Media · 2012–2014
Election-grade integration for BBC News
I rebuilt a Tier 1 news API single-handedly before London 2012 (millions of daily views, no restart in two years), then built the integration platform behind election coverage until 2015.
The challenge
Two hard deadlines in 2012. The Tier 1 API behind live text commentary had to be replaced before the London Olympics without disrupting millions of daily page views. Then, seven to eight weeks before go-live for election coverage, BBC News found that its chosen OSGi-based integration platform couldn’t run its code.
What I did
- Rebuilt the Tier 1 API single-handedly in under three months, with twelve times the functionality, fast and reliable.
- Built a custom OSGi service bus on Apache Karaf in time for election coverage.
- Deployed the elections data platform on AWS, then refactored it onto AWS services (SNS, SQS, S3).
The outcome
- The new API served millions of page views a day and ran for over two years without a restart.
- BBC News used the service bus for US and UK election coverage from 2012 to 2015.
Have a hard problem worth solving?
Tell me about the system, the team or the deadline. I'll tell you honestly whether I can help.