Comic Relief CIO doubles cloud capacity for Red Nose Day 2011

In anticipation of significantly increased traffic this year, Comic Relief is set to double its cloud capacity for the biennial Red Nose Day to be held on 18 March 2011.

Cloud services for the donations platform will continue to be provided by East London-based company Carrenza and will run for the full seven-hour show, to be broadcast on BBC One.

The charity said the predicted increase in traffic, forecast by Carrenza, is the result of a new campaign strategy.

"The campaign has been incredibly successful and as such we have seen a significant increase in online activity," said Marcus East, CIO at Comic Relief.

"Some of this is due to the impact of social networks such as Facebook, which have developed a great deal since the last Comic Relief in 2009, as well as the success of things like the iPhone application and mobile site that we launched this year," he added.

Comic Relief opted for a cloud-based service in 2009 over its own infrastructure, and cited budget as the main reason for the decision.

"We need the scalability as we don't have the resources to run a fully operational platform 365 days a year," explained East.

"We also receive significant discounts and loans from companies such as Cisco and HP which provide hardware just for the day".

Comic Relief also works with IBM to ensure that the infrastructure and payment system PayPal are secure.

East explained that the charity makes use of cloud provider Carrenza's expertise:

"Many people get excited about the cloud because you can do it online and you don't have to speak to people. But this means missing out on the expertise the providers have to offer.

"They even helped us predict and model our figures – something we would not have been able to do in-office. If we had an unexpected surge in traffic, scaling up last minute would not have been an option and it could have caused serious problems."