2020 general election, I was really concerned about implementing as many possible security controls as we could to protect our systems.

With Cloudflare, if we need to block an attack, it is trivial.

Within 60 seconds I can block an attacking IP. I see Cloudflare as a critical partner in everything we're trying to do across the state.

An attack against one of us is an attack against all of us and the only way that we can be truly successful is by looking out for each other.

Cloudflare is going to be an integral part of that.

As part of our readiness program, going to be right at the edge, guarding and watching all the traffic that's coming through to hit all of those services.

And so it's going to be providing, you know, critical front-end work to make sure that our citizens are protected.