Large-scale & high-concurrency exams
Run high-stakes exams at national scale
When thousands of candidates start at the same second, you need purpose-built exam infrastructure — not a quiz tool or an LMS. Synap is architected on AWS for high concurrency, resilience and uptime, and field-tested on over 10 million exams worldwide.
- 10K+ concurrent starts
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- ISO 27001
Candidates in progress
12,438▲ peak 14,902
6,204
3,118
1,942
1,174
Trusted by professional organisations, awarding bodies, and universities worldwide
The infrastructure blind spot
At exam scale, infrastructure is everything
Assessment platforms are usually judged on their features — the question types, the proctoring, the candidate experience. But on exam day, none of it matters if the platform buckles the moment thousands of candidates sign in at once.
General-purpose tools assume traffic grows gradually and outages are a minor inconvenience. High-stakes exams are the opposite: demand arrives in a single spike, and a few minutes of downtime can invalidate an entire sitting. Synap is built the other way round — purpose-built exam infrastructure, engineered for the spike and the stakes.
Further reading: The infrastructure blind spot in online examsGeneral-purpose tools
- ✕ Assume gradual, predictable traffic
- ✕ Treat downtime as a minor inconvenience
- ✕ Scale up reactively — minutes too late
Purpose-built exam infrastructure
- Capacity pre-positioned for the spike
- Engineered so every minute stays up
- Resilience baked in at every layer
Why it matters
Why quiz tools and LMSs fall over on exam day
The technology that runs day-to-day learning was never designed for the pressures of a high-stakes exam.
Quiz tools aren’t built for the stakes
Lightweight quizzing platforms are fine for practice and low-stakes checks, but they aren’t engineered for the scale, security and reliability a formal exam demands.
LMSs can’t absorb the spike
Learning platforms assume steady, gradual traffic. Ten thousand candidates starting at 09:00 is a sudden load they were never architected to handle.
Downtime isn’t an inconvenience — it’s a crisis
A slow page on a shopping site is forgotten in seconds. Minutes of downtime mid-exam means invalidated results, resits and reputational damage.
“Good exam infrastructure is invisible. When it fails, it becomes the only thing anyone remembers.”
Purpose-built for scale
Exam infrastructure, engineered for the spike
Synap runs on AWS, architected specifically for the demands of high-stakes assessment: capacity ready before candidates arrive, resilience at every layer, and an uptime record proven across millions of exams.
Pre-positioned capacity
We provision for your expected peak ahead of time, so the exam-start spike is met instantly — not chased by reactive scaling.
Resilient by design
Network resilience, automatic retries and seamless resume are built in at every layer, so a wobble in one place never becomes a failure.
Proven at scale
Over 10 million exams delivered worldwide — including in some of the most challenging environments on earth.
Proven under pressure
10K+
Concurrent exam starts
99.9%
Uptime SLA
10M+
Exams delivered
500K+
Candidates worldwide
Reliability by design
How we keep every exam up
Resilience isn’t a single feature — it’s dozens of decisions, at every layer of the stack.
No-downtime maintenance
Updates roll out without taking the platform offline — no maintenance windows that collide with your exam.
99.9% uptime SLA
A 99.9% uptime commitment as standard, with enhanced SLAs for critical exam periods.
Network resilience & auto-retry
Dropped connections and flaky networks are handled gracefully — automatic retries and seamless resume mean candidates pick up exactly where they left off.
Staggered entry & queueing
Smooth the exam-start spike with staggered intake windows and intelligent queueing, so load is spread instead of stacked.
Pre-flight system checks
Candidates and devices are checked for compatibility ahead of time, catching problems before exam day — not during it.
Minimal third-party dependencies
A deliberately small dependency footprint means fewer things outside our control that can go wrong.
Zero-trust security
Built on zero-trust principles, with private networks, least-privilege access and ISO 27001 certification.
Continuous, tested backups
Continuous backups with tested restores, across multiple availability zones and regions.
We’ve done this before
We understand how exams actually run
We’re not general software that happens to do exams — we’re exam infrastructure, shaped by years of running assessments in every conceivable setting.
In-person and remote. Bring-your-own-device and locked-down lab machines. High-bandwidth campuses and rural sites on patchy connections. National olympiads, and sittings coordinated across 20 timezones. Whatever your scenario, there’s a good chance we’ve run something like it — and there are settings to adapt Synap to it.
Field-tested from South Africa to Myanmar to Haiti — and 20 timezones in between.
Scheduling & delivery controlsNot just software — a partner
We’re with you the whole way
High-stakes exam days are stressful. You don’t run them alone.
Plan it together
We work with you ahead of time to configure delivery, capacity and contingencies around your exact exam.
Rehearse before the day
Dry runs and system checks make sure everything — and everyone — is ready well before candidates arrive.
Supported on exam day
Our team is on hand during live sittings, monitoring and ready to respond the moment you need us.
Part of one platform
Everything a high-stakes exam needs
Large-scale delivery is one part of Synap. Combine it with the rest of the platform, or explore the full overview.
See the full online exam platformBuilt on secure, resilient foundations
Planning a large-scale exam?
Let’s pressure-test your exam day
Book a call and we’ll walk through your scale, timing and contingencies — and show you how Synap holds up when it matters most.
FAQs
Large-scale exam questions, answered
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Exams that hold up when it counts
See how Synap delivers high-stakes exams at national scale — book a call with our team.
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