Australian Grand Prix Corporation
Scalable Cloud Inspection Platform
The Australian Grand Prix Corporation delivers large scale international motorsport events with fixed delivery dates and intense, short duration operational demand. Event operations rely on cloud hosted platforms and externally facing services that must remain secure, available, and predictable under pressure.
​
Technology platforms must support significant traffic variation during event periods while remaining operable, cost controlled, and maintainable outside those windows.
Context
Australian Grand Prix Corporation operated a hosted internet gateway protected by Palo Alto Networks firewalls. The gateway was fixed in capacity, configuration, and cost, and was not aligned to the elastic nature of cloud hosted workloads or the event driven demand profile of MotoGP and Formula 1.
​
Outbound connectivity during events placed significant load on the gateway. Inspection and security controls were tightly coupled to static infrastructure, creating operational risk during peak demand and limiting flexibility when environments needed to scale or change quickly.
​
AGPC required a model that decoupled inspection and outbound connectivity from fixed infrastructure, aligned security controls with cloud operating patterns, and could be delivered safely ahead of a major live event.
Constraints
-
MotoGP event timelines were fixed and could not be extended.
-
One month was available to design, build, and transition the new platform.
-
Traffic volumes during MotoGP were expected to exceed previous years.
-
Existing security controls were fixed in capacity and configuration.
-
Transition had to occur without disrupting live services or event preparation.
-
Failure of inspection components could not interrupt outbound connectivity.
-
The solution needed to remain operable and cost effective after the event.
-
Operational teams required clear visibility and predictable behaviour during the event.
What changed
The existing hosted internet gateway model was replaced with a centralised inspection and outbound connectivity platform in AWS.
​
A dedicated inspection VPC was designed and built to provide a shared security and egress layer for cloud hosted environments. Traffic was routed through this inspection layer using AWS Transit Gateway, enabling consistent enforcement of security policy without embedding fixed gateways into individual application environments.
​
Palo Alto Networks firewalls were deployed behind AWS Gateway Load Balancer to provide scalable inspection capacity. Infrastructure as code was used to ensure consistent build, deployment, and repeatable configuration across environments, reducing delivery risk under tight timelines.
​
This architecture allowed inspection throughput to scale dynamically in response to event driven demand rather than being constrained by fixed infrastructure. Routing and failure behaviour were designed to remain predictable under load and during component failure.
​
Following the MotoGP event, the platform was scaled down and repurposed to support ongoing corporate outbound traffic. This retained security controls while minimising operating cost outside peak event periods.
​
Quokka Advisory remained involved through design and transition to ensure operational intent, routing symmetry, failure behaviour, and visibility were preserved as traffic was migrated from the Telstra hosted gateway to the AWS based model.
Outcome
-
Successful transition from a fixed Telstra hosted gateway to a scalable AWS inspection platform.
-
No outages or service disruption during the MotoGP event.
-
Outbound traffic volumes exceeded those of the previous MotoGP event without degradation.
-
Consistent and repeatable deployment achieved through infrastructure as code.
-
Predictable routing and failure behaviour under peak load conditions.
-
Post event scaling to support corporate traffic while reducing ongoing cost.
-
Reduced operational risk during event delivery.
-
Improved confidence operating cloud environments under fixed deadline pressure.
​
The resulting platform supports secure, scalable outbound connectivity during major events and cost efficient operation outside event periods, without reliance on static infrastructure or fixed capacity models.