SQA2 Case Studies: Ticketing
Client Background
The client is a leading global provider of entertainment ticket sales and distribution services, specializing in key artist promotions, ticket sales, resale market distribution, and sports events. Operating in a highly competitive industry, they provide a platform that handles millions of transactions daily, supporting events from concerts, sports, to theater shows. The client’s infrastructure, built on AWS, EKS, Kubernetes (K8s), and Grafana, is crucial for maintaining high levels of performance, especially during high-demand events like ticket on-sales. To ensure the system can handle these spikes, they rely heavily on performance testing services to maintain customer satisfaction and ensure scalability.
Project Overview
The client engaged SQA², a specialist in QA services, with a focus on performance testing to ensure 100% uptime during high-demand ticket sales, maintain sustainable SLAs, and guarantee the system could scale seamlessly according to traffic patterns. The primary challenges included preventing downtime during major ticket sales events (onsales) and protecting the system from automated ticket ordering (ATO) attacks. The project’s key goals were to improve system scalability, response times, and maintain performance testing best practices.
QA Performance Testing Challenges
Before engaging SQA², the client struggled with several performance-related issues, such as bottlenecks in specific AWS regions and a lack of a structured, scalable performance testing framework. Their existing Gatling-based project was not designed to handle the growing number of teams, services, and API dependencies across regions. This resulted in system instabilities, downtime, and poor user experience, especially during high-traffic ticket sales for major events. These challenges were critical for the business, as performance testing plays a vital role in ensuring the reliability of ticket sales platforms.
Solutions Implemented
SQA² implemented a comprehensive performance testing solution utilizing load testing, stress testing, and scalability testing. These tests were critical in simulating real-world scenarios and pushing the system to its limits, allowing the client to identify and fix bottlenecks in their infrastructure. Key highlights of our QA services include:
- Load Testing: Simulating normal and peak ticket sales traffic to ensure system performance under various conditions.
- Stress Testing: Identifying breaking points and bottlenecks by overloading the system.
- Scalability Testing: Ensuring the system could dynamically scale in response to spikes in traffic, particularly during ticket on-sales for high-profile events.
By building a reusable Gatling framework template, we provided a streamlined process that multiple teams could use, significantly reducing the time required for setting up performance tests. This template allowed the client to scale their performance testing services quickly and efficiently across different regions and services, without the need for extensive rework.
Outcomes and Results
The QA performance testing efforts led to several tangible improvements in the client’s system:
- Improved System Scalability: The client’s platform is now able to handle massive traffic spikes without system crashes or downtime, even during events for major artists.
- Faster Response Times: The optimizations we implemented improved system response times, providing a better user experience for customers purchasing tickets.
- Enhanced Reliability: With a robust performance testing process in place, the client experienced fewer outages and service interruptions during critical ticket on-sales, significantly improving customer satisfaction.
These improvements have ensured that the client can continue to support major events and ticket sales without compromising on performance. Although specific KPIs weren’t available, the overall impact of our QA services was evident in the increased system capacity, reduced downtime, and better operational efficiency during peak sales periods.
Client Feedback
The client expressed high levels of satisfaction with SQA²’s performance testing services, recognizing the value of our cost-effective QA solutions. Below is a feedback excerpt:
“In the weeks leading up to our biggest on-sale event, your tools facilitated complex builds across multiple markets and venues. During a controlled presale, we sold over 360k tickets in a 3-hour window without system failures, something we struggled with in the past. By leveraging your performance testing framework, we maintained uptime throughout the public sale, processing 950k tickets, far surpassing our competitors.”
The client acknowledged that our performance testing framework and support allowed them to remain stable under intense pressure from both real users and bots, safeguarding their platform’s reputation as a leader in ticket sales.
Future Outlook
The client has recognized the importance of maintaining ongoing performance testing as a key part of their operational strategy. While no immediate follow-up projects are planned, there is an initiative to integrate performance testing into their CI/CD pipelines, ensuring continuous performance monitoring and system optimization for future high-profile events.
SQA² will continue to provide value by offering proactive QA services, including performance testing, for teams that may lack the internal resources to handle such tasks. With our cost-effective model and ability to scale testing resources on demand, we stand ready to assist with future performance needs.
Conclusion
Through our QA performance testing services, SQA² successfully improved the client’s system scalability, reliability, and overall user experience during high-demand ticket sales. By implementing a tailored performance testing framework, we helped the client maintain their reputation as a global leader in the entertainment ticketing industry. Our cost-effective QA solutions and expertise in performance testing enabled the client to not only meet but exceed their operational goals without exceeding budget constraints.
This case study highlights the importance of integrating performance testing services into the core processes of any high-traffic platform, ensuring that systems are always ready for peak demand.
Contact Us
At SQA², we specialize in providing comprehensive, scalable, and cost-effective QA solutions that ensure your platform is ready for peak demand. Whether you’re in need of performance testing, automation frameworks, or ongoing QA support, we have the expertise to help you maintain quality and reliability.
Reach out to us today to learn how we can help enhance your system’s quality and reliability, ensuring your business is always prepared to deliver consistent, high-performing user experiences.
