The challenge

As SonyLIV expanded its reach across India and 17 other countries, delivering a smooth, high-quality streaming experience to millions of users became increasingly challenging. 

Managing millions of real-time viewer interactions during live reality shows and high-demand events pushed SonyLIV’s infrastructure to its limits. Performance lags threatened live broadcasts, frustrated viewers, and made it harder to retain and grow their audience.

SonyLIV also needed to maintain a flawless experience for its premium subscribers, who expected uninterrupted access and top-tier quality even during traffic surges. Balancing these demands required a solution that could instantly process massive data volumes, reduce latency, and be scalable enough to support a rapidly growing global audience.

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“With over two billion entries and response times as fast as 30 milliseconds, Redis is unmatched in its performance. When we think of fast, we think of Redis—it’s always our go-to solution.”

Sumon Mal

Head of Backend Engineering, SonyLIV

Optimizing large-scale content delivery with Redis & AWS

To meet these demands, SonyLIV turned to Redis, seamlessly integrating it with their existing AWS cloud infrastructure. Redis brings the scalability and cost-efficiency they need to support millions of users across the globe. Using Redis Cloud with AWS, SonyLIV can handle large-scale data delivery without awkward lags or delays during live broadcasts. 

“AWS and Redis are the perfect combination for us,” says Sumon Mal, Head of Backend Engineering at SonyLIV. “While AWS provides the scalable cloud infrastructure, Redis helps us meet the demands of low-latency, high-frequency apps. Together, they allow us to streamline our operations and reduce our response times dramatically.”

Redis plays a key role in the delivery of SonyLIV’s most popular reality shows, where live voting and audience interactions are critical. These shows require a system that can handle billions of real-time entries with split-second accuracy and feedback. With Redis, live votes are processed instantly, ensuring a seamless experience for both viewers and contestants.

Powering real-time leaderboard apps for live TV

Leaderboards are a central feature of audience interaction for SonyLIV’s hit reality shows like “Kaun Banega Crorepati” and “Shark Tank India.” These features rely on processing billions of data points in real time to update rankings, votes, and results instantly. Delays or inaccuracies in this process can disrupt the viewer’s experience and compromise the integrity of the show.

By using Redis for real-time leaderboard management, SonyLIV makes massive live audience participation possible–without performance issues. With Redis, SonyLIV processes over two billion leaderboard entries with fast read and write speeds of just 30 milliseconds. This provides real-time updates for live votes and rankings, keeping interactions seamless and accurate. Viewers get instant results, boosting engagement, while contestants enjoy accurate and transparent tallies with no interruptions.

Managing traffic surges with caching & rate limiting

Redis’ advanced caching keeps SonyLIV’s most popular content instantly accessible, even during peak traffic. Cascading caching mechanisms cut retrieval times and eliminate delays, enabling smooth playback for millions of viewers. No matter the region or audience size, Redis helps SonyLIV deliver a reliable, high-quality streaming experience every time.

Redis does more than just speed up content delivery—it powers SonyLIV’s smart rate-limiting system for subscription tiers. Rate limiting, also known as throttling, allows the streaming platform to control and prioritize access based on subscription levels. This keeps premium subscribers enjoying uninterrupted service during high-traffic events while maintaining platform stability for everyone.

Redis’ caching and rate-limiting capabilities work together to provide a reliable streaming experience. They balance fast content delivery with prioritized access to deliver smooth, uninterrupted service for subscribers, even under heavy demand.

Delivering a flawless UX for millions with low-latency streaming

Redis Cloud on AWS helps SonyLIV deliver a fast, reliable experience to millions of viewers. With API response times dropping from 300ms to 190ms, interactions are now quicker, smoother, and more seamless.

A 15-20% boost in system throughput allows SonyLIV to handle massive traffic spikes without risking interruptions during headlining shows. Redis’ caching has also reduced SonyLIV’s memory footprint by 15%, keeping operations efficient and maintaining 99.99% uptime for uninterrupted streaming.

SonyLIV now plans to use RedisJSON and Redis vector database for real-time personalized recommendations to make the viewer’s experience even better. They’re also planning to integrate Redis Flex to cut costs while keeping performance high. With Redis powering its infrastructure, SonyLIV is set to grow its reach and cement its reputation as a top streaming platform in India and beyond.