Challenge accepted.
You know the feeling. You want to b a table at Jong Keukengeweld and quickly open a tab, hoping to secure a dinner spot at your favourite restaurant. You wait… and you wait… and you wait…
Thanks to we are, that scenario is now a thing of the past. We developed a new reservation platform for Jong Keukengeweld. Simple on the outside, but unbelievably complex on the inside. Together with our partners, we put an end to all reservation frustrations in just six weeks. How? With a robust, scalable architecture that can synchronously process thousands of reservations in an instant
building a platform where tens of thousands of people book simultaneously…
… and nothing can go wrong.
Booking a table in just a few clicks sounds simple, but there's a lot involved. Fortunately, we are happy to go all the way.
The new booking platform needed to be user-friendly and intuitive: fast and simple reservations in a few clicks, that was the goal. Why? A pleasant user experience keeps your customers enthusiastic, which generates more revenue for you. Win-win!
The goal might seem simple, but the road to get there was anything but. Behind the simplicity of the booking platform lies significant complexity. Because..
Sounds impossible, right? But we made it happen.
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a platform that can take a hit
We smoothly checked off all those previous points. And it doesn't stop there. We always go that extra mile. The result is a platform that can not only handle the reservation stampede with ease but is also user-friendly for both you and your customers. Some key features include:
engineering work to brag about
We said it before, but it really ain't that simple. Building an application that can smoothly handle tens of thousands of bookings requires solid technical work and expertise. But fortunately, our team knows all about that.
High load architecture
n app that welcomes over 30,000 concurrent users needs some tough machinery to keep running. Together with our partner, Level 27, we built a high load infrastructure that can take a beating.
The Jong Keukengeweld booking platform runs on three web servers positioned behind a load balancer. This balancer, in turn, automatically distributes all incoming requests across the servers, ensuring none become overloaded. No, not even during the biggest rush
Caching layer
Your database is one of the most critical components of your application. But with so many simultaneous users, your database gets overloaded, and then it's game over. Naturally, we were prepared for that.
Initially, we use a relational database, which can store large amounts of data and retrieve it in various ways. However, a database cannot respond quickly enough to the thousands of requests the platform faces.
Instead of burdening the database with every request, we temporarily store all data in an intermediate layer, or cache. This cache stores less data but is much faster than the database in generating responses to user requests. This way, customers find out faster whether their b table is free, and the database is spared.
Hold/lock system
Nothing is as annoying as a double booking: both for you and your customers. We like no-nonsense, honesty, and clarity.
With our hold/lock system, as soon as someone selects a restaurant, time, and number of people, the appropriate table is temporarily held. No one else can reserve that spot at that moment.
If the reservation isn't completed, the table automatically becomes available again. Ideal, right?
unseen teamwork from start to finish
Building a booking platform of this size was a challenging coding endeavour. Behind every click lies a complex tangle of logic and functionality that must manage everything 24/7, under any circumstance.
And... the deadline was fixed. In short, no room for poor communication, small or large errors.
Communication is key. During the development phase, we, the client, and our partners were in close contact. Our weekly meetings with clear to-do lists ensured everything was precisely coordinated, and every feature was built exactly as needed. Our live testing environment allowed to quickly see the application come to life and lift it to the next level, step by step.
And then, six weeks later... D-day. Long story short, we had a clear briefing that ensured everything was perfectly arranged for the big day.
During the launch, all parties involved were together. This allowed us to continuously monitor efficiently and quickly intervene in case of any issues. Flexibility, level-headedness, and hypercare are absolute musts for a successful launch.
So, mission completed? Yes and no. A successful launch continues beyond the launch itself. We provide the necessary support to our clients even after the launch. And in the meantime, we continue building extra features for the next edition. Think of integration into the Yeat-app or last-minute notifications. This way, you can sleep soundly, and we ensure the platform continues to operate smoothly and without problems in the long term.
