mckinseyquarterly.com

Is a high availability system, a heavy traffic site, and an example of successful application scaling.

Quantum has been supporting the McKinsey Quarterly web site, mckinseyquarterly.com, since its inception in 1998. We started the site on a single physical server running both Microsoft Internet Information Server and Microsoft SQL Server software. Today the Quarterly runs on a distributed network of servers deployed all around the world. At the core of this network is a set of servers running in Quantum’s Chicago area data center.

We use Cisco Content Management switches to manage load balancing of multiple dedicated web servers and SQL2005 database mirroring technology to insure the high speed and high availability of the several specialized (OLAP & OLTP) databases at the heart of the Quarterly’s system. Redundancy and automatic fail-over are provided at every point in the system. Security is provided by several layers of technology; including, but not limited to, a pair of Cisco ASA Switches at the front of the Quarterly’s dedicated subnets.

Quantum’s architects and developers have worked with McKinsey’s designers and content providers to develop the database structures and the application business logic that provides the Quarterly’s key functionalities. These include an ecommerce infrastructure capable of handling transactions in multiple currencies and a customized content management system that handles the Quarterly’s content production and deployment process as well as the Quarterly affiliates program.

We have also built multiple windows service applications and web services which provide application interfaces used to work with external systems/services used to manage tasks such as financial transaction processing, order fulfillment, bulk email processing, log file processing and integration with other McKinsey corporate data sources. Application interfaces are also used to extend The Quarterly’s web presence beyond the boundaries of its core web site. RSS Feeds and other XML bases systems allow McKinsey to efficiently push Quarterly content into the realm of popular social networks. Collectively these components are the middleware that allows distributed services to safely and reliably interact with Quarterly data and supports the enterprise application the McKinsey Quarterly has become.

Today the Quarterly has over 2.5 million registered users and over 79,000 paid subscribers; the system commonly handles over 20,000 active sessions and can handle many times that amount in moments of peak activity. Throughout the years of phenomenal growth, Quantum has worked with McKinsey to efficiently scale up their available capacity so that they could always provide a reliable and satisfying service to their customers while also maximizing the value of their investment in supporting technology.

Quantum has also helped McKinsey manage the evolution of the technology used to support their growing enterprise. Much has changed since the Quarterly first launched. Then the site was largely a collection of asp web pages that pulled article text from a MSSQL 6.5 database. Today the Quarterly is built around the Microsoft .Net framework, works with MSSQL2005, and provides a full range of content types including java applets, flash files and streaming video. Quantum has helped McKinsey navigate technological change so that the Quarterly has always been able to meet their users growing expectations without them experiencing growing pains either functionally or financially.