Case Study Sports Connect

The Nielsen Company provides video evaluation and market analysis to companies in the sports and marketing sector around the globe via Sports Connect. The permanent availability of all program functionalities along with over one billion data records provide opportunities for exposure analysis, media monitoring and social media analysis at any time.

Nielsen’s previous software was to be replaced by a solution with a modern architecture and contemporary design that would build on the existing functions but add a wide range of functionalities. The newly developed client-facing app formed the final step of data collection, analysis and evaluation process. Due to Nielsen’s global portfolio, the permanent availability and full functionality of the new software had to be ensured, especially during core working hours in America and Europe. The reporting of Exposure Analysis, Media Monitoring as well as Social Media Analysis should occur user-based on purchased data sets.

The development of Sports Connect was carried out by a hybrid team consisting of our The Nielsen Company's internal development department, our experts, and initially additional external consultants. For the new program, we were able to draw on Nielsen’s existing data offering. The data is made available in the AWS Cloud and orchestrated by Docker Engine Swarm mode. This allows the data to be selected and aggregated for applicable clients.

The deployment challenges led to a multi-stage feature testing phase. This begins at the developer level, where our team first tests functionality in sandboxes. The feature is then transferred to a test system for integration testing. For complex features, blue-green releases are also conducted in order to establish a permanently stable runtime. The architecture of our solution is based on the modular approach of microservices. This ensures user-specific feature integration. We established the logic of business analysis processes through code written in Spring Boot. The provision of data to the end customer is user-based on purchased data sets, which are enhanced by live updating and calculation based on ClickHouse. With the help of Elasticsearch, we also enable end customers to find the information that is relevant to them with pinpoint accuracy.

Nielsen can provide its clients via Sports Connect with the most up-to-date market analysis data twenty-four hours a day. We can warrant the stable runtime of the new program through a sustainable feature integration. Approximately 50 different microservices provide users with extensive functionality tailored to their needs. Sports Connect handles the high volume of data in a fraction of a second and thus provides end customers with real-time exposure analysis in TV, streaming, print, online and social media, tracking of TV and streaming consumption behavior as well as social media-specific data analysis.