Boston Celtics Scored Big with Cloud-Powered Basketball Analytics: When Jay Wessland stepped into his role as CTO of the Boston Celtics back in 1990, the era of big data was still a distant concept, especially in the realm of professional sports. It would take years for digital data to surpass paper, and even longer before analytics took center stage with tales like those chronicled in “Moneyball.” Fast forward to 2016, when Wessland became the team’s CTO, and the technological landscape hadn’t shifted much.
Boston Celtics Scored Big with Cloud-Powered Basketball Analytics
But as Wessland reflected during a recent virtual event celebrating the Celtics’ six-year journey to the cloud, the role of technology in sports has drastically changed. “I couldn’t imagine why a pro sports team would even need a CTO,” Wessland admitted. “But in today’s world, everything revolves around the tech stack and technology.”
In 2017, the Celtics made a decisive move to embrace the cloud, opting for AWS as their primary provider. The transition wasn’t just about a simple lift-and-shift; it involved months of meticulous planning and execution. According to Jonathan LaCour of Mission Cloud, the AWS consulting service overseeing the migration, nearly all of the infrastructure was migrated out of on-premises servers.
But the real challenge lay in refactoring legacy applications, streamlining data management, and optimizing their tech stack. As LaCour noted, modernization wasn’t a one-time event but an ongoing process of refinement.
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For Wessland, the tipping point was the realization that their existing setup couldn’t keep up with the demands of modern basketball analytics. With data pouring in from all directions, their on-premises SQL servers struggled to process it all in time for crucial decisions. The move to the cloud wasn’t just about efficiency; it was about gaining a competitive edge.
The migration unfolded in four phases, each marked by significant milestones and challenges. From retiring outdated SQL servers to embracing serverless containers, the Celtics navigated the complexities of modernization with determination.
Now, as they enter a new phase of post-migration maturity, the Celtics find themselves equipped with the agility and scalability needed to thrive in today’s data-driven NBA. By dividing their workloads across multiple AWS accounts, they’ve gained not only visibility but also enhanced security and cost control.
Gone are the days of scrambling to cobble together enough computing power for crucial game-planning sessions. With the cloud at their fingertips, the Celtics can tackle any challenge head-on, knowing that they have the resources they need, when they need them.
