Skip to content
Systemcraft

High-Traffic System

A Campaign Platform That Held Through Its Peak

A campaign system that could not survive peak hours was rebuilt to scale before the campaign, not during it.

99.99%

Uptime during campaign

Under 200ms

Response time

50,000+

Peak concurrent users

Problem, solution, result

Problem
The existing campaign system could not handle traffic spikes at peak hours. A successful campaign would have taken it down at exactly the wrong moment.
Solution
A scalable cloud architecture with auto-scaling, load tested against a production copy before the campaign window rather than tuned during it.
Result
The campaign ran through its high-traffic period with no downtime.

The window was known, which is an advantage

Campaigns have a start time. That makes them easier to prepare for than organic growth: you know roughly how many people, and exactly when. The mistake is treating that certainty as a reason to relax rather than a deadline.

How we prepared

  • Load tested against a copy of production at the expected number, then at double it
  • Fixed the first bottleneck the test exposed, then ran the test again
  • Moved session state out of individual server memory, so adding servers actually helped
  • Pre-warmed capacity ahead of the known start time instead of waiting for auto-scaling to react
  • Agreed in advance who was watching dashboards during the window, and what would trigger a rollback

What load testing actually buys you

Not a guarantee. Information. Before the test, nobody could say what the ceiling was. After it, the ceiling was a number, above the expected peak, with margin. That is what let everyone stop worrying about it.

The general approach is on the high-traffic campaign platform page.

Solutions

Services

  • Cloud & DevOps

    Deploys that are boring, costs you can predict, and a system that stays up on your biggest day.

  • Backend Engineering

    The part nobody sees, and the part that decides whether your product survives a busy Monday.

Industries

  • SaaS & Startups

    Ship without painting yourself into a corner, and survive the day your launch works.