NBA Season Tip-Off – 21.9M Fans – That’s Scale - Vindicia1. 1
NBA Season Tip-
Off – 21.9M Fans
– That’s Scale
© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
2. 2
NBA Season Tip-Off – 21.9M Fans – That’s Scale
© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
I remember my first NBA game. No, I’m not talking about the Bulls-Pistons game I
attended while living in Chicago (though it was amazing to see Jordan play live). No, my
newer “first” NBA game was a few seasons ago, when NBA launched their online offering
on CashBox. In 2011, the Vindicia team worked through the summer to prepare for the
big day. True basketball fans will also recall that 2011 was the year of the lockout. Due to
the labor dispute, all of our hard work sat on the shelf from October to December, when
the season finally started on Christmas Day.
2011 was also our first year working with the children’s toy company, LeapFrog.
Christmas morning is an incredibly important day for them as well. In 2011, they were
launching the LeapPad, which was widely considered “the hot toy” for the year – a must
have for the younger set.
So there we sat on Christmas Eve, with two major clients who had both bet big on
Vindicia. One big launch is enough to cause a good operations staff to make a list and
check it twice. Having TWO major launches on the same day definitely upped the ante.
We had our CTO, operations team, engineers, and services folks all on standby. 2011
Christmas day went off without a hitch.
3. 3© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
So there we sat on Christmas Eve, with two major clients who had both bet big on
Vindicia. One big launch is enough to cause a good operations staff to make a list and
check it twice. Having TWO major launches on the same day definitely upped the ante.
We had our CTO, operations team, engineers, and services folks all on standby. 2011
Christmas day went off without a hitch.
Fast forward a few seasons. In 2015, just 4 years later, Vindicia has grown at an
incredible pace. New clients like DIRECTV and the BBC have pressed us in new ways,
and we’ve devoted a lot of energy to enhancing platform performance and expanding our
stack. In the interim, we’ve also moved data centers and deployed more than a few shiny
new boxes.
Earlier this year, we had another successful launch with the NFL, and over the past two
nights we sailed through another NBA season tip-off. As is our custom for high profile
events, we arranged for some extra eyes from operations to be watching the stack, and
we had some services folks engaged continuously with the client through the launch
window. In 2011, we were doing this because we were committed to our client’s success
and wanted to make sure we performed exactly as we promised.
4. 4© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
Today that show of force is still about making sure the client knows we’re committed to
their success. You see, with the growth of our customer base over the past several
years, the start of a major sports season just isn’t as large as it used to be. As a
percentage of overall capacity, it’s a nice “little event,” but it’s not the same adrenaline-
inducing event it once was – and that’s a good thing. We’ve been through so many load
tests, so many dry runs, and so many season starts, that we have an incredible amount
of data on which we can draw. We can tell our clients what to expect – how far in
advance they can expect to see volume tick up, and how that traffic curve will shape
itself over the course of the launch. It’s a phenomenal thing to have absolute certainty
that everything will go exactly as planned. It gives us great peace of mind – and that
peace of mind extends to our clients too.
That way, they can focus on the important thing – watching the Warriors play basketball.
5. 5© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.
About the Author: Doug Smith
Doug has over 20 years of experience in technology
development and professional services in enterprise software
and telecommunications. His primary areas of focus are
professional services practice development and enterprise-
scale integration strategy.
Visit our Blog for more information.
6. 6
Like us on Facebook
facebook.com/vindicia
Follow us on Twitter
@Vindicia
Connect with us on Linkedin
linkedin.com/company/vindicia
Thank You
© 2015 Vindicia, Inc. All rights reserved. Vindicia Confidential.