Peak Periods, Peak Performance: Catchpoint Launches Internet Resilience Program

In our latest announcement, we are thrilled to launch our Internet Resilience Program, previously known as Black Friday Assurance. This program provides on-demand access to a team of expert engineers to help ensure the performance and resilience of websites and applications during crucial events. While it’s evident why eCommerce companies find this program indispensable during peak holiday seasons, shopping events are not the only occasion when IT teams are stretched to the limit. Here’s why the Internet Resilience Program is a game-changer and why its impact goes far beyond the eCommerce sector.  

Addressing the challenge of seasonal surges  

Online retailers anticipate and often rely on seasonal surges in consumer activity year-round. However, when shoppers flock to secure door-buster deals and purchase holiday essentials, web traffic surges to levels that standard resource allocation struggles to accommodate. This spike in traffic can lead to unresponsive checkouts, lost or abandoned carts, and slow-loading pages. In fact, a sudden influx of visitors to your website can resemble a cyberattack, potentially causing your site to crash entirely. Ultimately, this scenario often leads to substantial revenue losses, often amounting to millions.  

Our Internet Resilience Program helps you combat these challenges effectively. Here’s how it works:  

1. Catchpoint’s IPM Platform and Dedicated Performance Team: Two weeks before and following key events, you’ll have access to Catchpoint’s leading IPM platform, coupled with the expertise of a dedicated performance team. This team works closely with you to configure optimal testing strategies tailored specifically for your needs in preparation for your high-traffic period.  

2. Real-Time Issue Detection and Resolution: During the program, our expert teams continuously monitor your applications and websites 24/7. They promptly identify, report, troubleshoot, and resolve potential issues to safeguard your customers’ experience and your business.  

3. Comprehensive Post-Event Analysis: Following the event, we provide you with a comprehensive report that analyzes monitoring data, benchmarks against key competitors, and offers recommendations for performance optimization.  

Beyond Black Friday

While the holiday season for online retailers typically takes center stage in discussions of peak periods, the reality is that peak periods can vary widely depending on the nature of your business. It could be major sporting or entertainment events, busy travel seasons, high-demand product launches or even tax season for a tax preparation company.  

For example, if you’re investing in advertising during the Super Bowl, it’s imperative that your website performs flawlessly before, during, and after the big game. The same applies if you’re sponsoring a prestigious event like the Oscars, anticipating a celebrity endorsement, such as Kim Kardashian wearing your products, or gearing up for the tax deadline in April. Any period that holds paramount importance for your business demands unwavering excellence in web performance.  

While the industry and use cases in the examples above may vary, a common denominator in these scenarios is a challenge modern businesses are struggling to cope with - talent.    

Bridging the talent gap  

At Catchpoint, we have a deep understanding of the challenges organizations currently encounter when it comes to recruiting and retaining talent. In last year’s SRE Report, we asked, “What is the number one challenge hindering successful reliability implementations?” as an open-ended question, giving survey respondents the ability to type in anything they wanted. Remarkably, talent-related issues, encompassing hiring, retention, and assimilation, emerged as the foremost challenge. This was ahead of our predetermined anchor biases, including architectural complexity, lack of end-to-end visibility and tool sprawl.  

Consider how this challenge intensifies during peak shopping periods like Black Friday. How about when transitioning to a new CDN provider, migrating to a different cloud provider, or launching a new product? With our Internet Resilience Program, you can be confident that you’ll have access to the talent and expertise you require precisely when you need it most.  

“Building on more than a decade of experience working with the leading brands, the Internet Resilience Program packages best-in-class teams and technology,” said Hussain Peeran, Senior Vice President, Customer Experience and Technical Services at Catchpoint. “Every year, we safeguard mission-critical systems for premier enterprises, on average averting over a dozen potentially disastrous incidents. Without our rigorous preventive monitoring, these threats could inflict severe business impact often measured in millions of dollars.”  

“As the global leader in enterprise application software, SAP highly values Catchpoint’s Managed Services team for their 24x7 proactive monitoring of our 2000+ websites,” said Martin Norato Auer, Vice President of CX Observability and Automation Foundations, SAP. “They were instrumental in achieving zero downtime across all our websites during Black Friday — a time when disruptions are not an option for the countless eCommerce companies we support.”  

Learn more

Find out more about the program here.

For tips on how to prepare your website for times of high traffic, download our ebook.