NSCA boosts website revenue with migration from on-premises solution to Azure Cloud

The National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing strength, conditioning, and related sports science professions around the world by disseminating research-based knowledge to enhance the safety and effectiveness of athletic performance and fitness for all people. The organization uses a content management system (CMS) to manage its critical website activities. An estimated 90% of all NSCA revenue is generated on the website. The biggest earner is in the NSCA Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist (CSCS) certification process. “In the sports world, if you’re CSCS certified, you’re golden,” says Alonso Montiel, Director of Technology at NSCA. 

This is borne out by the organization’s membership, which includes coaches and trainers from the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, and Major League Baseball in the US as well as professionals within the Olympic Movement. The organization maintains a global presence with affiliates  in Spain, Japan, South Korea, China, Italy, Germany, and India. 

Previously, the association’s CMS was hosted on-premises by a vendor and managed with outdated apps. Periodic downtimes caused issues for the organization. Visitors were unable to apply for certification or register for conferences. Members couldn’t access the educational resources that were included in their certification. Then came the critical recertification period, a major revenue driver for the organization. 

NSCA offers credential recertification every three years, potentially driving tens of thousands of members to the site. “Our traffic multiplies tenfold during the recertification cycle,” Montiel says. “In previous cycles, the website went down or was not able to fulfill the requirements for our certified individuals. The systems were overloaded.” 

The website hosting vendor would take weeks to respond to tech support requests, resulting in untold revenue losses. NSCA knew it needed to find a new solution before the 2023 recertification period began. Requirements included high uptime, scalability, and a reliable support team that could work independently. “It was time to move to the cloud,” Montiel says. 

Trustworthy partnership with Microsoft and Optimizely

The organization selected Microsoft Azure to host its Optimizely Episerver CMS, the backbone of the NSCA site. Episerver's use of Azure App Service enabled it to offer NSCA the flexibility and scalability it needed. To that end, NSCA migrated a substantial portion of its own infrastructure to Azure before the 2023 renewal cycle began. “We wanted to ensure that we would have the availability and scalability required to meet the increased traffic,” Montiel says. 

The shift to Azure DevOps itself was straightforward and easy to execute. Since completing the move, NSCA has been able to streamline development, improve collaboration, minimize risks, and increase speed and efficiency throughout the development cycle. In addition, NSCA reduced operating costs by utilizing the agile tools, automated testing, customizable dashboards, and other functionality built into Azure. 

There was zero downtime during the recertification period and no reported glitches, a substantial improvement from previous certification periods. The built-in security in Azure and Optimizely Episerver has also improved the organization’s data protection and compliance. 

Montiel credits both the technology and people at Microsoft and Microsoft partner Optimizely for NSCA’s newfound success. “I didn’t need vendors; I needed partners,” Montiel says. “If we don’t have a partner that we can trust to help us get to the finish line without issues, we’re going to be back in the same boat as we were before. So that was a big requirement for me.” 

The December 2023 recertification period was an essential trial for the new Azure solution. The team was amazed by the 100% uptime. “We were able to hit our revenue goals for the recertification. This is very important to us because it only happens every three years,” Montiel says. “That had a lot to do with everything being available all the time. But to me, the biggest benefit was that we didn’t have any issues during the migration.”

Planning for the future

The recertification period is over, but the NCSA team is just getting started. The organization continues to post new training to the site, ensuring people can access the latest science-based data in the rapidly evolving sports science field. The organization plans to use AI services offered by Microsoft to develop a customer service chatbot for the site, providing quick answers to common questions. An internal project involving Microsoft Copilot is also under consideration.

From the CMS migration to future innovation, everything NSCA does is designed with one purpose in mind: helping our population achieve excellence. “Our mantra is to improve the constituents’ experience,” Montiel says. “I believe we are achieving that with Microsoft Azure and Optimizely.”

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