Neil CraigJul 4, 2024
Here's a few of the prep tasks we've done for the UK General Election in/around our team:
- Add extra CDN/peering capacity
- Ensure personal & machine credentials & TLS cert work & won't expire
- Raise service quotas for safety
- Check that deployment pipeline are clean/deployable
- Ask 3rd parties to be extra-vigilant on change requests
- Rehearse failovers to backup systems
- Make sure all logging/metrics are working correctly
Probably mainly/all pretty obvious but maybe useful.
#BBC #GE2024
Show threadNeil CraigJul 4, 2024
We're expecting a spike on the web and media streams at 10pm BST when the exit poll results are communicated.
Unsure quite how large the spikes will be...that'll depend very much on how close to expectation/prediction the exit polls results are.
There's a good number of us working to cover regular ops but also being available for additional checks/monitoring and escalation paths if needed.
I hope everyone who's working on #GE2024 (and anything else this evening/today) is doing well. 🙌🏻
Show threadNeil CraigJul 4, 2024
Just noticed we're at ~1.3k RPS from BBC staff and in-house, on-network monitoring...
Lots of eyes on for sure.
Show threadNeil CraigJul 4, 2024
The first main Breaking News Event (BNE) notification just went out...That caused roughly a 2x traffic spike on www.bbc.co.uk & www.bbc.com but nothing to worry about, waaaaay within bounds.
Let's see what happens when the exit poll results are communicated out.
Show threadNeil CraigJul 4, 2024
And here's the exit poll: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cn09xn9je7lt
General election live: Keir Starmer names new cabinet, with Reeves as chancellor and Rayner as deputy PM

The prime minister appoints his top team after pledging “the work of change begins immediately”.

BBC News
Show threadNeil CraigJul 4, 2024
The Breaking News Event notification caused roughly a 4x spike versus BAU traffic. Again, still well within the bounds we're comfortable with.
Show threadNeil CraigJul 4, 2024

There's also a new feature this election: "Camera at every count" which you can see here if you're able to access iPlayer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/m002177v/watch-your-count-live

The tech behind it is really interesting, essentially it uses a system developed to take advantage of how good mobile phones & networks are these days. We have a live stream from every one of the 385 election counts in the UK & there's an internal representation of them as a mosaic of mosaics.

I wish I could share it but I can't. Sorry.

Watch Your Count Live

Watch as votes are counted across the UK at over 370 locations

BBC iPlayer
Show threadCatButtesJul 4, 2024
@tdp_org Was that the wall of videos shown briefly in the election results intro on BBC 1 while they were filling space before they could announce the exit polls? It looks pretty cool and I would love to have a peek at what is powering it in the background!
Show threadNeil CraigJul 4, 2024
@catbuttes I didn't see it but it sounds very much like it.
Maybe I'll ask if the folks involved would write it up as a blog post.
The thing I really like about it is that it's *very* pragmatic, task-focussed tech. Gets the job done most of the time with a lot less resources that a super-reliable system.
Show threadCatButtes
@tdp_org I would love to read a write up of everything you guys have going on behind the scenes to make sure this all works. It all sounds incredibly interesting (and I would probably look for any ideas I can poach for my work!)
Jul 4, 2024 at 9:58pmWeb