RCS MediaGroup: Streamlining web traffic to portals, thanks to Google Cloud
About RCS MediaGroup
RCS MediaGroup is one of the largest media groups in Europe. It was established in Italy in 1927. Today it is the publisher of famous daily newspapers, magazines, TV, and books in Italy and in Spain. In 2022, it was the leading online publisher in Italy, with 31.4 million average monthly unique users.
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Contact usRCS MediaGroup uses Google Cloud services to optimize infrastructure efficiency, cut costs and guarantee users a flawless service, even during intense traffic volumes.
Google Cloud results
- An improved scalable system to deal in few seconds with peaks of +300% users on news portals
- 20% savings on infrastructure costs
- High efficiency and almost 99% stability
20% savings on infrastructure costs, improving efficiency
Every digital company records peaks in the use of its services: they are sometimes predictable, but often they are not. It is a recurring situation for an editorial company since the news arrives when you least expect it. It means that portals must be efficient, ready to respond, and—above all—highly scalable to meet all the readers’ needs. The reader is crucial for a newspaper; that is it.
RCS MediaGroup is one of the largest media groups in Europe. It publishes longstanding Italian newspapers such as Corriere della Sera, the leading one in the Italian market, and Gazzetta dello Sport, the best-known sports newspaper. In Spain, it is also the publishing company of El Mundo and Marca, the most widely read sports journal in Spanish-speaking countries.
"Just to give you an idea of the numbers we are talking about, Marca's website reaches 350,000 simultaneous users during certain events such as Champions League matches, or sensational news like a star player's transfer. Users do not just read the news, they actually engage by commenting and interacting with each other," Giandomenico Oldano, ICT Operations Director of the group for over 18 years, explains*. It was he who dealt with the continuous digital transformations experienced by the group, especially during the implementation of the cloud, a transition that began in 2014.
"We adopted the Google Cloud because we no longer wanted to own physical infrastructure: evaluating the costs, we realized that it was no longer convenient to keep our own machines."
—Giandomenico Oldano, ICT Operations Director, RCS MediaGroupFrom minutes to just a few seconds: how RCS faced traffic peaks using Google Cloud
"We adopted the cloud system because we were the infrastructure owner: evaluating the costs, we realized that it was no longer convenient to keep our own machines" Oldano says. The problem was precisely due to peaks, which forced us to dimension our infrastructure to fulfill the peaks, so most of the time our servers were underused, but we had to always keep them switched on. You cannot switch on and off a physical infrastructure. It’s a waste of resources which also means a waste of money.
By using Google Cloud's scaling mechanisms and an automation-first approach based on Infrastructure as Code, RCS was able to save resources and time, while maintaining a high level of service quality. "Earlier we had a system that could scale only up to physical infrastructure capacity, now in just a few seconds we can switch on an infrastructure that is able to fulfill almost any peak of user requests. In addition, we had structured the system ourselves. It's all automatic now."
20% savings on service costs thanks to Google Cloud
Google Cloud was selected for three main reasons:
1) low costs
2) better performances
3) high reliability
"Proprietary infrastructure was no longer sustainable. With our migration to cloud services, we amortize the expenses when the peak is reached, which could mean up to +300% of users on a site compared to the average."
Going to the cloud enabled RCS the opportunity to build a fully modernized and scalable infrastructure, adopting key technologies such as Google Kubernetes Engine. Today RCS has moved largely to containers. Using Google Kubernetes Engine they are improving their scaling capabilities. Autoscaling allowed RCS to change the percentage of CPU allocated in real-time. "We can affirm that the increased resource efficiency led us to save at least 20% in terms of costs, by turning on fewer machines and operating faster."
"Before we had a system that could scale only up to the physical capacity of the on premise infrastructure, now with Google Cloud we have a system that can scale without limits: in a few seconds it is able to fulfill any user request peak, moreover everything happens automatically."
—Giandomenico Oldano, ICT Operations Director, RCS MediaGroupAlmost 100% of stability, fixing the problems due to lack of resources
Thanks to Google Cloud, performance has clearly improved: "We almost achieved 100% functionality, with no dips or crashes. With on-premises systems, on the other hand, there was often a lack of resources or we used to find ourselves at the limit of physical resources," Oldano confirms. "Considering all the stress tests we carry out, even a simulation cannot reproduce a real situation where resources are overused, since numbers or contingencies are unexpected and unpredictable. With the cloud, we are no longer bound to physical capacity."
The efforts have also been optimized on the financial side. If it is true that advanced technologies always bring savings, at the same time costs should be controlled. "If I may give a suggestion, I believe that the cloud cannot be adopted without a structure that controls expenses. In short, FinOps cannot be excluded."
"With Google Cloud, we exceeded our goals and nearly achieved 100% functionality, with no dips or crashes. With on-premises systems there was often a lack of resources."
—Giandomenico Oldano, ICT Operations Director, RCS MediaGroupFinOps is optimal to control costs and avoid anomalies
FinOps is a management methodology for financial operations and, in fact, it gets its name from "financial operations." It is about developing shared responsibility for cloud computing infrastructure and costs. Different business aspects contribute to improving economic efficiency, including IT and Finance.
"The IT team must continuously upgrade the infrastructure, adding new services and features, improving, for example machines Memory and Computing power and so, for this reason, an analytical point of view is required, in real-time, on current and potential costs. It is therefore essential to rely on custom tools to get it."
A close and reliable relationship with Google Cloud
A digital optimization process requires a well-structured team and professional advice from a service provider. "The relationship and support from the cloud provider is vital and what Google Cloud guarantees leads us to achieve our goals, feeling supported and well advised. We need technicians who keep the company updated about new types of tools, or IaaS and PaaS services, which meet our needs. We are advised by people who know our reality, infrastructure, business and needs: in this way, we can save time and resources, always maintaining high performance."
It is also essential to have internal know-how to get the best from the cloud system: "We need to build a cohesive and prepared team, which is quick to implement new infrastructures needed to fulfill business needs without having to engage external resources, relying on IaC automation. Just as the link between DevOps, system analysts and those involved in software development is important. Software must be optimized for the infrastructure. Only in this way, the final deployment ensures a continuous service."
*Giandomenico Oldano was the RCS MediaGroup's ICT Operations Director until June 2023.
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About RCS MediaGroup
RCS MediaGroup is one of the largest media groups in Europe. It was established in Italy in 1927. Today it is the publisher of famous daily newspapers, magazines, TV, and books in Italy and in Spain. In 2022, it was the leading online publisher in Italy, with 31.4 million average monthly unique users.