The National Television Awards (NTAs) are the UK’s prestigious awards ceremony celebrating excellence in television programming. The awards are regarded as one of the most important events in the British television industry and recognize outstanding performances, productions and programs across different television genres. The NTAs are unique in that the winners are chosen by the British public through a variety of voting methods, including online, telephone and postal voting. The results are then presented live by ITV.
For the past four years, the NTA has entrusted Hyve Managed Hosting with a crucial task: maintaining a robust infrastructure for the online voting system. The challenge is to manage the surge in traffic during the peak voting period that precedes the ceremony. In 2023, Hyve needed to ensure a seamless experience for every member of the British public who wanted to cast their vote.
Hyve leveraged its expertise in cloud technology to deliver a scalable and reliable solution and provided a secure and reliable server infrastructure to host the NTA’s online election platform. Hyve has also implemented a dynamic scaling strategy to automatically adapt resources based on real-time traffic requirements, ensuring smooth operations even during peak voting periods.
problem:
Each year the NTAs experience a significant increase in website traffic during the voting window before the ceremony as millions of viewers attempt to participate online. This annual increase in traffic can overload servers, cause crashes, and hinder the voting process. Such downtime can have a serious impact on the credibility of the system and raise questions about the integrity of the entire awards ceremony.
Congested servers struggle with a flood of traffic, resulting in slow loading times, error messages, and eventually a complete site crash. These issues don’t just leave voters angry—they discourage participation, potentially undermining both the overall excitement and legitimacy of the awards. Downtime during voting can also damage the reputation of the NTA, leading to negative publicity and eroding confidence among viewers and industry insiders.
Apart from the immediate impact on the voting process, server overload and outages pose logistical challenges for the NTA and its broadcasting partner Indigo Television. Delays in voting results and disruptions to live coverage of the ceremony can disrupt planning and production schedules and affect the overall audience experience and success of the event.
Ensuring the reliability and scalability of the voting platform was therefore paramount for the NTA to maintain the integrity of the awards, maintain viewer confidence and ensure seamless voting for millions of participants across the country.
Solution:
To meet this challenge, Hyve custom-built a load-balanced cloud platform designed to handle the expected increase in website traffic during the voting period.
Last year, server resources were increased by 24 times their usual level over the two election windows to accommodate the increased heavy traffic from members of the British public taking part in the vote. The resources were then dialed back to normal levels as traffic decreased between polling phases to eliminate unnecessary cloud resources and thereby reduce costs to the customer.
In addition to creating a bespoke, scalable cloud solution for NTA to guarantee 100% network availability, Hyve’s support team was also on hand to continuously monitor the servers even after resources were scaled up. Hyve has set alert thresholds for the servers as a precaution in case the NTA website experiences unprecedented levels of traffic and needs to increase resources.
The ability to dynamically scale cloud resources on virtual servers also helped streamline the voting period for Indigo Television, as nothing new needed to be deployed beyond their existing hardware, meaning no new logins or IP addresses were required to start voting.
call:
The first challenge was to anticipate traffic increases. To address this, Hyve has set threshold alerts for its servers to increase resources in response to unprecedented levels of website traffic. This proactive approach ensured smooth voting even during peak hours.
The second challenge was cost management. To avoid unnecessary costs, Hyve revoked server resources after the end of the voting period, ensuring efficient resource allocation.
Finally, there was the Indigo compatibility issue. Hyve dynamically scaled cloud resources on virtual servers and streamlined the voting process for Indigo Television without the need for new hardware or logins.
result:
Behind the scenes, NTA’s seamless collaboration with Hyve ensured smooth voting throughout the ceremony. The event celebrated a diverse range of winners across categories and recognized the best of British television. Kim Turberville, executive producer of the NTAs, expressed her appreciation for Hyve’s vital contribution to the success of the event. This partnership reflects Hyve’s commitment to creating bespoke cloud solutions and fosters the trust that keeps the NTA team coming back year after year.
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