Rackspace has announced that it is providing free Rackspace Managed Cloud Services in support of the ‘It’s Our World’ arts project.
This will allow the charity website to handle thousands of submissions from schools across the UK, which is expected to create big traffic spikes.
‘It’s Our World’ is using a Rackspace public cloud in order to power its website, which aims to becomes the UK’s largest collection of artworks celebrating the environment. The online gallery is open to submissions for ages 4-19 to create artwork which celebrates where they live.
Overthrow Digital, a creative agency which handles the technical aspects of the public facing website and CMS was responsible for selecting Rackspace. The requirements for the cloud provider to fulfil were; scalability, intensive support and a clear commitment to the environment. Clearly, Rackspace’s eco-friendly values were a key factor in the decision to begin the relationship.
Overthrow Digital had faced challenges with its previous hosting provider over receiving adequate support to set up the solution and having technical expertise on hand.
Joshua Blavins, Project Manager, Overthrow Digital said: "When working with our previous hosting provider, a high percentage of my time was spent maintaining the website infrastructure. This made it difficult to focus on my more strategic responsibilities which deliver more value to the project."
"Now that the Rackspace managed cloud service is in place, it’s no longer a worry. We particularly saw a benefit of this when setting up the solution as a Rackspace team of Solutions Architects developed a bespoke, scalable solution very quickly which was just what we needed."
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Large spikes in website traffic are expected as the deadline for the project approaches due to thousands of images being submitted, and as this will happen in a short timeframe, the website required effective website infrastructure backed up with support to help them.
The charity will be using a number of tolls such as Load Balancers, Cloud Databases and Cloud Files in order to help deal with visitors expected to number in the hundreds of thousands. In order to meet the requirements, Rackspace is offering above standard and doing it free of charge.
Jeff Cotten, MD Rackspace International, said: "Rackspace has long been associated with helping charities power their online presence. ‘It’s Our World’ doesn’t have a group of in-house specialists available to maintain the IT infrastructure, so using our team of experts has allowed it to focus on promoting the great artwork these young people are creating rather than on managing servers.
"It’s great to hear that the team behind this initiative wanted to work with us due to our eco-friendly values. I’m proud of the various green initiatives that we are committed to, including running our UK office and data centre sites on 100% certified renewable energy. An increasing number of our customers really appreciate our strong green credentials."
‘It’s Our World’ has been developed in support for The Campaign for Drawing and has active involvement from over 20 arts, educational and environmental partners. It was created to celebrate World Environment Day on, 5th June.
