Case study · Performance and technical judgement
Authenticated exam-results delivery
Designing and building an authenticated system delivering approximately 6,000 results files per release in under 30 minutes, using ASP.NET, Razor and C#.
- Organisation
- Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA).
- My contribution
- Design and implementation of a complete exam-results delivery system, including authenticated file delivery and a custom Razor module.
- Technology
- ASP.NET, Razor, HTML and C#.
- Service scale
- Approximately 6,000 results files per release, delivered in under 30 minutes.
The business problem
Exam results need to reach students through an authenticated service. Results publication creates concentrated demand, making the delivery path and the work performed for each request important design considerations.
What I designed and built
I designed and built a complete exam-results delivery system for the IFoA, delivering approximately 6,000 results files per release in under 30 minutes. The work included an optimised authenticated file-delivery architecture for high-load results delivery and a custom Razor module using ASP.NET, HTML and C#.
This brought together application development, authentication and performance-focused delivery. My responsibility covered the design and implementation of this system, alongside my wider work supporting exam applications and investigating performance issues.
Security and performance together
For results delivery, performance and authenticated access belong in the same design discussion. I consider the work performed for each request, the dependencies involved and what successful delivery means for the student.
I also built queue systems for CRM transaction updates, separating that processing from the immediate platform workflow. This is a related example of addressing dependencies that can otherwise hold a service back.
Read about CRM integration and queued updates
Delivered scope and evidence
The system delivers approximately 6,000 results files per release in a concentrated period of under 30 minutes through authenticated access.
This account describes my own work. Implementation code, access-control details and internal infrastructure remain private.
The lesson I carry forward
I want performance requirements to describe the business event, not only average traffic. A useful test needs a representative user journey and an agreed definition of successful completion.