Pictures of England
Community photo archive at scale
The problem
A large, growing archive with search that had stopped scaling and page loads that suffered under contributor activity.
How we approached it
Search moved to a dedicated index rather than hammering the primary database, and heavily-read pages were cached aggressively with targeted invalidation.
Architecture
Index
Dedicated full-text search index, rebuilt incrementally.
Cache
Object caching on read-heavy pages with targeted invalidation.
Media
Derivative generation and CDN delivery.
Outcome
- Search response times improved by an order of magnitude.
- The archive has continued running with minimal intervention for years.
100k+ — images served.
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platform · AustraliaNovel Aquatech Portal
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Tell us the hard part. That is the bit we want.
A 20-minute call, no deck. Bring the problem you have not been able to hand to anyone else.