The National Television Awards (NTAs) is a major UK event that recognizes excellence in television across a variety of categories. What makes the NTAs stand out is that the winners are chosen by the public through voting methods such as online, telephone, and postal ballots. These results are then revealed live on ITV.

For the past four years, the NTAs have relied on Hyve Managed Hosting to handle a key task: ensuring the online voting system runs smoothly. The challenge is particularly pronounced during peak voting times leading up to the ceremony, when traffic spikes. In 2023, Hyve had to guarantee a seamless experience for every voter wanting to cast their vote.

Hyve used its expertise in cloud technology to provide a scalable, reliable solution. They implemented a dynamic scaling strategy to automatically adjust resources based on real-time traffic, ensuring everything ran smoothly even during the busiest periods.

The Problem:

Each year, the NTAs see a significant increase in website traffic as millions of people cast their votes in the lead-up to the ceremony. This surge can overwhelm servers, causing slow load times, error messages, or even crashes, which threatens the integrity of the voting process. Server downtime can also damage the credibility of the awards, making voters question the fairness of the event.

Beyond frustrating voters, server crashes can discourage participation and create negative publicity, harming the NTAs’ reputation. It also creates logistical challenges for the NTAs and its broadcast partner, Indigo Television, with potential delays in announcing the results and disruptions to the live broadcast, which could throw off the entire schedule.

To maintain the integrity of the awards and ensure a smooth voting experience for everyone, the reliability and scalability of the platform were crucial for the NTAs.

The Solution:

To meet these challenges, Hyve created a custom cloud platform designed to handle the surge in traffic during the voting periods. In the past year, they increased server resources 24 times during the voting windows to accommodate the traffic from millions of voters. Once the voting windows closed, resources were reduced to normal levels to avoid unnecessary cloud usage and lower costs for the NTAs.

In addition to providing a scalable cloud solution to ensure 100% network uptime, Hyve’s support team was on hand to monitor the servers. They set alert thresholds to quickly ramp up resources if traffic exceeded expected levels, ensuring the system was always prepared.

Hyve’s ability to dynamically scale resources on virtual servers also simplified the process for Indigo Television. Since no new hardware or logins were required, the voting system ran seamlessly on their existing infrastructure.

The Challenge:

The first challenge was predicting traffic surges. Hyve addressed this by setting alerts for its servers to automatically increase resources if traffic unexpectedly spiked. This proactive strategy helped ensure smooth voting during peak times.

The second challenge was managing costs. To avoid unnecessary expenses, Hyve scaled back resources once the voting period ended, ensuring that cloud resources were used efficiently.

Lastly, Hyve had to ensure compatibility with Indigo Television’s existing setup. By scaling cloud resources dynamically on virtual servers, Hyve made sure the voting process ran smoothly without requiring any new hardware or logins.

The Result:

The collaboration between Hyve and the NTAs ensured that the voting process ran seamlessly during the entire ceremony. The awards recognized outstanding achievements across various categories, celebrating the best in British television. Kim Turberville, the NTAs’ executive producer, praised Hyve for their essential role in the event’s success. This partnership highlights Hyve’s ability to provide tailored cloud solutions, fostering a level of trust that has led the NTAs team to rely on them year after year.