Technology

Our sites leverage scalable infrastructure designed to ensure reliability, speed, and accessibility to a global audience. Below is an overview of the technology that powers our platforms.

Platform and Software

Wikis like Bahaipedia are built on the MediaWiki platform, the same software that powers Wikipedia. MediaWiki ensures a familiar and stable environment, supporting collaboration and custom developments.

Infrastructure and Hosting

Our infrastructure is distributed to provide optimal speed and reliability to the largest number of users. Our servers are deployed in 4 regions: Virginia in the United States, Singapore, São Paulo, and Frankfurt.

File Hosting and Distribution

Files uploaded to bahai.media are replicated and stored in the following regions: Virginia, Brazil, Singapore, and Germany. Each region serves as an origin server for CloudFront, our content delivery network (CDN). CloudFront caches and serves the most frequently accessed files, reducing download times.

Uploads are processed in the closest region for efficiency and then replicated to others. This system ensures that users have quick access to large files and resources, regardless of their location.

Traffic Handling and Caching

Our platform is built to handle a high volume of traffic efficiently and reliably. We employ a multi-layered caching strategy with Varnish and Redis to maximize server performance.

How We Handle Traffic

Our technology stack includes a robust series of systems designed to route and manage traffic:

• Nginx: Acts as the primary web server and reverse proxy, handling HTTPS traffic and forwarding requests to Varnish.
• Varnish: Caches and stores frequently accessed pages served to anonymous users, reducing load on the backend.
• Redis: A second caching layer, primarily for users who are logged in, storing details such as user sessions.
• Elasticsearch: Fast, full-text search capabilities across our content.
• CloudFront: Our CDN, which distributes and caches static assets (like images, videos, and documents) globally, reducing latency for users worldwide.
• AWS Lambda: Cache misses in the CDN are dynamically routed to the closest geographic server. Lambda also helps distribute files after they have been uploaded.
• Ansible and GitHub: Configuration files are centrally managed in GitHub, while Ansible automates server-specific changes before deploying updates across all regions.

These technologies work together to ensure that traffic is efficiently distributed, and our platform can scale as needed, even during peak usage times.

Custom Extensions and Code

We also develop custom extensions to enhance the functionality of our Wikis. These extensions help us provide a tailored experience for our users.

For more technical details or to explore the custom code we use, visit our GitHub repository.