The National Television Awards (NTAs) is a prestigious awards ceremony within the UK that celebrates excellence in tv programming. Considered one of the crucial distinguished occasions within the British tv business, the awards recognise excellent performances, productions, and programmes throughout completely different tv genres. The NTAs are distinctive in that winners are chosen by the British public by way of numerous voting strategies, together with on-line, phone, and postal voting. The outcomes are then offered dwell on ITV.
For the previous 4 years, the NTAs have entrusted Hyve Managed Hosting with a essential activity: sustaining a strong infrastructure for on-line votingsystem. The problem resides in dealing with the surge in visitors throughout peak voting durations main as much as the ceremony. In 2023, Hyve wanted to make sure a seamless expertise for each member of the British public who wished to forged their vote.
Leveraging its experience in cloud know-how to ship a scalable and dependable resolution, Hyve supplied safe and dependable server infrastructure to host the NTAs’ on-line voting platform. Hyve additionally carried out a dynamic scaling technique to mechanically regulate assets primarily based on real-time visitors calls for, guaranteeing clean operation even throughout peak voting durations.
The downside:
Every yr, the NTAs expertise a major surge in web site visitors in the course of the voting window within the lead-up to the ceremony, as thousands and thousands of viewers try to take part on-line. This annual visitors spike can overload the servers, inflicting crashes and hindering the voting course of. Such downtime can severely affect the system’s credibility and lift questions in regards to the equity of all the award ceremony.
Overwhelmed servers battle to deal with an inflow of visitors, leading to sluggish loading occasions, error messages, and, in the end, the positioning crashing fully. These points don’t simply depart voters fuming – they discourage participation, probably undermining each the general pleasure and the legitimacy of the awards. Downtime throughout voting may also injury the NTAs’ popularity, resulting in destructive publicity and eroding belief with viewers and business insiders.
In addition to the fast affect on the voting course of, server overload and downtime pose logistical challenges for the NTAs and its broadcast associate, Indigo Television. Delays in voting outcomes and disruptions within the dwell broadcast of the ceremony can disrupt scheduling and manufacturing plans, affecting the general viewer expertise and the success of the occasion.
So, guaranteeing the reliability and scalability of the voting platform was paramount for the NTAs to uphold the integrity of the awards, preserve viewer confidence, and ship a seamless voting expertise for thousands and thousands of contributors throughout the nation.
The resolution:
To sort out this problem, Hyve devised a bespoke load-balanced cloud platform designed to deal with the anticipated enhance in web site visitors in the course of the voting interval.
Last yr, server assets have been elevated by 24 occasions their typical ranges inside the two voting home windows to accommodate the elevated heavy visitors from the members of the British public taking part within the votes. Resources have been then dialled again to typical ranges as soon as visitors subsided in between voting levels, to chop out utilizing pointless cloud assets and subsequently scale back prices for the client.
As properly as making a bespoke, scalable cloud resolution for the NTAs to ensure 100% community uptime, Hyve’s assist group was additionally available to repeatedly monitor the servers even after assets have been raised to new ranges. Hyve set in place alert thresholds for the servers as a precaution ought to the NTAs web site expertise unprecedented ranges of visitors and want to extend assets.
The skill to scale cloud assets dynamically on digital servers additionally helped streamline the voting interval for Indigo Television as nothing new wanted to be launched past their present {hardware}, which means that new logins or IPs weren’t required when voting commenced.
The problem:
The first problem was to anticipating visitors surges. To tackle this, Hyve set threshold alerts for its servers to ramp up assets in response to unprecedented ranges of web site visitors. This proactive method ensured clean voting processes even throughout peak durations.
The second problem was price administration. To forestall pointless prices, Hyve dialled again server assets as soon as the voting interval ended, guaranteeing assets have been allotted effectively.
Lastly, there was the problem of Indigo’s compatibility. Hyve dynamically scaled cloud assets on digital servers, streamlining the voting course of for Indigo Television with out requiring new {hardware} or logins.
The consequence:
Behind the scenes of the NTAs, a seamless collaboration with Hyve ensured a clean voting course of all through the ceremony. The occasion celebrated a various vary of winners throughout classes, honouring the most effective of British tv. Kim Turberville, the NTAs’ govt producer, expressed her appreciation for Hyve’s essential contribution to the occasion’s success. This partnership displays Hyve’s dedication to creating tailor-made cloud options, fostering a belief that retains the NTAs group coming again yr after yr.
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