For radio station Kiss, the switch to cloud computing was a simple calculation. Its infrastructure had been built with tolerance to ensure it was never overloaded but the servers were in need of updating. When it compared the cost of new equipment to moving its web content to a cloud service from Rackspace (video and audio streaming are handled separately), the choice was clear.

“We estimate that by moving our web content onto the cloud we’ve saved around 50% compared to the hosting contract we were on,” says Kiss lead developer Gareth Morris. “We wanted to move because the cloud is more cost-effective, but it also has the advantage of being able to scale up easily if we have, say, a week of planned activity from DJs to drive people to the website. The only downside is you need to work with tools supported by your cloud provider, but that hasn’t been a major problem. We’ve been able to work with what’s available to us, and new software and tools are constantly being launched.”