Seamless AWS Migration of High-Traffic PHP Web App for Global Photography Contest

Successive successfully migrated a high-traffic PHP-based web app for NatGeo’s photography contest from another cloud provider to AWS. The team ensured zero downtime during migration, enhanced scalability for large file uploads, improved performance under peak loads, and implemented robust security and automation.

About this
Project

About this project

We led the migration of a high-traffic PHP-based web application, built for a photography contest by a major media and entertainment brand, from an on-premises setup to AWS. The existing infrastructure struggled with reliability issues and could not scale during user surges, especially when participants uploaded large media files. Successive re-architected the solution using EC2 Auto Scaling, Amazon RDS for MySQL, EFS, ElastiCache for Redis, ALB with AWS WAF, and a fully automated CI/CD pipeline. This cloud-native approach improved stability, responsiveness, and ensured seamless user engagement throughout the campaign.

Industry

Media & Advertising

Scope

Project Engineering, Cloud

About
Client

About the client

The client is a leading media and entertainment organization that partnered with a leading Airline and National Geographic India to launch the high-visibility photography contest, engaging over 90,000 participants across India and garnering tens of millions of impressions across TV, web, and social platforms. Their contest delivered rich multimedia experiences and required a resilient, scalable web infrastructure to support massive file uploads and global campaign traffic. Maintaining seamless uptime during such a high-impact, user‑driven promotion was vital to uphold brand reputation and campaign effectiveness.

Our
Offering

Solution

To support unpredictable campaign traffic surges, we developed a phased modernization strategy centered on scalability, reliability, and automation. We decoupled components, embraced managed services for critical infrastructure, and implemented end‑to‑end CI/CD to accelerate delivery and reduce operational risk.

Technical Implementation

Successive re-architected the solution using a highly available and scalable AWS infrastructure tailored for PHP-based web workloads with large file handling needs.

Compute & Scalability: The PHP application was deployed using Amazon ECS (EC2 launch type) within an Auto Scaling Group, enabling elastic compute provisioning based on CPU and memory CloudWatch metrics. Launch templates and lifecycle hooks were used for seamless instance warm-up during scaling events.
Storage: To support humongous image and video file uploads by users, Amazon EFS (Elastic File System) was mounted across all EC2 instances for shared file access with high throughput mode enabled.
Database Layer: Amazon RDS for MySQL was used with Multi-AZ deployments for automated failover and enhanced availability. Performance Insights and enhanced monitoring were enabled for deep query analytics. Automatic backups, snapshots ensured operational resilience.
Caching: Amazon ElastiCache for Redis was implemented as an in-memory cache layer to reduce RDS read pressure and accelerate frequently accessed data such as contest metadata, user sessions, and media links.
Load Balancing & Security: An Application Load Balancer (ALB) distributed incoming traffic across EC2 instances, with path-based routing for static vs dynamic content. AWS WAF was configured with managed rule sets and IP reputation lists to block malicious traffic and prevent OWASP Top 10 vulnerabilities.
Object Storage for Media: All submitted media files were asynchronously copied to Amazon S3 using multipart uploads and presigned URLs for client-side uploads, ensuring durability, scalability, and reduced EFS storage pressure. S3 lifecycle policies were used to transition archived content to Glacier for long-term storage.
CI/CD Pipeline: GitHub Actions was used to orchestrate a fully automated CI/CD pipeline.
Monitoring & Observability: Amazon CloudWatch was used for logging, metrics, and alerting across EC2, RDS, and application logs.
Security & Compliance: Secrets were securely stored in AWS Secrets Manager with automated rotation. IAM roles with least privilege access.

This end-to-end AWS modernization not only ensured high availability and performance during peak campaign loads but also introduced automation, observability, and cost optimization for future reuse across campaigns.

Result

Providing results that exceeded the client’s expectations

The migration and re-architecture led by Successive delivered immediate and long-term benefits for the client’s high-traffic campaign:

Zero Downtime Migration: The cutover from the previous cloud provider to AWS was executed with zero impact on live users, preserving campaign continuity and brand experience.
Scalability Under Load: The system successfully handled surges in user traffic and uploads during peak contest periods, scaling compute and storage resources automatically without manual intervention.
Performance Gains: Response times improved by over 40% due to Redis caching and optimized database indexing, leading to faster media uploads and smoother user interactions.
Operational Efficiency: Automated CI/CD reduced deployment times, enabling rapid updates and bug fixes without introducing downtime.
High Availability: Multi-AZ RDS and fault-tolerant architecture ensured continuous availability and data durability, even during infrastructure disruptions.
Security & Compliance: Enhanced security posture through WAF, IAM, and encrypted S3/EFS storage met internal compliance standards and reduced attack surface.
Cost Optimization: Lifecycle policies for S3 and EFS, along with autoscaling, ensured the infrastructure scaled down during low-traffic periods—optimizing monthly AWS spend.

This AWS modernization not only ensured campaign success but also laid the foundation for future high-scale marketing initiatives with reusable, cloud-native patterns.

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