The National Television Awards (NTAs) is a prestigious awards ceremony in the UK that celebrates excellence in television programming. Considered one of the most prominent events in the British television industry, the awards recognise outstanding performances, productions, and programmes across different television genres. The NTAs are unique in that winners are chosen by the British public through various voting methods, including online, telephone, and postal voting. The results are then presented live on ITV.
For the past four years, the NTAs have entrusted Hyve Managed Hosting with a critical task: maintaining a robust infrastructure for online votingsystem. The challenge resides in handling the surge in traffic during peak voting periods leading up to the ceremony. In 2023, Hyve needed to ensure a seamless experience for every member of the British public who wanted to cast their vote.
Leveraging its expertise in cloud technology to deliver a scalable and reliable solution, Hyve provided secure and reliable server infrastructure to host the NTAs’ online voting platform. Hyve also implemented a dynamic scaling strategy to automatically adjust resources based on real-time traffic demands, ensuring smooth operation even during peak voting periods.
The problem:
Every year, the NTAs experience a significant surge in website traffic during the voting window in the lead-up to the ceremony, as millions of viewers attempt to participate online. This annual traffic spike can overload the servers, causing crashes and hindering the voting process. Such downtime can severely impact the system’s credibility and raise questions about the fairness of the entire award ceremony.
Overwhelmed servers struggle to handle an influx of traffic, resulting in slow loading times, error messages, and, ultimately, the site crashing completely. These issues don’t just leave voters fuming – they discourage participation, potentially undermining both the overall excitement and the legitimacy of the awards. Downtime during voting can also damage the NTAs’ reputation, leading to negative publicity and eroding trust with viewers and industry insiders.
In addition to the immediate impact on the voting process, server overload and downtime pose logistical challenges for the NTAs and its broadcast partner, Indigo Television. Delays in voting results and disruptions in the live broadcast of the ceremony can disrupt scheduling and production plans, affecting the overall viewer experience and the success of the event.
So, ensuring the reliability and scalability of the voting platform was paramount for the NTAs to uphold the integrity of the awards, maintain viewer confidence, and deliver a seamless voting experience for millions of participants across the country.
The solution:
To tackle this challenge, Hyve devised a bespoke load-balanced cloud platform designed to handle the anticipated increase in website traffic during the voting period.
Last year, server resources were increased by 24 times their usual levels within the two voting windows to accommodate the increased heavy traffic from the members of the British public participating in the votes. Resources were then dialled back to usual levels once traffic subsided in between voting stages, to cut out using unnecessary cloud resources and therefore reduce costs for the customer.
As well as creating a bespoke, scalable cloud solution for the NTAs to guarantee 100% network uptime, Hyve’s support team was also on hand to continuously monitor the servers even after resources were raised to new levels. Hyve set in place alert thresholds for the servers as a precaution should the NTAs website experience unprecedented levels of traffic and need to increase resources.
The ability to scale cloud resources dynamically on virtual servers also helped streamline the voting period for Indigo Television as nothing new needed to be introduced beyond their existing hardware, meaning that new logins or IPs were not required when voting commenced.
The challenge:
The first challenge was to anticipating traffic surges. To address this, Hyve set threshold alerts for its servers to ramp up resources in response to unprecedented levels of website traffic. This proactive approach ensured smooth voting processes even during peak periods.
The second challenge was cost management. To prevent unnecessary costs, Hyve dialled back server resources once the voting period ended, ensuring resources were allocated efficiently.
Lastly, there was the challenge of Indigo’s compatibility. Hyve dynamically scaled cloud resources on virtual servers, streamlining the voting process for Indigo Television without requiring new hardware or logins.
The result:
Behind the scenes of the NTAs, a seamless collaboration with Hyve ensured a smooth voting process throughout the ceremony. The event celebrated a diverse range of winners across categories, honouring the best of British television. Kim Turberville, the NTAs’ executive producer, expressed her appreciation for Hyve’s crucial contribution to the event’s success. This partnership reflects Hyve’s dedication to creating tailored cloud solutions, fostering a trust that keeps the NTAs team coming back year after year.
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