How WRC Motorsport & Beyond Shifted into Fifth Gear Thanks to the Cloud?

Case Study WRC Motorsport & Beyond

WRC Motorsport & Beyond is one of the top three automotive portals in Poland, covering a wide range of automotive topics. The site attracts over 6 million unique visitors every month, seeking news, car presentations, tests, and columns. With its rapidly growing traffic, the website needed technical support on par with Formula 1 standards.

CHALLENGES

The growing popularity of the website meant that the editorial team needed a more efficient infrastructure to ensure high availability and faster page loading times. The client also wanted to increase security and backup services.

Previously, the website relied on a single dedicated server with very high specifications, but incidents related to configuration occurred very frequently. Occasionally, additional difficulties arose due to bottlenecks. The provider failed to address the issues promptly and learn from the incidents that occurred. The editorial team remained concerned about the stable operation of the hosting. Thanks to the solutions proposed by Oktawave, it was possible to resolve issues of downtime and unexpected incidents. Every need is now promptly and properly addressed.

SOLUTIONS

The Oktawave team designed an optimal solution based on two servers, with the application and database services separated into separate instances. Traffic is directed to the application instance with PHP installed. The database service was launched on a single instance with MySQL installed. Redis (responsible for caching) was also installed on this instance to reduce the number of queries to the database. The prepared servers can be scaled both vertically (changing parameters) and horizontally (changing the number of servers) as traffic increases and demand for greater power grows.

Our team proposed that static content be delivered directly to users' browsers using the Oktawave Cloud Storage (OCS) service, which allows files and objects of any size to be stored. The OCS management interface is based on a REST API designed to facilitate easy collaboration with many web tools. OCS also provides a high level of data storage security through built-in replication and data distribution mechanisms, and object transmission is always performed using encrypted connections. All services are placed in a private network.

And what about the cockpit? Administrative access to services is provided through an IPsec tunnel established between the infrastructure located in Oktawave and the office (site-to-site connection). Users working outside the office can establish client-to-site VPN connections. Security is provided by a firewall service configured based on open-source pfSense software.

Backup can be performed in two ways: through the Oktawave panel or with the assistance of the Premium Support team. If the backup service is to be carried out through the Oktawave panel, entire machine images will be stored as part of the Oktawave Cloud Storage service, whose authentication mechanisms ensure secure backup storage. If backups are to be performed with the help of Cloud Masters, the backup will follow the following schedule: full - once a week - and incremental - on any other day of the week.

BENEFITS

Migration to the Oktawave cloud provided the publisher with a reliable infrastructure. The service gained greater flexibility and performance, as well as a high level of security for stored data. With the support of Premium Support, the publisher does not have to deal with infrastructure, but can fully focus on developing the service. Cloud hosting guarantees smoothness, and the support of engineers from the Premium Support team ensures the environment's maintenance-free operation.

The Oktawave cloud allowed us to reach full speed. We got rid of limitations, and even during peak traffic, we ensure the reliable operation of the service. If needed, we know that Premium Support is waiting for us in the pit stop, ready to quickly deal with any issue.

Adam Romanowski, J15 Digital