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Enabling Your Website to Survive "The Trump Effect"

Michelle McLean

As President Trump begins his administration, he continues to use a variety of channels to send messages about his thoughts and plans. These take many forms: tweets, Executive Orders, off-the-cuff comments in speeches and press conferences. We've seen the impact these communiqués have had — they move stock prices, spur protests and generate press frenzies.

Some organizations have been majorly impacted by these communications. This past weekend, for example, in the wake of a controversial Executive Order from President Trump, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found its website crashing under the load of an enormous spike in online donations.

When an organization like the ACLU finds itself unexpectedly caught in "the Trump effect" — to its benefit or detriment — the IT staff may be under instant pressure to reinforce its systems to accommodate significant traffic surges. The following steps may help as a fast response:

Leverage cloud capacity

If there are resources already set up to run in the cloud, consider expanding capacity dedicated to those applications and data sources. Public-facing sites and applications in particular should be ready to take advantage of this kind of surge capacity.

Reinforce web resources

Web server capacity can be increased fairly easily, leveraging additional hardware for scale out, paired with TCP load balancers to distribute the load. Augmenting the infrastructure with additional horizontal scale out will help keep a public website online when experiencing major traffic surges.

Focus on database resources

The database is often the weakest link in many organizations' technology stacks. Without high-performing databases, apps and web servers will grind to a halt — and "slow" becomes the same as "down." It is crucial to monitor database performance, and, like with the web tier, consider horizontal scale out to increase capacity, paired with database load-balancing software to distribute the load.

Monitor the complete application stack

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) software can provide a holistic view of customers' experiences. Where are the bottlenecks in the application's overall performance? What recommendations can the software make for root cause and troubleshooting?

These actions are easier to undertake with some advanced warning, of course. Any organization that anticipates it could be impacted by "the Trump effect" should plan ahead with these steps to the best of their ability. IT teams in such organizations should look across the full technology stack and identify quick steps they can take to make their systems more robust.

Michelle McLean is VP of Marketing at ScaleArc.

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Enabling Your Website to Survive "The Trump Effect"

Michelle McLean

As President Trump begins his administration, he continues to use a variety of channels to send messages about his thoughts and plans. These take many forms: tweets, Executive Orders, off-the-cuff comments in speeches and press conferences. We've seen the impact these communiqués have had — they move stock prices, spur protests and generate press frenzies.

Some organizations have been majorly impacted by these communications. This past weekend, for example, in the wake of a controversial Executive Order from President Trump, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) found its website crashing under the load of an enormous spike in online donations.

When an organization like the ACLU finds itself unexpectedly caught in "the Trump effect" — to its benefit or detriment — the IT staff may be under instant pressure to reinforce its systems to accommodate significant traffic surges. The following steps may help as a fast response:

Leverage cloud capacity

If there are resources already set up to run in the cloud, consider expanding capacity dedicated to those applications and data sources. Public-facing sites and applications in particular should be ready to take advantage of this kind of surge capacity.

Reinforce web resources

Web server capacity can be increased fairly easily, leveraging additional hardware for scale out, paired with TCP load balancers to distribute the load. Augmenting the infrastructure with additional horizontal scale out will help keep a public website online when experiencing major traffic surges.

Focus on database resources

The database is often the weakest link in many organizations' technology stacks. Without high-performing databases, apps and web servers will grind to a halt — and "slow" becomes the same as "down." It is crucial to monitor database performance, and, like with the web tier, consider horizontal scale out to increase capacity, paired with database load-balancing software to distribute the load.

Monitor the complete application stack

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) software can provide a holistic view of customers' experiences. Where are the bottlenecks in the application's overall performance? What recommendations can the software make for root cause and troubleshooting?

These actions are easier to undertake with some advanced warning, of course. Any organization that anticipates it could be impacted by "the Trump effect" should plan ahead with these steps to the best of their ability. IT teams in such organizations should look across the full technology stack and identify quick steps they can take to make their systems more robust.

Michelle McLean is VP of Marketing at ScaleArc.

Hot Topics

The Latest

From smart factories and autonomous vehicles to real-time analytics and intelligent building systems, the demand for instant, local data processing is exploding. To meet these needs, organizations are leaning into edge computing. The promise? Faster performance, reduced latency and less strain on centralized infrastructure. But there's a catch: Not every network is ready to support edge deployments ...

Every digital customer interaction, every cloud deployment, and every AI model depends on the same foundation: the ability to see, understand, and act on data in real time ... Recent data from Splunk confirms that 74% of the business leaders believe observability is essential to monitoring critical business processes, and 66% feel it's key to understanding user journeys. Because while the unknown is inevitable, observability makes it manageable. Let's explore why ...

Organizations that perform regular audits and assessments of AI system performance and compliance are over three times more likely to achieve high GenAI value than organizations that do not, according to a survey by Gartner ...

Kubernetes has become the backbone of cloud infrastructure, but it's also one of its biggest cost drivers. Recent research shows that 98% of senior IT leaders say Kubernetes now drives cloud spend, yet 91% still can't optimize it effectively. After years of adoption, most organizations have moved past discovery. They know container sprawl, idle resources and reactive scaling inflate costs. What they don't know is how to fix it ...

Artificial intelligence is no longer a future investment. It's already embedded in how we work — whether through copilots in productivity apps, real-time transcription tools in meetings, or machine learning models fueling analytics and personalization. But while enterprise adoption accelerates, there's one critical area many leaders have yet to examine: Can your network actually support AI at the speed your users expect? ...

The more technology businesses invest in, the more potential attack surfaces they have that can be exploited. Without the right continuity plans in place, the disruptions caused by these attacks can bring operations to a standstill and cause irreparable damage to an organization. It's essential to take the time now to ensure your business has the right tools, processes, and recovery initiatives in place to weather any type of IT disaster that comes up. Here are some effective strategies you can follow to achieve this ...

In today's fast-paced AI landscape, CIOs, IT leaders, and engineers are constantly challenged to manage increasingly complex and interconnected systems. The sheer scale and velocity of data generated by modern infrastructure can be overwhelming, making it difficult to maintain uptime, prevent outages, and create a seamless customer experience. This complexity is magnified by the industry's shift towards agentic AI ...

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 19, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA explains the cause of the AWS outage in October ... 

The explosion of generative AI and machine learning capabilities has fundamentally changed the conversation around cloud migration. It's no longer just about modernization or cost savings — it's about being able to compete in a market where AI is rapidly becoming table stakes. Companies that can't quickly spin up AI workloads, feed models with data at scale, or experiment with new capabilities are falling behind faster than ever before. But here's what I'm seeing: many organizations want to capitalize on AI, but they're stuck ...

On September 16, the world celebrated the 10th annual IT Pro Day, giving companies a chance to laud the professionals who serve as the backbone to almost every successful business across the globe. Despite the growing importance of their roles, many IT pros still work in the background and often go underappreciated ...