Turkcell Global Bilgi Boosts Security and Availability with F5
Turkcell Global Bilgi modernized its infrastructure with F5 solutions implemented by NETSYS. The solutions serve as the foundation of the company’s digital transformation, fortifying app security and optimizing service delivery. Turkcell Global Bilgi is now better positioned to compete and grow in the competitive customer contact and call services market.
Business Challenge
A positive call center experience can do wonders for customer satisfaction and loyalty. That’s why many leading businesses in Turkey take advantage of Turkcell Global Bilgi’s expertise. Founded in 1999, the business works with more than 100 customers and employs over 16,000 employees across 15 locations in Turkey. It offers a range of services including contact centers, video calls, and several digital channels such as chat bots and interactive voice response systems. A reputation for innovation has earned it international recognition, including the “World’s Best Use of Customer Feedback” award.
Turkcell Global Bilgi is widely recognized for the security of its IT systems, ensuring the protection of sensitive customer information. Business continuity is equally critical. Contact centers and digital channels must remain fully operational, without interruption.
Technology partnerships are central to this strategy. Until recently, Turkcell Global Bilgi utilized traditional web application firewall (WAF) features and manual data center failover mechanisms. Then the business launched a major modernization initiative, including the deployment of two new data centers.
“Our primary goal was to meet international security and availability standards while building a resilient infrastructure against evolving cyberthreats,” says Berkan Sert, Network and Security Unit Manager at Turkcell Global Bilgi. The company’s ongoing transformation focuses on enhancing capabilities such as advanced bot detection, application-layer DDoS mitigation, and automated redundancy between data centers to strengthen service continuity and reduce operational complexity.
Solutions
Sert and his team looked for a solution that offered best-in-class network availability and security and was delivered by a partner with deep understanding of the specific needs of Turkcell Global Bilgi’s Turkish customer base. After evaluating the market, they selected NETSYS, a global service provider specializing in network and security solutions and an F5 Unity+ Gold Partner.
“The combination of NETSYS and F5 was essential to the success of the project and the ongoing resilience and security of our infrastructure,” says Muharrem Bozkus, Head of IT Infrastructure at Turkcell Global Bilgi.
The deployment of F5 BIG-IP Advanced WAF significantly improved the company’s application security, extending protection beyond traditional signature-based approaches. To ensure intelligent traffic routing and service continuity across data centers, Turkcell Global Bilgi implemented F5 BIG-IP DNS, enabling automated routing based on continuous health checks. These BIG-IP technologies combine to create a secure, intelligent, and resilient infrastructure.
To support scalability and performance, Turkcell Global Bilgi also deployed F5 rSeries hardware, along with F5 BIG-IP Local Traffic Manager (LTM) for optimized traffic load balancing and F5 BIG-IP Access Policy Manager (APM) to ensure secure access control.
“We implemented custom BIG-IP APM policies tailored to our environment,” says Sert. “As a result, all applications are now protected with two-factor authentication, an important and much-needed security upgrade. By leveraging BIG-IP APM as an SSL VPN, we have enhanced our authentication process with an OTP-based, two-factor mechanism after identity verification. This setup significantly improves security for application access.”
Results
Boost service continuity and performance
The implementation of intelligent traffic routing and automatic redundancy across data centers significantly improved service continuity and overall performance.
“Before F5, we couldn’t deliver services in an active-active scenario,” says Sert. “Now, we support both active-active and active-passive configurations. That shift has been essential for our service model.”
He adds, “We now benefit from advanced F5 traffic management and security capabilities. Our DNS is more resilient, DDoS risks are better mitigated, and our customers enjoy more reliable access. It’s been a major step forward in achieving the high availability and performance we need.”
Defend against complex cyberattacks
As with many large enterprises, Turkcell Global Bilgi faces frequent cyberattack attempts—sometimes daily. F5 solutions play a critical role in defending the company from these evolving threats, particularly as APIs expand the application surface and increase exposure to risks. Sert points to advanced Layer 7 DDoS detection and mitigation as a key benefit of the F5 solutions. They help to proactively block application-layer attacks, while bot defense capabilities now intelligently distinguish between legitimate users and malicious bots.
With support from NETSYS and F5, Turkcell Global Bilgi is also aligning with Turkey’s new cybersecurity legislation, which imposes strict requirements on organizations providing critical infrastructure or cybersecurity services.
Securely manage and direct traffic
With BIG-IP DNS, Turkcell Global Bilgi can direct user traffic to the closest or most responsive data center, using metrics such as health checks, geolocation, and latency. If one site goes down, traffic is automatically rerouted to another, ensuring uninterrupted service for users.
The company also uses geo-location filtering via BIG-IP APM, identifying high-risk regions for cyberthreats and blocking access from those locations, significantly reducing exposure to external attacks.
Gain trusted F5 Gold Partner support
“We really value our partnership with NETSYS,” says Sert. “They’re true experts in F5 technologies—one of the most capable teams in Turkey. Their technical knowledge and support were essential throughout the project.”
That trusted relationship continues as Turkcell Global Bilgi expands. “Whenever we encounter challenges with site configuration or solution design, NETSYS is always there to resolve things quickly and effectively.”
Enable growth
By building a secure, high-availability infrastructure with F5, Turkcell Global Bilgi strengthened the foundation of trust that underpins its relationships with enterprise clients. The ability to demonstrate business continuity, advanced threat protection, and seamless service delivery is now a key differentiator in competitive bids.
“Security and uptime aren’t just technical priorities, they’re business enablers,” says Sert. “With F5 and NETSYS, we can meet and exceed the expectations of our most demanding customers, which directly supports growth and revenue.”
With this modernized, resilient platform in place, Turkcell Global Bilgi is now better positioned to expand into new markets and deepen its engagements with existing clients.
- Intelligently distinguish malicious bots
- Proactively block application-layer attacks
- Automate routing based on health checks
- Improve service continuity and performance
- Manage rapidly growing volumes of bot traffic
- Mitigate application-layer DDoS attacks
- Ensure effective redundancy between data centers
- Maintain service continuity