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Cloud ArchitectureEducation Tech
Case study

Scaling learning for 60,000+ users with serverless AWS architecture.

Implementing a secure, high-concurrency video streaming platform for Abu Dhabi School of Government.

In this study
01 · Footing60,000+ users
02 · Course10k+ users at once
03 · Wallsystem crashes
04 · Corbelvideo streaming
05 · Parapetserverless aws
06 · Battlement99.99% uptime
The Challenge

Legacy infrastructure at its limit.

The Abu Dhabi School of Government (ADSG) needed to democratize access to world-class learning materials for government employees across the emirate. The existing legacy infrastructure struggled with:

  • Concurrency SpikesSystem crashes during mandatory training windows when 10k+ users logged in simultaneously.
  • Video LatencyPoor streaming quality for on-demand HD course content.
  • Slow DeploymentManual release cycles taking weeks to push critical updates.

Impact Analysis

User SatisfactionLow (Pre-Migration)
Server CostsCritically High
Downtime EventsFrequent
The Solution

3-Tier AWS Serverless Architecture.

We designed a fully decoupled, event-driven architecture utilizing AWS Managed Services to ensure auto-scaling, high availability, and zero-maintenance overhead.

We built
  • 60k+ Users
  • CloudFront CDN
  • Compute Layer
  • RDS & S3
01 · Base plateroute 53 / waf
02 · Footingcloudfront cdn
03 · Columnecs fargate
04 · Collarlambda encoding
05 · Crownrds & s3

60k+ Users

Web & Mobile clients entering through Route 53 / WAF for DNS routing and edge protection.

CloudFront CDN

Global edge caching for low-latency delivery, fronted by an Application Load Balancer (ALB).

Compute Layer

ECS Fargate microservices paired with Lambda functions for on-demand video encoding.

RDS & S3

Persistent storage — relational data on RDS and durable object storage on S3.

Media Engineering

Seamless video experience.

Education relies on content. We implemented an automated media pipeline using AWS MediaConvert triggered by S3 uploads.

We implemented
  • Multi-Codec SupportH.264 & H.265 encoded content for optimized delivery on mobile and desktop.
  • HLS StreamingAdaptive bitrate streaming ensures smooth playback even on low-bandwidth government networks.

Adaptive Bitrate Streaming

Peak Bandwidth Visualization (On-Demand Scaling)

00:002 Gbps
04:001 Gbps
08:0045 Gbps
12:0080 Gbps
16:0065 Gbps
20:0030 Gbps
DevSecOps

DevSecOps Pipeline

GitHubCommit
AWS CodeBuildTest & Scan
AWS CodeDeployBlue/Green
ProductionLive

ZERO DOWNTIME: Utilized ECS Blue/Green Deployments to ensure critical learning services remained available during updates.

Security Audit

WAF (Web Application Firewall)

Blocked 99.9% of SQLi and XSS attempts during penetration testing.

KMS Encryption

AES-256 Encryption for all PII data at rest and in transit.

IAM Roles

Least Privilege access policy enforced across all microservices.

The Result
99.99%
Uptime Achieved
60,000+
Active Learners
-40%
Infra Costs

User Adoption Growth

Jan5,000
Feb12,000
Mar25,000
Apr38,000
May48,000
Jun62,000

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