Enterprise Software Engineering

EduScale Virtual Learning Platform

Architecting a high-concurrency learning management system capable of streaming video to 100,000 concurrent students.

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Client Background & Business Challenge

EduScale is a major EdTech provider in North America. Following a sudden pivot to remote learning, their legacy Ruby on Rails platform crashed repeatedly when concurrent users exceeded 5,000. They secured a state-level contract requiring the platform to support 100,000 concurrent students streaming live lectures and taking synchronized exams.

The Technical Challenge

Handling 100k simultaneous WebSocket connections for real-time chat and quiz submissions while ensuring video streaming did not drain application server resources. The grading algorithm for complex math equations also caused severe CPU bottlenecking.

Why HintCore

Technology Stack

Frontend

React, Next.js, WebRTC

Backend

Node.js (Sockets), Python (Grading Engine)

Infrastructure

AWS CloudFront (CDN), DynamoDB, Redis, ECS

Architecture & Scalability

We fully decoupled the video streaming infrastructure, relying entirely on AWS CloudFront and MediaLive for HLS streaming. The application backend was rewritten in Node.js specifically to handle high I/O WebSocket connections. Quiz submissions were decoupled using Amazon SQS; instead of grading synchronously, the Node server dropped the answers into a queue, where scalable Python workers processed them asynchronously.

Performance & Security

To ensure FERPA compliance, all student PII was isolated in an encrypted DynamoDB table with strict IAM access policies. We optimized frontend performance by implementing severe code-splitting in Next.js, bringing the initial bundle size under 150kb, crucial for students accessing the platform on low-bandwidth connections.

Lessons Learned

We initially underestimated the sheer volume of chat messages during live lectures (often 1,000+ messages per second). We had to implement message debouncing and batching on the client-side to prevent the browser UI thread from locking up.

Business Outcomes

100k+

Concurrent Users Supported

Crash Rate During Exams

< 1.2s

Frontend Load Time

< 1%

Video Buffering Rate

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