Are your holidays cloud ready?

Merchant and comparison shopping sites/engines have historically seen spikes in traffic beginning on Thanksgiving Weekend in the US; by utilizing cloud technology merchants can better manage those peak traffic times, keeping websites up and functioning even with millions of visitors.

"Our customers rely on cost-effective cloud infrastructure to run their online websites and applications, and meet their customer demand during the critical holiday season," said Kim Weins, Vice President of Marketing, RightScale. "RightScale 'Cloud for the Holidays' solution enables our customers to architect applications for high availability and scalability, giving them confidence that their promotions or micro-sites will be ready for a surge in traffic at any time."

Over the 2011 holiday season RightScale analyzed traffic patterns for their customers, finding spikes of 44% during the week of second week in November and continuing through the New Year holidays. Some traffic spiked up to 63% during the season.

Ten individual shopping days, beginning with Black Friday, topped the $1 billion shopping mark during the 2011 holiday season; only 1 day topped $1 billion spent in 2010. While we may not see online spending jump as much during the 2012 shopping period, it's clear that more and more people are shopping online - thus it makes sense for merchants to be prepared for spikes in traffic.

Tags: cloud marketing, cloud tips, ecommerce tips, ecommerce trends, RightScale