1 Million Students + 182 Million Answers = World Maths Day

World Maths Day is one of the world’s largest e-learning events. In one 48 hour period millions of students from some 200 countries compete against each other, and the clock, to correctly answer as many maths questions as they can.

An initiative of 3P Learning Australia, the event is powered by their globally popular online Mathletics engine, which makes maths fun and lifts numeracy levels for more than 500,000 students at over 2,000 schools around the world.

The first ever World Maths Day was held in 2007, where an impressive 38,904,275 correct answers were logged in the 48 hour period. However, following the success of the first event and the continued popularity of Mathletics throughout the year, expectations were high that World Maths Day 2008 would be bigger by far.

THE CHALLENGE

With just six weeks to go until World Maths Day 2008 and the hype around the event starting to build, 3P Learning needed to upgrade their server and storage systems to cope with the expected surge in demand. It all added up to a challenging IT project.

As such a high profile global event, World Maths Day is central to the ongoing growth of Mathletics and 3P Learning. A successful event paves the way for their sales teams to bring thousands of new schools onto the Mathletics educational platform.

Following a review of the market, 3P Learning engaged Frontline to design, supply and install the server and storage system.

“We chose Frontline due to their proven expertise in servers and storage and strong track record. I had seen their work on previous projects and was confident that they would deliver for us,” said Saqib Hassan, 3P Learning’s Senior Network Engineer.

THE SOLUTION

George Kousparis, Frontline Systems Australia’s Senior Account Executive recalled:

“When 3P Learning approached us with this project, it was a big ask as we had very tight timings and no way to predict the server load requirements. The delicate balance was designing a solution that could cope with high demand, yet was still as cost-effective as possible.”

After some detailed technical discussion, analysis and forecasting, Frontline recommended an IBM X3850M2 Server and IBM DS3200 Storage Array to run 3P Learning’s RedHat Linux Enterprise Operating System and MYSQL DataBase.

“It’s a world-class option and one that I was confident would do the job. They’re high-end machines and readily scalable, while representing good value for money. Quality cannot be compromised when you’re talking about a businesscritical live online event such as World Maths Day.”

“While the existing infrastructure at 3P Learning had performed adequately in the past, it was definitely not up to handling World Maths Day 2008,” said Kousparis.

Frontline has installed this hardware in the past for organisations with hundreds of users running enterprise-wide business applications. The solutions offer:

• World-class commercial application serving and database performance
• Easy deployment and management
• Balanced system design that supports expanding business needs
• Mission-critical availability to help prevent interruptions
• High-bandwidth, low-latency memory subsystem
• Smart power technologies that use less energy and reduce emissions

AGAINST THE CLOCK

To allow time for installation and testing, Frontline had just three weeks to design and deliver a rock-solid solution online and ready to go.

A LEAP OF FAITH

Prior to engaging with Frontline, 3P Learning was using less powerful servers and had never used IBM technology before, so it was a major switch for the business and its IT team.

Although it was a big shift at the time, Mitch Nicholls, Development Manager at 3P Learning, has been very pleased with the results.

“Frontline has delivered everything they said they would. They go out of their way to be helpful and are happy to bring in additional engineers if we need an extra set of hands.”

A RECORD-BREAKING SUCCESS

World Maths Day 2008 was a great success, exceeding expectations with over 5 million sign-ins in just 48 hours!

Participants from around the globe combined to correctly answer 182,455,169 maths questions. That’s almost five times the previous record of 38,904,275 correct answers.

SEEKING NEW RECORDS IN 2009

Given the growing global momentum and past trends, World Maths Day looks set to double again in 2009.

“We’re already working with the team at 3P Learning to generate a solution for next year which will be bigger than ever. We’ll be putting together a scalable solution that can cope with the spike in demand on World Maths Day 2009,” said George Kousparis.

“3P Learning is equally excited about what the future holds”, said Hassan.