Every DECA, FBLA, HOSA, or TSA event features its own peak. State conferences open registration, and all those advisors flood in at once. Competition day comes, and all those judges in all those rooms enter scores at the same time. Exams open, and all those students begin testing at about the same minute. Those are defining moments for your association, and that is precisely when a website cannot afford to lag.
Older systems are geared for average load. They are based on a predictable amount of computing capacity that you have to pre-provision, adequate for an average Tuesday but nothing like enough for the initial rush of conference registrations. As demand surges, web pages drag, uploads timeout, and scoring fails to save. Your only option is an urgent phone call to the provider, followed by a long wait as they look to see whether they can even scale quickly enough to account for the load on their systems.
Not CTSO Central.
Exam availability on the CTSO Central platform is handled in isolation from other functionality within the platform itself. Capacity buffers are kept at all times on the platform, and when the buffer starts to thin out, capacity buffers are created instantly without the need for any additional configuration. This allows the system to respond quickly when there are more exams being taken than anticipated. No queues form, there are no delays, and no calls are made to our support team.
Running on a global cloud
The CTSO Central platform is powered by Amazon Web Services, the same cloud infrastructure on which some of the most popular applications are running today. AWS data centers span multiple continents around the globe, and because CTSO Central is running on top of this infrastructure, it can be easily extended further to include additional regions in order to serve closer to end users as needed. This possibility is already built-in.
The global protection net
On top of AWS, there is Cloudflare – an advanced network that will serve content to your browser from the nearest location possible. Regardless if you are in Texas or in Maine, you do not have to wait for the answer to come from hundreds of miles away. Instead, content gets served from the closest edge point.
This protection layer also serves another purpose: it absorbs any irregularities in traffic that could disrupt the system.
Implications for Conference Day
The implications are simple: when registration is opened, the system is prepared. When the judges begin grading, all submissions are immediately saved. When the exams take place, all students have a seat. You don’t need to worry if the technology will handle your event. We will take care of that for you.
Scalability in the CTSO Central platform is something that is built into the system by design. Together with the modern data model we provide, which makes sure that all the associated data is structured properly, and our flexible structure that suits your needs perfectly, you have a platform that is equally adept at managing your biggest event or a typical Tuesday meeting.
