Feb, 2002 : Superbowl.com Tackled Under Load of Online MVP Vote

📅 February 11, 2002 - Super Bowl fans trying to vote online for Most Valuable Player at Superbowl.com last Sunday evening waited up to 45 seconds to reachboth the site and the voting page, ostensibly as it bogged down under theincreased traffic load, according to reports by Keynote (keynote.com). Thesite was also unable to serve up all of its content during this time,indicating that it was stressed and unable to fully meet the demands oftraffic.

The SuperBowl.com and MVP pages started to slow soon after the start of thegame. In the half hour after the game started at 6:00pm EST, SuperBowl.comaveraged 3.4-5.4 seconds with 100% availability; the MVP page 3.9-4.7seconds and 98-100% availability. By 6:45, both had slowed considerably:SuperBowl.com to 17.95 seconds; the MVP page to 15.94 seconds. Between7:00-7:30pm, SuperBowl.com slowed to as much as 45.85 seconds on average,although availability remained very high at 100%.
Typically, a site under load has a plan to add resources to accommodate theload and maintain performance, which is consistent with the performanceimprovement we see at 7:30.
Keynote also measured the performance of other sports sites and Super Bowladvertisers, all of which by and large performed well, both Internet-basedand brick and mortar, including those with online promotions such asPepsi-Cola.
HotJobs.com - no discernible performance affect during the game, withperformance that day and since Friday in the range of 1.0-2.0; availabilityvery high: 99-100%. However on Monday, 2/4, performance was consistentlyhigher, in the range of 2.5-3.0. Average performance overall: 1.63 seconds;99.78% availability.
Cadillac.com - performance steadily increased from Friday into Monday. OnFriday, the site was consistently in the 1.2 second range, increasing to2.3-2.5 on Saturday, and to 2.5-2.8 on Sunday, getting as high as 3.24seconds from 9-11pm on Sunday. On Monday afternoon, the site wasconsistently above 3.0 seconds. Availability, usually 99- 100%, dropped to82.4% from 7-9pm during the game. Overall: 2.27 seconds; 98.67%availability.
Warner Brothers (Collateral Damage) - Average performance 0.21 seconds;98.85% availability; availability dropped to 56.0% 11:00am-1:00pm on Monday.
For all other advertisers measured, Keynote saw no discernible performanceaffect either during, prior to or following the game.
Other sports sites posting news and information about the Super Bowlperformed very well. CBS Sportsline, Fox Sports and NFL.com all averagedunder 2.0 seconds with availability exceeding 99.0% during the hours of thegame and immediately following.
By comparison, the Keynote Business 40 (KB40) Index, a benchmark for theoverall health and performance of the Internet, averaged 2.45 seconds and89.24% availability during this time.