How open-source MySQL keeps Eurovision live

'As a Swedish company, we dont know if we are happier about winning the Eurovision Song Contest or hearing about how ClusterControl has helped the EBU to succeed'

The European Broadcasting Union, one of the world’s largest broadcasting networks and the organisation behind the Eurovision Song Contest, has sought help to manage the open-source MySQL databases that power its online video and audio streaming services.

With limited resources and bandwidth in EBU’s IT team, turned to Swedish software firm Severalnines to provide a solution to manage its database infrastructure.

The EBU is the world’s leading alliance of public service media with 73 Members in 56 countries across Europe and beyond. The EBU’s platform provides content creators in the broadcasting industry with high-quality material, its most famous production being the annual Eurovision Song Contest.

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Demand for high-quality, web-based video and audio content from customers challenged the resources of the EBU’s small internal IT team to keep its technology infrastructure running, especially during spike viewing times.

Therefore, the organisation wanted world-class technology and expertise to keep its web-based services, which are powered by 16 open-source databases containing 10 Go, online around the clock.

After a review process in early 2014, Severalnines was selected due to its in-depth knowledge of managing open-source databases and clustering technologies like Galera Cluster for MySQL, which forms the basis of the EBU’s IT architecture.

It took just under a month to conduct a thorough investigation of the automation and management capabilities of ClusterControl. Once the decision was made, ClusterControl helped configure database clusters and high-availability settings according to EBU's needs.

The project gave EBU’s internal IT teams the tools to manage and monitor all database clusters via a single dashboard – providing access to real-time information to act promptly on performance issues.

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“We needed expert advice and help to optimise our database operations at a time when customers are asking for better streaming and content delivery services,” said Laurent Pythoud, IT web manager at EBU. “Thanks to Severalnines, we can spend more time working with our customers to deliver the next generation of content services as our back end is completely protected.”

Severalnines CEO Vinay Joosery added: “As a Swedish company, we don’t know if we are happier about winning the Eurovision Song Contest or hearing about how ClusterControl has helped the EBU to succeed. We look forward to continue our work and make EBU’s databases sing!”

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