How does Slovakia's leading football platform maintain seamless functionality?
Since its launch in 2010, Futbalnet has been the main news platform for football clubs, associations, and fans in Slovakia. It provides administrators with essential features for publishing match results, content, images, and videos.
However, after several years, the growing amount of data and increasing user numbers exceeded the technical capabilities of the original system. The platform struggled to handle real-time data processing, and managing information from weekly matches placed high demands on servers, leading to increased costs and negatively impacting user experience.
One of the key challenges was managing simultaneous access from over 5,000 users tracking live football match results.
Traditional caching solutions fell short, prompting us to introduce REDIS—a high-performance caching layer designed to provide rapid data access without straining the server. Through careful testing and deployment of REDIS, we successfully achieved the stability and performance required, even during periods of heavy traffic.
Another challenge was the unstructured data from external web services required for display on the portal.
To address this, we developed a server-side module. This module effectively structured and cached the data, reducing server load and ensuring a smooth data flow between the external web service and the portal's frontend.
Technologies used
The redesigned portal, with responsive functionality, allows fans to follow match results on various devices, including mobile phones and tablets. The new design has been warmly welcomed by the broader football community.
System optimization and the implementation of REDIS significantly reduced SFZ’s operational costs for maintaining the platform. Additionally, the deployment of server-side module improved data processing efficiency, enhancing user satisfaction among clubs and associations.
Our successful collaboration with SFZ led to further development of other projects. Based on our results, SFZ entrusted us with the development of a video archive, a specialized CMS for content management, a user authentication server, an online store, a ticketing system, and event management tools. We also successfully launched the new websites dedicated to the Slovak Football Association and the virtual Hall of Fame, which highlights the achievements of players who have made their mark in history.
