SBS World Cup 2010

http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/2010-world-cup/

SBS works to connect audiences consistently to a broad range of high engagement platforms, with an ever-expanding presence in all media environments. A unique multi-platform content provider and public broadcaster in Australia, SBS Online provides unique quality content to around 950,000 unique browsers per month. The SBS portal gives access to 30 special interest websites including The World Game.

SBS signed Hostworks to underpin its hosting platform for the delivery of the World Game site in association with the 2010 Soccer World Cup. During the course of the 2010 competition, the World Game site saw 1.5 million unique visitors and recorded between 25 million and 30 million page impressions and 2 million video views (source: The Australian, 19th July, 2010).

Traditionally large online platforms are delivered through a farm of dedicated hardware; time consuming to deploy, very expensive, and with limited capacity. Hostworks recognised that this did not meet today’s online “peaky” demand profile. In order to remove these barriers for our online customers, including SBS, Hostworks invested in a project to deliver an on-demand platform which we term ‘Utility Computing’.

This means:

• Environments can be made readily available to customers, allowing early testing and proving, hence minimising risk.
• Removes the need for capital outlay, the customer pays only for what they use.
• Removes limitation of capacity, delivering the required capacity no matter how popular an event may be.

Technology

Hostworks partnered with Hewlett Packard to underpin the “utility compute” environment for SBS. The Hostworks utility managed service (comprising of infrastructure, management and tools) ensured a premier user experience at all times.

Automation

In late 2008, Hostworks entered into a program of automation. This program revisited our core toolset and processes with the aim of meeting our future growth. Hostworks uses automation as the foundation of our “utility computing” offering, rapidly deploying additional environments as demand grows.

Foundation of Cloud

Hostworks adheres to the Gartner definition of cloud computing: “computing where massively scalable IT-enabled capabilities are delivered ‘as a service’ to external customers using internet technologies.”

If you would like to know more about how Hostworks can assist with your special events, please contact sales@hostworks.com.au.

PRESS RELEASE - SBS chooses Hostworks to support online coverage of FIFA World Cup 2010