Doors Open Days Umbraco Website

Doors Open Days: Website Hosting, Support and Enhancements

Doors Open Days (DOD) is Scotland’s largest free festival that celebrates heritage. It offers free access to over a thousand venues throughout September, every year. It is coordinated nationally by the Scottish Civic Trust and is part of European Heritage Days.

Scalable and cost-effective hosting solution with Microsoft Azure Cloud technology, keeping the website performant and available during significant traffic demands. It was imperative that visitors can access the events programme at all times and have a positive experience with the performance of the website.

Umbraco Website we inherited to host, support and deliver ongoing enhancements

In the tendering process I‑Finity were able to demonstrate delivery of:

• Scalable hosting solution to effectively manage peak periods of website activity
  
  
• Responsive support with more scope for support during peak periods
  
  
• Successful transition from existing supplier including the move of a substantial database
  
  
• Website transition to I-Finity’s hosting environment with no downtime
  
  
• Performance improvements to keep website operational and accessible
  
  
  

Agile Delivery

Scalable Hosting Solution with Microsoft Azure Cloud

I‑Finity delivered performance and scalability by transitioning the website to an Azure hosted environment with the following implementation:

• Defined peak months to have more website capacity to support the increase in traffic (Peak months experience 70% of total yearly website traffic)
  
  
• During non-peak months scale the capacity down for a cost-effective approach
  
  
• Proactive monitoring to ensure high availability with planned scaling for capacity
  
  
• Performance improvements delivered by removing areas of inefficient code

Microsoft Azure Cloud Benefits for DOD Website
 

• Ability to scale on demand as well as the proactive planned approach
  
  
• Proactive monitoring with Azure Monitor to maximise performance and availability
  
  
• Successful management of the peaks in demand has kept the website operational during the crucial weekends for DOD events

Website Enhancements and Support
 

• Resolved previous issues such as updating the Instagram integration
• Improved code to drive performance efficiencies
  
  
• Centralised support process that is accessible to DOD team and centralised support requests from Regional Event Coordinators
  
  
• Designed and developed the new Digital programme placement for 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions
  
  
• Developing new areas for the website to encourage year-round activities
  
  
• Extended and enhanced existing functionality

Outcomes

• Delivered a successful website hosting transition with a large database to Azure with no downtime
  
  
• Provide ongoing support and proactive monitoring of the website with increased support during peak times
  
  
• Delivered incremental performance benefits both front and back end of the Umbraco website

I‑Finity continue to partner with DOD team, working collaboratively to ensure the website continues to deliver for DOD’s visitors. Microsoft Azure continues to power and scale a heavy traffic website delivering high availability.

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