Euro 2016: Defend your website and streaming performance in peak traffic

The 2016 UEFA Euro Championship is just around the corner. From June 10 to July 10, fans of the beautiful game will clamber to see and support their national teams as they compete in France.

With each massive, multinational competition of this type, the demand to follow the competition online grows to new heights. According to Streaming Media Europe, Euro 2016 is set to break all streaming records. While difficult to predict the exact traffic levels because matches take places at different times throughout the day, forecasts may reach peaks of between 10-13Tb per second, which bests all previous event-streaming records. As we’ve discussed before, popular, in-demand sporting events, such as the London Olympics, drive new traffic and streaming records. Each new event sets new records. Euro 2016 will be no exception,even if predictions indicate that the records it sets won’t live long - the Rio Olympics may see global streaming demand hit between 15-18Tb per second.

Cuauhtemiña: Take control of the ball when under attack

With encroaching web traffic and in peak demand conditions, it might feel like there is no way around just biting the bullet: either succumb to the traffic (and face probable failure) or invest in expensive hardware to scale up to meet demand.

However, sometimes there is a way over or through the challenge. Take a page from the book of Cuauhtémoc Blanco in the 1998 World Cup. When under attack from several players attempting to tackle him, he trapped the ball between his feet and jumped over the attackers, maintaining control of the ball (a move that has since been dubbed “the Cuauhtemiña”).  

Finding a scalable solution to jump over or circumvent the “attack” on your backend can provide a similar victory for the viability and performance of your streaming. That’s what Varnish Software can do for you: help you get control of the ball (or in this case, your traffic).

Attack the goal

Varnish Software’s CEO, Lars Larsson, has been passionate about spreading the word that media companies must scale up for the demand they are going to see:

“Euro 2016 and the Rio Olympics, are major events, and we are heading into the most web-intensive summer ever. We know peaks are going to happen, and it’s within every media organization’s reach to be 100% ready for web traffic at any scale without sacrificing performance or the end-user experience - or breaking the bank.”

Are you ready?

We’ve posed the question before: Are you ready for a potential web traffic jam?

Ready to get started on scaling up? Get started by reading our white paper on HTTP streaming.